However, Marc and Mignot could not linger chatting any longer, for

the ceremony would soon begin. So they repaired to the Common House,

where their pupils had now assembled. They there found Geneviève with

Salvan and Mademoiselle Mazeline, both the latter having emerged

from their retirement to attend that festival which was, so to say,

their work, the celebration of their teaching. And everything passed

off in a very simple, fraternal, and joyous manner. The authorities,

Martineau wearing his scarf of office at the head of the council, took

possession of that little Palace of the People in the name of the

parish. Then the schoolchildren acted, played, and sang, inaugurating,

as it were, the future of happy peace and beneficent work with their

healthy and innocent hands. It was, indeed, ever-reviving youth, it

was the children, who would overcome the last obstacles on the road to

the future city of perfect solidarity. That which the child of to-day

had been unable to do would be done by the child of to-morrow. And

when the little ones had raised their cry of hope, the youths and the

maidens came forward, displaying the promise of early fruitfulness.

One found, too, maturity and harvest in all the assembled fathers and

mothers, behind whom were the old folk typifying the happy evening

which attends life when it has been lived as it should be lived. And

all were now acquiring a true consciousness of things, setting their

ideal no longer in any mysticism, but in the proper regulation of human

life, which needed to be all reason, truth, and justice in order that

mankind might dwell together in peace, brotherliness, and happiness.

Henceforth Jonville would have a meeting hall in that fraternal house

where joy and health would take the place of threat and punishment,

where enlightenment would gladden the hearts of one and all. No heart

nor mind would be disturbed there by mystical impostures, no shares in

any false paradise would be offered for sale. Those who came forth from

that building would be cheerful citizens, happy to live for the sake of

the joy of life. And all the cruel and grotesque absurdity of dogmas

would crumble in the presence of that simple gaiety, that beneficent

light.

The dancing lasted until the evening. Never had the comely peasant

women of Jonville participated in such a festival. Everybody noticed

the radiant countenance of Madame Martineau, who had remained one of

Abbé Cognasse's last worshippers, though, in reality, she had only gone

to church in order to show off her new gowns. She wore a new gown that

day, and was delighted at being able to display it without any fear

that it might become soiled by trailing over damp and dirty flagstones.

Again, she knew that she ran no risk of being kicked if she did not

get soon enough out of somebody's way. Briefly, in that Common House

Jonville would at last have a fitting _salon_ where one and all might

freely meet and chat, and even indulge in a little harmless coquetry.

But it so happened that an extraordinary incident marked the close

of that great day. Marc and Geneviève were escorting their pupils

homeward, with Mignot, who also had marshalled his children together;

and Salvan and Mademoiselle Mazeline likewise figured in the party,

which was all gaiety, jest, and laughter. Near by, too, there was

Madame Martineau, accompanied by a group of women, to whom she

recounted the result of the legal proceedings which her husband had

brought against the priest for kicking her. Fifteen witnesses had

given evidence before the Court, and after some uproarious proceedings

Abbé Cognasse had been sentenced to a fine of five and twenty francs,

this being the chief cause of the fury which he had displayed for

several days past. And, all at once, as Madame Martineau--finishing her

narrative as she passed the parsonage garden--remarked that the fine

was no more than the priest deserved, Abbé Cognasse in person popped

his head over the garden wall and began to vociferate insults.

'Ah! you vain hussy!' he cried, 'you lying thing! how dare you spit on

God? I'll force your serpent tongue back into your throat!'

How was it that the priest happened to be there at that particular

moment? Nobody could tell. Perhaps he had been waiting behind the

wall for the return of the villagers. Perhaps he had set a ladder in

readiness in order that he might climb and look over. At all events,

when he perceived La Martineau in her new gown, surrounded by a number

of other sprucely dressed women, who had deserted the church to attend

an impious ceremony in the devil's house, he completely lost his head.

'You shameless creatures, you make the very angels weep!' he shouted.

'You cursed creatures, you poison the whole district with your filth!

But wait, wait a moment, I will settle your accounts for you without

waiting for Satan to come and take you!'

And forthwith, exasperated as he was at no longer having even the women

with him,--those unhappy, feared, and execrated women whom the Church

captures and employs as its instruments,--he tore some stones from the

ruined coping of the wall and flung them with his lean dark hands at

Madame Martineau and her companions.

'That's one for you, La Mathurine!' he shouted. 'I know of your goings

on with your husband's farm hands!... That's one for you, La Durande!

You robbed your sister of her share of your father's property.... And

here's for you, La Désirée! You haven't yet paid for the three Masses

which I said for the repose of your child's soul!... And as for you,

you, La Martineau, who got the judges to condemn God and me, here's one

stone, and two, and three! Yes, wait a moment, you shall have a stone

for every one of those five and twenty francs!'

The scandal was tremendous; two women were struck, and the rural guard,

who had now come up, at once began to scribble an official report.

Amidst the shouting and hooting Abbé Cognasse suddenly recovered his

senses. Like some deity threatening the world with destruction he made

a last fierce gesture, then sprang down his ladder, and disappeared

like a Jack into his box. He had just set another fine lawsuit on his

shoulders, which bent already beneath a pile of citations.

On the following Thursday Marc repaired to Maillebois, and a fancy

which had been haunting him for some time past was then suddenly

changed into certainty. While crossing the little Place des Capucins,

his attention was attracted by a wretched-looking man, who stood in

front of the Brothers' school gazing fixedly at the dilapidated walls.

And Marc immediately recognised this man to be the one whom he had

perceived with Polydor, in the avenue leading to the railway station, a

month previously. This time he had no cause for hesitation. He was able

to examine the man at his ease, in the broad sunlight, and he saw that

he was, indeed, Brother Gorgias--Gorgias, in old and greasy clothing,

with hollow cheeks and bent limbs, but still easily recognisable by

the large, fierce beak which jutted out from between his projecting

cheek-bones. Thus Delbos had not been mistaken; Gorgias had really

returned, and, doubtless, had been prowling about the region for a

good many months already.

The Ignorantine, amid the reverie into which he had sunk as he stood

on that sleepy and almost invariably deserted little square, must have

become conscious of the scrutinising gaze which was being directed upon

him. He slowly turned round, and his eyes then met those of the man who

stood only a few steps away. And he, on his side, assuredly recognised

Marc. Instead, however, of evincing any alarm, instead of taking to his

heels as he had done on the first occasion, he lingered there, and his

old sneer, that involuntary twitching of the lips which disclosed some

of his wolfish teeth in a manner suggesting both contempt and cruelty,

appeared upon his face. Then, pointing to the tumble-down walls of the

Brothers' school, he said quietly: 'That sight must please you every

time you pass this way--eh, Monsieur Froment?... It angers me; I'd like

to set fire to the shanty, and burn the last of those cowards in it!'

Then, as Marc shuddered without replying, thunderstruck as he was by

the bandit's audacity in addressing him, Gorgias again grinned in his

silent, evil way, and added: 'Are you astonished that I should confess

myself to you? You, no doubt, were my worst enemy. But, after all, why

should I bear you malice? You owed me nothing, you were fighting for

your own opinions.... The men I hate and whom I mean to pursue until my

last breath are my superiors, my brothers in Jesus Christ, all those

whose duty it was to cover and save me, but who flung me into the

streets, hoping I should die of shame and starvation.... I myself, it

may be allowed, am but a poor and erring creature, but it was God whom

those wretched cowards betrayed and sold, for it is their fault, the

fault of their imbecile weakness if the Church is now near to defeat,

and if that poor school yonder is already falling to pieces.... Ah!

when one remembers what a position it held in my time! We were the

victors then; we had reduced your secular schools to next to nothing.

But now they are triumphing, and will soon be the only ones left. The

thought of it fills me with regret and anger!'

Then, as two old women crossed the square and a Capuchin came out of

the neighbouring chapel, Gorgias, after glancing anxiously about him,

added swiftly in an undertone: 'Listen to me, Monsieur Froment; for

a long time past I have wished to have a chat with you. If you are

willing I will call on you at Jonville some day, after nightfall.'

Then he hurried off, disappearing before Marc could say a word. The

schoolmaster, who was quite upset by that meeting, spoke of it to

nobody excepting his wife, who felt alarmed when she heard of it. They

agreed that they would not admit that man if he should venture to

call on them, for the visit he announced might well prove to be some

machination of treachery and falsehood. Gorgias had always lied, and

he would lie again; so it was absurd to expect from him any useful new

fact such as had been sought so long. However, some months elapsed and

the other made no sign; in such wise that Marc who, at the outset, had

remained watchful with a view of keeping his door shut, gradually grew

astonished and impatient. He wondered what might be the things which

Gorgias had wished to tell him; and a desire to know them worried him

more and more. After all, why should he not receive the scamp? Even

if he learnt nothing useful from him, he would have an opportunity of

fathoming his nature. And having come to that conclusion, Marc lived on

in suspense, waiting for the visit which was so long deferred.

At last, one winter evening, when the rain was pouring in torrents,

Brother Gorgias presented himself, clad in an old cloak, streaming

with mud and water. As soon as he had rid himself of that rag, Marc

showed him into his classroom, which was still warm, for the fire in

the faïence stove was only just dying out. A little oil lamp alone

cast some light over a portion of that large and silent room around

which big shadows had gathered. And Geneviève, trembling slightly

with a vague fear of some possible attempt upon her husband, remained

listening behind a door.

As for Brother Gorgias, he, without any ado, resumed the conversation

interrupted on the Place des Capucins, as if it had taken place that

very afternoon.

'You know, Monsieur Froment,' he began, 'the Church is dying because

she no longer possesses any priests resolute enough to support her by

fire and steel, if need be. Not one of the poor fools, the whimpering

clowns of the present day, loves or even knows the real God--He who

at once exterminated the nations that dared to disobey Him, and who

reigned over the bodies and souls of men like an absolute master, ever

armed with resistless thunderbolts.... How can you expect the world to

be different from what it is, if the Deity now merely has poltroons

and fools to speak in His name?'

Then Gorgias enumerated his superiors, his brothers in Christ, as he

called them, one by one, and a perfect massacre ensued. Monseigneur

Bergerot, who had lately died at the advanced age of eighty-seven, had

never been aught than a poor, timid, incoherent creature, lacking the

necessary courage to secede from Rome and establish that famous liberal

and rationalist Church of France which he had dreamt of, and which

would have been little else than a new Protestant sect. Those lettered

Bishops gifted with inquiring minds, but destitute of all sturdiness

of faith, suffered the incredulous masses to desert the altars instead

of flagellating them mercilessly with the dread of hell. But Gorgias's

most intense hatred was directed against Abbé Quandieu, who still

survived though his eightieth year was past. For the Ignorantine the

ex-priest of St. Martin's was a perjurer, an apostate, a bad priest who

had spat upon his own religion by openly upholding God's enemies at the

time of the Simon case. Moreover, he had abandoned his ministry, and

gone to dwell in a little house in a lonely neighbourhood, impudently

saying that he was disgusted with the base superstition of the last

believers, and carrying his audacity so far as to pretend that the

monks, whom he called the traders of the Temple, were demolishers

who unconsciously hastened the downfall of the Church. But if there

was a demolisher it was he himself, for his desertion had served as

an argument to the enemies of Catholicism. Surely indeed it was an

abominable example that he had set--forswearing all his past life,

breaking his vows, and preferring a sleek and shameful old age to

martyrdom. As for that big, lean, stern Abbé Coquart, his successor

at St. Martin's, however imposing the newcomer might look he was in

reality only a fool.

