Chapter XXIX: Book IV: I (6)

'Thou didst witness, O God! my first expiation, when my superiors, as foolish as they were cruel, abandoned me on the road to exile! Thou knowest to what unacknowledgeable callings they reduced me, what fresh and hateful transgressions they caused me to commit! Thou knowest their base avarice--how they refused me even a crust of bread, how they refuse it still, after being my counsellors and accomplices all my life long.... For thou wert always present, O God! Thou didst hear them bind themselves to me. Thou knowest that after my crime I did but obey them, and that if I aggravated it by other crimes it was only by and for them. Doubtless the desire was to save Thy Holy Church from scandal--and I, indeed, would have given my blood, my life. But they thought only of saving their own skins, and it is that which has enraged me and stirred me to tell everything.... And now, O God! that I have been Thy justiciary, that I have spoken the words of violence ordained by Thee, and have cried aloud their unknown and unpunished sins, it is for Thee to decide if Thou wilt pardon them or strike them down in Thy wrath, even before these swinish people, who pretend to forget Thy name, and for the roasting of whose sacrilegious limbs there will never be room enough in hell!'

Threatening hoots interrupted him at every word; stones, passing from hand to hand, began to fly around his head. The railings would not have resisted much longer; in fact, a last great onrush was about to throw them down when Marc and his assistants again managed to seize Gorgias and carry him to the end of the garden, behind the house. On that side there was a little gate conducting to a deserted lane, and the miscreant was soon led forth, and then driven away.

If, however, the growling, threatening crowd suddenly became calm, it was because cries of joy and glorification arose above the shouts of anger, drawing nearer every moment in sonorous waves along the sunlit avenue. Simon, having been received at the railway station by a deputation of the Municipal Council, was arriving in a large landau, he and David occupying the back seat, while in front of them were Advocate Delbos and Jules Savin, the Mayor. As the carriage slowly advanced between the serried crowd there came an extraordinary ovation. Spurred to it by the abominable scene which had left everybody quivering, they acclaimed Simon with the wildest enthusiasm, for his innocence and his heroism seemed to have been rendered yet more glorious by the public confession now made by the real culprit, the savage and bestial Gorgias. Women wept and raised their children to let them see the hero. Men rushed to unharness the horses; and indeed they did unharness them, in such wise that the landau was dragged to the house by a hundred brave arms. And all along the flower-strewn line of route other flowers were flung from the windows, where handkerchiefs as well as banners waved. A very beautiful girl mounted the carriage step, and remained there like a living statue of youth, contributing the splendour of her beauty to the martyr's triumph. Kisses were wafted, words of affection and glorification fell into the carriage with the bouquets which rained from every side. Never had people been stirred by such intense emotion--emotion wrung from their very vitals by the thought of such a great iniquity--emotion which, seeking to bestow some supreme compensation on the victim, found it in the gift without reserve of the hearts and love of all. Glory to the innocent man who had well-nigh perished by the people's fault, and on whom the people would never be able to bestow sufficient happiness! Glory to the martyr who had suffered so greatly for unrecognised and strangled truth, and whose victory was that of human reason freeing itself from the bonds of error and falsehood! And glory to the schoolmaster struck down in his functions, a victim of his efforts to promote enlightenment, and now exalted the more as he had suffered untold pain and grief for each and every particle of truth that he had imparted to the ignorant and the humble!

Marc, who stood on the threshold of the house, dizzy with happiness, watching that triumph approach amid an explosion of fraternity and affection, bethought himself of the far-off day of Simon's arrest, the hateful day when a vehicle had carried him away from Maillebois at the moment of little Zéphirin's funeral. A furious crowd had rushed to seize him, roll him in the mud, and tear him to pieces. A horrible clamour had arisen: 'To death, to death with the assassin and sacrilegist! To death, to death with the Jew!' And the crowd had pursued the rolling wheels, unwilling to relinquish its prey, while Simon, pale and frozen, responded with his ceaseless cry: 'I am innocent! I am innocent! I am innocent!' And now that after long years that innocence was manifest, how striking was the transformation! The crowd was rejuvenated, transfigured; the children and the grandchildren of the blind insulters of former days had grown up in knowledge of truth, and become enthusiastic applauders, striving by dint of sincerity and affection to redeem the crime of their forerunners!

But the landau drew up before the garden gate, and the emotion increased when Simon was seen to alight with the help of his brother David, who had remained more nimble and vigorous. Emaciated, reduced to a shadow, Simon had white hair and a gentle countenance, softened by extreme age. He smiled his thanks to David, and again there were frantic acclamations at the sight of those two brothers, bound together by long years of heroism. The cheers continued when, after the Mayor, Jules Savin, Delbos also alighted--the great Delbos, as the crowd called him, the hero of Beaumont and Rozan, who had not feared to speak the truth aloud in the terrible days when it was perilous to do so, and who ever since had worked for the advent of a just society. Then, as Marc went forward to meet Simon and David, whom Delbos had just joined, the four men found themselves together for a moment on the very threshold of the house. And at that sight there came an increase of enthusiasm. Cries were raised and arms were waved deliriously as the three heroic defenders and the innocent man, whom they had rescued from the worst of tortures, were seen thus standing side by side.

