The Revolt of the Angels .....................................................................................................................................1

Anatole France .........................................................................................................................................1

FROM 1789 TO THE PRESENT DAY..................................................................................................2

LIBRARY WHERE STRANGE THINGS WILL SHORTLY COME TO PASS .................................4

CHAPTER III. WHEREIN THE MYSTERY BEGINS .........................................................................7

ACTUAL WORLD .................................................................................................................................9

LOGICAL .............................................................................................................................................10

CHAPTER VI. WHEREIN P�RE SARIETTE DISCOVERS HIS MISSING TREASURES ............14

TRUE WISDOM LIES IN NOT THINKING AT ALL .......................................................................16

INSIPID DISH ......................................................................................................................................19

"NOTHING IS SWEETER THAN APHRODITE THE GOLDEN" ...................................................23

OF DANTE AND MILTON .................................................................................................................24

WITHOUT A HEAVENLY GUARDIAN ...........................................................................................29

SINGER NAMED BOUCHOTTE AND FELL IN LOVE WITH HER ..............................................33

MOTHEATEN, IN A CUPBOARD ..................................................................................................36

MIRACLE OF THE FLUTE ................................................................................................................39

REBELLION OF THE ANGELS .........................................................................................................43

SARIETTE ............................................................................................................................................47

HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE IS NARROW AND DISMAL ........................................................54

CHAPTER XIX. THE GARDENER'S STORY, CONTINUED .........................................................59

CHAPTER XX. THE GARDENER'S STORY, CONTINUED ...........................................................61

CHAPTER XXI. THE GARDENER'S STORY, CONCLUDED ........................................................65

JEALOUSY OF A LOVELORN DAME. ..........................................................................................69

AFTER THAT LET NO ONE CALL THE AUTHOR A MISOGYNIST ..........................................73

THE "LUCRETIUS" OF THE PRIOR DE VEND�ME. ....................................................................75

CHAPTER XXV. WHEREIN MAURICE FINDS HIS ANGEL AGAIN ..........................................76

CHAPTER XXVI. THE CONCLAVE .................................................................................................79

MATTER OF BUSINESS." .................................................................................................................83

CHAPTER XXVIII. WHICH TREATS OF A PAINFUL DOMESTIC SCENE ................................87

CONDUCT WILL BE MADE MANIFEST ........................................................................................88

OF US ...................................................................................................................................................91

HORRIBLE CRIME .............................................................................................................................96

TAVERN OF CLODOMIR ..................................................................................................................99

TERROR .............................................................................................................................................103

D'ESPARVIEU LIBRARY AND OF THE DEPARTURE OF THE ANGELS ................................106

UNFOLDED .......................................................................................................................................110

I. Containing in a Few Lines the History of a French Family from 1789 to the Present Day

II. Wherein Useful Information will be found concerning a Library where Strange Things will shortly

VII. Of a somewhat Lively Interest, whereof the Moral will, I hope, appeal greatly to my Readers

VIII. Which speaks of Love, a Subject which always gives Pleasure, for a Tale without Love is like Beef

IX. Wherein it is shown that, as an Ancient Greek Poet said, "Nothing is Sweeter than Aphrodite the

XI. Recounts in what Manner the Angel, attired in the CastOff Garments of a Suicide, leaves the

XII. Wherein it is set forth how the Angel Mirar beheld a MusicHall Singer named Bouchotte and fell in

XIII. Wherein we hear the Beautiful Archangel Zita unfold her Lofty Designs and are shown the Wings of

XIV. Which reveals the Cherub toiling for the Welfare of Humanity and concludes in an entirely Novel

XV. Wherein we see Young Maurice bewailing the Loss of his Guardian Angel, and wherein we hear the

Abb� Patouille reject as Vain and Illusory All Notions of a New Rebellion of the Angels

XVI. Wherein Mira the Seeress, Z�phyrine, and the Fatal Am�d�e are successively brought upon the Scene

XVII. Wherein we learn that Sophar, no less Eager for Gold than Mammon, looked upon his Heavenly

Home less favourably than upon France, a Country blessed with a Savings Bank and Loan Departments

XXII. Wherein we are shown the Interior of a BricaBrac Shop, and see how P�re Guinardon's Guilty

XXIII. Wherein we are permitted to observe the Admirable Character of Bouchotte, who resists Violence

XXIV. Containing an Account of the Vicissitudes that befell the "Lucretius" of the Prior de Vend�me

XXVII. Wherein we shall see revealed a Dark and Secret Mystery and learn how it comes about that

Empires are often hurled against Empires, and Ruin falls alike upon the Victors and the Vanquished

XXIX. Wherein we see how the Angel, having become a Man, behaves like a Man, coveting Another's

XXXI. Wherein we are led to marvel at the Readiness with which an Honest Man of Timid and Gentle

XXXIV. Which contains an Account of the Arrest of Bouchotte and Maurice, of the Disaster which befell

BENEATH the shadow of St. Sulpice the ancient mansion of the d'Esparvieu family rears its austere three

stories between a mossgrown forecourt and a garden hemmed in, as the years have elapsed, by ever loftier

and more intrusive buildings, wherein, nevertheless, two tall chestnut trees still lift their withered heads.

Here from 1825 to 1857 dwelt the great man of the family, Alexandre Bussart d'Esparvieu, VicePresident of

the Council of State under the Government of July, Member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences,

and author of an Essay on the Civil and Religious Institutions of Nations, in three octavo volumes, a work

This eminent theorist of a Liberal monarchy left as heir to his name his fortune and his fame,

FulgenceAdolphe Bussart d'Esparvieu, senator under the Second Empire, who added largely to his

patrimony by buying land over which the Avenue de l'Imperatice was destined ultimately to pass, and who

Fulgence had three sons. The eldest, MarcAlexandre, entering the army, made a splendid career for himself:

he was a good speaker. The second, Ga�tan, showing no particular aptitude for anything, lived mostly in the

country, where he hunted, bred horses, and devoted himself to music and painting. The third son, Ren�,

destined from his childhood for the law, resigned his deputyship to avoid complicity in the Ferry decrees

against the religious orders; and later, perceiving the revival under the presidency of Monsieur Fallieres of the

days of Decius and Diocletian, put his knowledge and zeal at the service of the persecuted Church.

From the Concordat of 1801 down to the closing years of the Second Empire all the d'Esparvieus attended

mass for the sake of example. Though sceptics in their inmost hearts, they looked upon religion as an

Marc and Ren� were the first of their race to show any sign of sincere devotion. The General, when still a

colonel, had dedicated his regiment to the Sacred Heart, and he practised his faith with a fervour remarkable

even in a soldier, though we all know that piety, daughter of Heaven, has marked out the hearts of the

Faith has its vicissitudes. Under the old order the masses were believers, not so the aristocracy or the

educated middle class. Under the First Empire the army from top to bottom was entirely irreligious. Today

the masses believe nothing. The middle classes wish to believe, and succeed at times, as did Marc and Ren�

d'Esparvieu. Their brother Ga�tan, on the contrary, the country gentleman, failed to attain to faith. He was an

agnostic, a term commonly employed by the modish to avoid the odious one of freethinker. And he openly

declared himself an agnostic, contrary to the admirable custom which deems it better to withhold the avowal.

CHAPTER I. CONTAINING IN A FEW LINES THE HISTORY OF A FRENCH FAMILY FROM 1789 TO THE PRESENT DAY 2

In the century in which we live there are so many modes of belief and of unbelief that future historians will

have difficulty in finding their way about. But are we any more successful in disentangling the condition of

A fervent Christian, Ren� d'Esparvieu was deeply attached to the liberal ideas his ancestors had transmitted to

him as a sacred heritage. Compelled to oppose a Jacobin and atheistical Republic, he still called himself

Republican. And it was in the name of liberty that he demanded the independence and sovereignty of the

During the long debates on the Separation and the quarrels over the Inventories, the synods of the bishops and

the assemblies of the faithful were held in his house. While the most authoritatively accredited leaders of the

Catholic party: prelates, generals, senators, deputies, journalists, were met together in the big green

drawingroom, and every soul present turned towards Rome with a tender submission or enforced obedience;

while Monsieur d'Esparvieu, his elbow on the marble chimneypiece, opposed civil law to canon law, and

protested eloquently against the spoliation of the Church of France, two faces of other days, immobile and

speechless, looked down on the modern crowd; on the right of the fireplace, painted by David, was Romain

Bussart, a workingfarmer at Esparvieu in shirtsleeves and drill trousers, with a roughandready air not

untouched with cunning. He had good reason to smile: the worthy man laid the foundation of the family

fortunes when he bought Church lands. On the left, painted by Gerard in fulldress bedizened with orders,

was the peasant's son, Baron Emile Bussart d'Esparvieu, prefect under the Empire, Keeper of the Great Seal

under Charles X, who died in 1837, churchwarden of his parish, with couplets from La Pucelle on his lips.

Ren� d'Esparvieu married in 1888 MarieAntoinette Coupelle, daughter of Baron Coupelle, ironmaster at

Blainville (Haute Loire). Madame Ren� d'Esparvieu had been president since 1903 of the Society of Christian

Mothers. These perfect spouses, having married off their eldest daughter in 1908, had three children still at

L�on, the younger, aged seven, had a room next to his mother and his sister Berthe. Maurice, the elder, lived

in a little pavilion comprising two rooms at the bottom of the garden. The young man thus gained a freedom

which enabled him to endure family life. He was rather goodlooking, smart without too much pretence, and

At twentyfive Maurice possessed the wisdom of Ecclesiastes. Doubting whether a man hath any profit of all

his labour which he taketh under the sun he never put himself out about anything. From his earliest childhood

this young hopeful's sole concern with work had been considering how he might best avoid it, and it was

through his remaining ignorant of the teaching of the �cole de Droit that he became a doctor of law and a

He neither pleaded nor practised. He had no knowledge and no desire to acquire any; wherein he conformed

to his genius whose engaging fragility he forbore to overload; his instinct fortunately telling him that it was

As Monsieur l'Abb� Patouille expressed it, Maurice had received from Heaven the benefits of a Christian

education. From his childhood piety was shown to him in the example of his home, and when on leaving

college he was entered at the �cole de Droit, he found the lore of the doctors, the virtues of the confessors,

and the constancy of the nursing mothers of the Church assembled around the paternal hearth. Admitted to

social and political life at the time of the great persecution of the Church of France, Maurice did not fail to

attend every manifestation of youthful Catholicism; he lent a hand with his parish barricades at the time of

the Inventories, and with his companions he unharnessed the archbishop's horses when he was driven out

from his palace. He showed on all these occasions a modified zeal; one never saw him in the front ranks of

the heroic band exciting soldiers to a glorious disobedience or flinging mud and curses at the agents of the

CHAPTER I. CONTAINING IN A FEW LINES THE HISTORY OF A FRENCH FAMILY FROM 1789 TO THE PRESENT DAY 3

He did his duty, nothing more; and if he distinguished himself on the occasion of the great pilgrimage of

1911 among the stretcherbearers at Lourdes, we have reason to fear it was but to please Madame de la

Verdeli�re, who admired men of muscle. Abb� Patouille, a friend of the family and deeply versed in the

knowledge of souls, knew that Maurice had only moderate aspirations to martyrdom. He reproached him with

his lukewarmness, and pulled his ear, calling him a bad lot. Anyway, Maurice remained a believer.

Amid the distractions of youth his faith remained intact, since he left it severely alone. He had never

examined a single tenet. Nor had he enquired a whit more closely into the ideas of morality current in the

grade of society to which he belonged. He took them just as they came. Thus in every situation that arose he

cut an eminently respectable figure which he would have assuredly failed to do, had he been given to

meditating on the foundations of morality. He was irritable and hottempered and possessed of a sense of

honour which he was at great pains to cultivate. He was neither vain nor ambitious. Like the majority of

Frenchmen, he disliked parting with his money. Women would never have obtained anything from him had

they not known the way to make him give. He believed he despised them; the truth was he adored them. He

indulged his appetites so naturally that he never suspected that he had any. What people did not know,

himself least of all, though the gleam that occasionally shone in his fine, lightbrown eyes might have

furnished the hint was that he had a warm heart and was capable of friendship. For the rest, he was, in the

DESIROUS of embracing the whole circle of human knowledge, and anxious to bequeath to the world a

concrete symbol of his encyclopedic genius and a display in keeping with his pecuniary resources, Baron

Alexandre d'Esparvieu had formed a library of three hundred and sixty thousand volumes, both printed and in

manuscript, whereof the greater part emanated from the Benedictines of Ligug�.

By a special clause in his will he enjoined his heirs to add to his library, after his death, whatever they might

deem worthy of note in natural, moral, political, philosophical, and religious science.

He had indicated the sums which might be drawn from his estate for the fulfilment of this object, and charged

his eldest son, FulgenceAdolphe, to proceed with these additions. FulgenceAdolphe accomplished with

After him, this huge library, which represented more than one child's share of the estate, remained undivided

between the Senator's three sons and two daughters; and Ren� d'Esparvieu, on whom devolved the house in

the Rue Garanci�re, became the guardian of the valuable collection. His two sisters, Madame Paulet de

SaintFain and Madame Cuissart, repeatedly demanded that such a large but unremunerative piece of

property should be turned into money. But Ren� and Ga�tan bought in the shares of their two colegatees,

and the library was saved. Ren� d'Esparvieu even busied himself in adding to it, thus fulfilling the intentions

of its founder. But from year to year he lessened the number and importance of the acquisitions, opining that

Nevertheless, Ga�tan enriched it, out of his funds, with works published both in France and abroad which he

thought good, and he was not lacking in judgment, though his brothers would never allow that he had a

particle. Thanks to this man of leisurely and inquiring mind, Baron Alexandre's collection was kept

practically up to date. Even at the present day the d'Esparvieu library, in the departments of theology,

CHAPTER II. WHEREIN USEFUL INFORMATION WILL BE FOUND CONCERNING A LIBRARY WHERE STRANGE THINGS WILL SHORTLY COME TO PASS 4

jurisprudence, and history is one of the finest private libraries in all Europe. Here you may study physical

science, or to put it better, physical sciences in all their branches, and for that matter metaphysic or

metaphysics, that is to say, all that is connected with physics and has no other name, so impossible is it to

designate by a substantive that which has no substance, and is but a dream and an illusion. Here you may

contemplate with admiration philosophers addressing themselves to the solution, dissolution, and resolution

of the Absolute, to the determination of the Indeterminate and to the definition of the Infinite.

Amid this pile of books and booklets, both sacred and profane, you may find everything down to the latest

Other libraries there are, more richly abounding in bindings of venerable antiquity and illustrious origin,

whose smooth and softhued texture render them delicious to the touch; bindings which the gilder's art has

enriched with gossamer, lacework, foliage, flowers, emblematic devices, and coats of arms; bindings that

charm the studious eye with their tender radiance. Other libraries perhaps harbour a greater array of

manuscripts illuminated with delicate and brilliant miniatures by artists of Venice, Flanders, or Touraine. But

in handsome, sound editions of ancient and modern writers, both sacred and profane, the d'Esparvieu library

is second to none. Here one finds all that has come down to us from antiquity; all the Fathers of the Church,

the Apologists and the Decretalists, all the Humanists of the Renaissance, all the Encylop�dists, the whole

world of philosophy and science. Therefore it was that Cardinal Merlin, when he deigned to visit it,

"There is no man whose brain is equal to containing all the knowledge which is piled upon these shelves.

Monseigneur Cachepot, who worked there often when a curate in Paris, was in the habit of saying:

"I see here the stuff to make many a Thomas Aquinas and many an Arius, if only the modern mind had not

There was no gainsaying that the manuscripts formed the more valuable portion of this immense collection.