Marc had, for a while, listened in silence, determined to offer no

interruption. But his feelings rebelled when he heard Gorgias's violent

attack upon Abbé Quandieu. 'You do not know that priest,' he said

quietly. 'Your judgment is that of an enemy, blinded by spite.... As

a matter of fact, Abbé Quandieu was the only priest of this region

who, at the outset, understood what frightful harm the Church would

do herself by openly and passionately defying truth and justice. She

claims to represent a Deity of certainty and equity, kindness and

innocence; she was founded to exalt the suffering and the meek, and

yet, all at once, in order to retain temporal authority, she makes

common cause with oppressors and liars and forgers! It was certain that

the consequences would be terrible for her as soon as Simon's innocence

should become manifest. Such conduct was suicide on the Church's

part. With her own hands she prepared her condemnation, showing the

world that she was no longer the abode of the true and the just,

of everlasting purity and goodness! And her expiation is only just

beginning; she will slowly die of that denial of justice which she took

upon herself and which has become a devouring sore.... Abbé Quandieu

foresaw it and said it. It is not true that he fled from the Church in

any spirit of cowardice; he quitted his ministry bleeding and weeping,

and it is in grief that he is ending a life of misery and bitterness.'

By a rough gesture Gorgias signified that he did not intend to argue.

With his glowing eyes gazing far away into the galling memories of his

personal experiences, he scarcely listened to Marc, impatient as he was

to continue his own rageful diatribe.

'Good, good, I say what I think,' he resumed, 'but I don't prevent you

from thinking whatever you please.... There are, at all events, other

imbeciles and cowards whom you won't defend, for instance, that rascal

Father Théodose, the mirror of the devotees, the thieving cashier of

heaven!'

Thereupon Gorgias assailed the superior of the Capuchins with murderous

fury. He did not blame the worship of St. Antony of Padua. On the

contrary he praised it; he set all his hopes in miracles, he would

have liked to have seen the whole world bringing money to the shrine

of the Saint in order that the latter might persuade the Deity to

hurl His thunderbolts upon the cities of sin. But Father Théodose

was a mere conscienceless mountebank, who amassed money for himself

alone, and gave no assistance whatever to the afflicted servants of

God. Though hundreds of thousands of francs had formerly overflowed

from his collection boxes, he had not devoted even an occasional

five-franc piece to render life a little less hard than it was to the

poor Brothers of the Christian Doctrine, his neighbours. And now that

the gifts he received were dwindling year by year his avarice was even

greater. He had refused the smallest alms to him, Brother Gorgias, at a

time when he was in the most desperate circumstances, when, indeed, a

ten-franc piece might have saved his life.

They all abandoned him, yes, all--not only that lecherous

money-mongering Father Théodose, but even the other, the great chief,

the great culprit, who was as big a fool as he was a rascal. Then

Gorgias blurted out the name of Father Crabot which had been burning

his lips. Ah! Father Crabot, Father Crabot, he had worshipped him in

former times, he had served him on his knees in respectful silence,

ready to carry his devotion to the point of crime. He had then regarded

him as an all-powerful, able, and valiant master, favoured by Jesus,

who had promised him eternal victory in this world. By Father Crabot's

side he, Gorgias, had thought himself protected from the wicked,

assured of success in every enterprise, even the most dangerous. And

yet that venerated master to whom he had dedicated his life, that

glorious Father Crabot, now denied him and left him without shelter and

without a crust. He did worse indeed; he cast him upon the waters as

if he were a troublesome accomplice, whose disappearance was desired.

Besides, had he not always displayed the most monstrous egotism? Had

he not previously sacrificed poor Father Philibin, who had lately died

in the Italian convent where he had lingered, virtually dead, for many

years already? Father Philibin had been a hero, a victim, who had

invariably obeyed his superior, who had carried devotion so far as to

take upon his shoulders all the punishment for the deeds which had been

commanded of him and which he had done in silence. Yet another victim

was that hallucinated Brother Fulgence, a perfect nincompoop with his

excitable sparrow's brain, but who, none the less, had not deserved

to be swept away into the nothingness in which, somewhere or other,

he was dying. What good purpose had been served by all that villainy

and ingratitude? Had it not been as stupid as it was cruel on Father

Crabot's part to abandon in that fashion all his old friends, all the

instruments of his fortune? Had not his own position been shaken by

his conduct in allowing the others to be struck down? And had he never

thought that one of them might at last grow weary of it all, and rise

up and cast terrible truths in his face?

'Beneath all Crabot's grand manners,' cried Brother Gorgias excitedly,

'beneath all his reputation for cleverness and diplomatic skill, there

is rank stupidity. He must be quite a fool to treat me in the way he

does. But let him take care, let him take care, or else one of these

days, before long, I shall speak out!'

At this, Marc, who had been listening with passionate interest, made an

effort to hasten the other's revelations: 'Speak out? What have you to

say then?' he inquired.

'Nothing, nothing, there are only some matters between him and me--I

shall tell them to God alone, in a confession.' Then, reverting to his

bitter catalogue of accusations, Gorgias exclaimed: 'And, to finish,

there's that Brother Joachim, whom they have set at the head of our

school at Maillebois in Brother Fulgence's place. Joachim is another

of Father Crabot's creatures, a hypocrite, chosen on account of his

supposed skill and artfulness--one who imagines himself to be a great

man because he does not pull the ears of the little vermin entrusted to

him. You know the result--the school will soon have to be closed for

lack of pupils! If the wretched offspring of men are to grow up fairly

well, they must be trained by kicks and blows, as God requires....

And--if you want my opinion--there is only one priest imbued with the

right spirit in the whole region, and that is your Abbé Cognasse. He,

too, went to seek advice at Valmarie, and they nearly rotted him as

they rotted the others, by advising him to be supple and crafty. But he

fortunately regained possession of himself; it is with stones that he

now pursues the enemies of the Church! That is the right course for the

real saints to follow, that is the way in which God, when He chooses to

interfere, will end by reconquering the world!'

Thus speaking, Gorgias raised his clenched fists and brandished them

wildly, vehemently, in that usually quiet classroom where the little

lamp shed but a faint glimmer of light. Then, for a moment, came deep

silence, amid which one only heard the pouring rain pattering on the

window-panes.

'Well, at all events,' said Marc with a touch of irony, 'God seems to

have forsaken and sacrificed you even as your superiors have done.'

Brother Gorgias glanced at his wretched clothes and emaciated hands

which testified to his sufferings. 'It is true,' he answered, 'God has

chastised me severely for my transgressions and for those of others.

I bow to His will, He is working my salvation. But I do not forget, I

do not forgive the others for having aggravated my misery. Ah, the

bandits! Have they not condemned me to the most frightful existence

ever since they compelled me to quit Maillebois? It is in misery that I

have had to come back here to endeavour to wring from them the crust of

bread which is my due!'

He was unwilling to say more on that subject, but his tragic story

could be well divined by the shudder that came over him--the shudder of

a wild beast driven from the woods by hunger. The Order, no doubt, had

sent him from community to community, the poorest, the most obscure,

until at last it had finally cast him out altogether as being by far

too compromising. And then he had quitted his gown and rolled along

the roads, carrying with him the stigma attaching to a disfrocked

cleric. One would never know through what distant lands he had roamed,

what a life of privation and chance he had led, what unacknowledgeable

adventures he had met with, what shameful vices he had indulged in: one

could only read a little of all that on the tanned skin of his eager

face, in the depths of his eyes which glowed with suffering and hatred.

The greater part of his resources must certainly have come from his

former confederates, who had wished to purchase his silence and keep

him at a distance. Every now and again, when he had written letter upon

letter, when he had furiously threatened crushing revelations, some

small sum had been sent to him, and then for a few months he had been

able to prolong the wretched life he led as a waif whom all rejected.

But at last a time had come when he had no longer received any answer

to his applications, when his letters and his threats had remained

without any effect; for his former superiors had grown weary of his

voracious demands, and regarded him, perhaps, as being no longer

dangerous after the lapse of so many years. He himself was intelligent

enough to understand that his confessions could no longer have any very

serious consequences for his accomplices, but might even deprive him

of his last chance of extracting money from them. Nevertheless he had

resolved to return and prowl around Maillebois. He knew the Code, he

was aware that the law of limitation covered him. And thus for long

months he had been living, in some dark nook, on the five-franc pieces

which he wrung from the fears of Simon's accusers, who still trembled

at the thought of their shameful victory at Rozan. Yet they must again

have been growing weary of his persecution, for his bitterness was too

great; he would never have heaped so many insults upon them if they

had let him dip his hands in their purses, the previous day, by way of

once more purchasing his silence.

Marc readily understood the position. Brother Gorgias only sprang out

of the suspicious darkness in which he concealed himself when he had

spent his money in crapulous debauchery. And if he had come to Jonville

that winter night, in the pouring rain, it was assuredly because his

pockets were empty and because he expected to derive some profit from

that visit. But what profit could it be? What motive lurked beneath his

long and furious denunciation of the men of whom, according to his own

account, he had only been a docile instrument?

'So you are living at Maillebois?' inquired Marc, whose curiosity was

fully awakened.

'No, no, not at Maillebois.... I live where I can.'

'But I thought I had already seen you there before meeting you

on the Place des Capucins.... You were with one of your former

pupils--Polydor, I fancy.'

A faint smile appeared on Brother Gorgias's ravaged face. 'Polydor,'

said he, 'yes, yes, I was always very fond of him. He was a pious and

discreet lad. Like myself he has suffered from the maliciousness of

men. He has been accused of all sorts of crimes, cast out unjustly by

people who did not understand his nature. And I was glad to meet him

when I returned here; we set our wretchedness together, and consoled

each other, abandoning ourselves to the divine arms of our Lord.... But

Polydor is young, and he will end by treating me as the others have

done. For a month past I have been looking for him: he has disappeared.

Ah! everything is going wrong, there must be an end to it all!'

A raucous sigh escaped him, and Marc shuddered, for Gorgias's manner

and tone as he referred to Polydor afforded a glimpse of yet another

hell. But there was no time for reflection. Drawing nearer to the

schoolmaster the disfrocked brother resumed: 'Now, listen to me,

Monsieur Froment; I have had enough of it, I have come to tell you

everything.... Yes, if you will promise to listen to me as a priest

would listen, I will tell you the truth, the real truth. You are the

only man to whom I can make such a confession without doing violence

to my dignity or pride, for you alone have always been a disinterested

and loyal enemy.... So receive my confession, on the one understanding

that you will keep it secret until I authorise you to divulge it.'

But Marc hastily interrupted him: 'No, no, I will not enter into such a

compact. I have done nothing to provoke any revelations on your part;

you have come here of your own accord, and you say what you please.

Should you really place the truth in my hands, I mean to remain at

liberty to make use of it according as my conscience may bid me.'

Brother Gorgias scarcely hesitated. 'Well, let it be so; it is in your

conscience that I will confide,' said he.

Nevertheless he did not immediately speak out. Silence fell once more.

The rain was still streaming down the window panes, and gusts of wind

howled along the deserted streets, while the flame of the little

lamp began to flare amid the vague shadows which hovered about the

quiet room. Marc, gradually growing uncomfortable, suffering from all

the abominable memories which that man's presence aroused, glanced

anxiously at the door behind which Geneviève must have remained. Had

she heard what had been said? If so how uncomfortable must the stirring

up of all that old mud have made her feel also!

At last, after long remaining silent as if to impart yet more solemnity

to his confession, Brother Gorgias raised his hand towards the ceiling

in a dramatic manner, and after a fresh interval said slowly, in a

rough voice: 'It is true, I confess it before God, I entered little

Zéphirin's room on the night of the crime!'

At this, although Marc awaited the promised confession with a good deal

of scepticism, expecting to hear merely some more falsehoods, he was

unable to overcome a great shudder, a feeling of horror, which made him

spring to his feet. But Gorgias quietly motioned him to his chair again.