Then Simon impulsively cast himself on the neck of Marc, who returned his embrace. Both sobbed, and were only able to stammer a few words--almost the same as they had stammered long ago, on the abominable day when they had been parted.

'Thank you, thank you, comrade. Like David, you have been to me a brother--a second brother; you saved my own and my children's honour.'

'Oh! I merely helped David, comrade; the victory was won by truth alone.... And there are your children--of their own accord they have grown up in strength and reason.'

The whole family, indeed, was assembled amid the garden greenery; four generations awaited the venerable old man, who triumphed after so many years of suffering. Rachel, his wife, stood beside Geneviève, the wife of his dear, good friend. Then came those whose blood had mingled--Joseph and Louise, Sarah and Sébastien, accompanied by their children, François and Thérèse, who were followed by little Rose, the last born of the line. Clément and Charlotte were also present with Lucienne. And tears started from all eyes, and endless kisses were exchanged.

But a very fresh, sweet song arose. The children of the boys' and girls' schools, the pupils of Joseph and Louise, were singing a welcome to the former schoolmaster of Maillebois. Nothing could have been more simple and more touching than that childish strophe, instinct with tenderness and suggestive of the happy future. Then a lad stepped forward and offered Simon a bouquet in the name of the boys' school.

'Thank you, my little friend. How fine you look.... Who are you?'

'I am Edmond Doloir; my father is Léon Doloir, a schoolmaster; he is yonder, beside Monsieur Salvan.'

Then came the turn of a little girl, who, in like fashion, carried a bouquet offered by the girls' school.

'Oh! what a pretty little darling! Thank you, thank you.... And what is your name?'

'I am Georgette Doloir; I am the daughter of Adrien Doloir and Claire Bongard. You can see them there with my grandpapa and grandmamma, and my uncles and aunts.'

But there was yet another bouquet, and this was presented by Lucienne Froment on behalf of Rose Simon, the last-born of the family, whom she carried in her arms. And Lucienne recited: 'I am Lucienne Froment, the daughter of Clément Froment and Charlotte Savin.... And this is Rose Simon, the little daughter of your grandson François, and your own great-granddaughter, as she is also the great-granddaughter of your friend Marc Froment through her grandmother, Louise.'

With trembling hands Simon took the dear and bonnie babe in his arms. 'Ah! you dear little treasure, flesh of my flesh, you are like the ark of alliance.... Ah, how good and vigorous has life proved! how bravely it has worked in giving us so many strong, healthy, and handsome offspring! And how everything broadens at each fresh generation; what an increase of truth and justice and peace does life bring as it pursues its eternal task!'

They were now all pressing around him, introducing themselves, embracing him, and shaking his hands. There were the Savins, Jules and his son Robert, the former the Mayor who had so actively helped on the work of reparation, and who had received him at the railway station on behalf of the whole town. There were the Doloirs also--Auguste, who had built the house, Adrien, who had planned it, Charles, who had undertaken the locksmith's work, and Marcel, who had attended to the carpentry. There were likewise the Bongards--Fernand and his wife Lucille, and Claire their daughter. And all were mingled, connected by marriages, forming, as it were, but one great family, in such wise that Simon could hardly tell who was who. But his old pupils gave their names, and he traced on their aged faces some likeness to the boyish features of long ago, while embrace followed embrace amid ever-increasing emotion. And all at once, finding himself in presence of Salvan, now very old indeed, but still showing a smiling countenance, Simon fell into his arms, saying, 'Ah! my master, I owe everything to you; it is your work which now triumphs, thanks to the valiant artisans of truth whom you formed and sent out into the world!'

Then came the turn of Mademoiselle Mazeline, whom he kissed gaily on both cheeks, and next that of Mignot, who shed tears when Simon had embraced him.

'Have you forgiven me, Monsieur Simon?' he asked.

'Forgiven you, my old friend Mignot! You have shown a valiant and noble heart! Ah! how delightful it is to meet again like this!'

The ceremony, so simple, yet so grand, was at last drawing to a close. The house offered to the innocent man, that bright-looking house standing on the site of the old den of the Rue du Trou, smiled right gaily in the sunlight with its decorative garlands of flowers and foliage. And all at once the drapery which still hung before the inscription above the door was pulled aside, and the marble slab appeared with its inscription in vivid letters of gold: 'Presented by the town of Maillebois to Schoolmaster Simon in the name of Truth and Justice, and as Reparation for the Torture inflicted on him.' Then came the signature, which seemed to show forth in a yet brighter blaze: 'The Grandchildren of his Persecutors.' And at that sight, from all the great square, and from the neighbouring avenue, from every window and from every roof, there arose a last mighty acclamation, which rolled on like thunder--an acclamation in which all at last united, none henceforth daring to deny that truth and justice had triumphed.

On the morrow _Le Petit Beaumontais_ published an enthusiastic account of the ceremony. That once filthy print had been quite transformed by the new spirit, which had raised its readers both morally and intellectually. Its offices, so long infected by poison, had been swept and purged. The Press will, indeed, become a most admirable instrument of education when it is no longer, as now, in the hands of political and financial bandits, bent on debasing and plundering their readers. And thus _Le Petit Beaumontais_, cleansed and rejuvenated, was beginning to render great services, contributing day by day to increase of enlightenment, reason, and brotherliness.

