David, who had abstained from appearing in court, in order that he

might give no occasion for an increase of anti-Semite hatred, awaited

the result at Delbos's rooms in the Rue Fontanier. Until ten o'clock

he remained counting the minutes, consumed by the most torturing

fever, knowing not whether he ought to rejoice or despair at such

delay. He continually went to the window to lean out, and listen to

the sounds in the distance. And the very atmosphere of the street,

and the exclamations of a few people passing, had already imparted

to him the fatal tidings, when Marc arrived, sobbing, exhausted, and

confirmed them. Salvan accompanied Marc--Salvan, whom the young man

had met on quitting the court, and who was also beside himself. There

came an hour of tragic despair, of utter collapse, when all that was

good and just seemed to be engulfed for ever; and when Delbos, after

an interview with Simon, whom he had found stricken yet still erect,

arrived in his turn, he could only cast himself on David's neck and

embrace him, even as he had embraced his brother yonder.

'Ah! weep, my friend!' he cried. 'It is the greatest iniquity of the

century!'

IV

On his return to Jonville after the vacation that year, Marc had found

himself engaged in another struggle, one having no connection with

Simon's case. His adversary, Abbé Cognasse, the parish priest, anxious

to get him into difficulties, had decided to make an effort to win over

the village Mayor, one Martineau, a peasant, through the latter's wife,

'the beautiful Martineau,' as she was called.

Abbé Cognasse was a terrible man, tall, lean, and angular, with a

determined chin, and a sharp nose under a low brow and a thick mane

of dark hair. His eyes glowed with aggressive fire; his knotty hands,

which he seldom washed, seemed made expressly for the purpose of

throttling those who dared to resist him. Forty years of age, he kept

one servant, Palmyre, an old maid of sixty, who was inclined to be

humpbacked and who was yet more terrible than her master, so miserly

and harsh indeed that she was regarded as the terror of the district.

The priest was said to lead a chaste life, but he ate a great deal

and he drank very copiously, though without intoxicating himself. A

peasant's son, and therefore narrow and stubborn in his opinions, he

always insisted upon his rights and his dues, never foregoing a single

copper of the latter, even when the poorest of his parishioners was in

question. Thus he was very anxious to hold Mayor Martineau in his power

in order to become the real master of the commune, and thereby increase

his own profits as well as assure the triumph of religion. As for his

quarrel with Marc, this had arisen over a sum of thirty francs a year

which the parish had arranged to pay the schoolmaster for ringing the

church bell, and which Marc, for a time, duly received, although he

absolutely refused to put his hands to the bell-rope.

Martineau was not easily won over when he found himself supported.

Of the same age as the priest, square of face and sturdy of build,

ruddy and bright-eyed, he spoke little and evinced great caution.

He was said to be the wealthiest cultivator of the commune, and, his

extensive property gaining him the favour of his fellow parishioners,

he had been Mayor of Jonville for ten years past. Scarcely knowing how

to read and write, he did not care to pronounce openly between the

Church and the school; he thought it best to affect neutrality, though

he always ended by siding with one or the other, according whether he

felt the priest or the schoolmaster to be the stronger. In the depths

of his heart he was inclined to favour the latter, for in his veins

coursed some of that ancient rancour which animates the French peasant

against the priest, whom he regards as an idle man bent on enjoying

life, one indeed who does nothing and yet requires to be paid, and who

captures the wives and daughters of his parishioners in the name of an

invisible, jealous and ever-threatening Deity. But if Martineau did not

follow the Church observances, he had never opposed his _curé_ without

assistance, for he held that the black-gowns were extremely clever,

whatever else might be said about them. Thus it was largely because

Marc displayed so much quiet energy and intelligence that Martineau had

joined his side, allowing him to go forward without pledging himself

too much.

But it occurred to Abbé Cognasse to make use of the Mayor's wife, the

beautiful Martineau, who, although she was not one of his penitents,

attended church very regularly on Sundays and festivals. Very

dark, with large eyes, a fresh mouth, and a buxom figure, she was

coquettishly inclined, fond of exhibiting a new gown, of airing a lace

cap, of arraying herself in her gold jewellery. Her assiduity at Mass

was due to that alone. Church-going had become her diversion. There was

no other spot whither she could repair in full dress, to show herself,

and pass her neighbours in review. Indeed, in that village of less than

eight hundred souls, for lack of any other meeting place and occasion

for ceremony and festival, the damp little nave of the church, where

Mass was so hastily celebrated, became the drawing-room, the theatre,

the one general parade and recreation ground of the women who were

desirous of pleasing. Those who went thither were influenced very

little by faith; their craving was to wear their Sunday finery and to

show themselves. Their mothers had done it, their daughters would do

it also; it was the general custom. As for Madame Martineau, on being

approached and flattered by Abbé Cognasse, she endeavoured to convince

her husband that the priest was right in the matter of the thirty

francs. But Martineau sharply bade her hold her tongue and return to

her cows, for he belonged to the old school, and did not allow women to

meddle in matters which concerned men.

In itself the story of the thirty francs was very simple. Ever since

there had been a schoolmaster at Jonville he had been paid that sum

annually to ring the church bell. But Marc, being unwilling to do so,

ended by persuading the parish council to devote the money to another

purpose. If the priest needed a bellringer he could surely pay for

one himself. But the old clock in the church steeple was in a sad

condition, constantly losing time, and a former clockmaker, dwelling in

the vicinity, was willing to repair it and keep it in working order for

that very sum of thirty francs a year. It was with some little malice

that Marc suggested the acceptance of the offer, while the peasants

reflected and sounded themselves, wondering whether their interests

would be best served by having the bell rung for Mass, or by having

a clock to tell them the correct time. As for ensuring both services

by voting an additional thirty francs, they never gave that point a

moment's thought, for their policy was to burden the parish with no

useless expense whatever. Nevertheless, there was a fine tussle, in

which the influence of the priest and that of the schoolmaster came

into collision, the latter finally remaining victorious, in spite of

the maledictions which Abbé Cognasse, in his sermons, heaped on the

impious folk who, by silencing the bell, wished to silence the call of

religion. One fine Sunday morning, however, after a month's quietude,

a succession of furious peals resounded from the church steeple; and

people then discovered that the priest's old servant, the terrible

Palmyre, was ringing the bell with all the furious strength of her wiry

little arms.

Abbé Cognasse understood that the Mayor was escaping him, and, though

inwardly aglow with anger, he henceforth became prudent, displaying all

the flexible craft of his cloth. Then, as Martineau grew conscious of

the firmness of the hands to which he had confided himself, he more and

more frequently consulted Marc, who at last felt that he was master.

As parish clerk the young man ended by discreetly guiding the council,

duly respecting the self-esteem of its members and remaining in the

background, content to inspire those peasants, whose chief desire was

for quietude and prosperity, with intelligence, sense, and healthy

determination. Under the young man's auspices education spread, casting

light upon all things, destroying foolish superstitions, and driving

not only mental poverty but also the poverty of homes away; for wealth

comes with knowledge. Never indeed had Jonville made so much progress;

it was becoming the most prosperous and the happiest parish of the

department.

It must be said that Marc was greatly assisted in his work by

Mademoiselle Mazeline, the mistress of the girls' school, which a

wall alone separated from the boys' school, where the young man

was master. Short and dark, quite destitute of beauty, but very

charming, with a broad face, a full kindly mouth, fine black eyes

glowing with tenderness and abnegation beneath a lofty and bossy

brow, Mademoiselle Mazeline was all intelligence, sense, healthy and

upright determination, like one born to educate and emancipate the

little girls confided to her. She came from that Training School

of Fontenay-aux-Roses which, thanks to the heart and mind of an

illustrious master, has already sent forth a whole cohort of able

pioneers, whose mission it is to form the wives and mothers of

to-morrow. And if, at six and twenty years of age, the young woman

was already mistress of a school, it was thanks to her intelligent

superiors, Salvan and Le Barazer, who were giving her a trial in that

lonely village in order to ascertain if she would turn out the good

work which they awaited. At heart they felt some anxiety on account of

her advanced opinions, fearing that she might indispose her pupils'

parents by her anti-clerical views, her conviction that woman would

only bring happiness to the world when she was at last delivered from

the priests. But Mademoiselle Mazeline behaved with great sense and

good humour, and if she did not take her girls to Mass, she treated

them in such a motherly fashion, taught them and cared for them so

affectionately, that the peasants became deeply attached to her. Thus

she greatly helped Marc in his work by proving that, although one may

not go to Mass, and although one may set one's belief more particularly

in human work and conscientiousness, one may nevertheless become the

most intelligent, most upright, and kindly woman in the world.

But Abbé Cognasse, whatever his repulse at Jonville, fully revenged

himself at Le Moreux, a little parish some two and a half miles

distant, which, having no priest of its own, was dependent upon him.

If, however, there were less than two hundred inhabitants at Le Moreux,

and if the village was hidden away among the hills, the difficult roads

cutting it off from frequent intercourse with the rest of the world, on

the other hand it was by no means a wretched spot. Its only poor family

was that of its schoolmaster; all the others possessed fertile lands,

and lived with hardly a care amid the sleepy quietude of routine.

Saleur, the Mayor, a short stout man with a bovine muzzle and little or

no neck, had been a grazier, and had suddenly made a fortune by selling

his meadow lands, herds, and flocks at a high price to a company, which

wished to syndicate all the stock-raising in the department. Since then

he had transformed his house into a coquettish villa, and had become

a _bourgeois_, sending his son Honoré to the Beaumont Lycée before

letting him go as a student to Paris. Although the people of Moreux

were jealous of Saleur, they reappointed him Mayor at each election,

for the all-sufficient reason that, having to do nothing for a living,

he was well able to attend to the parish affairs. He, however, cast

them upon the shoulders of Férou, the schoolmaster, who as parish clerk

received an annual salary of one hundred and eighty francs,[1] in

return for which he had to perform no little work, keep the registers,

draw up reports, write letters, and attend to something or other at

almost every moment.