'I entered the room,' said he, 'or rather I leant from outside on

the window-bar at about twenty minutes past ten o'clock, before the

crime. And that is what I wished to tell you, in order to relieve my

conscience.... On leaving the Capuchin Chapel that night I undertook to

escort little Polydor to the cottage of his father, the road-mender,

on the way to Jonville, for fear of any mishap befalling the lad. We

left the chapel at ten o'clock, and if I took ten minutes to escort

Polydor home and ten minutes to return, it must, you see, have been

about twenty minutes past ten when I again passed before the school. As

I crossed the little deserted square I was surprised to see Zéphirin's

window lighted up and wide open. I drew near, and I saw the dear child

in his nightdress, setting out some religious prints, which some of

his companions at the first Communion had given him. And I scolded

him for not having closed his window, for the first passer-by might

easily have sprung into his room. But he laughed in his pretty way,

and complained of feeling very hot. It was, as you must remember, a

close and stormy night.... Well, I was making him promise that he would

do as I told him, and go to bed as soon as possible, when, among the

religious pictures set out on his table, I saw a copy-slip which had

come from my class, and which was stamped and initialled by me. It made

me angry to see it there, and I reminded Zéphirin that the boys were

forbidden to take away anything belonging to the school. He turned very

red, and tried to excuse himself, saying that he had taken the slip

home in order to finish an exercise. And he asked me to leave the slip

with him, promising to bring it back the next morning, and restore it

to me.... Then he closed his window, and I went off. That is the truth,

the whole truth, I swear it before God!'

Marc, who had how recovered his calmness, gazed at Gorgias fixedly,

endeavouring to conceal his impressions. 'You are quite sure that the

boy shut his window when you went away?' he asked.

'He shut it, and I heard him putting up the shutter-bar.'

'Then you still assert that Simon was guilty, for nobody could have got

in from outside; and you hold that Simon, after the crime, opened the

shutters again in order to cast suspicion on some unknown prowler?'

'Yes, it is still my opinion that Simon was the culprit. But there is

also this chance, that Zéphirin, oppressed by the heat, may have opened

the window again after I had gone.'

Marc was not deceived by that supposition, which was offered him as a

guide that might lead to a new fact. He even shrugged his shoulders,

feeling that as Gorgias still accused another of his crime, his

pretended confession had little value. At the same time, however, that

medley of fact and fiction cast just a little more light on the affair,

and this Marc desired to establish.

'Why did you not relate at the Assizes what you have now stated?' he

inquired. 'A great act of injustice might then have been avoided.'

'Why I did not relate it?' Gorgias replied. 'Why, because I should have

compromised myself to no good purpose! My own innocence would have been

doubted, and besides, I was then already convinced of Simon's guilt

even as I am now; and thus my silence was quite natural.... Moreover, I

repeat it, I had seen the copy-slip lying on the table.'

'Yes, only you now admit that it came from your school and that you

had stamped and initialled it yourself. You did not always say that,

remember.'

'Oh! those fools, Father Crabot and the others, imposed a ridiculous

story on me; and to prop up their senseless theory with the help of

their grotesque experts they afterwards invented the still more foolish

idea of a forged stamp.... For my part, I at once desired to admit the

authenticity of the copy-slip, which was self-evident. But I had to bow

to their authority, accept their ridiculous inventions, under penalty

of being abandoned and sacrificed.... You saw how furious they became

before the trial at Rozan, when I ended by acknowledging that the

paraph was mine. They wanted to save that unfortunate Philibin; they

fancied they were clever enough to spare the Church even the shadow of

a suspicion, and for that very reason they do not even now forgive me

for having ceased to repeat their lies!'

Then Marc, noticing that Gorgias was gradually becoming exasperated,

said, as if thinking aloud and by way of spurring him on: 'All the

same, it is very strange that the copy-slip should have been on the

child's table.'

'Strange! why? It often happened that one of the boys took a slip away

with him. Little Victor Milhomme had taken one, and it was that very

circumstance that made you suspect the truth as to the origin of the

slip.... But do you still accuse me of being the murderer? Do you still

believe that I walked about with that slip in my pocket? Come, is it

reasonable--eh?'

Gorgias spoke with such jeering, aggressive violence, his lips

twitching the while with that rictus which disclosed his wolfish teeth,

that Marc slightly lost countenance. In spite of his conviction of the

brother's guilt, that slip, which had come nobody knew whence, had

always seemed to him a very obscure feature of the affair. Even as the

Ignorantine constantly repeated, it was scarcely likely that he had

carried the paper in his pocket that evening on quitting the ceremony

at the Capuchin Chapel. Whence had it come then? How was it that

Gorgias had found it mingled with a copy of _Le Petit Beaumontais_?

Marc felt that if he had been able to penetrate that mystery the whole

affair would have been perfectly clear. To conceal his perplexity he

tried an argument: 'It wasn't necessary for you to have the slip in

your pocket,' said he, 'for you have said that you saw it lying on the

table.'

But Brother Gorgias had now risen, either yielding to his usual

vehemence or playing some comedy in order to end the interview, which

was not taking the course he desired. Black and bent, he walked up and

down the shadowy room, gesticulating wildly.

'On the table, yes, of course I saw it on the table! If I say that, it

is because I have nothing to fear from such an admission. You suppose

me to be guilty, but in that case do you imagine I should give you a

weapon by telling you where I took the slip!... We say it was on the

table, eh? So it would follow that I took it up, and took a newspaper

also out of my pocket, and crumpled it up with the slip, in order to

turn both into a gag. What an operation--eh?--at such a moment, how

logical and simple it would have been!... But no, no! If the newspaper

was in my pocket the slip must have been there also. Prove that it was;

for otherwise you have nothing substantial and decisive to go upon. And

it wasn't in my pocket, for I saw it on the table, I swear it again

before God!'

Wildly, savagely, he drew near to Marc and cast in his face those words

in which one detected a kind of audacious provocation, compounded of

scraps of truth, impudently set forth in the shape of suppositions,

falsehoods that barely masked the frightful scene which he must have

lived afresh with a frightful, demoniacal delight.

But Marc, cast into disturbing perplexity, feeling that he would

learn nothing useful from his visitor, had also decided to end the

interview. 'Listen,' said he, 'why should I believe you? You come here

and you tell me a tale which is the third version you have given of the

affair.... At the outset you agreed with the prosecution; the slip, you

said, belonged to the secular school; you did not initial it; it was

Simon who had done so in order to cast his crime on you. Then, on the

discovery of the stamped corner torn off by Father Philibin, you felt

it impossible to shelter yourself any longer behind the stupid report

of the experts; you admitted that the initialling was your work, and

that the slip had come from you. At present, with what motive I do not

know, you make a fresh confession to me; you assert that you saw little

Zéphirin in his room a few minutes before the crime, that the copy-slip

was then lying on his table, that you scolded him, and that he closed

his shutters.... Well, think it over; there is no reason why I should

regard this version as final. I shall wait to hear the plain truth, if

indeed it ever pleases you to tell it.'

Pausing in his stormy perambulations, Brother Gorgias drew up his gaunt

and tragic figure. His eyes were blazing, an evil laugh distorted his

face once more. For a moment he remained silent. Then in a jeering way

he said: 'As you choose, Monsieur Froment! I came here in a friendly

spirit to give you some particulars about the affair, which still

interests you as you have not renounced the hope of getting Simon

rehabilitated. You can make use of those particulars; I authorise you

to make them known. And I ask you for no thanks, for I no longer expect

any gratitude from men.'

Then he wrapped himself in his ragged cloak, and went off as he had

come, opening the doors himself, and giving never a glance behind.

Outside the icy rain was coming down in furious squalls, the wind

filled the street with its howls, and Gorgias vanished like a ghost

into the depths of the lugubrious darkness.

Geneviève had now opened the door behind which she had remained

listening. Stupefied by all she had heard she let her arms drop,

and for a moment remained gazing at Marc, who likewise stood there

motionless, at a loss whether to laugh or to feel angry.

'He is mad, my friend,' said Geneviève. 'If I had been in your place

I should not have had the patience to listen to him so long; he lies

as he has always lied!' Then, as Marc seemed inclined to take things

gaily, she continued: 'No, no, it is not at all amusing. The revival of

all those horrid things has made me feel quite ill and anxious also,

for I do not understand what can have been his purpose in coming here.

Why did he make that pretended confession? Why did he select you to

hear it?'

'Oh! I think I know, my dear,' Marc answered. 'In all probability

Father Crabot and the others no longer give him a copper, that is,

apart from some petty monthly allowance which they may have arranged to

make him. And as the rascal has a huge appetite he tries to terrify

them from time to time, in order to extract some big sum from them.

I have had information; they have done their utmost to induce him to

leave the region. Twice already, by filling his pockets they have

prevailed on him to do so; but as soon as his pockets were empty he

came back. They dare not employ the police in the affair, otherwise the

gendarmes would have rid them of him long ago. And so, once again, as

they have refused to let him have more money, he wishes to give them a

good fright by threatening to tell me everything. And he has told me

just a little truth mixed with a great deal of falsehood, in the hope

that I may speak of it, and that the others in their fright may pay him

well to prevent him from telling me all the rest.'

This logical explanation restored the calmness of Geneviève, who merely

added: 'The rest--the full, plain truth--he will never tell it!'

'Who knows?' Marc retorted. 'His craving for money is great, but

there is yet more hatred in his heart. And he is courageous; he would

willingly risk his skin to revenge himself on those old accomplices who

have cowardly forsaken him. Moreover, in spite of all his crimes, he

really belongs to his Deity of extermination; he glows with a sombre,

devouring faith, which would prompt him to martyrdom if he only thought

that he might thereby win salvation and cast his enemies into the

torments of hell.'

'Shall you try to make any use of what he told you?' Geneviève inquired.

'No, I think not. I shall talk it over with Delbos; but he, I know, has

resolved that he will only move when he has a certainty to act upon....

Ah! poor Simon, I despair of ever seeing him rehabilitated; I have

become so old!'

All at once, however, the new fact, awaited for so many years, became

manifest, and Marc then beheld the realisation of the most ardent

desire of his life. Delbos, who placed no faith in any help from

Brother Gorgias, had set all his hopes on the Rozan medical man, that

Dr. Beauchamp, a juror at the second trial, to whom Judge Gragnon

was said to have made his second illegal communication, and who was

reported to be tortured by remorse. This scent Delbos followed with

infinite patience, having a watch kept upon the doctor, who preserved

silence in compliance with the entreaties of his wife, a very pious

and also sickly woman, whose death would probably have been hastened

by any scandal. All at once indeed she died, and Delbos then no

longer doubted the success of his enterprise. It took him another six

months to perfect his arrangements; he managed to enter into direct

relations with Beauchamp, whom he found all anxiety and indecision,

assailed by a variety of scruples. But at last the doctor made up

his mind to hand the advocate a signed statement in which he related

how one day a friend, acting on behalf of Gragnon, had shown him the

pretended confession which a workman, dying at the Beaumont hospital,

was said to have made to one of the sisters--a confession in which

this man acknowledged that he had engraved a false stamp for Simon,

the Maillebois schoolmaster. And Beauchamp added that this secret

communication alone had convinced him of the guilt of Simon, whom

previously he had been disposed to acquit for lack of all serious proof.

Having secured this decisive statement Delbos did not act

precipitately. He waited a little longer. He gathered together other

documents, which showed that Gragnon had communicated his extravagant

forgery to other jurors, men of the most amazing credulity. Equally

extraordinary was it to find that the ex-presiding judge had dared to

repeat the trick of Beaumont, carrying a gross forgery in his pocket,

circulating it secretly through Rozan, exploiting human imbecility

with the most sovereign contempt. And twice had the trick succeeded,

Gragnon on the second occasion saving himself from the galleys by sheer

criminal audacity. He was now beyond the reach of punishment, for he

had lately died, perishing miserably, quite withered away, his features

furrowed, it seemed, by invisible claws. And it was certainly his death

which had induced Dr. Beauchamp to speak out.