A few days later a terrible storm, one of those September storms which consume everything, destroyed the Capuchin chapel at Maillebois. That chapel was the last religious edifice of the district remaining open, and several bigots still attended it. At Jonville, Abbé Cognasse had lately been found dead in his sacristy, carried off by an apoplectic stroke, which had followed one of his violent fits of anger; and his church, long empty, was now definitively closed. At Maillebois, Abbé Coquard no longer even opened the doors of St. Martin's, but officiated alone at the altar, unable as he was to find a server for the Mass. Thus the little chapel of the Capuchins, which, with its big gilded and painted statue of St. Antony of Padua, standing amid candles and artificial flowers, retained to the end its reputation as a miracle-shop, sufficed for the few folk who still followed the observances of the Church.

That day, as it happened, they were celebrating there some festival connected with the saint,[3] a ceremony which had attracted about a hundred of the faithful. Yielding to the solicitations of Father Théodose, Father Crabot, who nowadays remained shut up at La Désirade, where he intended to install some pious enterprise, had decided to honour the solemnity with his presence. Thus both were there, one officiating, the other seated in a velvet arm-chair before the statue of the great saint, who was implored to show his miraculous power and obtain from God the grace of some dreadful cataclysm, such as would at once sweep away the infamous and sacrilegious society of the new times. And it was then that the storm burst forth. A great inky, terrifying cloud spread over Maillebois; there came flashes of lightning, which seemed to show the furnaces of hell blazing in the empyrean, and thunderclaps which suggested salvoes of some giant artillery bombarding the earth. Father Théodose had ordered the bells to be rung, and a loud and prolonged pealing arose from the chapel, as if to indicate to the Deity that this was His house and should be protected by Him. But in lieu thereof extermination came. A frightful clap resounded, the lightning struck the bells, descended by the rope, and burst forth in the nave with a detonation as if the very heavens were crumbling. Father Théodose, fired as he stood at the altar, flamed there like a torch. The sacerdotal vestments, the sacred vases, the very tabernacle, were melted, reduced to ashes. And the great St. Antony, shivered to pieces, fell upon the stricken Father Crabot, of whom only a bent and blackened skeleton remained beneath all the dust. And as if those two ministers of the Church were not sufficient sacrifice, five of the devotees present were also killed, while the others fled, howling with terror, eager to escape being crushed by the vaulted roof, which cracked, then crumbled in a pile of remnants, leaving nought of the cult intact.

[Footnote 3: The real festival of St. Antony of Padua falls on June 13th.--_Trans._]

The stupefaction was universal throughout Maillebois. How could the Deity of the Holy Roman and Apostolic Church have made such a mistake? The same question had often been asked in former times--each time, indeed, that a church had been struck and its steeple had fallen on the priest and the kneeling worshippers. Had God desired, then, the end of the religion which had taken His name? Or, more reasonably, was it that no Divine hand whatever guided the lightning, and that it was but a natural force, which would prove a source of happiness whenever mankind should have domesticated it? In any case, after the calamity, Brother Gorgias suddenly reappeared and was seen hurrying along the streets of Maillebois, crying aloud that God had made no mistake. It was to him, he said, that God had hearkened, resolving to strike down his imbecile and cowardly superiors, and thus give a lesson to the whole Church, which could only flourish anew by the power of fire and steel. And a month later Gorgias himself was found, his skull split, his body soiled with filth, outside the same suspicious house before which, some time previously, a passer had already found the body of Victor Milhomme.

IV

Years, and again years, elapsed, and, thanks to the generosity of life,--which, as Marc had lived and served it so well, wished, it seemed, to reward him by keeping him and his adored Geneviève erect like triumphant spectators,--he, now over eighty, still tasted the supreme joy of seeing his dreams fulfilled yet more and more.

Generations continued to arise, each more freed, more purified, more endowed with knowledge than its forerunners. In former days there had been two Frances, each receiving a different education, remaining ignorant of the other, hating it, and contending with it. For the multitude of the nation, for the immense majority of the country folk, there had only been what was called elementary instruction--reading, writing, a little arithmetic, the rudiments which raised man just a span above the level of the brute beast. To the _bourgeoisie_, the petty minority of the elect, who had seized all wealth and power, secondary education and superior education, every means of learning and reigning, lay open. Thus was perpetuated the most frightful of all social iniquities. The poor and the humble were kept down in their ignorance beneath a heavy tombstone. To them it was forbidden to learn, to become men of knowledge, power, and mastery. At rare intervals one of them escaped and raised himself to the highest rank. But that was the exception, tolerated, and cited with canting hypocrisy as an example. All men were equal, it was said, and might raise themselves by their own merits. But as a first step, by way of preventing it, the necessary instruction, the enlightenment due to each and every child of the nation, was withheld from the great majority, so intense, indeed, was the terror of the great movement of truth and justice which would accrue from the diffusion of knowledge--a movement which would sweep away the _bourgeoisie_ and its monstrous errors and compel disgorgement of the national fortune, in order that by just labour the city of solidarity and peace might be at last established.