Saleur was dense and heavy, crassly ignorant, scarce able to sign his

name, and, though not harsh at bottom, he treated Férou as if the

latter were a mere writing machine, regarding him indeed with the

quiet contempt of a man who had needed nothing like so much learning

to make his fortune and live at his ease. Moreover, the Mayor bore

the schoolmaster a grudge for having quarrelled with Abbé Cognasse by

refusing to take his pupils to church, and sing as a choirman. It was

not that Saleur himself followed the observances of the Church; for

it was merely as a supporter of the cause of order that he went to

Mass with his wife, a lean, insignificant, red-haired woman, who was

neither devout nor coquettish, but who also regarded attendance at

church on Sundays as a social duty. Thus Saleur's grudge against Férou

arose simply from the circumstance that the schoolmaster's rebellious

attitude aggravated the quarrels which were perpetually occurring

between the priest of Jonville and the inhabitants of Le Moreux.

[Footnote 1: About $35.]

For instance, the latter complained that the priest treated them with

little or no respect, that they only obtained from him some scraps of

Masses, bestowed on them like alms, that they were compelled to send

their children to Jonville for the catechism classes and the first

Communion, and that all sorts of difficulties were placed in their

way with respect to weddings, baptisms, and churchings; whereupon

the infuriated Abbé retorted that when folk wished to obtain favours

from Heaven their first duty was to provide themselves with a priest

of their own. On weekdays, when it was invariably closed, the church

of Le Moreux looked like a dismal empty barn; but for half an hour

every Sunday Abbé Cognasse swept down on it like a tempest, feared by

everybody and terrorising the parish with his capriciousness and his

violence.

Marc, who was acquainted with the situation, could not think of Férou

without feeling much compassionate sympathy. In that well-to-do village

of Le Moreux, he, the schoolmaster, alone was unable to satisfy his

hunger. The horrible misery which assails so many poor schoolmasters

became in his case most tragically acute. He had made his _début_ at

Maillebois as an assistant teacher, with a salary of nine hundred

francs,[2] when he was twenty-four years of age. And now, after six

years' work, exiled to Le Moreux on account of his bitter disposition,

he still only received a thousand francs a year, or, allowing for the

amount deducted for the pension fund, sixty-five francs a month--that

is to say, fifty-two sous a day.[3] Yet he had a wife and three little

girls to keep! Black misery reigned in the damp old hovel which served

as a school, the food was often such as dogs would have scorned to

touch, the girls went about shoeless, the wife did not possess a decent

gown. And indebtedness was always increasing, the threatening, deadly

indebtedness in which so many humble servants of the State become

engulfed, while those at the head of affairs are often wickedly paid

six times as much as their services deserve.

How great was the courage, the heroism which Férou needed to try to

hide that misery, to remain erect in his threadbare frock-coat, to hold

his rank as a man of letters, a monsieur who by the regulations was

forbidden to carry on any commercial calling whatever. Morning after

morning the struggle began afresh, night was only reached by force of

energy and will. That shepherd's son, whose keenly intelligent mind

had retained great independence, discharged his duties passionately,

as often as not without any show of resignation. His wife, a stout

and pleasant blonde, formerly assistant to her aunt, who kept a shop

at Maillebois, where Férou had met and married her honestly enough,

after getting her into trouble, gave him it is true some little help,

attending for instance to the girls, teaching them to read and sew,

while he had on his hands the ill-bred, dense, and malicious boys.

Under all the circumstances was it surprising that he sometimes yielded

to the discouragement which comes from ungrateful toil, to the sudden

rebellion of his suffering heart? Born poor, he had always suffered

from poverty, ill fed and ill clad, and now that he was a monsieur

his poverty became the more frightfully bitter. Around him he saw

only happy folk, peasants possessed of lands, able to eat their fill,

proud of the crown-pieces they had put by. Most of them were brutish,

scarcely able to write. They invariably needed his help when a letter

had to be drafted. Yet he, the only man of intellect, education, and

culture among them, often lacked a franc to buy himself a couple of

new collars or to pay for the repair of his old shoes. And the others

treated him as a lackey, overwhelmed him with scorn, jeered at his

ragged coat, of which, at heart, they were jealous.

But the comparison which they drew between him, the schoolmaster, and

Abbé Cognasse, the priest, was particularly unfavourable to Férou.

The schoolmaster was so poorly paid and so wretched, he was treated

impertinently by his pupils, and disdainfully by their parents; he

was destitute, too, of all authority, unsupported by his superiors;

whereas the priest, far more liberally remunerated, receiving moreover

all sorts of presents in addition to his stipend, was backed up by

his bishop and petted by the devout, whilst as for authority he spoke

like one who had only to address himself to his Master to bring as he

pleased thunder, or rain, or sunshine on the crops. Thus, although

Abbé Cognasse was always quarrelling with the folk of Le Moreux, and

although they had lost their faith and had almost ceased to follow the

observances of religion, he still reigned over them. And thus, on the

other hand, schoolmaster Férou, tortured by his life of indigence,

gorged with bitterness, turned into a Socialist by sheer force of

circumstances, drew bad reports upon himself by expressing subversive

views with respect to that social system which condemned him, the

representative of intelligence and knowledge, to starve, whilst all

around him stupidity and ignorance possessed and enjoyed.

[Footnote 2: About $175 per annum.]

[Footnote 3: About 50 cents.]

The winter proved very severe that year. Already in November Jonville

and Le Moreux were buried in snow and ice. Marc heard that two of

Férou's little girls were ill and that their father was scarcely able

to provide them with broth. He strove to assist him, but he himself

was very poor, and had to obtain Mademoiselle Mazeline's help in the

good work. Like Férou indeed, Marc, as schoolmaster, only received a

salary of one thousand francs a year, but his duties as parish clerk

were better remunerated than his colleague's. Again, the building in

which the Jonville boys' and girls' schools were lodged--the former

village parsonage, restored and enlarged--was more healthy than that of

Le Moreux. Nevertheless, the young man hitherto had only made both ends

meet by the liberality of Madame Duparque, his wife's grandmother, who

sent frocks for Louise, linen for Geneviève, besides little presents in

money at certain seasons of the year. Since the Simon case, however,

she had given nothing, and Marc was almost relieved, for the harsh

words accompanying each of her presents had often hurt his feelings.

But how straitened did the home now become, and what toil, courage, and

economy were needed to live and discharge one's office with dignity!

Marc, who loved his profession, had returned to it with a kind of

dolorous ardour, and nobody, on seeing him at work, punctually

discharging each duty through those first winter months so hard to the

poor, had any suspicion of the sombre grief, the bitter despair, which

he hid so jealously beneath a brave assumption of tranquillity. He had

remained sorely hurt ever since the condemnation of Simon; the wound

dealt him by that monstrous iniquity would not heal. In moments of

privacy he lapsed into black reveries, and Geneviève often heard him

exclaim: 'It is frightful! I thought I knew my country, and I did not

know it!'

Yes, how had it been possible for such an infamous thing to take

place in France, the France of the Great Revolution, which Marc had

regarded hitherto as the deliverer and justiciar promised to the world?

He loved his country dearly for its generosity, for its independent

courage, for all the noble and great work which he thought it was

destined to accomplish. And now it allowed--nay, actually demanded--the

condemnation of an innocent man! And it reverted to the old-time

imbecility, the barbarity of ancient days! Had it been changed, had it

been poisoned to bring about that dementia? Grief and shame haunted

him; it was as if he himself had had a share in that crime. And with

his eager passion for truth and his craving to impose it upon all, he

felt intolerable discomfort when he saw falsehood triumph, and found

himself powerless to fight and destroy it by shouting aloud the truth

which he had sought so zealously. He lived through the affair again,

he still sought and sought, without discovering anything more, so

great was the tangle created by invisible hands. And after his long

hours of teaching, such despair at times came over him in the evening

that Geneviève gently cast her arms about him and kissed him tenderly,

desirous of giving him a little comfort.

'You will make yourself ill, my poor friend,' she said. 'Don't think of

those sad things any more.'

Tears came to his eyes, so deeply was he touched. In his turn, he

kissed her tenderly. 'Yes, yes,' he answered, 'you are right, one must

be brave. But how can I help it? I cannot prevent myself from thinking,

and it is great torment.'

Then smiling, and raising a finger to her lips, she led him to the cot

where little Louise was already fast asleep. 'You must only think of

our darling; you must say to yourself that we are working for her. She

will be happy if we are.'

'Yes, that would be the more sensible course. But, then, is not our

happiness to come from the happiness of all?'

Geneviève had evinced much sense and affection throughout the affair.

She had been grieved by the demeanour of her grandmother towards her

husband, to whom, during the last days spent at Maillebois, even

Pélagie, with spiteful affectation, had never spoken. Thus, when the

young people had quitted the house on the Place des Capucins, the

parting had been a very cold one; and since that time Geneviève had

contented herself with calling on her relations at long intervals, by

way of avoiding a complete rupture. Now that she was back at Jonville

she had again ceased to attend Mass, for she did not wish to give Abbé

Cognasse any opportunity to approach her and endeavour to undermine her

affection for her husband. Evincing no interest in the quarrel between

the Church and the school, she was content to cling to Marc's neck;

and, like a woman who has given herself entirely to the loved one, it

was in his arms that she sought a refuge, even when heredity and the

effects of a Catholic education prevented her from fully approving

his actions. Perhaps in the Simon affair she did not think as he did,

but she knew how loyal, generous, and just he was, and she could not

blame him for acting according to his conscience. Nevertheless, like a

sensible woman, she occasionally recalled him to prudence. What would

have become of them and their child if he had compromised himself so

far as to lose his position? At the same time, they loved each other

so much, they were still so full of passion one for the other, that no

quarrel between them had a chance of becoming serious. The slightest

disagreement ended in an embrace, a great quiver, and a rain of ardent

kisses.

'Ah, my dear, dear Geneviève, when one has given oneself, one can never

take oneself back!'

'Yes, yes, my dear Marc, I am yours; I know how good you are; do with

me as you please.'

He allowed her all freedom. Had she gone to Mass he would not have

tried to prevent her. Whatever might be his own views, he wished to

respect her liberty of conscience. And, as christening was a usual

thing, he had not thought of opposing the baptism of little Louise.

When at times he felt worried by the divergence of religious views, he

asked himself if love did not suffice as a remedy for everything, if

one did not always end by agreeing, whatever catastrophe might befall,

when every evening there came the closest union, husband and wife

having but one heart and one being.