Marc and David had long thought that the Simon affair would be quite

settled when the personages compromised in it should have disappeared.

At present ex-investigating Magistrate Daix was also dead, while the

former Procureur de la République, Raoul de La Bissonnière, had lately

been retired with the grant of a Commandership of the Legion of Honour.

Then Counsellor Guybaraud, who had presided at the Assizes at Rozan,

having been stricken with hemiplegia, was passing away between his

confessor and a servant-mistress; whereas Pacard, the ex-demagogue

who in spite of a nasty story of cheating at cards had managed to

become a public prosecutor, had quitted the magistracy to take up

somewhat mysterious duties at Rome as legal adviser to some of the

congregations. Again, at Beaumont there were great changes in the

political, administrative, clerical, and teaching worlds. Other men

had succeeded Lemarrois, Marcilly, Hennebise, Bergerot, Forbes, and

Mauraisin. Of the direct accomplices in the crime, Father Philibin

had died far away, Brother Fulgence had disappeared, being also dead

perhaps, in such wise that there only remained Father Crabot, the great

chief. But even he had withdrawn from among the living, cloistered, it

was alleged, in some lonely cell, where he was spending his last years

in great penitence.

And thus there was quite a new social atmosphere; politics had

altogether changed, men's passions were no longer the same when Delbos,

having at last collected the weapons he desired, brought the affair

forward once more with masterly energy. Of recent years he had risen

to a position of influence in the Chamber of Deputies, so he took his

documents straight to the Minister of Justice and speedily prevailed

on him to lay the new fact before the Court of Cassation. It is true

that a debate on the subject ensued the very next day, but the Minister

contented himself with stating that the matter was purely and simply a

legal one, and that the Government could not allow it to be turned once

more into a political question. And then, amid the indifference with

which this old Simon affair was now regarded, a vote of confidence in

the Government was passed by a considerable majority. As for the Court

of Cassation, which still smarted from the smack it had received at

Rozan, it tried the case with extraordinary despatch, purely and simply

annulling the Rozan verdict without sending Simon before any other

tribunal. It was all, so to say, a mere formality; in three phrases

everything was effaced, and justice was done at last.

Thus, then, in all simplicity, the innocence of Simon was recognised

and proclaimed amid the pure glow of truth triumphant after so many

years of falsehood and of crime.

III

On the morrow of the court's judgment there came an extraordinary

revival of emotion at Maillebois. There was no surprise, for those who

now believed in Simon's innocence were very numerous; but the material

fact of that decisive legal rehabilitation upset everybody. And the

same thought came to men of the most varied views. They approached one

another, and they said:

'What! can no possible reparation be offered to that unfortunate man

who suffered so dreadfully? Doubtless neither money nor honours of any

kind could indemnify him for his horrible martyrdom. But when a whole

people has been guilty of such an abominable error, when it has turned

a fellow-being into such a pitiable, suffering creature, it would be

good that it should acknowledge its fault, and confer some triumph on

that man by a great act of frankness, in which truth and justice would

find recognition.'

From that moment, indeed, the idea that reparation was necessary

gained ground, spreading by degrees through the entire region. One

circumstance touched every heart. While the Court of Cassation was

examining the documents respecting the illegal communication made at

Rozan, old Lehmann, the tailor, who had reached his ninetieth year, lay

dying in that wretched house of the Rue du Trou which had been saddened

by so many tears and so much mourning. His daughter Rachel had hastened

from her Pyrenean retreat in order that she might be beside him at

the last hour. But every morning, by some effort of will, the old man

seemed to revive; being unwilling to die, said he, so long as justice

should not have been done to the honour of his son-in-law and his

grandchildren. And, indeed, it was only on the night of the day when

the news of the acquittal reached him that he at last expired, radiant

with supreme joy.

After the funeral Rachel immediately rejoined Simon and David in their

solitude, where they intended to remain for another four or five

years, when perhaps they might sell their marble quarry and liquidate

their little fortune. And it so happened that the old house of the Rue

du Trou was now demolished, a happy inspiration coming to the Municipal

Council of Maillebois to purify that sordid district of the town by

carrying a broad thoroughfare through it, and laying out a small

recreation-ground for the working-class children. Sarah, whose husband

Sébastien had now been appointed head-master of one of the Beaumont

schools, had sold the tailoring business to a Madame Savin, a relative

of those Savins who in former times had pelted her brother Joseph and

herself with stones; and thus no trace remained of the spot where the

Simon family had wept so bitterly in the distant days, when each letter

arriving from the innocent prisoner in the penal settlement yonder

had brought them fresh torture. Trees now grew there in the sunshine,

flowers shed their perfume beside the lawns, and it seemed as if it

were from that health-bringing spot that spread the covert remorse of

Maillebois, its desire to repair the frightful iniquity of the past.

Nevertheless, things slumbered for a long time yet. A period of four

years went by, during which only individual suggestions were made,

no general agreement being arrived at. But generation was following

generation; after the children had come the grandchildren, and then the

great-grandchildren of those who had persecuted Simon, in such wise

that quite a new population ended by dwelling in Maillebois. Yet it was

necessary for the great evolution towards other social conditions to

be entirely accomplished, in order that the seed which had been sown

should yield a harvest of citizens freed from error and falsehood, to

whom one might look for a great manifestation of equity.

Meantime life continued, and the valiant workers whose task was

completed made way for their children. Marc and Geneviève, now nearly

seventy years old, retired, and the Jonville schools were entrusted to

their son Clément and his wife Charlotte, Hortense Savin's daughter,

who, like himself, had adopted the teaching profession. Mignot, on

his side, had quitted Le Moreux and retired to Jonville, in order to

be near Marc and Geneviève, who dwelt in a small house near their

old school. Thus the village held quite a little colony of the first

participators in the great enterprise, for Salvan and Mademoiselle

Mazeline were still alive, enjoying a smiling and kindly old age.

Then, at Maillebois, the boys' school was in the hands of Joseph, and

the girls' school in those of his wife Louise. He was now forty-four,

she two years younger; and they had a big son, François, who, in his

twenty-second year, had married his cousin Thérèse, the daughter of

Sébastien and Sarah, by whom he had a beautiful baby-girl named Rose,

now barely a twelvemonth old. Joseph and Louise were bent on never

quitting Maillebois, and they gently chaffed Sébastien and Sarah

respecting the honours which awaited them; for there was now a question

of appointing Sébastien to the directorship of the Training College

where Salvan had worked so well. As for François and Thérèse, who by

hereditary vocation had also adopted the scholastic profession, they

now dwelt at Dherbecourt, where both had become assistant teachers. And

what a swarming of the sowers of truth there was on certain Sundays

when the whole family assembled at Jonville round the grandparents,

Marc and Geneviève! And what fine, bright health was brought from

Beaumont by Sébastien and Sarah, from Maillebois by Joseph and Louise,

from Dherbecourt by François and Thérèse, who came carrying their

little Rose; while at Jonville they were met by Clément and Charlotte,

who also had a daughter, Lucienne, now a big girl, nearly seven years

of age! And, again, what a table had to be laid for that gathering of

the four generations, particularly when their good friends Salvan,

Mignot, and Mademoiselle Mazeline were willing to join them to drink

to the defeat of Ignorance, the parent of every evil and every form of

servitude!

The times of human liberation, which had been so long in coming,

which had been awaited so feverishly, were now being brought to pass

by sudden evolutions. A terrible blow had been dealt to the Church,

for the last Legislature had voted the complete separation of Church

and State,[1] and the millions formerly given to the priests, who

had employed them to perpetuate among the people both hatred of the

Republic and such abasement as was suited to a flock kept merely to

be sheared, would now be better employed in doubling the salaries of

the elementary schoolmasters. Thus the situation was entirely changed:

the schoolmaster ceased to be the poor devil, the ill-paid varlet,

whom the peasant regarded with so much contempt when he thought of

the well-paid priest, who waxed fat on surplice fees and the presents

of the devout. The priest ceased to be a functionary, drawing pay

from the State revenue, supported both by the prefect and by the

bishop; and thus he lost the respect of the country-folk. They no

longer feared him; he was but a kind of chance sacristan, dependent

on a few remaining believers, who from time to time paid him for a

Mass. Again, the churches ceased to be State institutions, and became

theatres run on commercial lines, subsisting on the payments made

by the spectators, the last admirers of the ceremonies performed in

them. It was certain, too, that before long many would have to close

their doors, business already being so bad with some that they were

threatened with bankruptcy. And nothing could be more typical than the

position of that terrible Abbé Cognasse, whose outbursts of passion

had so long upset Le Moreux and Jonville. His numerous lawsuits had

remained famous; one could no longer count the number of times he

had been fined for pulling boys' ears, kicking women, and flinging

stones from his garden wall upon those passers who declined to make

the sign of the Cross. Nevertheless, he had retained his office amid

all the worries brought upon him by the citations he received, for he

was virtually irremovable and exercised a paid State function. When,

however, in consequence of the separation of Church and State, he

suddenly became merely the representative of an opinion, a belief,

when he ceased to receive State pay to impose that belief on others,

he lapsed into such nothingness that people no longer bowed to him. In

a few months' time he found himself almost alone in his church with

his old servant Palmyre, for, however much the latter might pull the

bell-rope with her shrivelled arms, only some five or six women still

came to Mass. A little later there were but three, and finally only one

came. She, fortunately, persevered, and the Abbé was pleased to be able

to celebrate the offices in her presence, for he feared lest he should

have the same deplorable experience at Jonville as he had encountered

at Le Moreux. During a period of three months he had gone every Sunday

to the latter village in order to say Mass without even being able to

get a child as server, so that he had been obliged to take his little

clerk with him from Jonville. And during those three months nobody had

come to worship; he had officiated in solitude in the dank, dark,

empty church. Naturally, he had ended by no longer returning thither,

and at present the closed church was rotting away and falling into

ruins. When, indeed, one of the functions of social life disappears,

the building and the man associated with it become useless and likewise

disappear. And in spite of the violent demeanour which Abbé Cognasse

still preserved, his great dread was that he might see his last

parishioner forsake him and his church closed, crumbling away amidst an

invading growth of brambles.

[Footnote 1: It will be understood that in the above passage M. Zola

anticipates events; but it may be remarked that the separation of

Church and State in France within a few years has never appeared more

likely than it does now (1902-3).--_Trans._]

At Maillebois the separation of Church and State had dealt a last blow

to the once prosperous School of the Christian Brothers. Victorious

over the secular school at the time of the Simon case, it had fallen

into increasing disfavour as the truth had gradually become manifest.

But with true clerical obstinacy it had been kept in existence even

when only four and five pupils could be recruited for it; and the new

laws and the dispersion of the community had been needed to close its

doors. The Church was now driven from the national educational service.

Henceforth to the sixteen hundred thousand children whom year by year

the Congregations had poisoned, a system of purely secular instruction

was to be applied. And the reform had spread from the primary to the

secondary establishments. Even the celebrated College of Valmarie,

already weakened by the expulsion of the Jesuits, was stricken unto

death by the great work of renovation which was in progress. The

principle of integral and gratuitous instruction for all citizens was

beginning to prevail. Why should there be two Frances? Why should

there be a lower class doomed to ignorance, and an upper class alone

endowed with instruction and culture? Was not this nonsense? Was it

not a fault, a danger in a democracy, all of whose children should be

called upon to increase the nation's sum of intelligence and strength?