And now a France which soon would be all one was being constituted; there would soon be no upper class, no lower class; those who knew would cease to crush and exploit those who did not know in a stealthy, fratricidal warfare, whose paroxysms had often reddened the paving of the streets with blood. A system of integral education for one and all was already at work; all the children of France had to pass through the gratuitous, secular, compulsory primary schools, where experimental facts, in lieu of grammatical rules, were now the bases of all education. Moreover, the acquirement of knowledge did not suffice; it was necessary one should learn to love, for it was only by love that truth could prove fruitful. And a process of natural selection ensued according to the tastes, aptitudes, and faculties of the pupils, who from the primary schools passed to special schools, arranged in accordance with requirements, embracing all practical applications of knowledge and extending to the highest speculations of the human mind. The law was that no member of a nation was privileged; that each being born into the world was to be welcomed as a possible force, whose culture was demanded by the national interests. And in this there was not only equality and equity, but a wise employment of the common treasure, a practical desire to lose nought that might contribute to the power and grandeur of the country. And, indeed, what a mighty awakening there was of all the accumulated energy which had lain slumbering in the country districts and the industrial towns! Quite an intellectual florescence sprang up, a new generation, able to act and think, supplying the sap which had long been exhausted in the old governing classes, worn out by the abuse of power. Genius arose daily from the fertile popular soil; a great epoch, a renascence of mankind, was impending. Integral instruction, which the ruling _bourgeoisie_ had so long opposed, because it felt that it would destroy the old social order, was, indeed, destroying it, but at the same time it was setting in its place the fresh and magnificent blossoming of all the intellectual and moral power which would make France the liberator, the emancipator of the world.

Thus disappeared the divided France of former times, the France in which there had been two classes, two hostile, ever-warring races, reared, it might have been thought, in different planets, as if they were destined never to meet, never to come to an agreement. The schoolmasters, also, were no longer herded in two unfriendly groups, the one full of humiliation, the other full of contempt--on one side the poor, imperfectly educated elementary teachers, scarcely cleansed of the loam of their native fields, and on the other the professors of the Lycées and the special schools, redolent of science and literature. The masters who now taught the pupils of the primary schools followed them through all the stages of their education. It was held that a man needed as much intelligence and training to be able to awaken a boy's mind, impart first principles, and set him on the right road, as to maintain him in it and develop his faculties subsequently. A rotatory service was organised, teachers were easily recruited, and worked right zealously now that the profession had become one of the first of the land, well paid, honoured, and glorified.

The nation had also understood it to be necessary that the integral instruction it imparted should be gratuitous at all stages, however great might be the cost, for its millions were not cast stupidly to the winds, to foster falsehood and slaughter--they helped to rear good artisans of prosperity and peace. No other harvest could be compared with that: each _sou_ that was expended helped to give more intelligence and strength to the people, helped it to master to-morrow. And the inanity of the great reproach levelled at the general diffusion of knowledge, that of casting _déclassés_, rebels, across the narrow limits of old-time society, became plainly manifest now that those limits had crumbled as the new society came into being. The _bourgeoisie_, even as it feared, was bound to be swept away as soon as it no longer possessed a monopoly of knowledge. But if in former years each penniless and hungry peasant's or artisan's son who rose up by the acquirement of knowledge had become a source of embarrassment and danger by reason of his eagerness to carve for himself a share of enjoyment among that of those who enjoyed already, that danger had now disappeared. There could be no more _déclassés_, since the classes themselves had ceased to exist, and no more rebels either, since the normal condition of life was the ascent of one and all towards more and more culture, in order that the most useful civic action might ensue. Thus education had accomplished its revolutionary work, and it was now the very strength of the community, the power which had both broadened and tightened the bond of brotherliness, all being called upon to work for the happiness of all, the energy of none remaining ignored and lost.

That complete education, the culture of the whole community, which now yielded such a magnificent harvest, had only become possible on the day when the Church had been deprived of her teaching privileges. The separation of Church and State, and the suppression of the budget of Public Worship, had freed the country and enabled it to dower its schools more liberally. The priest ceased to be a functionary, the Catholic faith no longer possessed the force of a law; those who chose remained free to go to church, even as to the theatre, by paying for their seats, but, in the result, the churches gradually emptied. And if this occurred it was because they no longer manufactured worshippers, poor stupefied beings, such as they needed to fill their naves. Long and terrible years had elapsed before it had become possible to wrest the children from the teachers of the Church, those who had poisoned mankind through the ages, who had reigned over it by falsehood and terrorism. From the very first day the Church had realised that she must kill truth if she did not wish it to kill her; and what furious battles had followed, what a desperate resistance she had offered in order to delay her inevitable defeat, the resplendent outpouring of Light, freed at last from every hindrance! Society would soon be reduced to treating her as one treated those malodorous fishwives whose shops were closed by the police. Yet she, the dogmatic and authoritarian ruler--she who, imitating her Deity, strove to impose her will on the world by thunderbolts, impudently dared to invoke and claim liberty, in order that she might perpetuate her abominable work of debasement and servitude. Laws of social protection then proved necessary; it became imperative to deprive her legally of her power, by refusing to her members, the monks and the priests, the right of teaching. And then again what an uproar followed, what frantic attempts to plunge France into civil war, credulous parents being banded together, while the religious orders, thrust out by the doorways once more, slipped into their dens by the windows, with the obstinacy of folk who relied on the eternal credulity which they fancied they had sown in the minds of men! Did they not represent error, superstition, and wretched human cowardice, and did it not follow, therefore, that eternity was theirs? But, for this to be, they had to retain their hold upon the children, and, by them, obscure the morrow; and it happened that the morrow and the children gradually escaped them, and that the time came when the Holy Roman Catholic Church lay agonising beneath the crumbling of her idiotic dogmas, pierced and destroyed by science. Truth had conquered, the schools given to all had formed men who knew, and who could exercise their will.