If the Simon affair continued to haunt Marc, it was because he was

unable to cease occupying himself with it. He had vowed that he would

never rest until he should discover the real culprit; and he kept his

word, influenced more by passion than by strict duty. On Thursdays,

when his afternoons were free, he hastened to Maillebois to call at the

Lehmanns' dark and dismal shop in the Rue du Trou. The condemnation

of Simon had fallen on that wretched dwelling like a thunderbolt.

Public execration seemed to cast the convict's family, his friends,

and even the few acquaintances who remained faithful to him, out of

the pale of humanity. Lehmann and his wife, who evinced such wretched

resignation to their lot, were forsaken by their customers, and would

have starved had they not secured some poorly-paid piece-work for

Parisian clothiers. But it was particularly Madame Simon, the mournful

Rachel, and her little children, Joseph and Sarah, who suffered from

the savage hatred assailing their name. It had been impossible for the

children to return to school. The town-lads hooted them, pelted them

with stones, and one day the little boy came home with his lip badly

cut by a missile. As for the mother, who had assumed mourning and

whose beauty became the more dazzling in the plain black gown which

she always wore, she spent her days in weeping, relying only on some

prodigy for salvation. Alone among the inmates of the desolate house,

amid the yielding grief of the others, did David remain erect, silent

and active, still seeking and still hoping.

He had allotted to himself a superhuman task--that of saving and

rehabilitating his brother. He had sworn to him at their last interview

that he would dedicate his life to the work of penetrating the

frightful mystery, of discovering the real murderer, and of dragging

the truth into the broad light of day. Thus he had definitively placed

the working of his sand and gravel pits in the hands of a reliable

manager, knowing that if he should lack money he would from the outset

find his efforts crippled. Personally, he devoted himself entirely to

his search for the truth, ever following up the slightest clues, ever

deep in the quest for new facts. If it had been possible for his zeal

to weaken, the letters from Cayenne, which his sister-in-law at long

intervals received from his brother, would have sufficed to inflame his

courage. Simon's departure, his embarkation with other unhappy beings,

the awful voyage, the arrival yonder amid all the horrors of the penal

settlement--those were scorching memories which threw David into

indescribable agitation, which returned amid dreadful shudders at each

and every hour. And now came letters, doctored and amputated by the

officials, yet allowing one to detect beneath each phrase the cry of

one who was enduring intolerable torture, the revolt of an innocent man

for ever brooding over his pretended crime, and at a loss to understand

why it was that he should expiate another's deed. Was not madness at

the end of that devouring anguish? Simon alluded gently to the thieves

and assassins, his companions; and one could divine that his hatred was

directed against the keepers, the torturers, who, uncontrolled, far

removed from the civilised world, became like the wild men of primeval

caverns, gloating over the sufferings they inflicted upon other men.

It was a sphere of mire and blood; and one evening a pardoned convict

recounted such horrible particulars to David, in Marc's presence, that

the two friends, their bleeding hearts wrung by terror and compassion,

were stirred to furious protest and cried their pain aloud.

Unfortunately the ceaseless inquiries, which both David and Marc

prosecuted with discreet stubbornness, yielded no great result. They

had resolved to keep a watch on the Brothers' school at Maillebois, and

particularly on Brother Gorgias, whom they still suspected. But a month

after the trial all three of the assistant Brothers, Isidore, Lazarus,

and Gorgias, disappeared together, being sent to some other community

at the other end of France. Brother Fulgence, the director, alone

remained at Maillebois, where three new Ignorantines joined him. David

and Marc could draw no positive conclusions from this incident, for the

Brothers often went from one establishment to another. Besides, as all

three assistants had been removed, it was impossible to tell to which

one of them that removal was really due.

So far as Maillebois was concerned the worst result of Simon's

condemnation had been the terrible blow dealt to the Communal school,

from which several families had withdrawn their children in order to

confide them to the Brothers, who had never previously known such

great prosperity. Nowadays the victorious faces of priests, monks,

and Brothers were met on all sides in the town; and the new master

appointed to succeed Simon, a pale and puny little fellow named

Méchain, seemed scarcely the man to resist that invading tide. He was

said to be consumptive, and he certainly suffered a great deal from the

severity of the winter, when he left his boys largely in the charge

of Mignot, who, always at a loss when he was not guided, now took the

advice of Mademoiselle Rouzaire. She was more than ever on the side

of the clerical faction which at present reigned over the region; and

thus she persuaded Mignot to take the boys to Mass, and even set up a

large wooden crucifix in the classroom. These things were tolerated in

official spheres, where it was thought, perhaps, that they might have a

good effect on certain families and facilitate the return of children

to the Communal school. But, as a matter of fact, all Maillebois was

going over to the Clericals, and the crisis had become extremely

serious.

Marc's desolation increased as he observed the spirit of ignorance

enthroned over the region. Simon's name had become a bogie name; one

could not mention it without driving people wild with rage and fear.

They regarded it as an accursed name which brought misfortune--a name

that summed up all human iniquity. Silence ought to be observed; no

allusion, however slight, ought to be made to it, for otherwise one

might draw the most dreadful catastrophes upon the country. A few men

of sensible upright minds had certainly felt greatly disturbed since

the trial, and had even admitted the possibility of the condemned man's

innocence; but in presence of the furious wave of public opinion they

no longer spoke; they even advised their friends to remain silent. What

would be the use of protesting, of endeavouring to secure justice? Why

should one expose oneself to utter ruin without rendering any practical

help to anybody? At each indication furnished by circumstances Marc

felt stupefied at finding everybody crouching in falsehood and error,

as in some ever-growing pond of filthy, slimy, poisonous water. On

various occasions he happened to meet Bongard the farmer, Doloir the

mason, and Savin the clerk, and he quite understood that all three

had been minded to withdraw their children from the Communal school

and send them to the Brothers', and that if they had abstained from

doing so it was only from some dim fear that they might thereby harm

themselves with the authorities.

Bongard, who kept very quiet, at a loss whether to side with the

priests or the government, ended, however, by relating that the Jews

spread the cattle plague through the country, for his two children had

seen a man throwing some white powder into a well. Doloir on his side

talked of an international Jew syndicate which had been formed to sell

France to Germany, and threatened to box the ears of Méchain, the new

schoolmaster, if his boys, Auguste and Charles, should learn anything

wrong at that Communal school where children were corrupted. Then Savin

became more bitter than ever, haunted at times by the idea that if

he vegetated it was because he had not joined the Freemasons, and at

others covertly regretting that he had not openly become a partisan of

the Church. At one moment also he declared the Simon affair to have

been a comedy. One culprit had been sacrificed to save all the others

and to hide what went on in every school of France, whether it were

secular or religious. Thus, to save his children, Hortense, Achille,

and Philippe, from perdition, he thought of removing them from school

altogether, and allowing them to grow up as nature might direct.

Marc listened to it all, feeling quite upset and at a loss to

understand how people of any sense could reach such a degree of

aberration. There was something more than innate ignorance in such

mentality. It had been created by the continuous working of all the

stupid things which were currently said, by the growth of popular

prejudices through the ages, by the virus of all the superstitions

and legends which destroyed men's reason. And how was purification

possible, how could one cure those poor ailing, intoxicated people and

endow them with good health, intellectually and morally?

Marc experienced deep emotion one day when he went to buy a schoolbook

of the Mesdames Milhomme, the stationers in the Rue Courte. Both of

them were in the shop with their sons, Madame Alexander with Sébastien,

and Madame Edouard with Victor. Marc was served by the latter lady,

who, though she seemed taken aback when he suddenly entered, promptly

recovered her assurance and frowned with an expression of harsh and

egotistical determination. But Madame Alexandre had risen quivering,

and under the pretence of making Sébastien wash his hands, she at once

led him away. Marc was deeply stirred by that flight. It was a proof of

what he suspected--the great perturbation that had reigned in that home

ever since Simon, the innocent man, had been condemned. Would the truth

ever come from that little shop then? He knew not, and, feeling more

distressed than ever, he withdrew, after allowing Madame Edouard to

tell him some extraordinary tales by way of masking her sister-in-law's

weakness. An old lady customer of hers, she said, often dreamt of

poor little Zéphirin, Simon's victim, who appeared to her, bearing a

martyr's palm. And since the Brothers' school had been suspected by the

freethinkers it had been granted the visible protection of Heaven, for

on three different occasions surrounding buildings had been struck by

lightning whereas the school had remained unharmed.

Finally, apropos of some administrative affair, Marc had occasion

to call on Darras, the Mayor, who had always been regarded as a

Simonist, having openly displayed his sympathy with the prisoner at

the time of the trial. But, after all, he was a functionary, and did

not his position now compel him to observe complete neutrality? His

discretion was increased by some little cowardice, a fear of coming

into collision with the majority of the electors and of losing his

position of mayor, of which he was so proud. So, when Marc's business

was settled and the young man ventured to question him, he raised his

arms to the ceiling despairingly. He could do nothing, he was bound

by his position, particularly as the Clericals would certainly secure

a majority in the municipal council at the next elections if the

population were irritated any further. That disastrous Simon affair had

given the Church a wonderfully favourable battlefield, where it gained

the easiest victories over the poor ignorant multitude, poisoned with

errors and lies. As long as that blast of dementia should continue

blowing, one could attempt nothing, one must bow the head, and let the

storm sweep on. Darras even exacted from Marc a promise that he would

not repeat what he said to him. Then he escorted him to the door as a

proof of his secret sympathy, and again implored him to remain silent

and motionless until the advent of better times.

When Marc, as the result of such incidents, felt overcome with despair

and disgust, there was only one spot where he found any comfort.