In the near future all the children of France, united in a bond of

brotherliness, would begin their education in the primary schools,

and would thence pass into the secondary and the superior schools,

according to their aptitudes, their choice, and their tastes. This was

an urgent reform, a great work of salvation and glory, the necessity of

which was plainly indicated by the great contemporary social movement,

that downfall of the exhausted _bourgeoisie_ and the irresistible rise

of the masses, in whom quivered the energies of to-morrow. Henceforth

it was on them one would have to draw; and among them, as in some huge

reservoir of accumulated force, one would find the men of sense, truth,

and equity, who, in the name of happiness and peace, would build the

city of the future. But, as a first step, the bestowal of gratuitous

national education on all the children would finish killing off those

pretended free and voluntary schools, those hotbeds of clerical

infection, where the only work accomplished was a work of servitude

and death. And after the Brothers' school of Maillebois, now empty

and long since virtually dead, after the College of Valmarie, whose

buildings and grounds were shortly to be sold, the last religious

communities would soon disappear, together with all their teaching

establishments, their factories of divers kinds, and their princely

domains, which represented millions of money filched from human

imbecility and expended to maintain the human flock in subjection under

the slaughterer's knife.

Nevertheless, near the dismal Brothers' school of Maillebois, where the

shutters were closed and where spiders spun their webs in the deserted

classrooms, the Capuchin community maintained its chapel dedicated to

St. Antony, whose painted and gilded statue still stood there erect

in a place of honour. But in vain did Father Théodose, now very aged,

exert himself to invent some more extraordinary financial devices.

The zeal of the masses was exhausted, and only a few old devotees

occasionally slipped half-franc pieces into the dusty collection-boxes.

It was rumoured, indeed, that the saint had lost his power. He could

no longer even find lost things. One day, too, an old woman actually

climbed upon a chair in the chapel and slapped the cheeks of his statue

because, instead of healing her sick goat, he had allowed the animal

to die. Briefly, thanks to public good sense, aroused at last by the

acquirement of a little knowledge, one of the basest of superstitions

was dying.

Meantime, at the ancient and venerable parish church of St. Martin's,

Abbé Coquard, encountering much the same experience as Abbé Cognasse

at Jonville, found himself more and more forsaken, in such wise that

it seemed as if he would soon officiate in the solitude and darkness

of a necropolis. Unlike Cognasse, however, he evinced no violence.

Rigid, gloomy, and silent, he seemed to be leading religion to the

grave, preserving the while a sombre stubbornness, refusing to concede

anything whatever to the impious men of the age. In his distress he

more particularly sought refuge in the worship of the Sacred Heart,

decorating his church with all the flags which the neighbouring

parishes refused to keep--large red, white, and blue flags, on which

huge gory hearts were embroidered in silk and gold. One of his altars,

too, was covered with other hearts--of metal, porcelain, goffered

leather, and painted mill-board. Of all sizes were these, and one

might have thought them just plucked from some bosom, for they seemed

to be still warm, to palpitate and shed tears of blood, in such wise

that the altar looked like some butcher's gory stall. But that gross

re-incarnation no longer touched the masses, which had learnt that a

people stricken by disaster raises itself afresh by work and reason,

and not by penitence at the feet of monstrous idols. As religions grow

old and sink into carnal and base idolatries they seem to rot and

fritter away in mouldiness. If the Roman Church, however, was thus

at the last gasp, it was, as Abbé Quandieu had said, because it had

virtually committed suicide on the day when it had become an upholder

of iniquity and falsehood. How was it that it had not foreseen that by

siding with liars and forgers it must disappear with them, and share

the shame of their infamy on the inevitable day when the innocent and

the just would triumph in the full sunlight? Its real master was no

longer the Jesus of innocence, of gentleness and charity; it had openly

denied Him, driven Him from His temple; and all it retained was that

heart of flesh, that barbarous fetish with which it hoped to influence

the sick nerves of the poor in spirit. Laden with years and bitterness,

Abbé Quandieu had lately passed away repeating: 'They have for the

second time condemned and crucified the Lord--the Church will die of

it.' And dying it was.

Moreover, it was not passing away alone; the aristocratic and

_bourgeois_ classes, on which it had vainly sought to lean, were

collapsing also. All the ancient noble and military forces, even the

financial powers, were collapsing, stricken with madness and impotence,

since the reorganisation of the conditions of work had been leading to

an equitable distribution of the national wealth. Some characteristic

incidents which occurred at La Désirade showed what a wretched fate

fell on the whilom rich and powerful, whose millions flowed away like

water. Hector de Sanglebœuf lost his seat in the Chamber when the

electorate, enlightened and moralised by the new schools, at last rid

itself of all reactionary and violent representatives. But a greater

misfortune was the death of the Marchioness de Boise, that intelligent

and broad-minded woman who had so long promoted prosperity and peace

at La Désirade. When she was gone the vain and foolish Sanglebœuf

went altogether wrong, becoming a gambler, losing huge sums at play,

and descending to ignoble amours; with the result that he was one day

brought home beaten unmercifully--so battered, indeed, that three

days later he died; no complaint, however, being lodged with the

authorities, for fear of all the mud which would soil his memory if the

real facts of his death were brought to light.

His wife, the once beautiful and indolent Léa, the pious and ever

sleepy Marie of later times, then remained alone amid the splendours

of that large estate. When her father, Baron Nathan, the millionaire

Jew banker, suddenly died after being confined by paralysis to his

sumptuous mansion in the Champs Élysées, he had long ceased to see

her; and he left her as little as possible of his fortune, slices

of which had already gone to all sorts of aristocratic charitable

enterprises, and even to certain ladies of society who, during the

final years of his life, had procured him the illusion of imagining

that he had become really one of their set, and was quite cleansed of

all his Jewry. However, his supine and indolent daughter, who had never

known a passion in her life, not even one for money, paid due honour

to his memory, even ordering Masses to be said for his soul, by way

of compelling heaven to admit him within its precincts; for, as she

often repeated, he had rendered quite enough services to Catholicism to

be entitled to a place on the Deity's right hand. And now, having no

children, Léa led a lonely life at La Désirade, which remained empty

and deathly, enclosed on every side by walls and railings, which shut

out the public as if it were some forbidden paradise. Yet there were

rumours to the effect that, on the closing of the College of Valmarie,

the Countess had granted an asylum to her old friend Father Crabot, who

had now reached a very great age. His removal to La Désirade was said

by some to be a mere change of cell, for in an ascetic spirit he was

content to occupy a little garret formerly assigned to a servant, and

furnished with merely an iron bedstead, a deal table, and a rush-seated

chair. But he none the less reigned over the estate, as if he were

its sovereign master; the only visitors being a few priests and other

clerics, who came to take counsel of him, and whose gowns might be

seen occasionally gliding between the clumps of verdure or past the

marble basins and their plashing waters. Though his ninetieth year

was past, Crabot, ever a conqueror of women, a bewitcher of pious

souls, repeated the triumphant stroke of his earlier days. He had

lost Valmarie, that royal gift, which he had owed to the love of the

Countess de Quédeville, but he won La Désirade from the good grace

of that ever-beautiful Léa, whom he so fervently called 'my sister

Marie in Jesus Christ.' As manager and almoner he set his hands on her

fortune, financing all sorts of religious enterprises, and subscribing

lavishly to the funds which the reactionary parties established for the

purpose of carrying on their desperate campaign against the Republic

and its institutions. And thus, when the Countess was found dead on her

couch one evening, looking as if in her indolence she had just fallen

asleep, she was ruined; her millions had all passed into the cash-boxes

of the Black Band, and there only remained the estate of La Désirade,

which was willed to Father Crabot on the one condition that he should

there establish some such Christian enterprise as he might choose to

select.

But these were merely the last convulsions of an expiring world. All

Maillebois was now passing into the hands of those Socialists whom the

pious dames of other times had pictured as bandits, cut-throats, and

footpads. That whilom clerical centre had now gone so completely over

to the cause of reason that not a single reactionary member remained

in its Municipal Council. Both Philis, once the priests' mayor, and

Darras, the so-called traitors' mayor, were dead, and the latter,

who was remembered as a man of weak, timorous, hesitating mind, had

been replaced by a mayor of great good sense and industrious energy;

this being Jules Savin, the younger brother of the twins, those

mediocrities, Achille and Philippe. Jules, after marrying a peasant

girl named Rosalie Bonin, had worked most courageously, in fifteen

years establishing an admirable model farm, which had revolutionised

the agricultural methods of the region and greatly increased its

wealth. He was now barely more than forty years old, and rather

stubborn by nature, for he only yielded to substantial arguments which

tended to the general good. And it was under his presidency that the

Municipal Council at last found itself called upon to examine a scheme

for offering some public reparation to Simon--that idea which had

slumbered for a few years, and which now awoke once more.

The subject had frequently been mentioned to Marc, who, indeed, could

never come to Maillebois without encountering somebody who spoke to him

about it. In this respect he was particularly moved one day when he

happened to meet Adrien Doloir, a son of his former pupil Auguste by

his wife Angèle. Adrien, after studying successfully under Joulic, had

become an architect of great merit, and though barely eight and twenty

years of age, had been lately elected to the Municipal Council; of

which, indeed, he was the youngest member, one whose schemes were said

to be somewhat bold, though none the less practical.

'Ah! my dear Monsieur Froment, how pleased I am to meet you!' he

exclaimed as he accosted Marc. 'It so happens that I wished to go over

to Jonville to speak to you.'

Like all the young men of the new generation, who loved and venerated

Marc as a patriarch, as one of the great workers of the heroic times,

Adrien addressed him most deferentially, standing uncovered, with his

hat in his hand. Personally, he had only been a pupil of Marc for a

very brief period, when he was very young indeed; but his brother and

his uncles had all grown up in the old master's class.

'What do you desire of me, my dear lad?' inquired Marc, who felt both

brightened and moved whenever he met any of his former boys or their

children.

'Well, it is like this. Can you tell me if it is true that the Simon

family will soon return to Maillebois? It is said that Simon and

his brother David have decided to quit the Pyrenees and settle here

again.... Is it true? You must be well acquainted with their views.'

'Such is certainly their intention,' Marc responded with his pleasant

smile. 'But I do not think one can expect them till next year; for,

though they have found a purchaser for their marble quarry, they are to

carry it on for another twelvemonth. Besides, a variety of matters will

have to be settled, and they themselves cannot yet tell exactly how and

when they will install themselves here.'

'But if we have only a year before us,' exclaimed Adrien with

sudden excitement, 'we shall barely have the necessary time for the

realisation of a plan I have formed.... I wish to submit it to you

before doing anything decisive. What day would be convenient for me to

call on you at Jonville?'

Marc, who intended to spend the day at Maillebois with his daughter

Louise, pointed out that it would be preferable to profit by this

opportunity, and Adrien assenting, it was eventually arranged that he

should call at the latter's house in the afternoon. This house was a

pleasant dwelling, built by Adrien himself on one of the fields of

the farm which had belonged to the old Bongards, in the outskirts of

Maillebois. They had long been dead, and the property had remained

in the hands of Fernand, the father of Claire, to whom Adrien was

married. Thus many memories arose in Marc's mind when, with a still

firm and brave step, he walked past the old farm-buildings on his way

to the architect's little house. Had he not repaired to that same

spot forty years previously--on the very day, indeed, of Simon's

arrest--with the object of collecting information in his friend's

favour? In imagination Marc again accosted Bongard, the stoutly built

and narrow-minded peasant, and his bony and suspicious wife, and found

them both stubbornly determined to say nothing, for fear lest they

might compromise themselves. He well remembered that he had been unable

to extract anything from them, incapable as they were of any act of

justice, since they knew nothing and would learn nothing, being, so to

say, only so much brute matter steeped in a thick layer of ignorance.

With a sigh, Marc passed on and rang at the gate of Adrien's house. The

young architect was awaiting him under an old apple tree, whose strong

branches, laden with fruit, sheltered a few garden chairs and a table.