Thus hardly a day elapsed without Marc observing some fresh fortunate conquest, some increase of reason and comfort. He and his wife Geneviève alone remained erect of all the valiant generation which had fought and suffered so much. Good old Salvan had been the first to depart, then Mademoiselle Mazeline and Mignot had followed him. But of all the deaths the most painful for Marc had been those of Simon and David, the two brothers, carried off one after the other at an interval of only a few days, as if they had been still linked together by their heroic fraternity. Madame Simon had preceded them; all who had participated in the monstrous affair were now beneath the peaceful soil, lying there side by side, the good and the wicked, the heroes and the criminals, all plunged in eternal silence. Many of the children and grandchildren, moreover, had departed before their parents, for death never paused in his mysterious work, mowing down men as he listed in order to fertilise one or another field, whence other men would spring.

At last, quitting their retreat of Jonville, Marc and Geneviève had come to reside again at Maillebois, where they occupied the first floor of the house presented to Simon, and now belonging to his children, Joseph and Sarah. She and her husband Sébastien still resided at Beaumont, where the latter remained director of the Training College. But Joseph, afflicted in the legs, almost infirm, had been obliged to retire; and as his wife Louise had at the same time quitted the Maillebois school, they were now installed on the second floor of the paternal house, which the family shared in this fashion, well pleased to be together during the last gentle, declining days of life. And if they themselves had given up teaching, they at least had the joy of seeing the good work carried on by their descendants, for François and Thérèse had now been appointed to the Maillebois schools, in which, therefore, three generations of the family had succeeded one another.

The delight of living side by side, in close affection, had lasted two years, when quite a drama plunged the family into grief. One of those insensate passions which devastate a man came upon François, then in all the strength of his two and thirty years, and hitherto so tenderly attached to his wife Thérèse. He became enamoured of a young woman of eight and twenty years named Colette Roudille, whose mother, a very pious widow, had lately died. Colette's father was said to have been Théodose, the Capuchin, at one time her mother's confessor; and she certainly resembled him, having a splendid head, with blood-red lips and eyes of fire. The widow had lived on a little income, upon which, however, her son Faustin, twelve years older than his sister, had encroached to such a degree that the old woman had remained at last with barely enough money to buy bread. However, the little clerical group, all that remained of the once powerful faction which had ruled the district, took an interest in Faustin, and ended by obtaining a situation for him. For some months, then, he had been keeper of the estate of La Désirade, which since Father Crabot's death had become the subject of a number of lawsuits, and which some of the neighbouring localities proposed to purchase and turn into a people's palace and convalescent home, even as Valmarie had been turned into an asylum where young mothers recovered their strength. Thus Colette lived alone and in all freedom at Maillebois, almost in front of the school; and it was certain that the glow of her fine eyes and the smile of her red lips had largely helped on the passion which was maddening François.

But it happened that one day Thérèse surprised them, and dolorous anger came upon her, the more particularly as she was not the only one who might suffer from her husband's folly. Might it not, indeed, prove a disaster for their daughter Rose, who was now near her twelfth birthday? At one moment Thérèse appealed to her parents, Sébastien and Sarah, wishing to have their views respecting the course she ought to take. She spoke of a separation, offering to restore freedom to the husband who had ceased to love her and who told her lies. But she remained very calm, firm, and sensible in her trouble, and she soon understood that on this occasion it was wise and fit to forgive. Moreover, Marc and Geneviève, afflicted by the rupture, lectured their grandson François severely, and he evinced great sorrow, recognising that he was in the wrong, and accepting the most violent reproaches. But even while he confessed his fault, he unhappily remained disturbed, full of anguish, with an evident fear that his passion might again overcome him. Never had Marc so cruelly realised the fragility of human happiness. It was not sufficient, then, that one should instruct men and lead them towards justice by the paths of truth; it was also necessary that passion should not rend them and cast them one against the other like madmen. Marc had spent his life fighting in order that a little light might extricate the children from the dim gaol in which their fathers had groaned; and, in giving more happiness to others, he thought he had given it to his own family. Yet now, at the hearth of his grandson, who had seemed quite freed from error and very sensible, another form of suffering displayed itself--the suffering of love, with its eternal felicity and eternal torture! It was evident that one must not be proud of one's knowledge, that one must not set all one's strength in it. It was necessary that one should also be prepared to suffer in one's heart, and strive to make it valiant in order that it might bear up against a rending which always remained possible. And, again, it was wrong to think that it was sufficient to do good in order to be sheltered from the blows of evil. But though Marc said all those things to himself, placing a very modest estimate on the work he had accomplished, he still felt very sad as he saw mankind voluntarily leaving some of its flesh on all the briars of its path, and lingering there, as if unwilling to reach the happy city.