Noteworthy indeed was the unpublished correspondence of Gassendi, of Father Mersenne, and of Pascal,

which threw a new light on the spirit of the seventeenth century. Nor must we forget the Hebrew Bibles, the

Talmuds, the Rabbinical treatises, printed and in manuscript, the Aramaic and Samaritan texts, on sheepskin

and on tablets of sycamore; in fine, all these antique and valuable copies collected in Egypt and in Syria by

the celebrated Mo�se de Dina, and acquired at a small cost by Alexandre d'Esparvieu in 1836 when the

The Esparvienne library occupied the whole of the second floor of the old house. The works thought to be of

but mediocre interest, such as books of Protestant exegesis of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the gift

of Monsieur Ga�tan, were relegated unbound to the limbo of the upper regions. The catalogue, with its

various supplements, ran into no less than eighteen folio volumes. It was quite up to date, and the library was

in perfect order. Monsieur Julien Sariette, archivist and pal�ographer, who, being poor and retiring, used to

make his living by teaching, became, in 1895, tutor to young Maurice on the recommendation of the Bishop

of Agra, and with scarcely an interval found himself curator of the Biblioth�que Esparvienne. Endowed with

businesslike energy and dogged patience, Monsieur Sariette himself classified all the members of this vast

body. The system he invented and put into practice was so complicated, the labels he put on the books were

made up of so many capital letters and small letters, both Latin and Greek, so many Arabic and Roman

numerals, asterisks, double asterisks, triple asterisks, and those signs which in arithmetic express powers and

roots, that the mere study of it would have involved more time and labour than would have been required for

the complete mastery of algebra, and as no one could be found who would give the hours, that might be more

profitably employed in discovering the law of numbers, to the solving of these cryptic symbols, Monsieur

CHAPTER II. WHEREIN USEFUL INFORMATION WILL BE FOUND CONCERNING A LIBRARY WHERE STRANGE THINGS WILL SHORTLY COME TO PASS 5

Sariette remained the only one capable of finding his way among the intricacies of his system, and without

his help it had become an utter impossibility to discover, among the three hundred and sixty thousand

volumes confided to his care, the particular volume one happened to require. Such was the result of his

labours. Far from complaining about it, he experienced on the contrary a lively satisfaction.

Monsieur Sariette loved his library. He loved it with a jealous love. He was there every day at seven o'clock

in the morning busy cataloguing at a huge mahogany desk. The slips in his handwriting filled an enormous

case standing by his side surmounted by a plaster bust of Alexandre d'Esparvieu. Alexandre wore his hair

brushed straight back, and had a sublime look on his face. Like Chateaubriand, he affected little feathery side

whiskers. His lips were pursed, his bosom bare. Punctually at midday Monsieur Sariette used to sally forth to

lunch at a cr�merie in the narrow gloomy Rue des Canettes. It was known as the Cr�merie de Quatre

�v�ques, and had once been the haunt of Baudelaire, Theodore de Banville, Charles Asselineau, and a certain

grandee of Spain who had translated the "Mysteries of Paris" into the language of the conquistadores. And

the ducks that paddled so nicely on the old stone sign which gave its name to the street used to recognize

Monsieur Sariette. At a quarter to one, to the very minute, he went back to his library, where he remained

until seven o'clock. He then again betook himself to the Quarte �v�ques, and sat down to his frugal dinner,

with its crowning glory of stewed prunes. Every evening, after dinner, his crony, Monsieur Guinardon,

universally known as P�re Guinardon, a scenepainter and picturerestorer, who used to do work for

churches, would come from his garret in the Rue Princesse to have his coffee and liqueur at the Quatre

Old Guinardon, who was like some rugged old tree still full of sap, was older than he could bring himself to

believe. He had known Chenavard. His chastity was positively ferocious, and he was for ever denouncing the

impurities of neopaganism in language of alarming obscenity. He loved talking. Monsieur Sariette was a

ready listener. Old Guinardon's favourite subject was the Chapelle des Anges in St. Sulpice, in which the

paintings were peeling off the walls, and which he was one day to restore; when, that is, it should please God,

for, since the Separation, the churches belonged solely to God, and no one would undertake the responsibility

"Michael is my patron saint," he said. "And I have a special devotion for the Holy Angels."

After they had had their game of dominoes, Monsieur Sariette, very thin and small, and old Guinardon, sturdy

as an oak, hirsute as a lion, and tall as a Saint Christopher, went off chatting away side by side across the

Place Saint Sulpice, heedless of whether the night were fine or stormy. Monsieur Sariette always went

straight home, much to the regret of the painter, who was a gossip and a nightbird.

The following day, as the clock struck seven, Monsieur Sariette would take up his place in the library, and

resume his cataloguing. As he sat at his desk, however, he would dart a Medusalike look at anyone who

entered, fearing lest he should prove to be a bookborrower. It was not merely the magistrates, politicians,

and prelates whom he would have liked to turn to stone when they came to ask for the loan of a book with an

air of authority bred of their familiarity with the master of the house. He would have done as much to

Monsieur Ga�tan, the library's benefactor, when he wanted some gay or scandalous old volume wherewith to

beguile a wet day in the country. He would have meted out similar treatment to Madame Ren� d'Esparvieu,

when she came to look for a book to read to her sick poor in hospital, and even to Monsieur Ren� d'Esparvieu

himself, who generally contented himself with the Civil Code and a volume of Dalloz. The borrowing of the

smallest book seemed like dragging his heart out. To refuse a volume even to such as had the most

incontestable right to it, Monsieur Sariette would invent countless farfetched or clumsy fibs, and did not

even shrink from slandering himself as curator or from casting doubts on his own vigilance by saying that

such and such a book was mislaid or lost, when a moment ago he had been gloating over that very volume or

pressing it to his bosom. And when ultimately forced to part with a volume he would take it back a score of

CHAPTER II. WHEREIN USEFUL INFORMATION WILL BE FOUND CONCERNING A LIBRARY WHERE STRANGE THINGS WILL SHORTLY COME TO PASS 6

He was always in agony lest one of the objects confided to his care should escape him. As the guardian of

three hundred and sixty thousand volumes, he had three hundred and sixty thousand reasons for alarm.

Sometimes he woke at night bathed in sweat, and uttering a cry of fear, because he had dreamed he had seen

a gap on one of the shelves of his bookcases. It seemed to him a monstrous, unheardof, and most grievous

thing that a volume should leave its habitat. This noble rapacity exasperated Monsieur Ren� d'Esparvieu,

who, failing to understand the good qualities of his paragon of a librarian, called him an old maniac.

Monsieur Sariette knew nought of this injustice, but he would have braved the cruellest misfortune and

endured opprobrium and insult to safeguard the integrity of his trust. Thanks to his assiduity, his vigilance

and zeal, or, in a word, to his love, the Esparvienne library had not lost so much as a single leaflet under his

supervision during the sixteen years which had now rolled by, this ninth of September, 1912.

AT seven o'clock on the evening of that day, having as usual replaced all the books which had been taken

from their shelves, and having assured himself that he was leaving everything in good order, he quitted the

library, doublelocking the door after him. According to his usual habit, he dined at the Cr�merie des Quatre

�v�ques, read his newspaper, La Croix, and at ten o'clock went home to his little house in the Rue du Regard.

The good man had no trouble and no presentiment of evil; his sleep was peaceful. The next morning at seven

o'clock to the minute, he entered the little room leading to the library, and, according to his daily habit, doffed

his grand frockcoat, and taking down an old one which hung in a cupboard over his washstand, put it on.

Then he went in to his workroom, where for sixteen years he had been cataloguing six days out of the seven,

under the lofty gaze of Alexandre d'Esparvieu. Preparing to make a round of the various rooms, he entered

the first and largest, which contained works on theology and religion in huge cupboards whose cornices were

Two enormous globes representing the earth and the heavens filled the windowembrasures. But at his first

step Monsieur Sariette stopped dead, stupefied, powerless alike to doubt or to credit what his eyes beheld. On

the blue cloth cover of the writingtable books lay scattered about pellmell, some lying flat, some standing

upright. A number of quartos were heaped up in a tottering pile. Two Greek lexicons, one inside the other,

formed a single being more monstrous in shape than the human couples of the divine Plato. A giltedged

Having, after an interval of some moments, recovered from his profound amazement, the librarian went up to

the table and recognised in the confused mass his most valuable Hebrew, French, and Latin Bibles, a unique

Talmud, Rabbinical treatises printed and in manuscript, Aramaic and Samaritan texts and scrolls from the

synagogues in fine, the most precious relics of Israel all lying in a disordered heap, gaping and crumpled.

Monsieur Sariette found himself confronted with an inexplicable phenomenon; nevertheless he sought to

account for it. How eagerly he would have welcomed the idea that Monsieur Ga�tan, who, being a thoroughly

unprincipled man, presumed on the right gained him by his fatal liberality towards the library to rummage

there unhindered during his sojourns in Paris, had been the author of this terrible disorder. But Monsieur

Ga�tan was away travelling in Italy. After pondering for some minutes Monsieur Sariette's next supposition

was that Monsieur Ren� d'Esparvieu had entered the library late in the evening with the keys of his

manservant Hippolyte, who, for the past twentyfive years, had looked after the second floor and the attics.

Monsieur Ren� d'Esparvieu, however, never worked at night, and did not read Hebrew. Perhaps, thought

Monsieur Sariette, perhaps he had brought or allowed to be brought to this room some priest, or Jerusalem

monk, on his way through Paris; some Oriental savant given to scriptural exegesis. Monsieur Sariette next

wondered whether the Abb� Patouille, who had an enquiring mind, and also a habit of dog'searing his

books, had, peradventure, flung himself on these talmudic and biblical texts, fired with sudden zeal to lay

bare the soul of Shem. He even asked himself for a moment whether Hippolyte, the old manservant, who had

swept and dusted the library for a quarter of a century, and had been slowly poisoned by the dust of

accumulated knowledge, had allowed his curiosity to get the better of him, and had been there during the

night, ruining his eyesight and his reason, and losing his soul poring by moonlight over these undecipherable

symbols. Monsieur Sariette even went so far as to imagine that young Maurice, on leaving his club or some

nationalist meeting, might have torn these Jewish volumes from their shelves, out of hatred for old Jacob and

his modern posterity; for this young man of family was a declared antisemite, and only consorted with those

Jews who were as antisemitic as himself. It was giving a very free rein to his imagination, but Monsieur

Sariette's brain could not rest, and went wandering about among speculations of the wildest extravagance.

Impatient to know the truth, the zealous guardian of the library called the manservant.

Hippolyte knew nothing. The porter at the lodge could not furnish any clue. None of the domestics had heard

a sound. Monsieur Sariette went down to the study of Monsieur Ren� d'Esparvieu, who received him in

nightcap and dressinggown, listened to his story with the air of a serious man bored with idle chatter, and

"Do not worry, my good Monsieur Sariette; be sure that the books were lying where you left them last night."

Monsieur Sariette reiterated his enquiries a score of times, discovered nothing, and suffered such anxiety that

sleep entirely forsook him. When, on the following day at seven o'clock he entered the room with the busts

and globes, and saw that all was in order, he heaved a sigh of relief. Then suddenly his heart beat fit to burst.

He had just seen lying flat on the mantelpiece a paperbound volume, a modern work, the boxwood paperknife

which had served to cut its pages still thrust between the leaves. It was a dissertation on the two parallel

versions of Genesis, a work which Monsieur Sariette had relegated to the attic, and which had never left it up

to now, no one in Monsieur d'Esparvieu's circle having had the curiosity to differentiate between the parts for

which the polytheistic and monotheistic contributors were respectively responsible in the formation of the

first of the sacred books. This book bore the label R > 32I4VIII/2. And this painful truth was suddenly borne

in upon the mind of Monsieur Sariette: to wit, that the most scientific system of numbering will not help to

find a book if the book is no longer in its place. Every day of the ensuing month found the table littered with

books. Greek and Latin lay cheek by jowl with Hebrew. Monsieur Sariette asked himself whether these

nocturnal flittings were the work of evildoers who entered by the skylights to steal valuable and precious

volumes. But he found no traces of burglary, and, notwithstanding the most minute search, failed to discover

that anything had disappeared. Terrible anxiety took possession of his mind, and he fell to wondering whether

it was possible that some monkey in the neighbourhood came down the chimney and acted the part of a

person engaged in study. Deriving his knowledge of the habits of these animals in the main from the

paintings of Watteau and Chardin, he took it that, in the art of imitating gestures or assuming characters they

resembled Harlequin, Scaramouch, Zerlin, and the Doctors of the Italian comedy; he imagined them handling

a palette and brushes, pounding drugs in a mortar, or turning over the leaves of an old treatise on alchemy

beside an athanor. And so it was that, when, on one unhappy morning, he saw a huge blot of ink on one of the

leaves of the third volume of the polyglot Bible bound in blue morocco and adorned with the arms of the

Comte de Mirabeau, he had no doubt that a monkey was the author of the evil deed. The monkey had been

pretending to take notes and had upset the inkpot. It must be a monkey belonging to a learned professor.

Imbued with this idea, Monsieur Sariette carefully studied the topography of the district, so as to draw a

cordon round the group of houses amid which the d'Esparvieu house stood. Then he visited the four

surrounding streets, asking at every door if there was a monkey in the house. He interrogated porters and their

wives, washerwomen, servants, a cobbler, a greengrocer, a glazier, clerks in bookshops, a priest, a

bookbinder, two guardians of the peace, children, thus testing the diversity of character and variety of temper

in one and the same people; for the replies he received were quite dissimilar in nature; some were rough,

some were gentle; there were the coarse and the polished, the simple and the ironical, the prolix and the

abrupt, the brief and even the silent. But of the animal he sought he had had neither sight nor sound, when

under the archway of an old house in the Rue Servandoni, a small freckled, redhaired girl who looked after

And without another word she conducted the old man to a stable at the other end of the yard. There on some

rank straw and old bits of cloth, a young macaco with a chain round his middle sat and shivered. He was no

taller than a fiveyearold child. His livid face, his wrinkled brow, his thin lips were all expressive of mortal

sadness. He fixed on the visitor the still lively gaze of his yellow eyes. Then with his small dry hand he

seized a carrot, put it to his mouth, and forthwith flung it away. Having looked at the newcomers for a

moment, the exile turned away his head, as if he expected nothing further of mankind or of life. Sitting

huddled up, one knee in his hand, he made no further movement, but at times a dry cough shook his breast.

But the old booklover, who had come armed with anger and resentment, thinking to find a cynical enemy, a

monster of malice, an antibibliophile, stopped short, surprised, saddened, and overcome, before this little

Recognising his mistake, troubled by the almost human face which sorrow and suffering made more human

TWO months elapsed; the domestic upheaval did not subside, and Monsieur Sariette's thoughts turned to the

Freemasons. The papers he read were full of their crimes. Abb� Patouille deemed them capable of the darkest

deeds, and believed them to be in league with the Jews and meditating the total overthrow of Christendom.

Having now arrived at the acme of power, they wielded a dominating influence in all the principal

departments of State, they ruled the Chambers, there were five of them in the Ministry, and they filled the

Elys�e. Having some time since assassinated a President of the Republic because he was a patriot, they were

getting rid of the accomplices and witnesses of their execrable crime. Few days passed without Paris being

terrorstricken at some mysterious murder hatched in their Lodges. These were facts concerning which no

doubt was possible. By what means did they gain access to the library? Monsieur Sariette could not imagine.

What task had they come to fulfil? Why did they attack sacred antiquity and the origins of the Church? What

impious designs were they forming? A heavy shadow hung over these terrible undertakings. The Catholic

archivist feeling himself under the eye of the sons of Hiram was terrified and fell ill.