That was the private room of Salvan, the Director of the Beaumont

Training College. He visited Salvan frequently during the trying

winter months, when his colleague Férou was starving at Le Moreux

and contending against Abbé Cognasse. He spoke to his friend of the

revolting wretchedness of the poor ill-paid schoolmaster, beside the

prosperity of the fatly-kept priest. And Salvan admitted that such

wretchedness was the cause of the discredit into which the position

of elementary schoolmaster was fast falling. If students for the

Training Colleges were only recruited with difficulty, it was because

the paltry stipend of fifty-two sous a day, allowed a man when he

became a titular head-master at thirty years of age, no longer tempted

anybody. The peasants' sons who were anxious to escape the plough, and

among whom both the Training Colleges and the Seminaries found most of

their pupils, now preferred to go to the towns in search of fortune,

to engage in commerce there, and even to become mere clerks. It was

only exoneration from military service, obtained by signing a contract

to follow the teaching profession for at least ten years, that still

induced some of them to enter that calling, in which so little money

and so few honours were to be won, whereas a deal of worry and a deal

of scorn were to be expected by all.

Yet the recruiting of the Training Colleges was the great question, on

which the education of the country, its very strength and salvation,

depended. Co-equal with it in importance was that of the exact

training to be given in those colleges to the schoolmasters of the

future. It was necessary to animate them with the flame of reason and

logic, to warm their hearts with the love of truth and justice. The

recruiting depended entirely on the grant of higher remuneration to the

profession, such reasonable remuneration as would enable a schoolmaster

to lead a life of quiet dignity; whilst as for the training of the

future teachers an entirely new programme was needed. As Salvan rightly

said, on the value of the elementary master depended the value of

elementary education, the mentality of the poorer classes, who formed

the immense majority of the community. And beyond that matter there was

that of the future of France. Thus the question became one of life or

death for the nation.

Salvan's mission was to prepare masters for the liberating work which

would be entrusted to them. But hitherto it had been impossible to

create apostles such as were needed, men who based themselves solely on

experimental methods, who rejected dogmas and mendacious legends, the

whole huge fabric of error by which the humble of the world have been

held in misery and bondage for ages. The existing masters were mostly

worthy folk, Republicans even, quite capable of teaching reading,

writing, arithmetic, and a little history, but absolutely incapable

of forming citizens and men. In the disastrous Simon affair they had

been seen passing almost entirely to the side of falsehood, because

they lacked reasoning powers, method, and logic. They did not know how

truth ought to be loved; it had sufficed them to hear that the Jews had

sold France to Germany, and at once they had become delirious! Where

then, ah! where was that sacred battalion of elementary schoolmasters

which was to have taught the whole people of France by the sole light

of certainties scientifically established, in order that it might be

delivered from the darkness of centuries, and rendered capable, at

last, of practising truth, and liberty, and justice?

One morning Marc received a letter in which Salvan begged him to call

at the first opportunity. On the following Thursday afternoon the young

man therefore repaired to Beaumont, to that Training College which

he could never enter without a feeling of emotion, without memories

and hopes arising in his mind. The director was awaiting him in his

private room, a door of which opened into a little garden brightened

already by the warm April sunshine.

'My dear friend,' said Salvan, 'this is why I sent for you. You are

acquainted with the deplorable state of affairs at Maillebois. Méchain;

the new master, whose appointment in such grave circumstances was a

mistake, is not badly disposed; I even think that he is on our side;

but he is weak, and in a few months' time he has allowed himself to

be outflanked. Moreover, he is ill, and has applied for a change of

appointment, wishing, if possible, to go to the south. What we need

at Maillebois is a master of sterling good sense and strong will,

one possessed of all the intelligence and energy necessitated by the

present situation. And so there have been thoughts of you----'

'Of me!' cried Marc, taken aback by so sudden and unexpected an

announcement.

'Yes; you alone are thoroughly acquainted with the district and the

frightful crisis to which it is now a prey. Since the condemnation of

poor Simon, the elementary school has been, so to say, accursed; it

loses pupils every month, while the Brothers' school tends to take

its place. Maillebois is now becoming a centre of Clericalism, low

superstition, and reactionary stupidity, which will end by devouring

everything if we do not resist. The population is already relapsing

into the hateful passions, the foolish imaginings of nine hundred years

ago, and we need an artisan of the future, a sower of the good crop to

restore the Communal school to prosperity. So, as I said before, you

were thought of----'

'But is it merely a personal desire that you are expressing, or have

you been asked to consult me?' asked Marc, again interrupting.

Salvan smiled: 'Oh! I am a functionary of no great importance; I can

hardly hope to see all my personal desires accomplished. The truth

is that I have been requested to sound you. It is known that I am a

friend of yours. Le Barazer, our Academy Inspector, sent for me last

Monday, and from our conversation sprang the idea of offering you the

Maillebois school.'

Marc could not refrain from shrugging his shoulders.

'Oh! Le Barazer did not behave very bravely in Simon's case, I am aware

of it,' Salvan continued. 'He might have done something. But we have

to take men as they are. One thing which I can promise you is that if

you do not find him exactly on your side, hereafter he will at least

prove the hidden prop, the inert substance on which you may lean for

support without fear. He always ends by getting the better of Prefect

Hennebise, who is so dreadfully afraid of worries; and Forbes, the

Rector, good man, is content to reign without governing. The dangerous

party is that lay Jesuit Mauraisin, your Elementary Inspector, Father

Crabot's friend, with whom Le Barazer thinks it more politic to behave

gently. But come, surely the idea of battle does not frighten you!'

Marc remained silent, with downcast eyes, absorbed in anxious thoughts,

assailed by doubt and hesitation. Then Salvan, who could read his mind

and who, moreover, was acquainted with the drama of his home life,

stepped forward and took his hands, saying with great feeling: 'I know

what I am asking of you, my friend. I was a great friend of Berthereau,

Geneviève's father, a man with a very free, broad mind, but at the

same time a sentimental man who ended by accompanying his wife to Mass

in order to please her. Later I acted as surrogate-guardian to his

daughter, your wife, and I often visited the little house on the Place

des Capucins, where Madame Duparque already reigned so despotically

over her daughter, Madame Berthereau, and over her grandchild,

Geneviève. Perhaps I ought to have warned you more than I did at the

time of your marriage, for there is always some danger when a man like

you marries a young girl who ever since infancy has been steeped in the

most idolatrous of religions. But, so far, I have had no great occasion

for self-reproach, for you are happy. Nevertheless, it is quite true

that, if you accept the Maillebois appointment, you will find yourself

in continual conflict with those ladies. That is what you are thinking

of, is it not?'

Marc raised his head. 'Yes, I confess it, I fear for my happiness.

As you know, I have no ambition. To be appointed at Maillebois would

doubtless be desirable advancement; but I am perfectly content with my

position at Jonville, where I am delighted to have succeeded and to

have rendered some services to our cause. Yet now you wish me to quit

that certainty, and jeopardise my peace elsewhere!'

A pause followed; then Salvan gently asked: 'Do you doubt Geneviève's

affection?'

'Oh! no,' cried Marc; and after another pause and some little

embarrassment: 'How could I doubt her, loving as she is, so happy in

my arms?... But you can have no notion of the life we led with those

ladies during the vacation, while I was busy with Simon's case. It

became unbearable. I was treated as a stranger there; even the servant

would not speak to me. And I felt as if I had been carried thousands

of leagues away, to some other planet, with whose inhabitants I

had nothing in common. Worst of all, the ladies began to spoil my

Geneviève; she was relapsing into the ideas of her convent days, and

she herself ended by growing frightened, and felt very happy when we

found ourselves once more in our little nest at Jonville.'

He paused, quivering, and then concluded: 'No! no! Leave me where I am.

I do my duty there: I carry out a work which I regard as good. It is

sufficient for each workman to bring his stone for the edifice.'

Salvan, who had been pacing the room slowly, halted in front of the

young man. 'I do not wish you to sacrifice yourself, my friend,' he

said; 'I should regret it all my life if your happiness should be

compromised, if the bitterness born of conflict should infect your

hearth. But you are of the metal out of which heroes are wrought.... Do

not give me an answer now. Take a week to think the matter over. Come

again next Thursday; we will then have another chat, and arrive at a

decision.'

Marc returned to Jonville that evening, feeling very worried. Ought

he to silence his fears, which he scarcely dared to acknowledge to

himself, and engage in a struggle with his wife's relations--a struggle

in which all the joy of his life might be annihilated? He had decided

at first that he would have a frank explanation with Geneviève; but

afterwards his courage failed him, he foresaw only too well that she

would simply tell him to act in accordance with his opinions and as

his duty directed. Thus, assailed by increasing anguish of mind,

discontented with himself, the young man did not speak to his wife of

Salvan's offer. Two days went by amid hesitation and doubt; and then he

ended by reviewing the situation and weighing the various reasons which

might induce him to accept or refuse the Maillebois appointment.

He pictured the little town. There was Darras the Mayor, who, although

a good-natured man and one of advanced views, no longer dared to be

openly just for fear of losing his official position, and placing his

fortune in jeopardy. There were also all the Bongards, the Doloirs,

the Savins, the Milhommes, all those folk of average intellect and

morality who had favoured him with such strange discourses, in which

cruelty was blended with imbecility; while behind them came the

multitude, a prey to even more ridiculous fancies and capable of more

immediate ferocity. The superstitions of savages prevailed among the

masses, their mentality was that of a nation of barbarians, adoring

fetiches, setting its glory in massacre and rapine, and displaying

neither a shred of tolerance, nor of sense, nor of kindliness. But

why did they remain steeped--at their ease, as it were--in all the

dense filth of error and falsehood? Why did they reject logic, even

mere reason, with a kind of instinctive hatred, as if they were

terrified by everything that was pure, simple, and clear? And why,

in the Simon case, had they given to the world the extraordinary

and deplorable spectacle of a people paralysed in its sensibility

and intelligence, determined neither to see nor to understand, but

bent on enveloping itself in all possible darkness, in order that

it might be unable to see, and free to clamour for death amid the

black night of its superstitions and its prejudices? Those folk had

assuredly been contaminated, poisoned; day by day newspapers like _Le

Petit Beaumontais_ and _La Croix de Beaumont_ had poured forth the

hateful beverage which corrupts and brings delirium. Poor childish

minds, hearts deficient in courage, all the suffering and humble ones,

brutified by bondage and misery, become an easy prey for forgers and

liars, for those who batten upon public credulity. And ever since the

beginning of time every Church and Empire and Monarchy in the world

has only reigned over the multitude by poisoning it, after robbing and

maintaining it in the terror and slavery of false beliefs.