The holidays arrived, and all at once François disappeared. It seemed as if he had waited to be rid of his pupils in order to go off with Colette, the shutters of whose windows facing the High street remained closed. Wishing to stifle the scandal, the family related that, as François was in poor health, he had gone with a friend to take an air cure abroad during the holidays. A tacit understanding ensued in Maillebois--everybody pretended to accept that explanation out of regard for Thérèse, the forsaken wife, who was much liked and respected; but nobody really remained ignorant of the true cause of her husband's flight. She behaved admirably in those painful circumstances, hiding her tears, preserving perfect dignity in her home. In particular she bestowed increased tenderness on her daughter Rose, from whom, unfortunately, she could not hide the facts, but in whom she inculcated a continuance of respect for her father in spite of his bad conduct.

A month went by, and Marc, who was deeply grieved, still visited Thérèse every day, when one evening there came a dramatic, a horrible, occurrence. Rose having gone to spend the afternoon with a little friend in the neighbourhood, Marc had found Thérèse alone, sobbing in silence, far away from all prying eyes. For a long while he strove to comfort her and restore her to some hope. Then, at nightfall, he was obliged to leave her without having seen Rose, who had remained apparently with her little friend. The evening was dark, the atmosphere heavy with a threatening storm, and as Marc, eager to get home, was crossing the small, dim square behind the school, into which looked the window of the room once occupied by little Zéphirin, he suddenly heard a confused noise of footsteps and calls.

'What is the matter? What is the matter?' he exclaimed as he went forward.

He felt a chill in his veins, though why it was he could not tell. Apparently some gust of terror, coming from afar, was sweeping by. And at last in the faint light Marc perceived a man whom he recognised as a certain Marsouillier, a poor nephew of the deceased Philis, at one time mayor of Maillebois. Marsouillier now acted as beadle at St. Martin's, where, since the destruction of the Capuchin Chapel, a small party of believers still supported a priest.

'What is the matter?' Marc repeated, surprised to see that the other was gesticulating and mumbling to himself.

Marsouillier in his turn now recognised Marc. 'I don't know, Monsieur Froment,' he stammered with a terrified air. 'I was passing; I had come from the Place des Capucins, when, all at once, I heard the cries of a child, choking, it seemed, with fright. And as I hastened up I just caught sight of a man running away, while yonder on the ground lay that little body.... Then I also began to call.'

Marc himself now distinguished a pale and motionless form lying on the ground. And a suspicion came to him, Was it this man Marsouillier who had ill-used the child? Perhaps so, for curiously enough he was holding something white--a handkerchief.

'And that handkerchief?' Marc asked.

'Oh! I picked it up here just now.... Perhaps the man wanted to stifle the child's cries with it, and dropped it as he ran away.'

But Marc no longer listened; he was leaning over the little form upon the ground, and an exclamation of frantic grief suddenly escaped his lips: 'Rose! our little Rose!'

The victim was indeed the pretty little girl, who, as a babe, in the arms of her cousin Lucienne, had offered a bouquet to Simon on the occasion of his triumph ten years previously. She had grown up full of beauty and charm, with a bright, dimpled, smiling face amid a mass of fair and wavy tresses. And the scene could be easily pictured: the child returning home across that deserted square in the falling night, some bandit surprising her, ill-using her, and flinging her there upon the ground, whereupon, hearing a sound of footsteps, he had been seized with terror and had fled. The child did not stir; she lay there as if lifeless, in her little white frock figured with pink flowerets, a holiday frock which her mother had allowed her to wear for her visit to her friend.

'Rose! Rose!' called Marc, who was beside himself. 'Why do you not answer me, my darling? Speak, say only one word to me, only one word.'

He touched her gently, not daring as yet to raise her from the ground. And, talking to himself, he said, 'She has only fainted; I can tell that she is breathing. But I fear that something is broken.... Ah! misfortune dogs us; here again is grief indeed!'

Indescribable terror came upon him as all the frightful past suddenly arose before his mind's eye. There, under that tragic window, close to that room where the wretched Gorgias had killed little Zéphirin, he had now found his own great-granddaughter, his well-loved little Rose, who was assuredly hurt, and who in all probability only owed her salvation to the accidental arrival of a stranger. Who was it that had brought about that awful renewal of the past? What new and prolonged anguish was foreboded by that crime? As if by the glow of a great lightning flash, Marc, at that horrible moment, saw all his past life spread out, and lived all his battles and all his sufferings anew.

Marsouillier, however, had remained there with the handkerchief in his hand. He ended by slipping it into his pocket in an embarrassed way, like a man who had not said all he knew, and who devoutly wished that he had not crossed the square that evening.