'Ah, master!' Adrien exclaimed, 'what an honour you do me by coming to

sit here for a little while! But I have another favour to ask of you.

You must kiss my little Georgette, for it will bring her good luck!'

Beside Adrien was Claire, his wife, a smiling blonde, scarcely in her

twenty-fourth year, with a limpid face and eyes all intelligence and

kindness. It was she who presented the little girl, a pretty child,

fair like her mother, and already very knowing for her five years.

'You must remember, my treasure, that Monsieur Froment has kissed you,

for it will make you glorious all your life!'

'Oh, I know, mamma! I often hear you talk of him,' said Georgette. 'It

is as if a little of the sun came down to see me.'

At this the others began to laugh; but all at once Claire's father and

mother, Fernand Bongard and his wife Lucille, made their appearance,

having heard that the old schoolmaster intended to call, and wishing to

show him some politeness. Although Fernand, with his hard nut, had been

anything but a satisfactory pupil in bygone years, Marc was pleased to

see him once more. The farmer, now near his fiftieth year, still looked

very dull and heavy, as if he were scarcely awake, and his manner

remained an uneasy one.

'Well, Fernand,' Marc said to him, 'you ought to be pleased; this has

been a good year for the grain crops.'

'Yes, Monsieur Froment, there's some truth in that. But the year's

never a really good one. When things go well in one respect they go

badly in another. And, besides, I never had any luck, you know.'

His wife, whose mind was sharper than his, thereupon ventured to

intervene. 'He says that, Monsieur Froment, because he always used to

be the last of his class, and because he imagines that a spell was cast

on him by some gipsy when he was quite a little child. A spell, indeed!

As if there were any sense in such an idea! It would be different if he

believed in the devil, for there is a devil sure enough. Mademoiselle

Rouzaire, whose best pupil I was, showed him to me one day, a short

time before my first Communion.'

Then, as Claire made merry over this statement, and even little

Georgette laughed very irreverently at the idea of there being any

such thing as a devil, Lucille continued: 'Oh! I know that you believe

in nothing. None of the young folks of nowadays have any religious

principles left. Mademoiselle Mazeline made strong-minded women of

you all. Nevertheless, one evening, as I well remember, Mademoiselle

Rouzaire showed us a shadow passing over the wall, and told us it was

the devil. And it was, indeed!'

Adrien, somewhat embarrassed by his mother-in-law's chatter, now

interrupted her, and addressed Marc on the subject of his visit. They

had all seated themselves, Claire taking Georgette on her lap, while

her father and mother kept a little apart from the others, the former

smoking his pipe and the latter knitting a stocking.

'Well, master, this is the question,' said Adrien. 'Many young people

of the district feel that great dishonour will rest on the name of

Maillebois as long as the town has not repaired, as well as it can, the

frightful iniquity which it allowed, and in which, indeed, it became

an accomplice, when Simon was condemned. His legal acquittal does not

suffice; for us--the children and grandchildren of the persecutors--it

is a duty to confess and efface the transgression of our forerunners.

Yesterday evening, at my father's house, on seeing my grandfather and

my uncles there, I again asked them: "How was it that you ever allowed

such stupid and monstrous iniquity, when the exercise of a little

reason ought to have sufficed to prevent it?" And, as usual, they made

vague gestures and answered that they did not know, that they could not

know.'

Silence fell, and all eyes turned towards Fernand, who belonged to the

incriminated generations. But he likewise rid himself of the question

by taking his pipe from his mouth and gesticulating in an embarrassed

way, while he remarked: 'Well, to be sure, we didn't know--how could we

have known? My father and mother could scarcely sign their names, and

they were not so imprudent as to meddle in their neighbours' affairs,

for they might have got punished for it. And though I had learnt rather

more than they had, I wasn't learned by any means; and so I distrusted

the whole business, for a man does not care to risk his skin and his

money when he feels he is ignorant.... To you young men nowadays it

seems very easy to be brave and wise, because you've been well taught.

But I should have liked to have seen you as we were--with no means of

telling right from wrong, with our minds at sea amid a lot of affairs

in which nobody could distinguish anything certain.'

'That's true,' said Lucille. 'I never thought myself a fool, but all

the same I could not understand much of that business, and I tried not

to think of it, for my mother was always repeating that poor folk ought

not to meddle with the affairs of the rich, unless they wanted to get

poorer still.'

Marc had listened with silent gravity. All the past came back: he heard

old Bongard and his wife refuse to answer him, like the illiterate

peasants they were, whose one desire was to continue toiling and

moiling in quietude; and he also remembered Fernand's demeanour on the

morrow of the trial at Rozan, when he had still shrugged his shoulders,

still persisted in his desire to know nothing. How many years and what

prolonged teaching of human reason and civic courage had been needed

before a new generation had at last opened its eyes to truth, dared to

recognise and admit it! And as Marc looked at Fernand he began to nod,

as if to say that he thought the farmer's excuses good ones; for he was

already inclined to forgive those persecutors whose ignorance had been

the chief cause of their crime. And he ended by smiling at Georgette,

in whom, on the other hand, the future seemed to be flowering, as she

sat there with her beautiful eyes wide open and her keen ears on the

alert, waiting, one might have thought, for some fine story.

'And so, master,' Adrien resumed, 'my plan is a very simple one. As you

are aware, some great improvements have been effected at Maillebois

lately, with the view of rendering the old quarter of the town more

salubrious. An avenue has replaced those sewers, the Rue Plaisir and

the Rue Fauche, while on the site of the filthy Rue du Trou is a

recreation-ground, which the children of the neighbourhood fill with

their play and their laughter. Well, among the building land in front

of that square is the very spot on which stood old Lehmann's wretched

house, that house of mourning, which our forerunners used to stone. It

is my idea, then, to propose to the Municipal Council the erection of

a new house on that site--not a palace, but a modest, bright, cheerful

dwelling, which might be offered to Simon, so that he might end his

days in it encompassed by the respect and affection of everybody. The

gift would have no great pecuniary value--it would simply represent

delicate and brotherly homage.'

Tears had risen to the eyes of Marc, who was greatly touched by the

kind thought thus bestowed on his old friend, the persecuted, innocent

man.

'Do you approve of my idea?' inquired Adrien, who on his side was

stirred by the sight of Marc's emotion.

The old schoolmaster rose and embraced him: 'Yes, my lad, I approve of

it, and I owe you one of the greatest joys of my life.'

'Thank you, master. But that is not everything. Wait a moment. I wish

to show you a plan of the house, which I have already prepared, for I

should like to direct the work gratuitously, and I feel certain that I

should find contractors and men prepared to undertake the building at

very low rates.'

He withdrew for a moment, and on returning with the plan he spread it

out upon the garden-table, under the old apple tree. And everybody

approached and leant over to examine it. The house, such as it had been

depicted, was, indeed, a very simple but also a very pleasant one, two

storeys high, with a white frontage, and a garden enclosed by some iron

railings. Above the entrance a marble slab was figured.

'Is there to be an inscription, then?' Marc inquired.

'Certainly; the house is intended for one. This is what I shall suggest

to the Council: "Presented by the Town of Maillebois to Schoolmaster

Simon, in the name of Truth and Justice, and in reparation for

the torture inflicted on him." And the whole will be signed: "The

Grandchildren of his Persecutors."'

With gestures of protest and anxiety Fernand and Lucille glanced at

their daughter Claire. Surely that was going too far! She must not let

her husband compromise himself to such a point! But Claire, who was

leaning lovingly against Adrien's shoulder, smiled, and responded to

the consternation of her parents by saying: 'I helped to prepare the

inscription, Monsieur Froment; I should like that to be known.'

'Oh! I will make it known, you may depend on it,' Marc answered gaily.

'But the inscription must be accepted, and, first of all, there is the

question of the house.'

'Quite so,' replied Adrien. 'I wished to show you my plan with the view

of securing your approval and help. The question of the expense will

hardly affect the Council. I am more apprehensive of certain scruples,

some last attempts at resistance, inspired by the old spirit. Though

the members of the Council are nowadays all convinced of Simon's

innocence, some of them are timid men, who will only yield to the force

of public opinion. And our Mayor, Jules Savin, has said to me, truly

enough, that it is essential the scheme should be voted unanimously on

the day it is brought forward.'

Then, as a fresh idea occurred to him, Adrien added: 'Do you know,

master, as you have been good enough to come so far, you ought to cap

your kindness by accompanying me to Jules Savin's at once. He was a

pupil of yours, and I feel certain that our cause would make great

progress if you would only have a short chat with him.'

'I will do so willingly,' Marc answered. 'Let us start; I will go

wherever you like.'

Fernand and Lucille protested no longer. She had returned to her

knitting, while he, pulling at his pipe, relapsed into the indifference

of a dullard unable to understand the new times. Claire, however,

suddenly had to defend the plan from the enterprising hands of little

Georgette, who wished to appropriate 'the pretty picture.' Then, as

Marc and Adrien made ready to go, there came more embraces, handshakes,

and laughter.

The farm of Les Amettes, where Jules Savin resided, was on the other

side of Maillebois, and in order to reach it Marc and the young

architect had to pass the new recreation-ground. For a moment,

therefore, they paused before the plot of land on which the architect

proposed to build the projected house.

'You see,' said he, 'all the requirements for a house will be found

united here----'

But he broke off on seeing a stout and smiling man approach him. 'Why,

here's uncle Charles!' he exclaimed. 'I say, uncle, when we build the

house for Simon the martyr, which I have told you about, you will

undertake to provide all the locksmith's work at cost price, will you

not?'

'Well, I don't mind, my boy, if it pleases you,' said Charles Doloir.

'And I'll do it also for your sake, Monsieur Froment, for it pains me

at times to think of how I used to worry you.'

Charles, after marrying Marthe Dupuis, his employer's daughter, had for

a long time been managing the business. He had a son named Marcel, who

was about the same age as Adrien, and who, having married a carpenter's

daughter, Laure Dumont, had become a contractor for house carpentry.

'I am going to your father's,' Charles resumed, addressing his nephew;

'I have an appointment with Marcel about some work. Come with me,

for if you build this house you will have some work to give them as

well.... And you will come also, Monsieur Froment? It will please you,

perhaps, to meet some more of your old pupils.'

'Yes, indeed it will,' Marc answered gaily. 'Besides, we shall be able

to settle the specifications.'

'The specifications! Oh! we have not got to that point yet,' Adrien

retorted. 'Moreover, my father isn't an enthusiast.... But no matter;

I'll go to see him.'

Auguste Doloir, thanks to the friendly protection of Darras; the former

mayor, had become a building contractor in a small way. After his

father's death he had taken his mother to live with him, and since the

demolition of the Rue Plaisir he had been residing in the new avenue,

where he occupied a ground floor flanked by a large yard, in which he

stored some of his materials. The lodging was very clean, very healthy,

and full of sunlight.

When Marc found himself in the bright dining-room, face to face with

Madame Doloir the elder, some more memories of the past returned

to him. The old woman, now sixty-nine years old, had retained the

demeanour of a good and prudent housewife, one who was instinctively

conservative, and allowed neither her husband nor her children to

compromise themselves by dabbling in politics. Marc also recalled

her husband, Doloir the mason, that big, fair, ignorant fellow,

good-natured in his way, but spoilt by barrack-life, haunted as he was

by idiotic notions of the army being disorganised by those who knew no

country, and of France being sold to the foreigners by the Jews. One

day, unfortunately, he had been brought home dead on a stretcher, after

falling from a scaffolding; and it seemed as if he had been drinking

previously, though Madame Doloir would not acknowledge it, for she was

one of those who never admit the existence of family failings.

On perceiving Marc she at once said to him: 'Ah! monsieur, we are no

longer young; we are very old acquaintances indeed. Auguste and Charles

were not more than eight and six years old when I first saw you.'