But if the people had been poisoned so easily it must have been because

it possessed no power of resistance. Poison, moral poison, acts

particularly on the ignorant, on those who know nothing, those who

are incapable of criticising, examining, and reasoning. Thus, beneath

all the anguish, iniquity, and shame, one found ignorance--ignorance,

the first and the only cause of mankind's long Calvary, its slow and

laborious ascent towards the light through all the filth and the crimes

of history. And assuredly, if nations were to be freed, one must go to

the root of things--that root of ignorance; for once again it had been

demonstrated that an ignorant people could not practise equity, that

truth alone could endow it with the power of dispensing justice.

At that point of his reflections Marc felt very much astonished. How

came it that the mentality of the masses was no higher than that of

mere savages? Had not the Republic reigned for thirty years, and had

not its founders shown themselves conscious of the necessities of the

times by basing the state edifice on scholastic laws, restoring the

elementary schools to honour and strength, and decreeing that education

thenceforth should be gratuitous, compulsory, and secular? They must

have fancied at that time that the good work was virtually done, that

a real democracy, delivered from old-time errors and falsehoods, would

at last sprout from the soil of France. But thirty years had elapsed,

and any forward step that might be achieved seemed to be cancelled by

the slightest public disturbance. The people of to-day relapsed into

the brutish degradation, the dementia of the people of yesterday,

amidst a sudden return of ancestral darkness. What had happened then?

What covert resistance, what subterranean force was it that had thus

paralysed the immense efforts which had been attempted to extricate all

the humble and suffering ones from their slavery and obscurity? As Marc

put this question to himself he at once saw the enemy arise--the enemy,

the creator of ignorance and death, the Roman Catholic Church.

It was that Church which, with the patient tactics of a tenacious

worker, had barred the roads, and gradually seized on all those poor

dense minds which others had tried to wrest from its domination. She

had always fully understood that she must remain the master of the

educational system in order that she might create night and falsehood

as she listed, if she desired to keep the bodies and souls of the

masses in subjection. Thus it was on the battlefield of the schools

that she had once again waged hostilities, displaying marvellous

suppleness in her hypocritical craft, pretending even to be Republican,

and availing herself of the laws of freedom to keep within the prison

house of her dogmas and superstitions the millions of children whom

those same laws had been devised to liberate. And all those children

were young brains won over to error, future soldiers for the religion

of spoliation and cruelty which reigned over the hateful society of the

era.

The crafty old Pope was seen leading the campaign, that turning

movement which was to drive the Revolution from its own land of

France, and, in the name of liberty, filch and appropriate all

its conquests. The founders of the existing _régime_, the early

Republicans, in presence of the feigned disarming of the Church, had

been simple-minded enough to regard themselves as victors, to lapse

into tranquillity, and even to smile upon the priests. They celebrated

a new spirit of concord and pacification, the union of all beliefs in

one sole national and patriotic faith. As the Republic was triumphant,

why should it not welcome all its children, even those who, again

and again, had tried to throttle it? But, thanks to that benevolent

grandeur of views, the Church went on prosecuting her subterranean

march, the Congregations which had been expelled[4] came back one by

one, the everlasting work of invasion and enthralment was pursued

without an hour's rest. Little by little the colleges of the Jesuits,

the Dominicans, and other Congregations peopled the civil service, the

magistrature, and the army with their pupils and creatures, while the

secular schools were dispossessed by those of the Brothers and Sisters.

Thus, on suddenly awaking with a great start, the country had found

itself once more in the hands of the Church, the best posts of its

governmental organisation being held by the Church's men, while its

future was pledged, since the children of the masses, the peasants,

artisans, and soldiers of to-morrow were held beneath the rods of the

Ignorantines.

[Footnote 4: This is not an allusion to the recent expulsions of

the religious Orders, but to those carried out a score of years

ago.--_Trans._]

Marc, as it happened, witnessed on the Sunday an extraordinary

spectacle which fully confirmed his impressions. He was still deep in

thought, still unable to make up his mind to accept Salvan's offer.

And having gone to Maillebois that Sunday in order to see David,

he afterwards came upon a remarkable religious ceremony, which _Le

Croix de Beaumont_ and _Le Petit Beaumontais_ had been announcing in

flamboyant articles for a fortnight past, in such wise that all the

devotees of the region were in a fever of excitement over it. The

question was one of a superb reliquary, containing a fragment of the

skull of St. Antony of Padua, a perfect treasure, for the purchase of

which as much as ten thousand francs, it was said, had been subscribed

by some of the faithful, who had presented it to the Capuchin Chapel.

For the inauguration of the reliquary at the feet of the statue of the

Saint there was to be a grand solemnity, which Monseigneur Begerot had

consented to adorn with his presence. It was the Bishop's graciousness

in this respect which impassioned everybody; for none had forgotten how

he had formerly supported Abbé Quandieu, the parish priest, against the

efforts of the Capuchins to gain all the faithful and all the money of

the region to themselves. Besides, he had always been regarded as a

thorough Simonist. Yet he had now consented to bestow on the Capuchins

and their trade a public mark of his sympathy; and it followed that

he must have submitted to very powerful influences, for it was

extraordinary that after an interval of only a few months he should

give the lie to all his previous actions, and resign himself to a

course which must have been painful indeed to a man of so much culture

and gentle good sense.

Attracted by curiosity, Marc repaired with the crowd to the chapel,

where during the next two hours he beheld the strangest things

possible. The trade which the Maillebois Capuchins carried on with

their St. Antony of Padua had become very considerable, amounting to

some hundreds of thousands of francs every year, collected in little

sums, varying from one franc to ten. Father Théodose, the superior,

whose fine apostolic head sent all the lady devotees into raptures, had

proved himself to be an inventor and manager of great genius. He had

devised and organised the democratic miracle, the domestic, every-day

miracle such as was within the reach of the humblest purses. At the

outset St. Antony's statue in the chapel had been a somewhat paltry

one, and the Saint had busied himself with little else than the finding

of lost things, his old-time specialty. But after a few successes of

this kind, as money began to flow in, Father Théodose by a stroke of

genius extended the sphere of the Saint's miraculous action, applying

it to all the needs and desires of his steadily increasing customers.

The sick who were afflicted with incurable maladies, those also who

merely suffered from head or stomach ache; the petty shopkeepers who

were in embarrassed circumstances, who lacked the money to honour their

acceptances, or who did not know how to get rid of damaged goods; the

speculators who had embarked in shady undertakings and who feared the

loss of their fortunes and their liberty; the mothers who were in

despair at finding no husbands for their plain and dowerless daughters;

the poor devils out of work, who were weary of seeking employment,

and who felt that only a prodigy could enable them to earn their

bread; the heirs who were anxious with respect to the sentiments of an

ailing grandparent, and who desired the help of Heaven to ensure them

a bequest; the idle schoolboys, the hare-brained school girls, all the

dunces who were certain to fail at their examinations if Providence did

not come to their assistance; all the sorry weaklings, destitute of

will, incapable of effort, who, regardless of work and common sense,

awaited some undeserved success from a superior power--all these might

address themselves to St. Antony, confide their case to him, and secure

his all-powerful intercession with the Deity, the chances of success in

their favour being six to four, according to careful statistics which

had been prepared!

So everything was organised in a lavish way. The old statue was

replaced by a new one, very much larger and gilded far more profusely;

and collection boxes were set up on all sides--collection boxes of a

new pattern, each having two compartments, one for money gifts and

the other for letters which were addressed to the Saint, and which

specified the nature of the applications. It was of course allowable

to give no money; but it was remarked that the Saint granted only the

prayers of those who bestowed at least some small alms. In the result

a tariff was established, based on experience--so Father Théodose

asserted--one franc and two francs given being for little favours,

five francs and ten francs when one was more ambitiously inclined.

Besides, if the applicant did not give enough, the Saint soon made it

known by failing to intervene, and it then became necessary to double

and treble one's alms. Those customers who desired to delay payment

until the miracle was accomplished ran the risk of never securing a

favour at all. Moreover, the Saint retained all freedom of action,

choosing the elect as he pleased, and rendering accounts to none. Thus

the whole affair was a gamble, a kind of divine lottery, in which one

might draw a good or a bad number; and it was this very circumstance

which impassioned the masses among whom the gambling instinct is so

keen. They rushed upon the collection boxes and gave their franc,

their two francs, or their five francs, all aflame with the hope that

they would perhaps secure a big prize, some illicit and unhoped-for

gain, some fine marriage, some diploma, some huge bequest. Never had

there been a more impudent attempt to brutify the public, a more

shameless speculation on human stupidity and the instincts of idleness

and covetousness, one which destroyed all self-reliance and spread

broadcast the idea of achieving success by chance alone without the

slightest show of merit.[5]

[Footnote 5: M. Zola's account of the worship of St. Antony is strictly

accurate. Can one wonder that the Government of the Republic should

have decided to expel from France some of the bandits who, masquerading

under the guise of monks, initiated this colossal fraud? The idea of

it sprang from their keen jealousy of the wealth of the Assumptionist

Fathers whom they found raking in money at Lourdes by the aid of bogus

miracles. They carried the miracle craze further by diffusing the

worship of St. Antony throughout France, preying on all the credulous

with the most astounding impudence.--_Trans._]

Marc understood by the feverish enthusiasm of the groups around him

that the business would spread still further and contaminate the

whole region, thanks to that chiselled, gilded, silver reliquary,

in which a fragment of St. Antony's skull was enshrined. This was

Father Théodose's last device in response to the competition which

other religious Orders had started at Beaumont, with a great swarming

of statues and collection boxes, in order that the public might try

their luck with other miracle-working saints. Mistakes would now be

impossible, he alone possessed the sacred fragment of bone, and he

alone would be able to supply the miracle gamblers with the very best

chances of success. Posters covered the walls of the chapel, a new

prospectus guaranteed the absolute authenticity of the relic, set

forth that the tariffs would not be increased in spite of the new

advantages offered, and carefully regulated operations in order that

no recrimination might ensue between the Saint and his customers. The

first thing, however, which struck Marc painfully was the presence of

Mademoiselle Rouzaire, who had brought the girls of the Communal school

to the ceremony as if their attendance were a part of the curriculum.