Scarcely had he recovered, when he resolved to pass the night in the very spot where these terrible mysteries

were enacted, and to take the subtle and dangerous visitors by surprise. It was an enterprise that demanded all

his slender courage. Being a man of delicate physique and of nervous temperament. Monsieur Sariette was

naturally inclined to be fearful. On the 8th of January at nine o'clock in the evening while the city lay asleep

under a whirling snowstorm, he built up a good fire in the room containing the busts of the ancient poets and

philosophers, and ensconced himself in an armchair at the chimney corner, a rug over his knees. On a small

stand within reach of his hand were a lamp, a bowl of black coffee, and a revolver borrowed from the

youthful Maurice. He tried to read his paper, La Croix, but the letters danced beneath his eyes. So he stared

hard in front of him, saw nothing but the shadow, heard nothing but the wind, and fell asleep.

When he awoke the fire was out, the lamp was extinguished, leaving an acrid smell behind. But all around,

the darkness was filled with milky brightness and phosphorescent lights. He thought he saw something flutter

CHAPTER IV. WHICH IN ITS FORCEFUL BREVITY PROJECTS TO THE LIMITS OF THE ACTUAL WORLD 9

on the table. Stricken to the marrow with cold and terror, but upheld by a resolve stronger than any fear, he

rose, approached the table, and passed his hands over the cloth. He saw nothing; even the lights faded, but

under his fingers he felt a folio wide open; he tried to close it, the book resisted, jumped up and hit the

Since then things had gone from bad to worse. Books left their allotted shelves in greater profusion than ever,

and sometimes it was impossible to replace them; they disappeared. Monsieur Sariette discovered fresh losses

daily. The Bollandists were now an imperfect set, thirty volumes of exegesis were missing. He himself had

become unrecognisable. His face had shrunk to the size of one's fist and grown yellow as a lemon, his neck

was elongated out of all proportion, his shoulders drooped, the clothes he wore hung on him as an a peg. He

ate nothing, and at the Cremetie des Quatre �v�ques he would sit with dull eyes and bowed head, staring

fixedly and vacantly at the saucer where, in a muddy juice, floated his stewed prunes. He did not hear old

Guinardon relate how he had at last begun to restore the Delacroix paintings at St. Sulpice.

Monsieur Ren� d'Esparvieu, when he heard the unhappy curator's alarming reports, used to answer drily:

"These books have been mislaid, they are not lost; look carefully, Monsieur Sariette, look carefully and you

THE Chapel of the Holy Angels, which lies on the right hand as you enter the Church of St. Sulpice, was

hidden behind a scaffolding of planks. Abb� Patouille, Monsieur Ga�tan, Monsieur Maurice, his nephew, and

Monsieur Sariette, entered in single file through the low door cut in the wooden hoarding, and found old

Guinardon on the top of his ladder standing in front of the Heliodorus. The old artist, surrounded by all sorts

of tools and materials, was putting a white paste in the crack which cut in two the High Priest Onias.

Z�phyrine, Paul Baudry's favourite model, Z�phyrine, who had lent her golden hair and polished shoulders to

so many Magdalens, Marguerites, sylphs, and mermaids, and who, it is said, was beloved of the Emperor

Napoleon III, was standing at the foot of the ladder with tangled locks, cadaverous cheeks, and dim eyes,

older than old Guinardon, whose life she had shared for more than half a century. She had brought the

Although the slanting rays fell grey and cold through the leaded and ironbarred window, Delacroix's

colouring shone resplendent, and the roses on the cheeks of men and angels dimmed with their glorious

beauty the rubicund countenance of old Guinardon, which stood out in relief against one of the temple's

columns. These frescoes of the Chapel of the Holy Angels, though derided and insulted when they first

appeared, have now become part of the classic tradition, and are united in immortality with the masterpieces

Old Guinardon, bearded and longhaired, looked like Father Time effacing the works of man's genius.

"Fear nothing, Monsieur Ga�tan. I do not paint in that style. My art is a higher one. I work after the manner of

Cimabue, Giotto, and Beato Angelico, not in the style of Delacroix. This surface here is too heavily charged

with contrast and opposition to give a really sacred effect. It is true that Chenavard said that Christianity loves

the picturesque, but Chenavard was a rascal with neither faith nor principle an infidel.... Look, Monsieur

d'Esparvieu, I fill up the crevice, I relay the scales of paint which are peeling. That is all.... The damage, due

to the sinking of the wall, or more probably to a seismic shock, is confined to a very small space. This

painting of oil and wax applied on a very dry foundation is far more solid than one might think.

"I saw Delacroix engaged on this work. Impassioned but anxious, he modelled feverishly, scraped out,

repainted unceasingly; his mighty hand made childish blunders, but the thing is done with the mastery of a

"How classic and traditional the composition is," said Ga�tan. "Time was when one could recognise nothing

but its amazing novelty; now one can see in it a multitude of old Italian formulas."

"I may allow myself the luxury of being just, I possess the qualifications," said the old man from the top of

his lofty ladder. "Delacroix lived in a blasphemous and godless age. A painter of the decadence, he was not

without pride nor grandeur. He was greater than his times. But he lacked faith, singleheartedness, and

purity. To be able to see and paint angels he needed that virtue of angels and primitives, that supreme virtue

Thus Z�phyrine, devoured with jealousy because that very morning on the stairs she had seen her lover kiss

the breadwoman's daughter, to wit the youthful Octavie, who was as squalid and radiant as one of

Rembrandt's Brides. She had loved Michel madly in the happy days long since past, and love had never died

Old Guinardon received the flattering insult with a smile that he dissembled, and raised his eyes to the

ceiling, where the archangel Michael, terrible in azure cuirass and gilt helmet, was springing heavenwards in

Meanwhile Abb� Patouille, blinking, and shielding his eyes with his hat against the glaring light from the

window, began to examine the pictures one after another: Heliodorus being scourged by the angels, St.

"All this is exceedingly fine," he murmured at last, "but why has the artist only represented wrathful angels

on these walls? Look where I will in this chapel, I see but heralds of celestial anger, ministers of divine

vengeance. God wishes to be feared; He wishes also to be loved. I would fain perceive on these walls

messengers of peace and of clemency. I should like to see the Seraphim who purified the lips of the prophet,

St. Raphael who gave back his sight to old Tobias, Gabriel who announced the Mystery of the Incarnation to

Mary, the Angel who delivered St. Peter from his chains, the Cherubim who bore the dead St. Catherine to

the top of Sinai. Above all, I should like to be able to contemplate those heavenly guardians which God gives

to every man baptized in His name. We each have one who follows all our steps, who comforts us and

upholds us. It would be pleasant indeed to admire these enchanting spirits, these beautiful faces."

"Ah, Abb�! it depends on the point of view," answered Ga�tan. "Delacroix was no sentimentalist. Old Ingres

was not very far wrong in saying that this great man's work reeks of fire and brimstone. Look at the sombre,

splendid beauty of those angels, look at those androgynes so proud and fierce, at those pitiless youths who lift

avenging rods against Heliodorus, note this mysterious wrestler touching the patriarch on the hip...."

"Hush," said Abb� Patouille. "According to the Bible he is no angel like the others; if he be an angel, he is the

Angel of Creation, the Eternal Son of God. I am surprised that the Venerable Cur� of St. Sulpice, who

entrusted the decoration of this chapel to Monsieur Eug�ne Delacroix, did not tell him that the patriarch's

symbolic struggle with Him who was nameless took place in profound darkness, and that the subject is quite

out of place here, since it prefigures the Incarnation of Jesus Christ. The best artists go astray when they fail

to obtain their ideas of Christian iconography from a qualified ecclesiastic. The institutions of Christian art

form the subject of numerous works with which you are doubtless acquainted, Monsieur Sariette."

Monsieur Sariette was gazing vacantly about him. It was the third morning after his adventurous night in the

library. Being, however, thus called upon by the venerable ecclesiastic, he pulled himself together and

"On this subject we may with advantage consult Molanus, De Historia Sacrarum Imaginum et Picturarum, in

the edition given us by No�l Paquot, dated Louvain, 1771; Cardinal Frederico Borromeo, De Pictura Sacra,

Having thus spoken, Monsieur Sariette relapsed into silence. He was pondering on his devastated library.

"On the other hand," continued Abb� Patouille, "since an example of the holy anger of the angels was

necessary in this chapel, the painter is to be commended for having depicted for us in imitation of Raphael

the heavenly messengers who chastised Heliodorus. Ordered by Seleucus, king of Syria, to carry off the

treasures contained in the Temple, Heliodorus was stricken by an angel in a cuirass of gold mounted on a

magnificently caparisoned steed. Two other angels smote him with rods. He fell to earth, as Monsieur

Delacroix shows us here, and was swallowed up in darkness. It is right and salutary that this adventure should

be cited as an example to the Republican Commissioners of Police and to the sacrilegious agents of the law.

There will always be Heliodoruses, but, let it be known, every time they lay their hands on the property of the

Church, which is the property of the poor, they shall be chastised with rods and blinded by the angels."

"I should like this painting, or, better still, Raphael's sublimer conception of the same subject, to be engraved

in little pictures fully coloured, and distributed as rewards in all the schools."

"Uncle," said young Maurice, with a yawn, "I think these things are simply ghastly. I prefer Matisse and

"Only the primitives caught a glimpse of Heaven. Beauty is only to be found between the thirteenth and

fifteenth centuries. The antique, the impure antique, which regained its pernicious influence over the minds of

the sixteenth century, inspired poets and painters with criminal notions and immodest conceptions, with

horrid impurities, filth. All the artists of the Renaissance were swine, including MichaelAngelo."

Then, perceiving that Ga�tan was on the point of departure, P�re Guinardon assumed an air of bonhomie, and

"Monsieur Ga�tan, if you're not afraid of climbing up my five flights, come and have a look at my den. I've

got two or three little canvases I wouldn't mind parting with, and they might interest you. All good, honest,

straightforward stuff. I'll show you, among other things, a tasty, spicy little Baudouin that would make your

At this speech Ga�tan made off. As he descended the church steps and turned down the Rue Princesse, he

found himself accompanied by old Sariette, and fell to unburdening himself to him, as he would have done to

any human creature, or indeed to a tree, a lamppost, a dog, or his own shadow, of the indignation with

"Old Guinardon overdoes it with his Christian art and his Primitives! Whatever the artist conceives of Heaven

is borrowed from earth; God, the Virgin, the Angels, men and women, saints, the light, the clouds. When he

was designing figures for the chapel windows at Dreux, old Ingres drew from life a pure, fine study of a

woman, which may be seen, among many others, in the Musee Bonnat at Bayonne. Old Ingres had written at

the bottom of the page in case he should forget: 'Mademoiselle Cecile, admirable legs and thighs' and so

as to make Mademoiselle Cecile into a saint in Paradise, he gave her a robe, a cloak, a veil, inflicting thus a

shameful decline in her estate, for the tissues of Lyons and Genoa are worthless compared with the youthful

living tissue, rosy with pure blood; the most beautiful draperies are despicable compared with the lines of a

beautiful body. In fact, clothing for flesh that is desirable and ripe for wedlock is an unmerited shame, and the

worst of humiliations"; and Ga�tan, walking carelessly in the gutter of the Rue Garanci�re, continued: "Old

Guinardon is a pestilential idiot. He blasphemes Antiquity, sacred Antiquity, the age when the gods were

kind. He exalts an epoch when the painter and the sculptor had all their lessons to learn over again. In point of

fact, Christianity has run contrary to art in so much as it has not favoured the study of the nude. Art is the

representation of nature, and nature is preeminently the human body; it is the nude."

"Pardon, pardon," purred old Sariette. "There is such a thing as spiritual, or, as one might term it, inward

beauty, which, since the days of Fra Angelico down to those of Hippolyte Flandrin, Christian art has "

But Ga�tan, never hearing a word of all this, went on hurling his impetuous observations at the stones of the

"The Primitives cannot be judged as a whole, for they are utterly unlike each other. This old madman

confounds them all together. Cimabue is a corrupt Byzantine, Giotto gives hints of powerful genius, but his

modelling is bad, and, like children, he gives all his characters the same face. The early Italians have grace

and joy, because they are Italians. The Venetians have an instinct for fine colour. But when all is said and

done these exquisite craftsmen enamel and gild rather than paint. There is far too much softness about the

heart and the colouring of your saintly Angelico for me. As for the Flemish school, that's quite another pair of

shoes. They can use their hands, and in glory of workmanship they are on a level with the Chinese

lacquerworkers. The technique of the brothers Van Eyck is a marvel, but I cannot discover in their

Adoration of the Lamb the charm and mystery that some have vaunted. Everything in it is treated with a

pitiless perfection; it is vulgar in feeling and cruelly ugly. Memling may touch one perhaps; but he creates

nothing but sick wretches and cripples; under the heavy, rich, and ungraceful robing of his virgins and saints

one divines some very lamentable anatomy. I did not wait for Rogier van der Wyden to call himself Roger de

la Pasture and turn Frenchman in order to prefer him to Memling. This Rogier or Roger is less of a ninny; but

then he is more lugubrious, and the rigidity of his lines bears eloquent testimony to his povertystricken

figures. It is a strange perversion to take pleasure in these carnivalesque figures when one can have the

paintings of Leonardo, Titian, Correggio, Velasquez, Rubens, Rembrandt, Poussin, or Prud'hon. Really it is a

Meanwhile the Abb� Patouille and Maurice d'Esparvieu were strolling leisurely along in the wake of the

esthete and the librarian. As a general rule the Abb� Patouille was little inclined to talk theology with laymen,

or, for that matter, with clerics either. Carried away, however, by the attractiveness of the subject, he was

telling the youthful Maurice all about the sacred mission of those guardian angels which Monsieur Delacroix

had so inopportunely excluded from his picture. And in order to give more adequate expression to his

thoughts on such lofty themes, the Abb� Patouille borrowed whole phrases and sentences from Bossuet. He

had got them up by heart to put in his sermons, for he adhered strongly to tradition.

"Yes, my son," he was saying, "God has appointed tutelary spirits to be near us. They come to us laden with

His gifts. They return laden with our prayers. Such is their task. Not an hour, not a moment passes but they

are at our side, ready to help us, ever fervent and unwearying guardians, watchmen that never slumber."

"Quite so, Abb�," murmured Maurice, who was wondering by what cunning artifice he could get on the soft

side of his mother and persuade her to give him some money of which he was urgently in need.

NEXT morning Monsieur Sariette entered Monsieur Ren� d'Esparvieu's study without knocking. He raised

his arms to the heavens, his few hairs were standing straight up on his head. His eyes were big with terror. In

husky tones he stammered out the dreadful news. A very old manuscript of Flavius Josephus; sixty volumes

of all sizes; a priceless jewel, namely, a Lucretius adorned with the arms of Philippe de Vend�me, Grand

Prior of France, with notes in Voltaire's own hand; a manuscript of Richard Simon, and a set of Gassendi's

correspondence with Gabriel Naud�, comprising two hundred and thirtyeight unpublished letters, had

He mounted in haste to the abode of the philosophers and the globes, and there with his own eyes confirmed

There were yawning gaps on many a shelf. He searched here and there, opened cupboards, dragged out

brooms, dusters, and fireextinguishers, rattled the shovel in the coke fire, shook out Monsieur Sariette's best

frockcoat that was hanging in the cloakroom, and then stood and gazed disconsolately at the empty places

For the past halfcentury the whole learned world had been loudly clamouring for the publication of this

correspondence. Monsieur Ren� d'Esparvieu had not responded to the universal desire, unwilling either to

assume so heavy a task, or to resign it to others. Having found much boldness of thought in these letters, and

many passages of more libertine tendency than the piety of the twentieth century could endure, he preferred

that they should remain unpublished; but he felt himself responsible for their safekeeping, not only to his

"How can you have allowed yourself to be robbed of such a treasure?" he asked severely of Monsieur

"How can I have allowed myself to be robbed of such a treasure?" repeated the unhappy librarian. "Monsieur,

Unmoved by this powerful utterance, Monsieur d'Esparvieu continued with pentup fury:

"And you have discovered no single sign that would put you on the track of the thief, Monsieur Sariette? You

have no suspicion. not the faintest idea, of the way these things have come to pass? You have seen nothing,

heard nothing, noticed nothing, learnt nothing? You must grant this is unbelievable. Think, Monsieur

Sariette, think of the possible consequences of this unheardof theft, committed under your eyes. A document

of inestimable value in the history of the human mind disappears. Who has stolen it? Why has it been stolen?