'One ought not to leave her there, Monsieur Froment,' he said at last. 'You are not strong enough to pick her up; if you like I will take her in my arms and carry her to her mamma's, as it is close by.'

Marc was compelled to accept the offer, and followed the sturdy beadle, who took the child up very gently, without rousing her from her fainting fit. In this wise they reached the mother's door, and for her what a shock it was when she beheld her well-loved child, now her only joy and comfort, brought back to her insensible, as pale as death in her bright frock, and with her beautiful hair streaming loosely about her! The frock was in shreds, a lock of hair which had been torn off was caught in the lace collar. And the struggle must have been terrible, for the child's wrenched hands were all bruised, and her right arm hung down so limply that it was certainly broken.

Thérèse, distracted, beside herself, repeated amid her choking sobs: 'Rose, my little Rose! They have killed my Rose!'

In vain did Marc point out to her that the child was still breathing, and that not a drop of blood was to be seen; the mother still repeated that her child was dead. But Marsouillier carried the girl upstairs and laid her on a bed, where all at once she suddenly opened her eyes and gazed around her with indescribable terror. Then, shivering the while, she began to stammer: 'Oh, mamma, mamma, hide me, I am frightened!'

Thunderstruck by her revival to consciousness, Thérèse sank on the bed beside her, caught her in her arms and pressed her to her bosom, so overcome by emotion that she could no longer speak. Marc, however, begged the assistant teacher, who happened to be present, to go for a doctor; and then, quite upset by the mystery, endeavoured to fathom it at once.

'What happened to you, my darling?' he inquired; 'can you tell us?'

Rose looked at him for a moment as if to make sure who was speaking to her, and then, with haggard, wandering eyes, peered into all the dim corners of the room. I'm afraid, I'm afraid, grandfather,' she said.

He endeavoured to reassure her and inquired gently: 'Did nobody accompany you when you left your little friend's?'

'I didn't want anybody to come. The house is so near. And we had played so long, I was afraid I would get home still later.'

'And so you came back running, my darling, eh? And somebody sprang on you; that is what happened, is it not?'

But the terrified child again began to tremble, and did not answer. Marc had to repeat his question. 'Yes, yes, somebody,' she stammered at last.

Marc waited till she became calmer, caressing her hair the while, and kissing her on the forehead. 'You see, you ought to tell us,' he resumed. 'You cried out, naturally, you struggled. The man wanted to close your mouth, did he not?'

'Oh, grandfather, it was all so quick! He took hold of my arms, and he twisted them round. He wanted to drive me out of my senses and carry me off on his back. It hurt me so dreadfully, I thought I should die, and I fell to the ground: that is all I remember.'

Marc felt greatly relieved; he was now convinced that nothing worse had happened, particularly as Marsouillier, on hearing the girl's cries, had hastened to the spot. And so he asked but one question more: 'And would you be able to recognise the man, my dear?'

Again Rose quivered, and her eyes became quite wild as if some terrible vision was rising before her. Then, covering her face with her hand, she relapsed into stubborn silence. As her glance had already fallen on Marsouillier and she had raised no exclamation on seeing him, Marc realised that he had been mistaken when he had suspected the beadle of the crime. Nevertheless he wished to question him also; for, even allowing that he had spoken the truth, it might be that he had not told the whole of it.

'You saw the man run away?' said Marc. 'Would you be able to recognise him?'

'Oh! I don't think so, Monsieur Froment. He passed me, but it was already dark. Besides, I was so disturbed.' And the beadle, who had not yet fully recovered his composure, let a further detail escape him: 'He said something as he passed, I fancy ... he called "Imbecile!"'

'What! Imbecile?' retorted Marc, who was greatly surprised. 'Why should he have said that to you?'

But Marsouillier, deeply regretting that he had added that particular, for he understood the possible gravity of any admission on his part, endeavoured to recall his words. 'I can't be sure of anything,' he said, 'it was like a growl.... And no, no, I should not be able to recognise him.'

Then, as Marc asked him for the handkerchief, he drew it from his pocket with some appearance of _ennui_, and laid it on a table. It was a very common kind of handkerchief, one of those which are embroidered by the gross with initials in red thread. This one was marked with the letter F, and the clue was a slight one, for dozens of similar handkerchiefs were sold in the shops.

Meantime Thérèse, who had again caught Rose in a gentle embrace, caressed her lovingly. 'The doctor is coming, my treasure,' she said. 'I won't touch you any more till he is here. It won't be anything. You are not in great pain, are you?'

'No, mother,' Rose replied, 'but my arm burns me and seems very heavy.'

Then, in an undertone, Thérèse, in her turn, tried to confess the girl, for the mysteriousness of the assault had left her very anxious. But at each fresh question Rose evinced yet greater alarm, and at last she closed her eyes and buried her head in the pillow, so as to see and hear nothing more. Every time her mother made a fresh attempt, begging her to say if she knew the man and would be able to recognise him, the child quivered dreadfully. But all at once, bursting into loud sobs, quite beside herself, almost delirious, she told everything in a loud, distressful voice, fancying, perhaps, that she was simply whispering her words in her mother's ear.

'Oh! mother, mother, I am so grieved! I recognised him--it was father who was waiting there, and who threw himself upon me!'