And he was stupefied when at the head of the girls he saw the tallest

of them carrying a religious banner of white silk embroidered with

gold. But Mademoiselle Rouzaire made no secret of her sentiments.

Whenever one of her pupils competed for a certificate she sent her

not only to take Communion, but to place two francs in one of St.

Antony's collection boxes, in order that the Deity might facilitate her

examination. When the pupil was more stupid than usual she even advised

her to put five francs into the box, as the Saint would assuredly have

extra trouble in her case. She also made her pupils keep diaries in

which they had to record their sins day by day, and distributed good

marks to them for attendance at Mass. Singular indeed was the secular

Communal school kept by Mademoiselle Rouzaire!

The little girls ranged themselves on the left side of the nave,

while the little boys of the Brothers' school installed themselves

on the right, in the charge of Brother Fulgence, who, as usual, made

no end of fuss. Father Crabot and Father Philibin, who had wished to

honour the ceremony with their presence, were already in the choir.

Perhaps they were further desirous of enjoying their victory over

Monseigneur Bergerot, for everybody knew how the Rector of Valmarie

had helped to glorify the worship of St. Antony of Padua, in such wise

that it was a triumph to have compelled the Bishop to make due amends

for his severity of language respecting 'base superstition.' When

Monseigneur Bergerot entered the chapel, followed by Abbé Quandieu,

Marc felt confused, almost ashamed for them, such dolorous submission,

such enforced relinquishment did he detect beneath their grave pale

countenances.

The young man easily guessed what had happened, how the dementia, the

irresistible onrush of the devout, had ended by sweeping the Bishop

and the priest from the positions they had originally taken up. Abbé

Quandieu had long resisted, unwilling as he was to lend himself to what

he regarded as idolatry. But at sight of the scandal occasioned by his

demeanour and the solitude growing around him, he had been seized with

anguish, wondering if religion would not suffer from his uncompromising

attitude, and at last resigning himself to the painful duty of casting

the holy mantle of his ministry over the new and pestilential sore.

One day he had carried the story of his doubts, his struggles, his

defeat to Monseigneur Bergerot, who like him was vanquished, who like

him feared some diminution of the power of the Church if it should

confess its follies and its flaws. And the weeping Bishop had embraced

the priest and promised to attend the ceremony which was to seal the

reconciliation with the Capuchins and their allies. Keen suffering

must have come to them from their powerlessness, from their enforced

cowardice; and they must have suffered yet more bitterly at seeing

their ideal soiled, their faith made a mere matter of barter. Ah! that

Christianity, so pure at its advent, a great cause of brotherhood and

deliverance, and even that Catholicism which had winged its flight so

boldly and proved itself so powerful an instrument of civilisation, in

what mud would both expire, if they must be thus allowed to sink to the

vilest trading, to become the prey of the basest passions, mere things

to be bought and sold, instruments for the diffusion of brutishness and

falsehood! Worms were gathering in them, as in all old things, and soon

would come rottenness, final decomposition, which would leave nought

save a little dust and mouldiness behind.

The ceremony proved a triumphal one. A constellation of candles

glittered around the reliquary which was blessed and censed. There were

orisons and addresses, and canticles chanted amid the mighty strains

of the organ. Several ladies were taken ill, one of Mademoiselle

Rouzaire's little girls had to be led away, so oppressive became the

atmosphere. But the delirium of the congregation reached a climax

when Father Théodose, having ascended the pulpit, recited the Saint's

miracles: one hundred and twenty-eight lost objects duly found; fifty

doubtful commercial transactions brought to a good issue; thirty

tradespeople saved from bankruptcy by the sudden sale of old goods

stored away in their shops; ninety-three sick people, paralytic,

consumptive, affected with cancer or with gout, restored to health;

twenty-six young girls married although they were portionless; thirty

married women becoming the mothers of boys or girls, according to their

choice; three hundred clerks placed in good offices with the salaries

they desired; six inheritances acquired suddenly and against all hopes;

seventy-seven pupils, girls and boys, successful at their examinations,

although their teachers had foretold the contrary; and all sorts of

other favours and graces, conversions, illicit unions transformed into

lawful ones, unbelievers dying converted, lawsuits gained, unsaleable

lands suddenly disposed of, houses let after remaining tenantless for

ten years! And ardent covetousness convulsed the throng at each fresh

announcement of a miracle, till at last a clamour of satisfied passion

greeted the enumeration of each favour, which Father Théodose announced

from the pulpit in a thundering voice. It all ended in an attack

of veritable dementia, the whole congregation rising and howling,

stretching forth convulsive hands as if to catch one or another of

those great lottery prizes that rained down from heaven.

Angered and disgusted, Marc was unable to remain there any longer.

He had seen Father Crabot await a benevolent smile from Monseigneur

Bergerot, then hold with him a friendly conversation, which everybody

remarked. Meantime Abbé Quandieu was smiling also, though a twitch of

pain lurked round his lips. The sacrifice was consummated. The victory

of the Brothers and the monks, the triumph of the Catholicism of

idolatry, servitude, and annihilation would prove complete. The young

man felt stifled in that atmosphere, so he left the chapel to seek the

sunshine and the pure air.

But St. Antony of Padua pursued him even across the square outside.

Groups of female devotees were chattering together, even as the women

gamblers had chattered in the old days while loitering near the doors

of the lottery offices.

'As for me,' said one very fat and doleful woman, 'I never have any

luck; I never win at any game. And perhaps that's why St. Antony does

not listen to me. I gave forty sous on three occasions, once for my

goat which was ailing, but all the same it died; the next time for a

ring I lost, and which I never found; and then, the third time, for

some potatoes which were rotting, but it was no good, I couldn't find a

buyer for them. Ah! I am really unlucky and no mistake!'

'You are too patient, my dear,' a little dark wizened old woman

answered. 'As for me, when St. Antony won't lend ear, I make him

listen.'

'But how, my dear?'

'Oh! I punish him. For instance, there was that little house of mine

which I couldn't let because people complain that it's too damp and

that children get ill and die there. Well, I gave three francs, and

then I waited. Nothing, not a sign of a tenant! I gave three francs a

second time, and still there was no result. That made me cross and I

hustled the statuette of the Saint which stands on the chest of drawers

in my bedroom. As he still did nothing for me, I turned his face to the

wall to let him reflect. He spent a week like that, but still nothing

came of it, for it did not humiliate him sufficiently. I had to think

of something else; I felt quite furious, and I ended by tying him to

a cord and lowering him into my well, head downwards. Ah! my dear, he

then understood that I was bound to have the last word with him; for

he hadn't been in the well two hours when some people called and I let

them my little house.'

'But you pulled him out of the well?'

'Oh! at once. I set him on the drawers again, after wiping him quite

clean and apologising to him.... We are not on bad terms together on

account of that affair, oh! dear no; only, do you see, when one has

paid one's money, one ought to be energetic.'

'All right, my dear, I'll try.... I have some worries with the Justice

of the Peace, so I will go inside and give two francs. And if the Saint

doesn't help me to win the suit, I will show him my displeasure.'

'That's it, my dear! Tie a stone to his neck, or wrap him up in some

dirty linen. He doesn't like that at all. It will make him do the right

thing.'

Marc could not help smiling in spite of his bitter feelings. He

continued listening, and heard a group of serious looking men--among

whom he recognised Philis, the Municipal Councillor and clerical

rival of Mayor Darras--deploring the fact that not a parish of the

_arrondissement_ had yet consecrated itself to the Sacred Heart of

Jesus. That was another clever invention, more dangerous still than

the base trafficking in St. Antony of Padua. True, the poorer classes

as yet remained indifferent to it, as it lacked the attraction of a

miraculous and a gambling element. None the less, there was a grave

peril in that idolatrous worship of the Sacred Heart, a real, red,

bleeding heart torn away amid a last palpitation, and portrayed like

the heart of some animal in a butcher's shop. The endeavour was to

make that gory picture the emblem of modern France, to print it in

purple, to embroider it in silk and gold on the national flag, so

that the whole country might become a mere dependency of the Church

which invented that repulsive fetich worship. Here again one found the

same manœuvre, the same attempt to lay the grip of priestcraft on the

nation, to win over the multitude by means of superstition and legend,

in the hope of steeping it once more in ignorance and bondage. And in

the case of the Sacred Heart, as in that of St. Antony of Padua, it

was particularly the Jesuits who were at work, disorganising the olden

Catholicism with their evil power, and reducing religion to a level

with the carnal practices of savage tribes.

Marc hurried away. He again felt suffocated, he longed for solitude and

space. Geneviève, desirous of spending an afternoon with her parents,

had accompanied him to Maillebois that Sunday. Madame Duparque,

being attacked by gout, was confined to her arm-chair, and had been

prevented therefore from attending the ceremony at the chapel. As Marc

no longer visited his wife's relations, he had agreed with Geneviève

that he would meet her outside the railway station in time for the four

o'clock train. It was now scarcely more than three, and so he walked

mechanically to the tree-planted square where the railway station

stood, and sank upon a bench there amid the solitude. He was still

pondering, still absorbed in a great, decisive, mental battle.

All at once light flashed upon his mind. The extraordinary spectacle

he had just beheld, the things he had seen and heard, filled him with

glowing certainty. If the nation were passing through such a frightful

crisis; if it were becoming divided into two hostile Frances, ready to

devour one another, it was simply because Rome had carried her battle

into French territory. France was the last great Roman Catholic power

that remained;[6] she alone still possessed the men and the money,

the strength needed to impose Roman Catholicism on the world. It was

logical, therefore, that her territory should have been chosen for the

supreme battle of Rome, who was so frantically desirous of recovering

her temporal power, as that alone could lead her to the realisation of

her ancient dream of universal domination. Thus all France had become

like those frontier plains, those fertile ploughlands, vineyards,

and orchards where two armies meet and contend to decide some mighty

quarrel. The crops are ravaged by cavalry charges, the vineyards and

orchards are ripped open by galloping batteries of artillery; shells

blow up the villages, grape-shot cuts down the trees, and changes the

plain into a lifeless desert. And, in like way, the France of to-day

is devastated and ruined by the warfare which the Church there wages

against the Revolution, an exterminating warfare without truce or

mercy, for the Church well understands that, if she does not slay the

Revolution, by which is symbolised the spirit of liberty and justice,

the Revolution will slay her. Thence comes the desperate struggle on

every field, among every class--a struggle poisoning every question

that arises, fomenting civil war, transforming the motherland into

a field of massacre, where perhaps only ruins will soon remain.