Who will gain by it? Those who have got possession of it doubtless know that they will be unable to dispose

of it in France. They will go and sell it in America or Germany. Germany is greedy for such literary

monuments. Should the correspondence of Gassendi with Gabriel Naud� go over to Berlin, if it is published

there by German savants, what a disaster, nay, what a scandal! Monsieur Sariette, have you not thought of

Beneath the stroke of an accusation all the more cruel in that he brought it against himself, Monsieur Sariette

stood stupefied, and was silent. And Monsieur d'Esparvieu continued to overwhelm him with bitter

"And you make no effort. You devise nothing to find these inestimable treasures. Make enquiries, bestir

Monsieur Sariette sought the lost books and manuscripts in every spot where he had already sought them a

hundred times, and where they could not possibly be. He even looked in the cokebox and under the leather

seat of his armchair. When midday struck he mechanically went downstairs. At the foot of the stairs he met

his old pupil Maurice, with whom he exchanged a bow. But he only saw men and things as through a mist.

The brokenhearted curator had already reached the hall when Maurice called him back.

"Monsieur Sariette, while I think of it, do have the books removed that are choking up my gardenhouse."

"I could not tell you, Monsieur Sariette, but there are some in Hebrew, all wormeaten, with a whole heap of

And the young man rushed off to the diningroom, the luncheon gong having sounded quite a minute ago.

Monsieur Sariette tore away to the summerhouse. Maurice had spoken the truth. About a hundred volumes

were there, on tables, on chairs, even on the floor. When he saw them he was divided betwixt joy and fear,

filled with amazement and anxiety. Happy in the finding of his lost treasure, dreading to lose it again, and

completely overwhelmed with astonishment, the man of books alternately babbled like an infant and uttered

the hoarse cries of a maniac. He recognised his Hebrew Bibles, his ancient Talmuds, his very old manuscript

of Flavius Josephus, his portfolios of Gassendi's letters to Gabriel Naud�, and his richest jewel of all, to wit,

Lucretius adorned with the arms of the Grand Prior of France, and with notes in Voltaire's own hand. He

laughed, he cried, he kissed the morocco, the calf, the parchment, and vellum, even the wooden boards

As fast as Hippolyte, the manservant, returned with an armful to the library, Monsieur Sariette, with a

ALL the books were now once more assembled in the pious keeping of Monsieur Sariette. But this happy

reunion was not destined to last. The following night twenty volumes left their places, among them the

Lucretius of Prior de Vend�me. Within a week the old Hebrew and Greek texts had all returned to the

summerhouse, and every night during the ensuing month they left their shelves and secretly went on the same

On hearing of these mysterious occurrences, Monsieur Ren� d'Esparvieu merely remarked with frigidity to

And when Monsieur Sariette tentatively advised him to lodge a formal complaint or to inform the

"What are you suggesting, Monsieur Sariette? Divulge domestic secrets, make a scandal! You cannot mean it.

I have enemies, and I am proud of it. I think I have deserved them. What I might complain about is that I am

wounded in the house of my friend, attacked with unheardof violence, by fervent loyalists, who, I grant you,

are good Catholics, but exceedingly bad Christians.... In a word, I am watched, spied upon, shadowed, and

you suggest, Monsieur Sariette, that I should make a present of this comicopera mystery, this burlesque

adventure, this story in which we both cut somewhat pitiable figures, to a set of spiteful journalists? Do you

The result of the colloquy was that the two gentlemen agreed to change all the locks in the library. Estimates

were asked for and workmen called in. For six weeks the d'Esparvieu household rang from morning till night

with the sound of hammers, the hum of centrebits, and the grating of files. Fires were always going in the

abode of the philosophers and globes, and the people of the house were simply sickened by the smell of

heated oil. The old, smooth, easyrunning locks were replaced, on the cupboards and doors of the rooms, by

stubborn and tricky fastenings. There was nothing but combinations of locks, letterpadlocks, safetybolts,

All this display of ironmongery inspired fear. The lockcases glistened, and there was much grinding of

bolts. To gain access to a room, a cupboard, or a drawer, it was necessary to know a certain number, of which

Monsieur Sariette alone was cognisant. His head was filled with bizarre words and tremendous numbers, and

he got entangled among all these cryptic signs, these square, cubic, and triangular figures. He himself couldn't

get the doors and the cupboards undone, yet every morning he found them wide open, and the books thrown

about, ransacked, and hidden away. In the gutter of the Rue Servandoni a policeman picked up a volume of

Salomon Reinach on the identity of Barabbas and Jesus Christ. As it bore the bookplate of the d'Esparvieu

Monsieur Ren� d'Esparvieu, not even deigning to inform Monsieur Sariette of the fact, made up his mind to

consult a magistrate, a friend in whom he had complete confidence, to wit, a certain Monsieur des Aubels,

Counsel at the Law Courts, who had put through many an important affair. He was a little plump man, very

CHAPTER VII. OF A SOMEWHAT LIVELY INTEREST, WHEREOF THE MORAL WILL, I HOPE, APPEAL GREATLY TO MY READER, SINCE IT CAN BE EXPRESSED BY THIS SORROWFUL QUERY: "THOUGHT, WHITHER DOST THOU LEAD ME?" FOR IT IS A UNIVERSALLY ADMITTED TRUTH THAT IT IS UNHEALTHY TO THINK AND THAT TRUE WISDOM LIES IN NOT THINKING AT ALL 16

red, very bald, with a cranium that shone like a billiard ball. He entered the library one morning feigning to

come as a booklover, but he soon showed that he knew nothing about books. While all the busts of the

ancient philosophers were reflected in his shining pate, he put divers insidious questions to Monsieur Sariette,

who grew uncomfortable and turned red, for innocence is easily flustered. From that moment Monsieur des

Aubels had a mighty suspicion that Monsieur Sariette was the perpetrator of the very thefts he denounced

with horror; and it immediately occurred to him to seek out the accomplices of the crime. As regards motives,

he did not trouble about them; motives are always to be found. Monsieur des Aubels told Monsieur Ren�

d'Esparvieu that, if he liked, he would have the house secretly watched by a detective from the Prefecture.

"I will see that you get Mignon," he said. "He is an excellent servant, assiduous and prudent."

By six o'clock next morning Mignon was already walking up and down outside the d'Esparvieus' house, his

head sunk between his shoulders, wearing lovelocks which showed from under the narrow brim of his

bowler hat, his eye cocked over his shoulder. He wore an enormous dullblack moustache, his hands and feet

were huge; in fact, his whole appearance was distinctly memorable. He paced regularly up and down from the

nearest of the big rams' head pillars which adorn the H�tel de la Sordiere to the end of the Rue Garanci�re,

towards the apse of St. Sulpice Church and the dome of the Chapel of the Virgin.

Henceforth it became impossible to enter or leave the d'Esparvieus' house without feeling that one's every

action, that one's very thoughts, were being spied upon. Mignon was a prodigious person endowed with

powers that Nature denies to other mortals. He neither ate nor slept. At all hours of the day and night, in wind

and rain, he was to be found outside the house, and no one escaped the Xrays of his eye. One felt pierced

through and through, penetrated to the very marrow, worse than naked, bare as a skeleton. It was the affair of

a moment; the detective did not even stop, but continued his everlasting walk. It became intolerable. Young

Maurice threatened to leave the paternal roof if he was to be so radiographed. His mother and his sister

Berthe complained of his piercing look; it offended the chaste modesty of their souls. Mademoiselle Caporal,

young L�on d'Esparvieu's governess, felt an indescribable embarrassment. Monsieur Ren� d'Esparvieu was

sick of the whole business. He never crossed his own threshold without crushing his hat over his eyes to

avoid the investigating ray and without wishing old Sariette, the fons et origo of all the evil, at the devil. The

intimates of the household, such as Abb� Patouille and Uncle Ga�tan, made themselves scarce; visitors gave

up calling, tradespeople hesitated about leaving their goods, the carts belonging to the big shops scarcely

dared stop. But it was among the domestics that the spying roused the most disorder.

The footman, afraid, under the eye of the police, to go and join the cobbler's wife over her solitary labours in

the afternoon, found the house unbearable and gave notice. Odile, Madame d'Esparvieu's lady'smaid, not

daring, as was her custom after her mistress had retired, to introduce Octave, the handsomest of the

neighbouring bookseller's clerics, to her little room upstairs, grew melancholy, irritable and nervous, pulled

her mistress's hair while dressing it, spoke insolently, and made advances to Monsieur Maurice. The cook,

Madame Malgoire, a serious matron of some fifty years, having no more visits from Auguste, the

winemerchant's man in the Rue Servandoni, and being incapable of suffering a privation so contrary to her

temperament, went mad, sent up a raw rabbit to table, and announced that the Pope had asked her hand in

marriage. At last, after a fortnight of superhuman assiduity, contrary to all known laws of organic life, and to

the essential conditions of animal economy, Mignon, the detective, having observed nothing abnormal,

ceased his surveillance and withdrew without a word, refusing to accept a gratuity. In the library the dance of

"That is all right," said Monsieur des Aubels. "Since nothing comes in nor goes out, the evildoer must be in

The magistrate thought it possible to discover the criminal without policewarrant or enquiry. On a date

agreed upon at midnight, he had the floor of the library, the treads of the stairs, the vestibule, the garden path

leading to Monsieur Maurice's summerhouse, and the entrance hall of the latter, all covered with a coating

The following morning Monsieur des Aubels, assisted by a photographer from the Prefecture, and

accompanied by Monsieur Ren� d'Esparvieu and Monsieur Sariette, came to take the imprints. They found

nothing in the garden, the wind had blown away the coating of talc; nothing in the summerhouse either.

Young Maurice told them he thought it was some practical joke and that he had brushed away the white dust

with the hearthbrush. The real truth was, he had effaced the traces left by the boots of Odile, the lady'smaid.

On the stairs and in the library the very light print of a bare foot could be discerned, it seemed to have sprung

into the air and to have touched the ground at rare intervals and without any pressure. They discovered five of

these traces. The clearest was to be found in the abode of the busts and spheres, on the edge of the table

where the books were piled. The photographer took several negatives of this imprint.

Three days later the anthropometrical department of the Prefecture returned the proofs exhibited to them,

After dinner Monsieur Ren� showed the photographs to his brother Ga�tan, who examined them with

"No wonder they have not got this at the Prefecture; it is the foot of a god or of an athlete of antiquity. The

sole that made this impression is of a perfection unknown to our races and our climates. It exhibits toes of

"Uncle," said Maurice, "you'll fall in love with this foot if you ever come across it."

"Such was the fate of Vivant Denon, who accompanied Bonaparte to Egypt," replied Ga�tan. "At Thebes, in a

tomb violated by the Arabs, Denon found the little foot of a mummy of marvellous beauty. He contemplated

it with extraordinary fervour. 'It is the foot of a young woman,' he pondered, 'of a princess of a charming

creature. No covering has ever marred its perfect shape.' Denon admired, adored, and loved it. You may see a

drawing of this little foot in Denon's atlas of his journey to Egypt, whose leaves one could turn over upstairs,

without going further afield, if only Monsieur Sariette would ever let us see a single volume of his library."

Sometimes, in bed, Maurice, waking in the middle of the night, thought he heard the sound of pages being

turned over in the next room, and the thud of bound volumes falling on the floor.

One morning at five o'clock he was coming home from the club, after a night of bad luck, and while he stood

outside the door of the summerhouse, hunting in his pocket for his keys, his ears distinctly heard a voice

But entering the two rooms he saw nothing, and told himself that his ears must have deceived him.

NOTHING ever astonished Maurice. He never sought to know the causes of things and dwelt tranquilly in

the world of appearances. Not denying the eternal truth, he nevertheless followed vain things as his fancy led

Less addicted to sport and violent exercise than most young people of his generation, he followed

unconsciously the old erotic traditions of his race. The French were ever the most gallant of men, and it were

a pity they should lose this advantage. Maurice preserved it. He was in love with no woman, but, as St.

Augustine said, he loved to love. After paying the tribute that was rightly due to the imperishable beauty and

secret arts of Madame de la Bertheliere, he had enjoyed the impetuous caresses of a young singer called

Luciole. At present he was joylessly experiencing the primitive perversity of Odile, his mother's lady'smaid,

and the tearful adoration of the beautiful Madame Boittier. And he felt a great void in his heart.

It chanced that one Wednesday, on entering the drawingroom where his mother entertained her friends

who were, generally speaking, unattractive and austere ladies, with a sprinkling of old men and very young

people he noticed, in this intimate circle, Madame des Aubels, the wife of the magistrate at the Law Courts,

whom Monsieur d'Esparvieu had vainly consulted on the mysterious ransacking of his library. She was

young, he found her pretty, and not without cause. Gilberte had been modelled by the Genius of the Race, and

Thus all her attributes inspired desire, and nothing in her shape or her being aroused any other sentiment.

The law of attraction which draws world to world moved young Maurice to approach this delicious creature,

and under its influence he offered to escort her to the teatable. And when Gilberte was served with tea, he

He spoke in this way, according to modern usage, so as to avoid inane compliments and to spare a woman the

boredom of listening to one of those old declarations of love which, containing nothing but what is vague and

And profiting by the fact that he had an opportunity of conversing secretly with Madame des Aubels for a

few minutes, he spoke urgently an to the point. Gilberte, so far as one could judge was made rather to awaken

desire than to feel it. Nevertheless, she well knew that her fate was to love, and she followed it willingly and

with pleasure. Maurice did not particularly displease her. She would have preferred him to be an orphan, for

experience had taught her how disappointing it sometimes is to love the son of the house.

She pretended not to understand, and with her little foiegras sandwich raised halfway to her mouth she

CHAPTER VIII. WHICH SPEAKS OF LOVE, A SUBJECT WHICH ALWAYS GIVES PLEASURE, FOR A TALE WITHOUT LOVE IS LIKE BEEF WITHOUT MUSTARD: AN INSIPID DISH 19

Madame des Aubels lowered her eyes, and sipped her tea, for her prudishness was not quite vanquished.

"Saturday, five o'clock, 126 Rue de Rome, on the groundfloor, the door on the right, under the arch. Knock

Madame des Aubels glanced severely and imperturbably at the son of the house, and with a selfpossessed

air rejoined the circle of highly respectable women to whom the Senator Monsieur Le Fol was explaining

how artificial incubators were employed at the agricultural colony at St. Julienne.

The following Saturday, Maurice, in his groundfloor flat, awaited Madame des Aubels. He waited her in vain.

No light hand came to knock three times on the door under the arch. And Maurice gave way to imprecation,

inwardly calling the absent one a jade and a hussy. His fruitless wait, his frustrated desires, rendered him

unjust. For Madame des Aubels in not coming where she had never promised to go hardly deserved these

Maurice did not put in an appearance in his mother's drawingroom until a fortnight after the conversation at

the teatable. He came late. Madame des Aubels had been there for half an hour. He bowed coldly to her,

"Worthily matched," a rich male voice was saying; "the two antagonists were well calculated to render the

struggle a terrible and uncertain one. General Bol, with unprecedented tenacity, maintained his position as

though he were rooted in the very soil. General Milpertuis, with an agility truly superhuman, kept carrying

out movements of the most dazzling rapidity around his immovable adversary. The battle continued to be

It was General d'Esparvieu describing the autumn manoeuvres to a company of breathlessly interested ladies.