'Quite so, madame; I well remember it. I called on you, on behalf of

my colleague Simon, to ask you to let your boys tell the truth if they

should be questioned.'

At this, though the case was now such a very old one, Madame Doloir

became grave and suspicious. 'That affair was no concern of ours,' she

answered, 'and I acted rightly in refusing to let it enter our home,

for it did great harm to many people.'

Charles, however, perceiving his brother Auguste in the yard with

Marcel, ready for the appointment, now called him into the room: 'Come

here a moment; I've brought somebody to see you. Besides, your son

Adrien is here, and wants to give us an order.'

Auguste, who was as tall and sturdy as his father had been, pressed

Marc's hand vigorously. 'Ah, Monsieur Froment,' said he, 'we often

talk about you--Charles and I--when we remember our school-days! I was

a very bad pupil, and I've regretted it at times. Yet I hope I haven't

disgraced you too much; and, in any case, my son Adrien is becoming

a man after your own heart.' Then he added, laughing: 'I know what

Adrien's order is! Yes, indeed, the house which he wants to build for

your friend Simon!... All the same, a house is perhaps a good deal to

give to an ex-convict.'

In spite of the bantering _bonhomie_ of Auguste's tone, Marc felt

grieved by that last remark. 'Do you still think Simon guilty?' he

inquired. 'At one time you became convinced of his innocence. But you

began to doubt it again after that monstrous trial at Rozan.'

'Well, of course, Monsieur Froment, one feels impressed when a man is

found guilty by two juries in succession.... But no! I no longer say

that he was the culprit. And besides, at bottom it is all one to us. We

are even quite willing that a present should be made to him, if by that

means the affair can be brought to an end once and for all, so that we

shall never have it dinned into our ears again. Isn't that so, brother?'

'That's correct,' responded Charles. 'If those big fellows were

listened to, we ourselves should be the only real criminals, on the

ground that we tolerated the injustice. It vexes me. There must be an

end to it all!'

The two cousins, Adrien and Marcel, who took an equally passionate

interest in the affair, laughed triumphantly. 'So it is settled!'

exclaimed Marcel, as he tapped his father on the shoulder. 'You will

take charge of the locksmith's work, uncle Auguste of the masonry,

and I of the timber work. In that way your share in the crime, as you

put it, will be repaired. And we will never mention the matter to you

again, we swear it!'

Adrien was laughing and nodding his approval when old Madame Doloir,

who had remained standing there, stiff and silent, intervened in her

obstinate way. 'Auguste and Charles,' said she, 'have nothing to

repair. It will never be known whether Schoolmaster Simon was guilty

or not. We little folk ought never to poke our noses into affairs

which only concern the Government. And I pity you boys--yes, both of

you, Adrien and Marcel--if you imagine that you are strong enough to

change things. You fancy that you now know everything, whereas you

know nothing at all.... For instance, my poor dead husband, your

grandfather, knew that a general meeting of all the Jew millionaires

was held in Paris, in a subterranean gallery near the fortifications,

every Saturday, when it was decided what sums should be paid to the

traitors who betrayed France to Germany. And he knew the story to be a

true one, for it had been told him by his own captain, who vouched for

it on his honour.'

Marc gazed at the old woman in wonderment, for it was as if he had

been carried forty years back. He recognised in her tale one of those

extraordinary stories which Doloir the mason had picked up while he was

soldiering. For their part, Auguste and Charles had listened to the

anecdote in quite a serious way, without any sign of embarrassment, for

it was amid similar imbecilities that they had spent their childhood.

But neither Adrien nor Marcel could refrain from smiling, however great

might be their affectionate deference for their grandmother.

'The Jew syndicate in a cellar! Ah, what an idea, grandmother!' said

Adrien softly. 'There are no more Jews, for there will soon be no more

Catholics... The disappearance of the Churches means the end of all

religious warfare.'

Then, as his mother now came into the room, he went to kiss her. Angèle

Bongard, who had married Auguste Doloir when a shrewd young peasant

girl, had largely contributed to her husband's success, though she

had no very exceptional gifts. She now at once asked for news of her

brother Fernand, her sister-in-law Lucille, and their daughter Claire,

Who had married her son. Then the whole family became interested in the

latest addition to its number, this being a baby-boy named Célestin, to

whom Marcel's wife had given birth a fortnight previously.

'You see, Monsieur Froment,' remarked old Madame Doloir, 'I have become

a great-grandmother for the second time; after Georgette has come this

little fellow, Célestin. My younger son, Léon, also has a big boy,

Edmond, now twelve years old; but he is only my grandson, so with him I

don't seem to be quite so old.'

The old woman was becoming amiable--anxious, it seemed, to efface the

recollection of her former stiffness, for she continued: 'And, by the

way, Monsieur Froment, we never seem to agree; but there is one thing

for which I really have to thank you, and that is for having almost

compelled me to make Léon a schoolmaster. I didn't care for that

profession, for it seemed to me hardly a tempting one; but you took all

sorts of pains; you gave lessons to Léon, and now, though he's not yet

forty, he already has a good position.'

She had become, indeed, very proud of her youngest son, Léon, who had

lately succeeded Sébastien Milhomme in the headmastership of a school

at Beaumont, Sébastien having been appointed director of the Training

College. The schoolmistress whom Léon had married, Juliette Hochard,

had also been transferred to Beaumont, there taking the former post of

Mademoiselle Rouzaire; and their eldest son, Edmond, now a pupil at the

Lycée, was studying brilliantly.

Well pleased at seeing his grandmother so amiable with Marc, Adrien

kissed her, and then said jestingly: 'That's very nice of you,

grandmother; you are now on Monsieur Froment's side. And, do you know,

on the day when Simon returns we will choose you to offer him a bouquet

at the railway station.'

But she again became grave and suspicious. 'Ah, no; not that; certainly

not! I don't want to get myself into trouble. You young men are mad

with your new ideas!'

After a merry leave-taking, Adrien and Marc at last retired in order

to make their way to Jules Savin's. The model farm of Les Amettes

spread over some two hundred and fifty acres in the outskirts of

Maillebois, just beyond the new district. Jules, after his mother's

death, had given a home to his father, the former petty clerk, who was

now seventy-one years old; and he had been obliged to do the same for

his elder brother, Achille, one of the twins, who, after being for

many years a clerk like his father, had been suddenly stricken with

paralysis. Philippe, the other twin, and at one time the partner of

Jules, was now dead.

It so happened that Marc had become a connection of this family by

reason of the marriage of his son Clément with Charlotte, the daughter

of Hortense Savin, who had died some years previously. But the marriage

had taken place somewhat against Marc's desires, and thus, while

allowing Clément all latitude to follow the dictates of his heart, he

had preferred personally to hold aloof. He was too broad-minded to make

Charlotte responsible for the flighty conduct of her mother, who, after

being led astray in her sixteenth year and marrying her seducer, had

ended by eloping with another lover, meeting at last with a wretched

death in some other part of France. And thus, while imputing nothing

to her daughter, Marc harboured certain prejudices against the Savin

family generally, and, whatever alacrity he had professed, it had been

necessary for him to do violence to his feelings when Adrien had begged

him to go to Les Amettes.

As it happened Jules was not at home, but his return was expected every

moment. In the meantime the visitors found themselves in the presence

of Savin senior, who was watching over his son Achille in a little

sitting-room, where the paralysed man now spent his life in an armchair

placed near the window. Directly Savin senior caught sight of Marc he

raised a cry of surprise: 'Ah! Monsieur Froment,' said he, 'I thought

you were angry with me. Well, it is kind of you to call.'

He was still as thin and as puny as ever, still racked, too, by a

dreadful cough, yet he had contrived to survive his fresh, pretty, and

plump wife, whom, indeed, he had killed by dint of daily vexations

inspired by his bitter jealousy.

'Angry?' Marc quietly responded. 'Why should I be angry with you,

Monsieur Savin?'

'Oh! because our ideas have never been the same,' said the ex-clerk.

'Your son may have married my granddaughter, but that does not suffice

to reconcile our opinions.... For instance, you and your friends are

now driving away all the priests and monks, which I regard as very

unfortunate, for it will only lead to an increase of immorality. Heaven

knows that I don't like those gentry, for I am an old Republican, a

Socialist--yes, a Socialist, Monsieur Froment! But then, women and

children need the threats of religion to check them from evil courses,

as I have never grown tired of saying.'

An involuntary smile escaped Marc as he listened. Religion a police

service!' said he; 'I know your theory. But how can religion exercise

any power when people no longer believe, and there is no longer any

reason to fear the priests?'

'No longer a reason to fear them!' cried Savin. 'Good Heavens! you are

much mistaken. I myself have always been one of their victims. If I

had sided with them, do you think that I should have vegetated all my

life in a little office, and now be a charge on my son Jules, after

losing my wife, who was killed by all sorts of privations? And my son

Achille, whom you see here, so grievously afflicted--he again is a

victim of the priests. I ought to have sent him to a seminary, and he

would now be a prefect or a judge, instead of having contracted all

sorts of aches and pains in a horrible office, which he left unable

to use either his legs or his arms, so that now he cannot even take a

basin of soup unassisted.... The priests are dirty scamps; is it not

so, Achille? But all the same, it is better to have them on one's side

than against one.'

The cripple, who had greeted his old master with a friendly nod, now

remarked slowly, his speech being already impeded by paralysis: 'The

priests long controlled the weather, no doubt; nevertheless, one is

beginning to do without them very well.' Then, with something like a

sneer, he added: 'And so it has become easy enough to settle their

account, and play the judge.'

As he spoke he looked at Adrien, for whom that uncomplimentary allusion

was doubtless intended. Achille's unfortunate position, the death of

his wife, and a quarrel which had arisen between him and his daughter

Léontine, who was married to a Beaumont ironmonger, had embittered

his nature. And deeming his allusion insufficient, wishing to be more

precise, he continued: 'You will remember, Monsieur Froment, that I

told you I was still convinced of Simon's innocence at the time when

he was recondemned at Rozan. But what could I do? Could I have made

a revolution by myself? No, of course not; so it was best to remain

silent.... Nevertheless, I now see a number of young gentlemen calling

us cowards, and trying to give us a lesson by raising triumphal arches

to the martyr. It is brave work indeed!'

On being challenged in this fashion Adrien immediately understood

that Jules Savin must have spoken of the great plan. And instead of

losing his temper he strove to be very amiable and conciliatory: 'Oh!

everybody is brave on becoming just,' he replied. 'I know very well,

monsieur, that you were always among the reasonable folk, and I confess

that some members of my own family showed even greater blindness and

obstinacy than others. But to-day the general desire ought to be to

unite, so that all may mingle in the same flame of solidarity and

justice.'

Savin senior, who had been listening with an air of stupefaction,

now suddenly understood why Marc and Adrien were there, awaiting the

return of his son Jules. At the outset he had attributed their visit

to politeness only. 'Ah! of course, you have come about that stupid

scheme for offering reparation,' said he. 'Well, like those relatives

you speak of, I have nothing to do with that business! No, indeed! My

son Jules will act as he pleases, of course; but that will not prevent

me from keeping my own opinion.... The Jews, monsieur, the Jews, always

the Jews!'

Adrien looked at him, in his turn full of stupefaction. The Jews,

indeed! Why did he speak of the Jews! Anti-Semitism was dead--to such

a degree, indeed, that the new generation failed to understand what

was meant when people accused the Jews of every crime. As Adrien had

said to his grandmother, Madame Doloir, there were no Jews left, since

only citizens, freed from the tyranny of dogmas, remained. It was

essentially the Roman Church which had exploited anti-Semitism, in the

hope of thereby winning back the incredulous masses; and anti-Semitism

had disappeared when that Church sank into the darkness of expiring

religions.