And therein lies the mortal danger, a certainty of death if the

Church should triumph and cast France once more into the darkness

and wretchedness of the past, making of her also one of those fallen

nations which expire in the misery and nothingness with which Roman

Catholicism has stricken every land where she has reigned.

[Footnote 6: Austria, the reader may be reminded, is in great straits,

held together merely by the prestige of its reigning monarch; Italy is

hostile to the temporal claims of the papacy; Spain has been killed by

its priests; Portugal slumbers in insignificance; even the prosperity

of Belgium has been largely affected by the blighting influence of its

religious Orders.--_Trans._]

Reflections, which previously had filled Marc with much perplexity,

now came to him afresh, illumined by new light. He pictured the

subterranean work of the Church during the last fifty years: the clever

manœuvres of the Teaching Orders to win future power by influencing the

children; and the policy followed by Leo XIII., his crafty acceptance

of the Republic for the sole purpose of worming his way into it and

subduing it. But if the France of Voltaire and Diderot, the France

of the Revolution and the Three Republics, had become the poor,

misled, distracted France of to-day, which almost reverted to the

past instead of marching towards the future, it was more particularly

because the Jesuits and the other teaching Orders had set their grip

on the children, trebling the number of their pupils in thirty years,

spreading their powerful establishments over the entire land. And, all

at once, impelled thereto by events, and compelled moreover to take

up position, the triumphant Church unmasked her work, and defiantly

acknowledged that she meant to be the sovereign of the nation.

All the various conquests hitherto achieved arose before the

scared eyes of the onlookers: The high positions in the army, the

magistrature, the civil and political services were in the hands of

men formed by the Church; the once liberal, unbelieving, railing

middle class had been won back to the retrograde Church-spirit from

the fear of being dispossessed by the rising tide of the masses; the

latter themselves were poisoned with gross superstitions, held in

crass ignorance and falsehood in order that they might remain the

human cattle whom the master fleeces and slaughters. And the Church,

no longer hiding her designs, impudently pursued her work of conquest,

setting up St. Antony's collection boxes with a great display of

puffery on all sides, distributing flags adorned with the gory emblem

of the Sacred Heart to the villages, opening congregational schools in

competition to every secular one, and even seizing on the latter, where

the teachers often became creatures of her own, and did her work either

from cowardice or interest.

She, the Roman Catholic Church, was now openly at war with civil

society. She raised money expressly to carry on her work of conquest;

many of the religious congregations had taken to industry and trade;

one alone, that of the Good Pastor, realising some twelve millions of

francs profit[7] every year by exploiting the forty-seven thousand

work-girls who slaved in its two hundred and seven establishments. And

the Church sold all kinds of things: alcoholic liqueurs and shoes,

medicines and furniture, miraculous waters and embroidered nightgowns

for women of bad character. She turned everything into money, she

levied the heaviest tribute on public stupidity and credulity by her

spurious miracles and her everlasting exploitation of religion. Her

wealth amounted to thousands of millions of francs, her estates were

immense, and she disposed of enough ready cash to buy parties, hurl

them one upon the other, and triumph amid the blood and ruin of civil

war. The struggle appeared terrible and immediate to Marc, who had

never previously felt how very necessary it was that France should slay

that Church if she did not wish to be slain by her.

[Footnote 7: $2,316,000.]

All at once the Bongards, the Doloirs, the Savins, the Milhommes

seemed to appear before him; he could hear them stammering the paltry

excuses that came from cowardly hearts and poisoned minds, seeking

refuge in ignorance and fear-fraught egotism. They represented France,

the scared, brutified masses, handed over to prejudice and clerical

imbecility. To rot the people more quickly anti-Semitism had been

invented, that revival of religious hate by which too it was hoped to

win over even unbelievers who had deserted the Church. But to hurl the

people against the Jews and to exploit its ancestral passions was only

a beginning; at the end lay a return to slavery, a plunge into darkness

and ancient bondage. And to-morrow there would be Bongards, Doloirs,

Savins, and Milhommes of a still lower type, more stupefied, more

steeped in darkness and falsehood than those of to-day, if the children

should still be left in the hands of the Brothers and the Jesuits, on

the forms of the many Congregational schools.

It would not be sufficient to close those schools; it was also

necessary to purify the Communal schools, which the stealthy work of

the Church had ended by affecting, paralysing secular education, and

installing reactionary masters and mistresses among the teachers, who

by their lessons and their examples perpetuated error. For one man

like Férou, so intelligent and brave, even if maddened by misery, for

one woman like Mademoiselle Mazeline, all heart and reason, how many

disturbingly worthless ones there were--how many, too, who were badly

disposed, who went over to the enemy and did the greatest harm! There

were Mademoiselle Rouzaires, who from ambition sided with the stronger

party and carried their interested clericalism to excess; there were

Mignots drifting, allowing themselves to be impelled hither and thither

by those around them; there were Doutrequins, honest old Republicans,

who had become anti-Semites and reactionaries from an error of

patriotism; and behind all these appeared the entire elementary staff

of the country, disturbed, spoilt, losing its way, and liable to lead

the children confided to it, the generations of which the future would

be compounded, to the bottomless pit. Marc felt a chill at his heart

as he thought of it. Never before had the peril threatening the nation

seemed to him so imminent and so redoubtable.

It was certain that the elementary schools would prove the

battle-ground of the social contest; for the one real question was to

decide what education should be given to those masses which, little

by little, would assuredly dispossess the middle class of its usurped

power. Victorious over the expiring nobility in 1789, the _bourgeoisie_

had replaced it, and for a whole century it had kept possession of

the entire spoils, refusing to the masses their equitable share. At

present the _rôle_ of the _bourgeoisie_ was finished; it acknowledged

it, by going over to reaction, desperate as it felt at the idea of

having to part with power, terrified by the rise of the democracy which

was certain to dispossess it. Voltairean when it had thought itself

in full and peaceful enjoyment of its conquests, clerical now that in

its anxious need it found it had to summon reaction to its help, it

was worn out, rotted by abuse of power, and the ever advancing social

forces would eliminate it from the system. The energy of to-morrow

would be found in the masses, in them slumbered humanity's huge reserve

force of intelligence and will. Marc's only hope now was in those

children of the people who frequented the elementary schools from one

to the other end of France. They constituted the raw material out of

which the future nation would be fashioned, and it was necessary to

educate them in such wise that they might discharge their duty as

freed citizens, possessed of knowledge and will power, released from

all the absurd dogmas, errors, and superstitions which destroy human

liberty and dignity.

No happiness was possible, whether moral or material, save in the

possession of knowledge. The view inspired by the Gospel dictum, 'Happy

the poor in spirit,'[8] had held mankind in a quagmire of wretchedness

and bondage for ages. No, no! The poor in spirit are perforce mere

cattle, fit flesh for slavery and for suffering. As long as there shall

be a multitude of the poor in spirit, so will there be a multitude

of wretched beings, mere beasts of burden, exploited, preyed upon by

an infinitesimal minority of thieves and bandits. The happy people

will one day be that which is possessed of knowledge and will. It is

from the black pessimism based on sundry passages of the Bible that

the world must be delivered--the world, terrified, crushed down for

more than two thousand years, living solely for the sake of death.

Nothing could be more dangerous than to take the old Semite doctrine

as the only moral and social code. Happy, on the contrary, are those

who know--happy the intelligent, the men of will and action, for the

kingdom of the world shall belong to them! That was the cry which now

arose to Marc's lips, from his whole being, in a great transport of

faith and enthusiasm.

[Footnote 8: This is how the French render the well-known words of the

Sermon on the Mount, as given in Matthew v. 2. It will be remembered

that in Luke vi. 20, only the word 'poor' is given, 'in spirit' being

omitted. I must confess that I do not know what the 'higher criticism'

has to say of this inconsistency, and I am not learned enough to

express an opinion of any value on the Greek texts.--_Trans._]

And all at once he arrived at a decision: he would accept Salvan's

offer, he would come to Maillebois as elementary master, and he would

contend against the Church, against that contamination of the people,

of which he had witnessed one of the delirious fits at the ridiculous

ceremony held that afternoon. He would work for the liberation of

the humble, he would strive to make them free citizens. To win back

those masses whom he saw weighed down by ignorance and falsehood,

incapable of justice, he would go to the children and to the children's

children, instruct them, and, little by little, create a people of

truth who, then alone, would become a people of justice. That was the

loftiest duty, the most pressing good work, that on which depended the

country's very salvation, its strength and glory in its liberating

and justice-bringing mission through the ages and through the other

nations. And if, after three days' hesitation and anguish at the idea

of imperilling the happiness he enjoyed in Geneviève's arms, a moment

had sufficed for Marc to arrive at that weighty decision, was it not

that he had also found himself confronted by the serious problem of the

position of woman, whom the Church had turned into a mere stupefied

serf, an instrument of falsity and destruction?

What would they become as wives and mothers, those little girls whom

Mademoiselle Rouzaire now led to the Capuchins? When the Church had

seized them and held them by their senses, their weakness, and their

sufferings, it would never release them; it would employ them as

terrible engines of warfare, to demolish men and pervert children. So

long as woman, in her ancient contest with man, with respect to unjust

laws and iniquitous moral customs, should thus remain the property and

the weapon of the Church, social happiness would remain impossible,

war would be perpetuated between the disunited sexes. And woman would

only at last be a free creature, a free companion for man, disposing of

herself and of her happiness for the happiness of her husband and her

child, on the day when she should cease to belong to the priest, her

present master--he who disorganised and corrupted her.