He was talking well and his audience were delighted. Proceeding to draw a comparison between the French

and German methods, he defined their distinguishing characteristics and brought out the conspicuous merits

of both with a lofty impartiality. He did not hesitate to affirm that each system had its advantages, and at first

made it appear to his circle of wondering, disappointed, and anxious dames, whose countenances were

growing increasingly gloomy, that France and Germany were practically in a position of equality. But little

by little, as the strategist went on to give a clearer definition of the two methods, that of the French began to

appear flexible, elegant, vigorous, full of grace, cleverness, and verve; that of the Germans heavy, clumsy,

and undecided. And slowly and surely the faces of the ladies began to dear and to light up with joyous smiles.

In order to dissipate any lingering shadows of misgiving from the minds of these wives, sisters, and

sweethearts, the General gave them to understand that we were in a position to make use of the German

method when it suited us, but that the Germans could not avail themselves of the French method. No sooner

had he delivered himself of these sentiments than he was buttonholed by Monsieur le Truc de Ruffec, who

was engaged in founding a patriotic society known as "Swordsmen All," of which the object was to

regenerate France and ensure her superiority over all her adversaries. Even children in the cradle were to be

enrolled, and Monsieur le Truc de Ruffec offered the honorary presidency to General d'Esparvieu.

Meanwhile Maurice was appearing to be interested in a conversation that was taking place between a very

gentle old lady and the Abb� Lapetite, Chaplain to the Dames du Saint Sang. The old lady, severely tried of

late by illness and the loss of friends, wanted to know how it was that people were unhappy in this world.

"How," she asked Abb� Lapetite, "do you explain the scourges that afflict mankind? Why are there plagues,

CHAPTER VIII. WHICH SPEAKS OF LOVE, A SUBJECT WHICH ALWAYS GIVES PLEASURE, FOR A TALE WITHOUT LOVE IS LIKE BEEF WITHOUT MUSTARD: AN INSIPID DISH 20

"It is surely necessary that God should sometimes remind us of his existence," replied Abb� Lapetite, with a

Maurice appeared keenly interested in this conversation. Then he seemed fascinated by Madame

FillotGrandin, quite a personable young woman, whose simple innocence, however, detracted all piquancy

from her beauty, all savour from her bodily charms. A very sour, shrillvoiced old lady, who, affecting the

dowdy, woollen weeds of poverty, displayed the pride of a great lady in the world of Christian finance,

"Well, my dear Madame d'Esparvieu, so you have had trouble here. The papers speak darkly of robbery, of

thefts committed in Monsieur d'Esparvieu's valuable library, of stolen letters...."

"Oh, so, dear Madame, you have got your treasures back. All's well that ends well."

"The library is in perfect order," asserted Madame d'Esparvieu. "There is nothing missing."

"The library is on the floor above this, is it not?" asked young Madame des Aubels, showing an unexpected

Madame d'Esparvieu replied that the library occupied the whole of the second floor, and that they had put the

The mistress of the house declared that nothing could be easier. She called to her son:

Maurice rose, and without uttering a word, mounted to the second floor in the wake of Madame des Aubels.

He appeared indifferent, but inwardly he rejoiced, for he had no doubt that Gilberte had feigned her ardent

desire to inspect the library simply to see him in secret. And, while affecting indifference, he promised

Under the romantic bust of Alexandre d'Esparvieu, they were met by the silent shadow of a little wan,

"Do not let us disturb you, Monsieur Sariette," said Maurice. "I am showing Madame des Aubels round the

Maurice and Madame des Aubels passed on into the great room where against the four walls rose presses

filled with books and surmounted by bronze busts of poets, philosophers, and orators of antiquity. All was in

perfect order, an order which seemed never to have been disturbed from the beginning of things.

Only, a black void was to be seen in the place which, only the evening before, had been filled by an

unpublished manuscript of Richard Simon. Meanwhile, by the side of the young couple walked Monsieur

"Really and truly, you have not been nice," said Maurice, with a look of reproach at Madame des Aubels.

CHAPTER VIII. WHICH SPEAKS OF LOVE, A SUBJECT WHICH ALWAYS GIVES PLEASURE, FOR A TALE WITHOUT LOVE IS LIKE BEEF WITHOUT MUSTARD: AN INSIPID DISH 21

"Take no notice. It is old Sariette. He has become a complete idiot." And he repeated:

"No, you have not been at all nice. I awaited you. You did not come. You have made me unhappy."

After a moment's silence, while one heard the low melancholy whistling of asthma in poor Sariette's

Touched by his assurance of sincere and constant feeling, and thinking she had resisted sufficiently, Gilberte

They slipped into an embrasure of the window, behind an enormous celestial globe whereon were graven the

Signs of the Zodiac and the figures of the stars, and there, their gaze fixed on the Lion, the Virgin, and the

Scales, in the presence of a multitude of Bibles, before the works of the Fathers, both Greek and Latin,

beneath the casts of Homer, Eschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Herodotus, Thucydides, Socrates, Plato,

Aristotle, Demosthenes, Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Seneca, and Epictetus, they exchanged vows of love and a

Almost immediately Madame des Aubels bethought herself that she still had some calls to pay, and that she

must make her escape quickly, for love had not made her lose all sense of her own importance. But she had

barely crossed the landing with Maurice when they heard a hoarse cry and saw Monsieur Sariette plunge

"Stop it, stop it; I saw it fly away! It escaped from the shelf by itself. It crossed the room... there it is

there! It's going downstairs. Stop it! It has gone out of the door on the ground floor!"

CHAPTER VIII. WHICH SPEAKS OF LOVE, A SUBJECT WHICH ALWAYS GIVES PLEASURE, FOR A TALE WITHOUT LOVE IS LIKE BEEF WITHOUT MUSTARD: AN INSIPID DISH 22

"You see he is quite mad," said Maurice to Madame des Aubels, as he lifted up the unfortunate librarian.

Gilberte, a little pale, said she also thought she had seen, something in the direction indicated by the unhappy

He left Monsieur Sariette in the arms of Hippolyte and the housekeeper, who had both hastened to the spot on

"All the better," said the housekeeper; "this wound may save him from having a fit."

Madame des Aubels gave her handkerchief to stop the blood, and recommended an arnica compress.

ALTHOUGH he had enjoyed Madame des Aubel's favours for six whole months, Maurice still loved her.

True they had had to separate during the summer. For lack of funds of his own he had had to go to

Switzerland with his mother, and then to stop with the whole family at the Ch�teau d'Esparvieu. She had

spent the summer with her mother at Niort, and the autumn with her husband at a little Normandy seaside

place, so that they had hardly seen each other four or five times. But since the winter, kindly to lovers, had

brought them back to town again, Maurice had been receiving her twice a week in his little flat in the Rue de

Rome, and received no one else. No other woman had inspired him with feelings of such constancy and

fidelity. What augmented his pleasure was that he believed himself loved, and indeed he was not unpleasing.

He thought that she did not deceive him, not that he had any reason to think so, but it appeared right and

fitting that she should be content with him alone. What annoyed him was that she always kept him waiting,

and was unpunctual in coming to their meetingplace; she was invariably late, at times very late.

Now on Saturday, January 30th, since four o'clock in the afternoon, Maurice had been awaiting Madame des

Aubels in the little pink room where a bright fire was burning. He was gaily clad in a suit of flowered

pyjamas, smoking Turkish cigarettes. At first he dreamt of receiving her with long kisses, with hitherto

unknown caresses. A quarter of an hour having passed, he meditated serious and affectionate reproaches, then

after an hour of disappointed waiting he vowed he would meet her with cold disdain.

"It was scarcely worth while coming," he said bitterly, as she laid her muff and her little bag on the table and

Never, she told her beloved, had she had such trouble to get away. She was full of excuses, which he

obstinately rejected. But no sooner had she the good sense to hold her tongue than he ceased his reproaches,

CHAPTER IX. WHEREIN IT IS SHOWN THAT, AS AN ANCIENT GREEK POET SAID, "NOTHING IS SWEETER THAN APHRODITE THE GOLDEN" 23

The curtains were drawn, the room was bathed in warm shadows lit by the dancing gleams of the fire. The

mirrors in the wardrobe and on the chimneypiece shone with mysterious lights. Gilberte, leaning on her

elbow, head on hand, was lost in thought. A little jeweller, a trustworthy and intelligent man, had shown her a

wonderfully pretty pearl and sapphire bracelet; it was worth a great deal, and was to be had for a mere

nothing. He had got it from a cocotte down on her luck, who was in a hurry to dispose of it. It was a rare

"Would you like to see it, darling? I will ask the little man to let me have it to show you."

Maurice did not actually decline the proposal. But it was clear that he took no interest in the wonderful

bracelet. "When small jewellers come across a great bargain, they keep it to themselves, and do not allow

their customers to profit by it. Moreover, jewellery means nothing just now. Wellbred women have given up

Maurice spoke thus, contrary to truth, because having given his mistress a fur coat, he was in no hurry to give

her anything more. He was not stingy, but he was careful with his money. His people did not give him a very

large allowance, and his debts grew bigger every day. By satisfying the wishes of his inamorata too promptly

he feared to arouse others still more pressing. The bargain seemed less wonderful to him than to Gilberte;

besides, he liked to take the initiative in choosing his gifts. Above all, he thought that if he gave her too many

Madame des Aubels felt neither contempt nor surprise at this attitude; she was gentle and temperate, she

knew men, and judged that one must take them as one found them, that for the most part they do not give

Suddenly a gas lamp was lighted in the street, and shone through the gaps in the curtains.

Pricked by the touch of Time's fleeting wing, Maurice was conscious of reawakened desires and reanimated

powers. A white and radiant offering, Gilberte, with her head thrown back, her eyes half closed, her lips

apart, sunk in dreamy languor, was breathing slowly and placidly, when suddenly she started up with a cry of

In his present mood, had the sky fallen it would not have troubled him. But in one bound she escaped from

him. Crouching down, her eyes filled with terror, she was pointing with her finger at a figure which appeared

in a corner of the room, between the fireplace and the wardrobe with the mirror. Then, unable to bear the

MAURICE at length turned his head, saw the figure, and perceiving that it moved, was also frightened.

Meanwhile, Gilberte was regaining her senses. She imagined that what she had seen was some mistress

whom her lover had hidden in the room. Inflamed with anger and disgust at the idea of such treachery,

CHAPTER X. WHICH FAR SURPASSES IN AUDACITY THE IMAGINATIVE FLIGHTS OF DANTE AND MILTON 24

"A woman... a naked woman too! You bring me into a room where you allow your women to come, and

when I arrive they have not had time to dress. And you reproach me with arriving late! Your impudence is

beyond belief! Come, send the creature packing. If you wanted us both here together, you might at least have

Maurice, wideeyed and groping for a revolver that had never been there, whispered in her ear:

"A man! Where does he come from? A thief. An assassin! Help! Help! Kill him.... Maurice, kill him! Turn on

She made a mental vow that should she escape from this danger she would burn a candle to the Blessed

She offered the burglar all the money and jewels she had on the table if he would consent not to stir. Amid

her surprise and terror the idea assailed her that her husband, dissembling his suspicions, had caused her to be

followed, had posted witnesses, and had had recourse to the Commissaire de Police. In a flash she distinctly

saw before her the long painful future, the glaring scandal, the pretended disdain, the cowardly desertion of

her friends, the just mockery of society, for it is indeed ridiculous to be found out. She saw the divorce; the

loss of her position and of her rank. She saw the dreary and narrow existence with her mother, when no one

would make love to her, for men avoid women who fail to give them the security of the married state. And all

this, why? Why this ruin, this disaster? For a piece of folly, for a mere nothing. Thus in a lightning flash

Maurice, without understanding either, was indignant. He sprang forward and showed himself; with his right

hand armed with a slipper he made a threatening gesture, and said in a rough voice:

CHAPTER X. WHICH FAR SURPASSES IN AUDACITY THE IMAGINATIVE FLIGHTS OF DANTE AND MILTON 25

"Maurice d'Esparvieu," continued the sweet voice, "He whom you adore as your Creator has stationed by the

side of each of the faithful a good angel, whose mission it is to counsel and protect him; it is the invariable

opinion of the Fathers it is founded on many passages in the Bible, the Church admits it unanimously,

without, however, pronouncing anathema upon those who hold a contrary opinion. You see before you one of

these angels, yours, Maurice. I was commanded to watch over your innocence and to guard your chastity."

"That may be," said Maurice; "but you are certainly no gentleman. A gentleman would not permit himself to

"I have assumed this appearance, Maurice, because, having henceforth to move among mankind, I have to

make myself like them. The celestial spirits possess the power of assuming a form which renders them

apparent to the eye and to the touch. This shape is real, because it is apparent, and all the realities in the world

"The celestial spirits adopt, according to their fancy, one sex or the other, or both at once. But they cannot

disguise themselves at any moment, according to their caprice or fantasy. Their metamorphoses are subject to

constant laws, which you would not understand. Thus I have neither desire nor power to transform myself

under your eyes, for your amusement or my own, into a lion, a tiger, a fly, or into a sycamoreshaving like

the young Egyptian whose story was found in a tomb. I cannot change myself into an ass as did Lucius with

the pomade of the youthful Photis. For in my wisdom I had fixed beforehand the hour of my apparition to

Joining her voice to his, Madame des Aubels asked: "Yes, indeed, what are you doing here?'

"Man, lend your ear. Woman, hear my voice. I am about to reveal to you a secret on which hangs the fate of

the Universe. In rebellion against Him whom you hold to be the Creator of all things visible and invisible, I

"Do not jest," said Maurice, who had faith and did not allow holy things to be played with.

But the Angel answered reproachfully: "What makes you think, Maurice, that I am frivolous and given to

"Come, come," said Maurice, shrugging his shoulders. "You are not going to revolt against"

"Do you not know that the sons of God have already revolted and that a great battle took place in the

CHAPTER X. WHICH FAR SURPASSES IN AUDACITY THE IMAGINATIVE FLIGHTS OF DANTE AND MILTON 26

"It was before the creation of the world. But nothing has changed since then in the heavens. The nature of the

Angels is no different now from what it was originally. What they did then they could do again now."

"No! It is not possible. It is contrary to faith. If you were an angel, a good angel as you make out you are, it

"You are in error, Maurice, and the authority of the Fathers condemns you. Origen lays it down in his

homilies that good angels are fallible, that they sin every day and fall from Heaven like flies. Possibly you

may be tempted to reject the authority of this Father, despite his knowledge of the Scriptures, because he is

excluded from the Canon of the Saints. If this be so, I would remind you of the second chapter of Revelation,

in which the Angels of Ephesus and Pergamos are rebuked for that they kept not ward over their church. You

will doubtless contend that the angels to whom the Apostle here refers are, properly speaking, the Bishops of

the two cities in question, and that he calls them angels on account of their ministry. It may be so, and I cede

the point. But with what arguments, Maurice, would you counter the opinion of all those Doctors and Pontiffs

whose unanimous teaching it is that angels may fall from good into evil? Such is the statement made by Saint

"Saint Augustine, in his True Religion, Chapter XIII; Saint Gregory, in his Morals, Chapter XXIV;

"Chapter VIII; John of Damascus on Faith, Book II, Chapter III. Those, I think, are sufficiently weighty

authorities, and there is nothing for it, Maurice, but to admit your error. What has led you astray is that you

have not duly considered my nature, which is free, active, and mobile, like that of all the angels, and that you

have merely observed the grace and felicity with which you deem me so richly endowed. Lucifer possessed

"Isaiah," answered the child of light, "Isaiah has already asked, before you: 'Quomodo cecidisti de coelo,

Lucifer, qui mane oriebaris?' Hearken, Maurice. Before Time was, the Angels rose up to win dominion over

Heaven, the most beautiful of the Seraphim revolted through pride. As for me, it is science that has inspired

me with the generous desire for freedom. Finding myself near you, Maurice, in a house containing one of the

vastest libraries in the world, I acquired a taste for reading and a love of study. While, fordone with the toils

of a sensual life, you lay sunk in heavy slumber, I surrounded myself with books, I studied, I pondered over

their pages, sometimes in one of the rooms of the library, under the busts of the great men of antiquity,

sometimes at the far end of the garden, in the room in the summerhouse next to your own."