Thérèse sprang to her feet in stupefaction. 'Your father? What is it you say, you unhappy child?'

Marc and Marsouillier also had heard the girl. And the former drew near to her with a violent gesture of incredulity: 'Your father? It is impossible!... Come, come, my darling, you must have dreamt that.'

'No, no, father was waiting for me behind the school, and I recognised him by his beard and his hat. He tried to carry me away, and as I would not let him he twisted my arms and made me fall.'

She clung stubbornly to that account of the affair, though she could supply little proof of what she asserted, for the man had not spoken a word to her, and she had only noticed his beard and hat, remembering nothing else, not even his features, which had been hidden by the darkness. Nevertheless, that man was her father, she was sure of it; nothing could efface that impression, which, if incorrect, might be some haunting idea which had sprung from the grief in which she had seen her mother plunged since the departure of the unfaithful François.

'It is impossible; it is madness!' Marc repeated, for his reason rebelled and protested against such a notion. 'If François had wished to take Rose away he would not have hurt her--killed her almost!'

Thérèse also quietly displayed a feeling of perfect certainty. 'François is incapable of such an action,' said she. 'He has caused me a great deal of grief, but I know him, and will defend him if need be.... You were mistaken, my poor Rose.'

Nevertheless the unhappy woman went to look at the handkerchief which had remained on the table. And she could not restrain a nervous start, for it appeared to be one of a dozen marked with a similar letter F, which she had purchased for her husband of the sisters Landois, who kept a drapery shop in the High Street. On going to a chest of drawers Thérèse found ten similar handkerchiefs, and it was quite possible that François had taken two away with him at the time of his flight. However, the unhappy wife strove to overcome her uneasiness, and as firmly and as positively as before, she said: 'The handkerchief may belong to him.... But it was not he; never shall I think him guilty.'

The strange scene seemed to have stupefied Marsouillier. He had remained on one side, at a loss apparently as to how he might quit those sorrowing folk, and since he had heard the child's story his eyes had been all astonishment. The recognition of the handkerchief brought his dismay to a climax, and at last, profiting by the arrival of the doctor fetched by the assistant teacher, he managed to slip away. Marc, on his side, went into the dining-room to await the result of the medical examination. Rose's right arm was indeed broken, but there was nothing of a disquieting character about the fracture, and the wrenched wrists and a few bruises were the only other marks of violence which the doctor found. He, indeed, was most concerned respecting the result of the nervous shock which the girl had experienced, for it had been a violent one. And he only left her an hour later, when he had reduced the fracture and saw her overcome, as it were, plunged in a heavy sleep.

Marc, however, had meantime sent a message to his wife and Louise, for he feared that they might be alarmed by his failure to return home. And they hastened to the school, terrified by this frightful business, which reminded them also of the old and abominable affair. Thérèse having joined them, a kind of family council was held, the door of the bedroom remaining open in order that they might at once hear the injured girl if she should wake up. Marc, who was quite feverish, expressed his views at length. What possible reason could there have been for François to commit such a deed? He might have yielded to a transport of passion by running away with Colette, but he had invariably shown himself to be a loving father, and his wife did not even complain of his manner towards herself, for it had remained outwardly dignified, almost deferential. Thus, what motive could have prompted him if he were guilty? Hidden away with his mistress in some unknown retreat, it could hardly be that he had experienced a sudden craving to have his daughter with him. What could he have done with the child? She would have been a burden on him in the life he must be leading. And even supposing that he had wished to strike a cruel blow at his wife, and reduce her to solitude, without a consolation remaining to her, it was incredible that he should have ill-used and injured his daughter, have left her upon the ground senseless! He would simply have taken her away with him. Thus, in spite of Rose's statements, in spite of the handkerchief, François could not be guilty, the impossibilities were too great. Nevertheless, faced as he was by this mysterious problem, and the task of again seeking the truth, Marc felt disturbed and anxious, for he was convinced that Marsouillier would relate what he had seen and heard, and that all Maillebois would be discussing the drama on the morrow. And as all the appearances were against François, would public opinion denounce him, even as in former days it had denounced his grandfather, Simon the Jew? In that case, how could he be defended? what ought to be done to prevent a renewal of the monstrous iniquity of long ago?

'The one thing that tends to tranquillise me,' said Marc at last, 'is that the times have changed. We now have to deal with people who have been freed and educated, and it will greatly surprise me if they do not help us to unravel the truth.'

Silence fell. At last, in spite of the little quiver which she was unable to master, Thérèse exclaimed energetically, 'You are right, grandfather. Before everything else we must establish the innocence of François, which I cannot possibly doubt, whatever may be the accusations.... He has made me suffer dreadfully, but I will forget it, and you may rely on me, I will help you with all my strength.'

Geneviève and Louise nodded their assent. 'Ah!' muttered the latter, 'the unhappy lad! When he was seven years old he used to throw his arms round me and say, "Little mother, I love you very dearly!" He has a tender and passionate nature, and thus one must forgive him a great deal.'

'There is always some resource when one has to deal with loving natures,' remarked Geneviève in her turn. 'Even if they become guilty of great transgressions, love helps them to repair them.'