With respect to Marc himself, was it not an unacknowledged fear, the

dread of some drama, which might ravage his own household, that had

made him tremble and recoil from the prospect of doing his duty? The

sudden decision he had taken might mean a struggle at his own hearth,

the necessity of doing his duty to those of his own home, even though

his heart might bleed cruelly the while. He knew that now; thus there

was some heroism in the course he chose with all simplicity, with all

enthusiasm for the good, work which he hoped to prosecute. The highest

_rôle_ and the noblest in a nascent democracy is that of the poor and

scorned elementary schoolmaster, appointed to teach the humble, to

train them to be happy citizens, the builders of the future City of

Justice and Peace. Marc felt it was so, and he suddenly realised the

exact sense of his mission, his apostleship of Truth, that fervent

passion to acquire Truth, certain and positive, then cry it aloud and

teach it to all, which had ever possessed him.

Raising his eyes to the railway station, the young man suddenly

perceived that it was past four o'clock. The train which he and his

wife were to have taken had gone, and it would be necessary to wait

till six, when the next one started. Almost immediately afterwards

he saw Geneviève approaching, looking much distressed, and carrying

little Louise in her arms in order to get over the ground more rapidly.

'Ah! my friend, you must forgive me, I quite forgot the time,' she

exclaimed. 'Grandmother detained me, and seemed so annoyed by my

impatience to join you that I ended by no longer noticing how time

slipped by.'

She had seated herself on the bench beside him, with Louise on her lap.

He smilingly inclined his head and kissed the child, who had raised her

little hands to pull his beard. And he quietly answered: 'Well, we will

wait till six o'clock, my dear. There is nobody to interfere with us,

we can remain here. Besides, I have something to tell you.'

But Louise wanted to play, and, stamping on her father's thighs, she

cast her arms about his neck.

'Has she been good?' he asked.

'Oh! she always is at grandmother's; she's afraid of being scolded. But

now, you see, she wants to have her revenge.'

When the young woman had managed to reseat the child on her lap again,

she inquired of her husband: 'What is it you want to tell me?'

'Something which I did not previously speak to you about, as I had

not made up my mind. I am offered the post of schoolmaster here, at

Maillebois, and I am going to accept it. What do you think of it?'

She looked at him in amazement, at first unable to reply. And for a

moment in her eyes he plainly detected a gleam of joyous surprise,

followed, however, by increasing anxiety.

'Yes, what do you think of it?' he repeated.

'I think, my friend, that it is advancement, such as you did not expect

so soon--only, the position will not be an easy one here, amid such

exasperated passions--your opinions, too, being known to everybody.'

'No doubt. I thought of that, but it would be cowardly to refuse the

fight.'

'But to speak quite plainly, my friend, I very much fear that if you

accept the post it will lead to a complete rupture with grandmother.

With mother we might still get on. But, as you know, grandmother is

intractable; she will imagine that you have come here to do the work of

Antichrist. It means certain rupture.'

A pause, full of embarrassment, followed. Then Marc resumed: 'So you

advise me to refuse? You also would disapprove of it: you would not be

pleased if I came here?'

She again raised her eyes to his, and with an impulse of great

sincerity replied: 'Disapprove of what you do? You grieve me, my

friend: why do you say that? Act as your conscience bids, do your duty

as you understand it. You are the only good judge, and whatever you do

will be well done.'

But, though she spoke those words, he could detect that her voice was

trembling, as if with fear of some unconfessed peril which she felt to

be near at hand. There came a fresh pause, during which her husband

took hold of her hands and caressed them lovingly in order to reassure

her.

'So you have quite made up your mind?' she asked.

'Yes, quite: I feel that I should be acting wrongly if I acted

otherwise.'

'Well, as we still have an hour and a half to wait for our train, I

think we ought to return to grandmother's at once, to acquaint her with

your decision.... I want you to behave frankly with her, not as if you

were hiding things.'

The young woman was still looking at her husband, and at that moment

all that he read in her glance was a great deal of loyalty mingled with

a little sadness.

'You are right, my darling,' he answered; 'let us go to grandmother's

at once.'

They walked slowly towards the Place des Capucins, delayed somewhat by

the little legs of Louise, whom her mother held by the hand. But the

close of that fine April day was delightful, and they covered the short

distance in a kind of reverie, without exchanging a word. The square

had become deserted again, the ladies' house seemed to be wrapped in

its wonted somnolence. They found Madame Duparque seated in the little

drawing-room, resting her ailing leg on a chair, while she knitted

stockings for some charity. Madame Berthereau was embroidering near the

window.

Greatly astonished by Geneviève's return, and particularly by the

presence of Marc, the grandmother dropped her knitting, and, without

even telling them to sit down, waited for them to speak. When Marc had

acquainted her with the position, the offer made to him, his decision

to accept it, and his desire to inform her of it in a deferential way,

she gave a sudden start, then shrugged her shoulders.

'But it is madness, my boy,' said she; 'you won't keep the appointment

a month.'

'Why not?'

'Why? Because you are not the schoolmaster we require. You are well

aware of the good spirit of the district, where religion is securing

such splendid triumphs. And with your revolutionary ideas your position

would be untenable, you would soon be at war with the whole population.'

'Well, I should be at war. Unfortunately one has to fight in order to

be victorious.'

Thereupon the old lady became angry: 'Don't speak foolishly!' she

exclaimed. 'There seems to be no end to your pride and rebellion

against religion! But you are only a grain of sand, my poor boy, and

I really pity you when I see you imagining yourself strong enough to

conquer in a battle in which both Heaven and man will annihilate you!'

'It is not I who am strong, it is reason, it is truth.'

'Yes, I know.... But it is of no consequence! Just listen to me! I will

not have you here as schoolmaster. I am anxious for my tranquillity and

honourability. It would be too much grief and shame for me to see our

Geneviève here, in Maillebois, as the wife of a man denying both God

and country, and scandalising all pious souls by his actions. It is

madness, I tell you! You will immediately refuse.'

Madame Berthereau, sorely grieved by this sudden dispute, lowered her

head over her embroidery in order that she might not have to intervene.

Geneviève remained erect, but had become very pale, while little

Louise, whose hand she still held, felt so frightened that she hid her

face in the folds of her mother's skirt. But Marc was determined to

remain calm, and without even raising his voice he answered:

'No, I cannot refuse. I have come to a decision, and I merely desired

to inform you of it.'

At this Madame Duparque, although she was scarcely able to move, by

reason of her attack of gout, lost all self-control. As a rule nobody

dared to resist her, and she was exasperated at now finding herself

confronted by such quiet determination. A wave of terrible anger rose

within her, and words she would rather have left unspoken rushed from

her lips: 'Come! say everything,' she cried; 'confess it, you are only

coming here in order that you may busy yourself on the spot with that

abominable Simon case! Yes! you are on the side of those ignoble Jews;

you still think of stirring up all that filth, and pouncing upon some

innocent to send him yonder, in the place of the vile assassin who

was so justly condemned! And that innocent, you are still stubbornly

seeking him among the worthiest of God's servants! Is that not so?

Confess it! Why don't you confess it?'

Marc could not help smiling; for he fully understood that the real

cause of all the anger with which he was assailed was indeed the Simon

case, the dread lest he should take it in hand again, and at last

discover the real culprit. He could divine that behind Madame Duparque

there stood her confessor, Father Crabot, and that the Jesuits and

their allies, in order to prevent him from carrying on a campaign at

Maillebois, were determined to tolerate there no schoolmaster who was

not virtually in their hands.

'Why, certainly,' he answered in his quiet way, 'I am still convinced

of my comrade Simon's innocence, and I shall do everything I can to

demonstrate it.'

Madame Duparque in her rage jerked herself first towards Madame

Berthereau and then towards Geneviève. 'You hear him, and you say

nothing! Our name will be brought into that campaign of ignominy.

Our daughter will be seen in the camp of the enemies of society and

religion!... Come, come, you who are her mother ought to tell her that

such a thing is out of question, that she must prevent such infamy for

the honour of herself and that of all of us.'

The old lady's last words were addressed to Madame Berthereau, who,

utterly scared by the quarrel, had now let her embroidery fall from

her hands. For a moment she remained silent, for it cost her an effort

to emerge from the gloomy self-effacement in which she usually lived.

At last, making up her mind, she said: 'Your grandmother is right, my

girl. Your duty requires that you should not tolerate actions in which

you would have your share of responsibility before God. Your husband

will listen to you if he loves you. Indeed, you are the only one who

can speak to his heart. Your father never went against my desires in

matters of conscience.'

Geneviève turned towards Marc, at the same time pressing little Louise

to her side. She was stirred to the depths of her being: all her

girlhood at the Convent of the Visitation, all her pious training and

education, seemed to revive, filling her with vertigo. And yet she

repeated what she had already said to her husband: 'Marc is the only

good judge; he will do what he deems to be his duty.'

Despite her ailing leg, Madame Duparque had managed to struggle to

her feet. 'Is that your answer?' she cried wrathfully. 'You, whom we

brought up in a Christian manner--you who were well beloved by God--you

already deny Him, and live religionless, like some beast of the fields?

And you choose Satan without making even an effort to overcome him? Ah,

well, your husband is only the more guilty, and he shall be punished

for that also; you will be punished both of you, and God's curse shall

extend even to your child!'

She stretched forth her arms, and stood there in such a threatening

posture that little Louise, who was terror-stricken, began to sob. Marc

quickly caught up the child and pressed her to his heart, while she,

as if eager for his protection, flung her arms around his neck. And

Geneviève likewise drew near and leant against the shoulder of the man

to whom she had given her life.

'Be gone! be gone! all three of you!' cried Madame Duparque. 'Go to

your folly and your pride, they will work your ruin! You hear me,

Geneviève: there shall be no more intercourse between us until you

come back here in all humility. For you will come back some day; you

belonged to God too long for it to be otherwise; besides, I shall pray

to Him so well that He will know how to win you back entirely.... But

now be gone, be gone, I will have nothing more to do with you!'

Torn by anguish, her eyes full of tears, Geneviève looked at her

distracted mother, who was weeping silently. So heartrending was the

scene that the young woman again seemed to hesitate; but Marc gently

took her hand and led her away. Madame Duparque had already sunk into

her arm-chair, and the little house relapsed into its frigid gloom and

dismal silence.

On the following Thursday Marc repaired to Beaumont to inform

Salvan that he accepted his offer. And early in May he received the

appointment, quitted Jonville, and installed himself at Maillebois as

head-master of the Boys' Elementary School.