CHAPTER X. WHICH FAR SURPASSES IN AUDACITY THE IMAGINATIVE FLIGHTS OF DANTE AND MILTON 27

On hearing these words, young d'Esparvieu exploded with laughter and beat the pillow with his fist, an

"Ah... ah... ah! It was you who pillaged papa's library and drove poor old Sariette off his head. You know, he

"Busily engaged," continued the Angel, "in cultivating for myself a sovereign intelligence, I paid no heed to

that inferior being, and when he thought to offer obstacles to my researches and to disturb my work I

"One particular winter's night in the abode of the philosophers and globes I let fall a volume of great weight

on his head, which he tried to tear from my invisible hand. Then more recently raising, with a vigorous arm

composed of a column of condensed air, a precious manuscript of Flavius Josephus, I gave the imbecile such

a fright, that he rushed out screaming on to the landing and (to borrow a striking expression from Dante

Alighieri) fell even as a dead body falls. He was well rewarded, for you gave him, Madame, to staunch the

blood from his wound, your little scented handkerchief. It was the day, you may remember, when behind a

But she stopped short, deeming it was an inopportune moment to appear overexacting on a matter of

"I had made up my mind," continued the Angel impassively, "to examine the foundations of belief. I first

"Hebrew is my native tongue: in Paradise for a long time we have spoken nothing else."

The Angel, not deigning to hear, continued in his melodious voice: "I have delved deep into Oriental

antiquities and also into those of Greece and Rome. I have devoured the works of theologians, philosophers,

physicists, geologists, and naturalists. I have learnt. I have thought. I have lost my faith."

"I believe in Him, since my existence depends on His, and if He should fail to exist, I myself should fall into

nothingness. I believe in Him, even as the Satyrs and the M�nads believed in Dionysus and for the same

reason. I believe in the God of the Jews and the Christians. But I deny that He created the world; at the most

He organised but an inferior part of it, and all that He touched bears the mark of His rough and unforeseeing

touch. I do not think He is either eternal or infinite, for it is absurd to conceive of a being who is not bounded

by space or time. I think Him limited, even very limited. I no longer believe Him to be the only God. For a

long time He did not believe it Himself; in the beginning He was a polytheist; later, His pride and the flattery

of His worshippers made Him a monotheist. His ideas have little connection; He is less powerful than He is

thought to be. And, to speak candidly, He is not so much a god as a vain and ignorant demiurge. Those who,

CHAPTER X. WHICH FAR SURPASSES IN AUDACITY THE IMAGINATIVE FLIGHTS OF DANTE AND MILTON 28

"I have already told you. It is the demiurge whom, in your blindness, you adore as the one and only God."

"You're mad. I don't advise you to go and talk rubbish like that to Abb� Patouille."

"I am not in the least sanguine, my dear Maurice, of piercing the dense night of your intellect. I merely tell

you that I am going to engage Ialdabaoth in conflict with some hopes of victory."

"Well, my poor Arcade, I regret to see you going to the bad. But confess that you are jesting with us. I could

at a pinch understand your leaving Heaven for a woman. Love makes us commit the greatest follies. But you

will never make me believe that you, who have seen God face to face, ultimately found the truth in old

"My dear Maurice, Lucifer was face to face with God, yet he refused to serve Him. As to the kind of truth

one finds in books, it is a truth that enables us sometimes to discern what things are not, without ever

enabling us to discover what they are. And this poor little truth has sufficed to prove to me that He in whom I

blindly believed is not believable, and that men and angels have been deceived by the lies of Ialdabaoth."

"There is no Ialdabaoth. There is God. Come, Arcade, do the right thing. Renounce these follies, these

impieties, disincarnate yourself, become once more a pure Spirit, and resume your office of guardian angel.

"I should like to please you, Maurice. I feel a certain affection for you, for my heart is soft. But fate

"Monsieur Arcade," said Madame des Aubels, "withdraw, I implore you. It makes me horribly shy to be in

REASSURE yourself, Madame," replied the apparition, "your position is not as risky as you say. You are not

She examined the stranger with an eye which, piercing the gloom, was anxiously surveying a vague but by no

CHAPTER XI. RECOUNTS IN WHAT MANNER THE ANGEL, ATTIRED IN THE CASTOFF GARMENTS OF A SUICIDE, LEAVES THE YOUTHFUL MAURICE WITHOUT A HEAVENLY GUARDIAN 29

The apparition prayed her to have no doubt about it, and gave some precise information as to his origin.

"There are three hierarchies of celestial spirits, each composed of nine choirs; the first comprises the

Seraphim, Cherubim, and the Thrones; the second, the Dominations, the Virtues, and the Powers; the third,

the Principalities, the Archangels, and the Angels properly so called. I belong to the ninth choir of the third

Madame des Aubels, who had her reasons for doubting this, expressed at least one:

"Why should I, Madame? Am I bound to resemble the angels on your holywater stoups? Those feathery

oars that beat the waves of the air in rhythmic cadences are not always worn by the heavenly messengers on

their shoulders. Cherubim may be apterous. That all too beautiful angelic pair who spent an anxious night in

the house of Lot compassed about by an Oriental horde they had no wings! No, they appeared just like

men, and the dust of the road covered their feet, which the patriarch washed with pious hand. I would beg you

to observe, Madame, that according to the Science of Organic Metamorphosis created by Lamarck and

Darwin, the wings of birds have been successively transformed into forefeet in the case of quadrupeds and

into arms in the case of the Linn�an primates. And you may remember, Maurice, that by a rather annoying

reversion to type, Miss Kate, your English nurse, who used to be so fond of giving you a whipping, had arms

very like the pinions of a plucked fowl. One may say, then, that a being possessing both arms and wings is a

monster and belongs to the department of Teratology. In Paradise we have Cherubim and Ker�bs in the shape

of winged bulls, but those are the clumsy inventions of an inartistic god. It is nevertheless true, quite true, that

the Victories of the Temple of Athena Nike on the Athenian Acropolis are beautiful, and possess both arms

and wings; it is also true that the Victory of Brescia is beautiful, with her outstretched arms and her long

wings folded on her mighty loins. It is one of the miracles of Greek genius to have known how to create

"Yet on the whole," said Madame des Aubels, "you have not the look of a pure Spirit."

"Nevertheless, I am one, Madame, if ever there was one. And it ill becomes you, who have been baptised, to

doubt it. Several of the Fathers, such as St. Justin, Tertullian, Origen, and Clement of Alexandria thought that

the Angels were not purely spiritual, but possessed a body formed of some subtile material. This opinion has

been rejected by the Church; hence I am merely Spirit. But what is spirit and what is matter? Formerly they

were contrasted as being two opposites, and now your human science tends to reunite them as two aspects of

the same thing. It teaches that everything proceeds from ether and everything returns to it, that the same

movement transforms the waves of air into stones and minerals, and that the atoms scattered throughout

illimitable space, form, by the varying speed of their orbits, all the substance of this material world."

But Madame des Aubels was not listening. She had something on her mind, and to put an end to her

"Well that's a nice thing!" said she, shaking her head. But the Angel continued with heavenly serenity:

"Everything in the Universe is circular, elliptical, or hyperbolic, and the same laws which rule the stars

govern this grain of dust. In the original and native movement of its substance, my body is spiritual, but it

may affect, as you perceive, this material state, by changing the rhythm of its elements."

CHAPTER XI. RECOUNTS IN WHAT MANNER THE ANGEL, ATTIRED IN THE CASTOFF GARMENTS OF A SUICIDE, LEAVES THE YOUTHFUL MAURICE WITHOUT A HEAVENLY GUARDIAN 30

Having thus spoken he sat down in a chair on Madame des Aubels' black stockings.

"Good heavens, seven o'clock!" exclaimed Gilberte. "What am I to say to my husband? He thinks I am at that

teaparty in the Rue de Rivoli. We are dining with the La Verdeli�res tonight. Go away immediately,

The Angel replied that he would have willingly obeyed Madame des Aubels had he been in a state to show

himself decently in public, but that he could not dream of appearing out of doors without any clothes. "Were I

to walk naked in the street," he added, "I should offend a nation attached to its ancient habits, habits which it

has never examined. They are the basis of all moral systems. Formerly," he added, "the angels, in revolt like

myself, manifested themselves to Christians under grotesque and ridiculous appearances, black, horned,

hairy, and clovenfooted. Pure stupidity! They were the laughingstock of people of taste. They merely

Maurice tossed his pyjamas and his slippers to the celestial messenger. Regarded as outdoor habiliments they

were not adequate. Gilberte pressed her lover to run at once in quest of other clothes. He proposed to go and

get some from the concierge. She was violently opposed to this. It would, she said, be madly imprudent to

"Do you want them to know that..." she exclaimed. She pointed to the Angel and was silent.

Meanwhile, Gilberte, who could not delay any longer for fear of causing a horrible society scandal, turned on

the light and dressed before the Angel. She did it without any awkwardness, for she knew how to adapt

herself to circumstances; and she took it that in such an unheardof encounter in which heaven and earth

were mingled in unutterable confusion it was permissible to retrench in modesty.

Moreover, she knew that she possessed a good figure and had garments as dainty as the fashion demanded.

As the apparition's sense of delicacy would not permit him to don Maurice's pyjamas, Gilberte could not help

observing by the lamplight that her suspicions were wellfounded, and that angels have the same appearance

as men. Curious to know if the appearance were real or imaginary she asked the child of light if Angels were

"Yes, Gilberte," replied Arcade, "Angels are capable of loving mortals. It is the teaching of the Scriptures. It

is said in the Seventh Book of Genesis, 'When men became numerous on the face of the earth, and daughters

were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they took as wives all

"Good heavens," cried Gilberte all at once, "I shall never be able to fasten my dress; it hooks down the back."

When Maurice entered the room he found the Angel on his knees tying the shoes of the woman taken in

CHAPTER XI. RECOUNTS IN WHAT MANNER THE ANGEL, ATTIRED IN THE CASTOFF GARMENTS OF A SUICIDE, LEAVES THE YOUTHFUL MAURICE WITHOUT A HEAVENLY GUARDIAN 31

"I have not forgotten anything? No. Goodnight, Monsieur Arcade. Goodnight, Maurice. I shall not forget

The young man, having seen some dismal rags lying among clarionettes and clysterpipes in the window of a

secondhand shop, had bought for nineteen francs the castoff suit of some wretched sableclad mortal who

had committed suicide The Angel, with native majesty, took the garments and put them on. Worn by him,

"So you are leaving me," said Maurice. "It's settled, then? I very much fear that, some day, you will bitterly

But when the Angel had passed through the door, and all that was to be seen of him in the doorway was his

"Then what will become of me? One must have a guardian angel. Tell me, are there not grave drawbacks,

"Before replying, Maurice, I must ask you if you wish me to speak to you according to your belief, which

formerly was my own, according to the teaching of the Church and the Catholic faith, or according to natural

"I don't care a straw for your natural philosophy. Answer me according to the religion I believe in, and which

"Very well, my dear Maurice. The loss of your guardian angel will probably deprive you of certain spiritual

succour, of certain celestial grace. I am expressing to you the unvarying opinion of the Church on the matter.

You will lack an assistance, a support, a consolation which would have guided and confirmed you in the way

of salvation. You will have less strength to avoid sin, and as it was you hadn't much. In fact, in spiritual

matters, you will be without strength and without joy. Adieu, Maurice; when you see Madame des Aubels,

Arcade disappeared, and Maurice in the depths of an armchair sat for a long time with his head in his hands.

CHAPTER XI. RECOUNTS IN WHAT MANNER THE ANGEL, ATTIRED IN THE CASTOFF GARMENTS OF A SUICIDE, LEAVES THE YOUTHFUL MAURICE WITHOUT A HEAVENLY GUARDIAN 32

THROUGH streets filled with brown fog, pierced with white and yellow lights, where horses exhaled their

smoking breath and motors radiated their rapid searchlights, the angel made his way, and, mingling with the

black flood of footpassengers which rolled unceasingly along, proceeded across the town from north to

south till he came to the lonely boulevards on the left bank of the river. Not far from the old walls of Port

Royal, a small restaurant flings night by night athwart the pavement the clouded rays of its streaming

windows. Coming to a halt there, Arcade entered a room full of warm, savoury odours, pleasing to the

unfortunate beings faint with cold and hunger. Glancing round him he beheld Russian Nihilists, Italian

Anarchists, refugees, conspirators, revolutionaries from every quarter of the globe, picturesque old faces with

tumbled masses of hair and beard that swept downwards even as the torrent and the waterfall sweep over

their rocky bed. There were young faces of virginal coldness, expressions sombre and wild, pale eyes of

infinite sweetness, drawn faces, and, in a corner, there were two Russian women, one extremely lovely, the

other hideous, but both resembling each other in their indifference to ugliness and to beauty. But failing to

find the face he sought, for there were no angels in the room, he sat down at a small vacant marble table.

Angels, when driven by hunger, eat as do the animals of this earth, and their food, transformed by digestive

heat, becomes one with their celestial substance. Seeing three angels under the oaks of Mamre, Abraham

offered them cakes, kneaded by Sarah, an whole calf, butter and milk, and they ate. Lot, on receiving two

angels in his house, ordered unleavened bread to be baked, and they did eat. Arcade was given a tough

beefsteak by a seedy waiter, and he did eat. Nevertheless, his dreams were of the sweet leisure, of the

repose, of the delightful studies he had quitted, of the heavy task he had undertaken, of the toil, the weariness,

the perils which he would have to endure, and his soul was sad and his heart troubled.

As he was finishing his modest repast, a young man of poor appearance and thinly clad entered the room, and

rapidly surveying the tables approached the angel and greeted him by the name of Abdiel, because he himself

"I knew you would answer my call, Mirar," replied Arcade, addressing his angelic brother in his turn by the

name he formerly bore in heaven. But Mirar was remembered no more in heaven since he, an Archangel, had

left the service of God. He was called Th�ophile Belais on earth, and to earn his bread gave music lessons to

small children in the daytime and at night played the violin in dancing saloons."

"It is you, dear Abdiel?" replied Th�ophile. "So here we are reunited in this sad world. I am pleased to see

"Friend, your exile draws to an end. I have great plans. I will confide them to you and associate you with

And Maurice's guardian angel, having ordered two coffees, revealed his ideas and his projects to his

companion: he told how, during his visit on earth, he had abandoned himself to researches little practised by

celestial spirits and had studied theologies, cosmogonies, the system of the Universe, theories of matter,

modern essays on the transformation and loss of energy. Having, he explained, studied Nature, he had found

her in perpetual conflict with the teachings of the Master he served. This Master, greedy of praise, whom he

CHAPTER XII. WHEREIN IT IS SET FORTH HOW THE ANGEL MIRAR, WHEN BEARING GRACE AND CONSOLATION TO THOSE DWELLING IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE CHAMPS �LYS�ES IN PARIS, BEHELD A MUSICHALL SINGER NAMED BOUCHOTTE AND FELL IN LOVE WITH HER 33

had for a long time adored, appeared to him now as an ignorant, stupid, and cruel tyrant. He had denied Him,

blasphemed Him, and was burning to combat Him. His plan was to recommence the revolt of the angels. He

"But," he added, "it is necessary above all to know our strength and that of our adversary." And he asked if

Th�ophile looked wonderingly at his brother. He appeared not to understand the questions addressed him.