Marc had followed the scene with great interest, comparing the past

with the present, recalling the incidents and the words of forty years

ago, the better to discern the moral of those of to-day. However, Jules

Savin at last came in, accompanied by his son Robert, a tall youth of

sixteen, whom he was already initiating into the farmwork. And directly

he learnt the purpose of his visitors he appeared to be much touched,

and addressing Marc with great deference, exclaimed:

'Monsieur Froment, you cannot doubt my desire to be agreeable to you.

We all regard you nowadays as a just and venerable master. Besides,

as my friend Adrien must have told you, I am in no sense opposed to

his plan. On the contrary, I will employ all the authority I possess

to second it, for I am entirely of his opinion. Maillebois will only

regain its honour when it has offered reparation for its fault....

Only, I repeat it, there must be absolute unanimity in the Municipal

Council. I am working in that sense, and I beg you to do the same.'

Then, as his father began to sneer, Jules said to him, smiling: 'Come,

don't pretend to be so hard-headed; you admitted Simon's innocence to

me the other day.'

'His innocence? Oh! I don't dispute that. I also am innocent, but

nobody builds me a house.'

'You have mine,' Jules retorted somewhat roughly.

At bottom it was precisely that circumstance which hurt Savin's

feelings. The hospitality he received at his son's house, the fate that

had befallen him of ending his days peacefully, in the home of one who

had succeeded by dint of great personal efforts, gave the lie to his

everlasting recriminations, the regret he was always expressing at not

having sided with the priests in spite of the hatred with which he

regarded them. Thus, losing his temper, he cried: 'Well, if you choose

you can build a cathedral for your Simon! It won't matter to me, for I

shall stay at home.'

Then Achille, who, tortured by the pains in his legs, had just raised a

pitiful moan, exclaimed: 'Alas! I shall stay at home as well. But if I

were not nailed to this armchair I would willingly go with you, my dear

Jules, for I belong to the generation which did not, perhaps, do all

its duty, but which was not ignorant of it, and is ready to do it now.'

After those words Marc and Adrien withdrew, delighted, feeling certain

of success. And when Marc found himself alone again, returning to his

daughter Louise by way of the broad thoroughfares of the new district,

he summed up all he had just seen and heard; the far-off memories,

which at the same time returned to him, enabling him to gauge the

distance which had been travelled during the last forty years. The

whole story of his life, his efforts and his triumph, was spread out,

and he felt that he had been right in former days, when he had said

that if France did not protest and rise to do justice in the Simon

case, it was because she was steeped in too much ignorance, because she

was debased and poisoned by religious imbecility and malice, because

she was kept in childish superstitions and notions by a Press given

over to lucre, scandal, and blackmailing. And, in the same way, a clear

intuition had come to him of the only possible remedy--instruction,

education, which would liberate one and all, endow them with solidarity

and the intelligent bravery of life, by killing falsehood, destroying

error, sweeping away the senseless dogmas of the Church, with its

hell, its heaven, and its doctrines of social death. That was what

Marc had desired, and that, indeed, was the work which was being

accomplished--the liberation of the people by the primary schools, the

rescue of all citizens from the state of iniquity in which they had

been plunged, in order that they might at last become capable of truth

and justice.

But it was particularly a feeling of appeasement which now came over

Marc. Only forgiveness, tolerance, and kindliness surged from his

heart. In former times he had greatly suffered, and he had often felt

passionately angry with men on seeing with what stupid cruelty they

behaved, and how obstinately they persisted in evil. At present,

however, he could not forget the words spoken by Fernand Bongard and

Achille Savin. They had tolerated injustice, no doubt; but as they

now said, this was because they had not known, and because they had

not felt strong enough to contend with that injustice. The slumber of

their intelligence could not be imputed to the disinherited scions

of ignorance as a crime. And Marc willingly forgave one and all; he

no longer harboured any rancour even against the obstinate ones, who

refused to open their minds to facts; he would simply have liked the

festival planned for Simon's return to become a festival of general

reconciliation, one in which the whole of Maillebois would embrace

and mingle in brotherly concord, resolving to work henceforth for the

happiness of all.

On reaching Louise's quarters at the school, where Geneviève had

awaited him, and where they were to dine in company with Clément,

Charlotte, and Lucienne, Marc was pleased to find that Sébastien and

Sarah were also there, having just arrived from Beaumont to share the

meal. Indeed, it was a general family gathering, and several leaves had

to be added to the table. There were Marc and Geneviève; then Clément

and Charlotte, with their daughter Lucienne, who was already seven

years old; then Joseph Simon and Louise; then Sébastien Milhomme and

Sarah; then François Simon, Joseph's son, and Thérèse Milhomme, Sarah's

daughter, two cousins who had married, and who were already the parents

of a little two-year-old named Rose. Altogether they made a dozen, full

of health and appetite.

Acclamations arose when Marc recounted his afternoon, describing

Adrien's plan and expressing his belief in its success. Joseph alone

felt doubtful, for he was not convinced, he said, of the Mayor's

favourable disposition. But Charlotte immediately intervened. 'You are

mistaken,' she exclaimed; 'my uncle Jules is altogether on our side....

We can rely on him. He is the only one of the family who ever showed me

any kindness.'

Charlotte, it should be said, had become dependent on her grandfather,

Savin senior, at the time when her mother had eloped, for it had

become necessary to place her father in an asylum on account of the

alcoholism to which he had given way. The girl had then experienced

much suffering, being often cuffed and sparsely fed. Savin, who seemed

oblivious of the deplorable result of the pious hypocrisy in which his

daughter Hortense had been reared by Mademoiselle Rouzaire, accused

his grandchild of being an atheist, a rebel, full of deplorable ways,

which were due to the teaching of Mademoiselle Mazeline. As a matter of

fact, however, Charlotte was delightful, free from all false prudery,

and gifted with healthy uprightness, sense, and tenderness. And Clément

having married her in spite of all obstacles, they had since lived

together in the happiest and the closest of unions.

'Charlotte is right,' said Marc, who also desired to defend Jules

Savin; 'the Mayor is on our side. But the best of all is that, among

the contractors for the house which it is proposed to present to Simon,

there will be the two Doloirs, Auguste the mason and Charles the

locksmith; besides which, by their ties of relationship, even Fernand

Bongard and Achille Savin will be indirectly concerned in it.... Ah!

Sébastien, my friend, who would have thought that would come to pass in

the days when you and those fine fellows attended my school?'

At this sally Sébastien Milhomme began to laugh; though his mood was

scarcely a cheerful one, for a recent family loss, a very tragical

affair, had affected him painfully. During the previous spring his

aunt, Madame Edouard, had died, leaving the stationery business to her

sister-in-law, Madame Alexandre. Her son Victor having disappeared,

she had of recent years seemed to waste away, no longer attending to

the business, in which she had once taken such a passionate interest,

and feeling, indeed, quite at sea amidst those new times, which

she altogether failed to understand. Madame Alexandre on remaining

alone had continued carrying on the business, for she did not wish

to inconvenience her son Sébastien, though the latter's position

was becoming extremely good. One evening, however, Victor suddenly

reappeared, emerging hungry and sordid from the depths in which he had

been leading a crapulous life. He had heard of his mother's death, and

he instantly demanded that the business should be put up for sale and

the old partnership liquidated, in order that he might carry off his

share of the proceeds. Such, then, was the end of the little shop in

the Rue Courte, where many generations of schoolboys had purchased

their copybooks and their pens. For a short time Victor showed himself

here and there in Maillebois, leading a merry life, almost invariably

in the company of his old chum, Polydor Souquet, who had fallen to

the gutter. One evening Marc, having to cross a street of ill-repute,

caught sight of them with another man, whose black figure strikingly

resembled that of Brother Gorgias. And finally, barely a week before

the family dinner given by Louise, the police had found a man lying

dead, with his skull split, outside a haunt of debauchery. The dead man

was Victor. There had evidently been some dim, ignoble tragedy, which

the interested parties endeavoured to hush up.

'Yes, yes,' said Sébastien in reply to Marc, 'I remember my

schoolfellows. With a few unfortunate exceptions they have not turned

out so badly. But in life one is at times exposed to certain poisons,

which prove pitiless.'

The others did not insist. They preferred to inquire after his mother,

whom he had now taken to live with him at the Beaumont Training

College, and who still enjoyed good health in spite of her great

age. Sébastien's new position gave him a great deal of occupation,

particularly as he desired to perfect the work of his venerated master,

Salvan. 'Ah!' he exclaimed, 'that public reparation offered to Simon,

that glorification of a schoolmaster, will be a great joy for all of

us. I want my pupils to participate in it, and for that purpose I shall

endeavour to obtain a day's holiday for them.'

Marc, who had rejoiced at Sébastien's appointment as if it were a

personal triumph, at once signified his approval. 'Quite so,' said he,

'and we will bring the old ones as well--Salvan, Mademoiselle Mazeline,

and Mignot. Besides, speaking of school-teachers, there is already a

fine battalion here present.'

The others began to laugh. With the exception of the two children

they were, indeed, all teachers. Clément and Charlotte still carried

on the Jonville schools, Joseph and Louise had decided that they

would never quit Maillebois, Sébastien and Sarah relied on remaining

at the Beaumont Training College until the former reached the age

limit; while as for the younger couple, François and Thérèse, they

had not long been appointed to the Dherbecourt schools, where their

parents had previously made their _débuts_. François, in whom one

traced a likeness to his parents, Joseph and Louise, also resembled

his grandfather Marc, for he had much the same lofty brow and bright

eyes, though the latter in his case glowed with what seemed to be a

flame of insatiable desire. In Thérèse, on the other hand, one found

the great beauty of her mother Sarah softened, quieted, as it were, by

the intellectual refinement which she had inherited from her father,

Sébastien. And Rose, the young couple's little girl, the last born of

the family, and as such worshipped by one and all, seemed to personify

the budding future.

The dinner proved delightfully gay. How joyful for Joseph and Sarah,

the children of the innocent martyr, tortured for so many years,

was the thought of the festival of reparation which was now being

planned! Their own children and their grandchild--all that had come

from their blood mingled with that of Marc, the martyr's most heroic

defender--would participate in that glorification. Four generations,

indeed, would be present to celebrate the truth, and the _cortège_

would be formed of all the good workers who, having suffered for its

sake, were entitled to share its triumph.

Laughter, and again laughter, arose. They all drank to the return of

Simon, and even when ten o'clock struck the happy family continued to

give expression to its delight, quite forgetful of the trains by which

some of its members were to return to Beaumont and others to Jonville.

From that day forward things moved with unexpected rapidity.

Adrien's scheme on being laid before the Municipal Council was voted

unanimously, as Jules Savin, the Mayor, had desired. Nobody even

thought of opposing the suggested inscription. None of the applications

and pleadings, which the promoters of the scheme had imagined

necessary, were required, for the idea to which they gave expression

already existed, in embryo, in the minds of all. There was remorse

for the past, uneasiness at the thought of the unhealed iniquity, and

a craving to repair it for the sake of the town's honour. Everybody

now felt that it was impossible to be happy outside the pale of civic

solidarity, for durable happiness can only come to a people when it is

just. And so in a few weeks' time the subscription lists were filled.

As the amount required was a comparatively small one, being no more

than thirty thousand francs,[2]--for the site of the house was given

by the municipality,--people contented themselves with subscribing two,

three, or at the utmost five francs, in order that a larger number

of subscribers might participate. The workmen of the _faubourg_ and

the peasants of the environs contributed their half-francs and their

francs; and at the end of March the building was put in hand, for it

was desired that everything should be in readiness, the last woodwork

in position, and the last paint dry, by mid-September, the date which

Simon had ended by fixing for his return.

[Footnote 2: $6000.]