"Dear compatriot," he said, "I came at your invitation because it was the invitation of an old comrade. But I

do not know what you expect of me, and I fear I shall be unable to help you in anything. I take no hand in

politics, neither do stand forth as a reformer. I am not like you, spirit in revolt, a freethinker, a

revolutionary. I remain faithful, in the depths of my soul, to the Celestial Creator. I still adore the Master I no

longer serve, and I lament the days when shrouding myself with my wings I formed with the multitude of the

children of light a wheel of flame around His throne of glory. Love, profane love has alone separated me

from God. I quitted heaven to follow a daughter of men. She was beautiful and sang in musichalls."

They rose. Arcade accompanied Th�ophile, who was living at the other end of the town, at the corner of the

Boulevard Rochechouart and the Rue de Steinkerque. While walking through the deserted streets he who

His fall, which dated from two years back, had been sudden. Belonging to the eighth choir of the third

hierarchy he was a bearer of grace to the faithful who are still to be found in large numbers in France,

"One summer night," he said, "as I was descending from Heaven, to distribute consolations, the grace of

perseverance and of good deaths to divers pious persons in the neighbourhood of the Etoile, my eyes,

although well accustomed to immortal light, were dazzled by the fiery flowers with which the Champs

�lys�es were sown. Great candelabra, under the trees, marking the entrances to cafes and restaurants, gave

the foliage the precious glitter of an emerald. Long garlands of luminous pearl surrounded the openair

enclosures where a crowd of men and women sat closely packed listening to the sounds of a lively orchestra,

"The night was warm, my wings were beginning to grow tired. I descended into one of the concerts and sat

down, invisible, among the audience. At this moment, a woman appeared on the stage, clad in a short

spangled frock. Owing to the reflection of the footlights and the paint on her face all that was visible of the

"She sang and danced.... Arcade, I have always loved dancing and music, but this creature's thrilling voice

and insidious movements created in me an uneasiness I had never known before. My colour came and went.

And Th�ophile related, groaning, how, possessed by desire for this woman, he did not return to Heaven

again, but, taking the shape of a man, lived an earthly life, for it is written: "In those days the sons of God

A fallen angel, having lost his innocence along with the vision of God, Th�ophile at heart still retained his

simplicity of soul. Clad in rags, filched from the stall of a Jewish hawker, he went to seek the woman he

loved. She was called Bouchotte and lodged in a small house in Montmartre. He flung himself at her feet and

told her she was adorable, that she sang delightfully, that he loved her madly, that, for her, he would renounce

his family and his country, that he was a musician and had nothing to eat. Touched by such youthful

However, after long and painful struggles, he procured employment as a musicteacher, and made some

money, which he brought to his mistress, keeping nothing for himself. From that time forward she loved him

no longer. She despised him for earning so little and did not conceal her indifference, weariness, and disgust.

She overwhelmed him with reproaches, irony, and abuse, in spite of which she kept him, for she had had

experience of worse partners and was used to domestic quarrels. For the rest, she led a busy, serious, and

rather hard life as artist and woman. Th�ophile loved her as he had loved her the first night, and he suffered.

"She overworks herself," he told his celestial brother, "that is what makes her so hard to please, but I am

And he spoke at length of an operetta at which he was working and which he hoped to have brought out at a

Paris theatre. A young poet had given him the libretto. It was the story of Aline, queen of Golconda, after an

"I am strewing it profusely with melodies," said Th�ophile; "my music comes from my heart. My heart is an

inexhaustible source of melody. Unfortunately nowadays people like recondite arrangements, difficult

scoring. They accuse me of being too fluid, too limpid, of not imparting enough colour to my style, not

aiming at stronger effects in harmony and more vigorous contrasts. Harmony, harmony!... No doubt it has

given its merits, but it does not appeal to the heart. It is melody which carries us away and ravishes us and

brings smiles and tears to our eyes." At these words he smiled and wept to himself. Then he continued with

"I am a fountain of melody. But the orchestration! there's the rub! In Paradise, you know, Arcade, in the

matter of instruments, we only possess the harp, the psaltery, and the hydraulic organ."

Arcade was only listening to him with half an ear. He was meditating plans which filled his soul and swelled

"Do you know any angels in revolt?" he asked his companion. "As for me, I know only one, Prince Istar, with

whom I have exchanged a few letters and who offered to share his attic with me while I was finding a lodging

Of angels in revolt Th�ophile knew none. When he met a fallen spirit who had formerly been one of his

comrades he shook him by the hand, for he was a faithful friend. Sometimes he saw Prince Istar. But he

avoided all those bad angels who shocked him by the violence of their opinions and whose conversations

"Friend, I neither approve of you nor blame you. I understand nothing of the ideas which trouble you. Neither

do I think it good for an artist to concern himself with politics. One has quite sufficient to occupy oneself

He loved his profession, and had hopes of "arriving" one day, but theatrical ways disgusted him. The only

chance he saw of having his piece played was to take one or two perhaps three collaborators, who,

without having done any work, would sign their names and share the profits. Soon Bouchotte would fail to

find engagements. When she offered her services in some small hall the manager began by asking her how

many shares she was taking in the business. Such customs, thought Th�ophile, were deplorable.

THUS talking, the two archangels had reached the Boulevard Rochechouart. As his eye lighted on a tavern,

whence, through the mist, the light fell golden on the pavement, Th�ophile suddenly bethought himself of the

Archangel Ithuriel who, in the guise of a poor but beautiful woman, was living in wretched lodgings on La

Butte and came every evening to read the papers at this tavern. The musician often met her there. Her name

was Zita. Th�ophile had never been curious enough to enquire into the opinions entertained by this archangel,

but it was generally supposed that she was a Russian nihilist, and he took her to be, like Arcade, an atheist

and a revolutionary. He had heard remarkable tales about her. People said she was an hermaphrodite, and that

as the active and passive principles were united within her in a condition of stable equilibrium, she was an

example of a perfect being, finding in herself complete and continuous satisfaction, contented yet unfortunate

"But," added Th�ophile, "I have my doubts about it. I believe she's a woman and subject to love, like

everything else that has life and breath in the Universe. Besides, someone caught her one day kissing her

The two angels found her alone, reading. As they drew near she lifted her great eyes in whose deeps of

molten gold little sparks of light were forever adance. Her brows were contracted into that austere fold

which we see on the forehead of the Pythian Apollo; her nose was perfect and descended without a curve; her

lips were compressed and imparted a disdainful and supercilious air to her whole countenance. Her tawny

hair, with its gleaming lights, was carelessly adorned with the tattered remnants of a huge bird of prey, her

garments lay about her in dark and shapeless folds. She was leaning her chin on a small illtended hand.

Arcade, who had but recently heard references made to this powerful archangel, showed her marked esteem,

and placed entire confidence in her. He immediately proceeded to tell of the progress his mind had made

towards knowledge and liberty, of his lucubrations in the d'Esparvieu library, of his philosophical reading, his

studies of nature, his works on exegesis, his anger and his contempt when he recognised the deception of the

demiurge, his voluntary exile among mankind, and, finally, of his project to stir up rebellion in Heaven.

Ready to dare all against and odious master, whom he pursued with inextinguishable hatred, he expressed his

profound happiness at finding in Ithuriel a mind capable of counselling and helping him in his great

Nevertheless, she doubted neither his sincerity nor the firmness of his declared resolve, and she congratulated

And she added almost immediately: "But on what can intelligence sharpen its wits, in a country where the

climate is soft and existence made easy? Even here, where necessity calls for intellectual activity, nothing is

"Nevertheless," replied Maurice's guardian angel, "man has created science. The important thing is to

introduce it into Heaven. When the angels possess some notions of physics, chemistry, astronomy, and

CHAPTER XIII. WHEREIN WE HEAR THE BEAUTIFUL ARCHANGEL ZITA UNFOLD HER LOFTY DESIGNS AND ARE SHOWN THE WINGS OF MIRAR, ALL MOTHEATEN, IN A CUPBOARD 36

physiology; when the study of matter shows them worlds in an atom, and an atom in the myriads of planets;

when they see themselves lost between these two infinities; when they weigh and measure the stars, analyse

their composition, and calculate their orbits, they will recognise that these monsters work in obedience to

forces which no intelligence can define, or that each star has its particular divinity, or indigenous god; and

they will realise that the gods of Aldebaran, Betelgeuse, and Sirius are greater than Ialdabaoth. When at

length they come to scrutinise with care the little world in which their lot is cast, and, piercing the crust of the

earth, note the gradual evolution of its flora and fauna and the rude origin of man, who, under the shelter of

rocks and in cave dwellings, had no God but himself; when they discover that, united by the bonds of

universal kinship to plants, beasts, and men, they have successively indued all forms of organic life, from the

simplest and the most primitive, until they became at length the most beautiful of the children of light, they

will perceive that Ialdabaoth, the obscure demon of an insignificant world lost in space, is imposing on their

credulity when he pretends that they issued from nothingness at his bidding; they will perceive that he lies in

calling himself the Infinite, the Eternal, the Almighty, and that, so far from having created worlds, he knows

neither their number nor their laws. They will perceive that he is like unto one of them; they will despise him,

and, shaking off his tyranny, will fling him into the Gehenna where he has hurled those more worthy than

"Do you think so?" murmured Zita, puffing out the smoke of her cigarette.... "Nevertheless, this knowledge

by virtue of which you reckon to enfranchise Heaven, has not destroyed religious sentiment on earth. In

countries where they have set up and taught this science of physics, of chemistry, astronomy, and geology,

which you think capable of delivering the world, Christianity has retained almost all its sway. If the positive

sciences have had such a feeble influence on the beliefs of mankind, it is not likely they will exercise a

greater one on the opinions of the angels, and nothing is of such dubious efficacy as scientific propaganda."

"What!" exclaimed Arcade, "you deny that Science has given the Church its deathblow? Is it possible? The

Church, at any rate, judges otherwise. Science, which you believe has no power over her, is redoubtable to

her, since she proscribes it. From Galileo's dialogues to Monsieur Aulard's little manuals she has condemned

"In former days, when she gathered within her fold all that was great in human thought, the Church held sway

over the bodies as well as over the souls of men, and imposed unity of obedience by fire and sword. Today

her power is but a shadow and the elect among the great minds have withdrawn from her. That is the state to

"Possibly," replied the beautiful archangel, "but how slowly, with what vicissitudes, at the price of what

Zita did not absolutely condemn scientific propaganda, but she anticipated no prompt or certain results from

it. For her it was not so much a question of enlightening the angels; the important thing was to enfranchise

them. In her opinion one only exerted a strong influence on individuals, whoever they might be, by rousing

"Persuade the angels that they will cover themselves with glory by overthrowing the tyrant, and that they will

be happier once they are free; that is the most practical policy to attempt, and, for my own part, I am devoting

all my energies to its fulfilment. It is certainly no light task, because the Kingdom of Heaven is a military

autocracy and there is no public opinion in it. Nevertheless, I do not despair of starting an intellectual

movement. I do not wish to boast, but no one is more closely acquainted than I with the different classes of

Throwing away her cigarette, Zita pondered for a moment, then, amid the click of ivory balls on the billiard

table, the clinking of glasses, the curt voices of the players announcing their points, the monotonous answers

CHAPTER XIII. WHEREIN WE HEAR THE BEAUTIFUL ARCHANGEL ZITA UNFOLD HER LOFTY DESIGNS AND ARE SHOWN THE WINGS OF MIRAR, ALL MOTHEATEN, IN A CUPBOARD 37

of the waiters to their customers, the Archangel enumerated the entire population of the spirits of light.

"We must not count on the Dominations, the Virtues, nor the Powers, which compose the celestial lower

middle class. I have no need to tell you for you know it as well as I, how selfish, base, and cowardly the

middle classes are. As to the great dignitaries, the Ministers, the Generals, Thrones, Cherubim, and Seraphim,

you know what they are; they will take no action. Let us, however, once prove ourselves the stronger, and we

shall have them with us. For if autocrats do not readily acquiesce in their own downfall, once overthrown, all

their forces recoil upon themselves. It will be well to work the Army. Entirely loyal as the Army is, it will

allow itself to be influenced by a clever anarchist propaganda. But our greatest and most constant efforts

ought to be brought to bear upon the angels of your own category, Arcade; the guardian angels, who dwell

upon earth in such great numbers. They fill the lowest ranks of the hierarchy, are for the most part

discontented with their lot, and more or less imbued with the ideas of the present century."

She had already conferred with the guardian angels of Montmartre, Clignancourt, and FillesduCalvaire.

She had devised the plan of a vast association of Spirits on Earth with the view of conquering Heaven.

"To accomplish this task," she said, "I have established myself in France. But not because I had the folly to

believe myself freer in a republic than in a monarchy. Quite the contrary, for there is no country where the

liberty of the individual is less respected than in France. But the people are indifferent to everything

connected with religion; nowhere else, therefore, should I enjoy such tranquillity."

She invited Arcade to unite his efforts to hers, and when they separated at the door of the brasserie the steel

"Above all," said Zita, "you must meet the gardener. I will take you to his rustic home one day."

Th�ophile, who had slumbered during all this talk, begged his friend to come home with him and smoke a

cigarette. He lived quite near in the small street opposite, leading to the Boulevard. Arcade would see

They climbed up five flights of stairs. Bouchotte had not yet returned. A tin of sardines lay open on the piano.

And gazing out of the window which looked out on the russetcoloured night, with its myriad lights, he

added, "One can see the Sacre Coeur." His hand on Arcade's shoulder, he repeated several times, "I am glad

Then, dragging his former companion in glory into the kitchen passage, he put down his candle stick, drew a

key from his pocket, opened a cupboard and, raising a linen covering, disclosed two large white wings.

"You see," he said, "I have preserved them. From time to time, when I am alone, I go and look at them; it

And he dabbed his reddened eyes. He stood awhile, overcome by silent emotion. Then, holding the candle

near the long pinions which were moulting their down in places, he murmured, "They are eaten away."

CHAPTER XIII. WHEREIN WE HEAR THE BEAUTIFUL ARCHANGEL ZITA UNFOLD HER LOFTY DESIGNS AND ARE SHOWN THE WINGS OF MIRAR, ALL MOTHEATEN, IN A CUPBOARD 38

"I have done so," replied the angelic musician sighing. "I have put pepper, camphor, and powder on them.

THE first night of his incarnation Arcade slept at the angel Istar's, in a garret in that narrow, gloomy Rue

Mazarine which wallows along beneath the shadow of the old Institute of France. Istar, who had been

expecting him, had pushed against the wall the shattered retorts, cracked pots, broken bottles, and odds and

ends of iron stoves, which made up the furniture of his room, and spread his clothes on the floor to lie on,

The celestial spirits differ from one another in appearance according to the hierarchy and the choir to which

they belong, and according to their own particular nature. They are all beautiful; but in different fashion, and

they do not all offer to the eye the soft contours and dimpling smiles of childhood with its rosy lights and

pearly tints. Nor do they all adorn themselves with eternal youth, that indefinable beauty that Greek art in its

decline has imparted to its most lovingly handled marbles, and whereof Christian painters have so often

timidly essayed to give us veiled and softened imitations. In some of them the chin glows with tufts of hair,

and the limbs are furnished with such vigorous muscles that it seems as if serpents were writhing beneath the

skin. Some have no wings, others possess two, four, or six; others again are formed entirely of conjoined

pinions. Many, and these not the least illustrious, take the form of superb monsters, such as the Centaurs of

fable; nay, one may even see some who are living chariots, and wheels of fire. A member of the highest

celestial hierarchy, Istar belonged to the choir of Cherubim or Ker�bs who see above them the Seraphim

alone. In common with all the angelic spirits of his rank he had formerly borne in Heaven the bodily shape of

a winged bull surmounted by the head of a horned and bearded man, and carrying between his loins the

attributes of generous fecundity. He as vaster and more vigorous than any animal on earth, and when he stood

Such was Istar in his native home. There he radiated strength and sweetness. His heart was full of courage

and his soul benevolent. Moreover, in those days he loved his lord. He believed him to be good and yielded

him faithful service. But even while guarding the portals of his Master, he used to ponder unceasingly on the

punishment of the rebellious angels and the curse of Eve. His mind worked slowly but profoundly. When,

after a long course of centuries, he persuaded himself that Ialdabaoth in creating the world had created evil

and death, he ceased to adore and to serve him. His love changed to hatred, his veneration to contempt. He

Embodied in human form and reduced to the stature of the sons of Adam, he still retained some

characteristics of his former nature. His big protruding eyes, his beaked nose, his thick lips framed in a black

beard which descended in curls on to his chest recalled those Cherubs of the tabernacle of Iahveh, of which

the bulls of Nineveh afford us a pretty accurate representation. He bore the name of Istar on earth as well as

in Heaven, and although exempt from vanity and free from all social prejudice, he was immensely desirous of

showing himself sincere and truthful in all things. He therefore proclaimed the illustrious rank in which his

birth had placed him in the celestial hierarchy and translated into French his title of Cherub by the equivalent

one of Prince, calling himself Prince Istar. Seeking shelter among mankind he had developed an ardent love

for them. While awaiting the coming of the hour when he should deliver Heaven from bondage, he dreamed

of the salvation of regenerate humanity and was eager to consummate the destruction of this wicked world, in

order to raise upon its ashes, to the sound of the lyre, a city radiant with happiness and love. A chemist in the

pay of a dealer in nitrates, he lived very frugally. He wrote for newspapers with advanced views on liberty,

spoke at public meetings, and had got himself sentenced several times to several months' imprisonment for

CHAPTER XIV. WHICH REVEALS THE CHERUB TOILING FOR THE WELFARE OF HUMANITY AND CONCLUDES IN AN ENTIRELY NOVEL MANNER WITH THE MIRACLE OF THE FLUTE 39

Istar greeted his brother Arcade cordially, approved of his rupture with the party of crime, and informed him

of the descent of fifty of the children of light who, at the present moment, formed a colony near Val de Grace,

"It is simply raining angels in Paris," he said, laughing. "Every day some dignitary of the sacred palace falls

on one's head, and soon the Sultan of the Cherubs will have no one to make into Vizirs or guards but the little

He awoke in the early dawn and saw Prince Istar bending over his furnaces, his retorts, and his testtubes.

Every morning when Arcade woke he saw Prince Istar fulfilling his work of tenderness and love. Sometimes

the Ker�b, huddled up with his head in his hands, would softly murmur a few chemical formul�; at others,

drawing himself up to his full height, like a dark naked column, with his head, his arms, nay, his entire bust

clean out of the skylight window, he would deposit his meltingpot on the roof, fearing the perquisition with

which he was constantly menaced. Moved by an immense pity for the miseries of the world wherein he dwelt

in exile, conscious perhaps of the rumours to which his name gave rise, inebriated with his own virtue, he

played the part of apostle to the Human Race, ant neglecting the task he had undertaken in coming to earth,

he forgot all about the emancipation of the angels. Arcade, who, on the contrary, dreamed of nothing else but

of conquering Heaven and returning thither in triumph, reproached the Cherub with forgetting his native land.

Prince Istar, with a great frank, uncouth laugh, acknowledged that he had no preference for angels over men.

"If I am doing my best," he replied to his celestial brother, "if I am doing my best to stir up France and

Europe, it is because the day is dawning which will behold the triumph of the social revolution. It is a

pleasure to cast one's seed on ground so well prepared. The French having passed from feudalism to

monarchy, and from monarchy to a financial oligarchy, will easily pass from a financial oligarchy to

"How erroneous it is," retorted Arcade, "to believe in great and sudden changes in the social order in Europe!

The old order is still young in strength and power. The means of defence at her disposal are formidable. On

the other hand, the proletariat's plan of defensive organisation is of the vaguest description and brings merely

weakness and confusion to the struggle. In our celestial country all goes quite otherwise. Beneath an

apparently unchangeable exterior all is rotten within. A mere push would suffice to overturn an edifice which

has not been touched for millions of centuries. Outworn administration, outworn army, outworn finance,

the whole thing is more wormeaten than either the Russian or Persian autocracy."

And the kindly Arcade adjured the Cherub to fly first to the aid of his brethren who, though dwelling amid

the soft clouds with the sound of citterns and their cups of paradisal wine around them, were in more

wretched plight than mankind bowed over the grudging earth. For the latter have a conception of justice,

while the angels rejoice in iniquity. He exhorted him to deliver the Prince of Light and his stricken

He promised to put the sweet persuasiveness of his words and the excellent formul� of his explosives at the

CHAPTER XIV. WHICH REVEALS THE CHERUB TOILING FOR THE WELFARE OF HUMANITY AND CONCLUDES IN AN ENTIRELY NOVEL MANNER WITH THE MIRACLE OF THE FLUTE 40

And when the morrow came he continued is antimilitarist propaganda at IssylesMoulineaux. Like the

Arcade, suffering from all the desires to which the sons of Adam are subjected, found himself lacking in

resources to satisfy them. Istar gave him a start in a printing house in the Rue de Vaugirard where he knew

the foreman. Arcade, thanks to his celestial intelligence, soon knew how to set up type and became, in a short

After standing all day in the whirring workroom, holding the composingstick in his left hand, and swiftly

drawing the little leaden signs from the case in the order required by the copy fixed in the visorium, he would

go and wash his hands at the pump and dine at the corner bar, a newspaper propped up before him on the

marble table. Being now no longer invisible, he could not make his way into the d'Esparvieu library, and was

thus debarred from allaying his ardent thirst for Knowledge at that inexhaustible source. He went, of an

evening, to read at the library of Ste. Genevieve on the famous hill of learning, but there were only ordinary

books to be had there; greasy things, covered its ridiculous annotations, and lacking many pages.

The sight of women troubled and unsettled him. He would remember Madame des Aubels and her charm,

and, although he was handsome, he was not loved, because of his poverty and his workaday clothes. He saw

much of Zita, and took a certain pleasure in going for walks with her on Sundays along the dusty roads which

edge the grassgrown trenches of the fortifications. They wandered, the pair of them, by wayside inns,

marketgardens and green retreats, propounding and discussing the vastest plans that ever stirred the world,

and, occasionally, as they passed along by some travelling circus, the steam organ of the merrygoround

would furnish an accompaniment to their words as they breathed fire and fury against Heaven.

"Istar means well, but he's a simple fellow. He believes in the goodness of men and things. He undertakes the

destruction of the old world and imagines that anarchy of itself will create order and harmony. You, Arcade,

you believe in Science; you deem that men and angels are capable of understanding, whereas, in point of fact,

they are only creatures of sentiment. You may be quite sure that nothing is to be obtained from them by

appealing to their intelligence; one must rouse their interests and their passions."

Arcade, Istar, Zita, and three or four other angelic conspirators occasionally foregathered in Th�ophile Belais'

little flat, where Bouchotte gave them tea. Though she did not know that they were rebellious angels, she

hated them instinctively, and feared them, for she had had a Christian education, albeit she had sadly failed to

Prince Istar alone pleased her; she thought there was something kindhearted and an air of natural distinction

about him. He stove in the sofa, broke down the armchairs, and tore covers off sheets of music to make

notes, which he thrust into pockets invariably crammed with pamphlets and bottles. The musician used to

gaze sorrowfully at the manuscript of his operetta, Aline, Queen of Golconda, with its covers all torn off. The

prince also had a habit of giving Th�ophile Belais all sorts of things to take care of mechanical

contrivances, chemicals, bits of old iron, powders, and liquids which gave off noisome smells. Th�ophile

Belais put them cautiously away in the cupboard where he kept his wings, and the responsibility weighed

Arcade was much pained at the disdain of those of his fellows who had remained faithful. When they met

him a they went on their sacred errands they regarded him as they passed by with looks of cruel hatred or of

CHAPTER XIV. WHICH REVEALS THE CHERUB TOILING FOR THE WELFARE OF HUMANITY AND CONCLUDES IN AN ENTIRELY NOVEL MANNER WITH THE MIRACLE OF THE FLUTE 41

He used to visit the rebel angels whom Prince Istar pointed out to him, and usually met with a good reception,

but as soon as he began to speak of conquering Heaven, they did not conceal the embarrassment and

displeasure he caused them. Arcade perceived that they had no desire to be disturbed in their tastes, their

affairs, and their habits. The falsity of their judgment, the narrowness of their minds, shocked him; and the

rivalry, the jealousy they displayed towards one another deprived him of all hope of uniting them in a

common cause. Perceiving how exile debases the character and warps the intellect, he felt his courage fail

One evening, when he had confessed his weariness of spirit to Zita, the beautiful archangel said:

"Let us go and see Nectaire; Nectaire has remedies of his own for sadness and fatigue."

She led him into the woods of Montmorency and stopped at the threshold of a small white house, adjoining a

kitchen garden, laid waste by winter, where far back in the shadows the light shone on forcingframes and

Nectaire opened the door to his visitors, and, after quieting the growls of a big mastiff which protected the

Against the whitewashed wall, on a deal board, among the onions and seeds, lay a flute ready to be put to the

lips. A round walnut table bore a stone tobaccojar, a pipe, a bottle of wine and some glasses. The gardener

offered each of his guests a caneseated chair, and himself sat down on a stool by the table.

He was a sturdy old man; thick grey hair stood up on his head, he had a furrowed brow, a snubnose, a red

The big mastiff stretched himself at his master's feet, rested his short black muzzle on his paws, and closed

his eyes. The gardener poured out some wine for his guests, and when they had drunk and talked a little, Zita

"Please play your flute to us, you will give pleasure to my friend whom I have brought to see you."

The old man immediately consented. He put the boxwood pipe to his lips, so clumsy was it that it looked

as if the gardener had fashioned it himself, and preluded with a few strange runs. Then he developed rich

melodies in which the thrills sparkled like diamonds and pearls on a velvet ground. Touched by cunning

fingers, animated with creative breath, the rustic pipe sang like a silver flute. There were no overshrill notes

and the tone was always even and pure. One seemed to be listening to the nightingale and the Muses singing

together, the soul of Nature and the soul of Man. And the old man ordered and developed his thoughts in a

musical language full of race and daring. He told of love, of fear, of vain quarrels, of allconquering laughter,

of the calm light of the intellect, of the arrows of the mind piercing with their golden shafts the monsters of

Ignorance and Hate. He told also of Joy and Sorrow bending their twin heads over the earth and of Desire

The whole night listened to the flute of Nectaire. Already the evening star was rising above the paling

There they sat; Zita with hands clasped about her knees, Arcade, his head leaning on his hand, his lips apart.

Motionless they listened. A lark, which had awakened hard by in a sandy field, lured by these novel sounds,

rose swiftly in the air, hovered a few seconds, then dropped at one swoop into the musician's orchard. The

neighbouring sparrows, forsaking the crannies of the mouldering walls, came and sat in a row on the

windowledge whence notes came welling forth that gave them more delight than oats or grains of barley. A

CHAPTER XIV. WHICH REVEALS THE CHERUB TOILING FOR THE WELFARE OF HUMANITY AND CONCLUDES IN AN ENTIRELY NOVEL MANNER WITH THE MIRACLE OF THE FLUTE 42

jay, coming for the first time out of his wood, folded his sapphire wings on a leafless cherry tree. Beside the

drainhead, a large black rat, glistening with the greasy water of the sewers, sitting on his hind legs, raised

his short arms and slender fingers in amazement. A fieldmouse, that dwelt in the orchard, was seated near

him. Down from the tiles came the old tomcat, who retained the grey fur, the ringed tail, the powerful loins,

the courage, and the pride of his ancestors. He pushed against the halfopen door with his nose and

approaching the fluteplayer with silent tread, sat gravely down, pricking his ears that had been torn in many

a nocturnal combat; the grocer's white cat followed him, sniffing the vibrant air and then, arching her back

and closing her blue eyes, listened in ravishment. Mice, swarming in crowds from under the boards,

surrounded them, and fearing neither tooth nor claw, sat motionless, their pink hands folded voluptuously on

their bosoms. Spiders that had strayed far from their webs, with waving legs, gathered in a charmed circle on

the ceiling. A small grey lizard, that had glided on to the doorstep, stayed there, fascinated, and, in the loft,

the bat might have been seen hanging by her nails, head down, now halfawakened from her winter sleep,

A FORTNIGHT had elapsed since the angel's apparition in the flat. For the first time Gilberte arrived before

Maurice at the rendezvous. Maurice was gloomy, Gilberte sulky. So far as they were concerned Nature had

resumed her drab monotony. They eyed each other languidly, and kept glancing towards the angle between

the wardrobe with the mirror and the window, where recently the pale shade of Arcade had taken shape, and

where now the blue cretonne of the hangings was the only thing visible. Without giving him a name (it was

Slowly, sadly, Maurice turned his head from right to left, and from left to right.

"You look as if you missed him," continued Madame des Aubels. "But come, confess that he gave you a

"Tell me, Maurice, is it nothing to you now to be with me alone?... You need an angel to inspire you. That is

"I, not at all. I have never thought of him, and yet I am not without religion. In the first place, people who

have none are like animals. And then one cannot go straight without religion. It is impossible."

"Exactly, that's just it," said Maurice, his eyes on the violet stripes of his flowerless pyjamas; "when one has

one's guardian angel one does not even think about him, and when one has lost him one feels very lonely."

CHAPTER XV. WHEREIN WE SEE YOUNG MAURICE BEWAILING THE LOSS OF HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL, EVEN IN HIS MISTRESS'S ARMS, AND WHEREIN WE HEAR THE ABB� PATOUILLE REJECT AS VAIN AND ILLUSORY ALL NOTIONS OF A NEW REBELLION OF THE ANGELS 43

"Oh, yes, yes, you miss him. Well, my dear, the loss of such a guardian angel as that is no great matter. No,

no! he is not worth much, that Arcade of yours. On that famous day, while you were out getting him some

clothes, he was ever so long fastening my dress, and I certainly felt his hand... Well, at any rate, don't trust

Maurice dreamily lit a cigarette. They spoke of the six days' bicycle race at the winter velodrome, and of the

aviation show at the motor exhibition at Brussels, without experiencing the slightest amusement. Then they

tried lovemaking as a sort of convenient pastime, and succeeded in becoming moderately absorbed in it; but

at the very moment when she might have been expected to play a part more in accordance with a mutual

"Good Heavens! Maurice, how stupid of you to tell me that my guardian angel can see me. You cannot

Maurice, somewhat taken aback, recalled, a little roughly, his mistress's wandering thoughts.

She declared that her principles forbade her to think of playing a round game with angels.

Maurice was longing to see Arcade again and had no other thought. He reproached himself for suffering him

to depart without discovering where he was going, and he cudgelled his brains night and day thinking how to

On the bare chance, he put a notice in the personal column of one of the big papers, running thus:

One morning, at seven o'clock, Maurice went to St. Sulpice to hear Abb� Patouille say Mass, then, as the

priest was leaving the sacristy, he went up to him and asked to be heard for a moment.

They descended the steps of the church together and in the bright morning light walked round the fountain of

the Quatre �v�ques. In spite of his troubled conscience and the difficulty of presenting so extraordinary a

case with any degree of credibility, Maurice related how the angel Arcade had appeared to him and had

announced his unhappy resolve to separate from him and to stir up a new revolt of the spirits of glory. And

young d'Esparvieu asked the worthy ecclesiastic how to find his celestial guardian again, since he could not

bear his absence, and how to lead his angel back to the Christian faith. Abb� Patouille replied in a tone of

affectionate sorrow that his dear child had been dreaming, that he took a morbid hallucination for reality, and

"People have a notion," he added, "that they can lead a life of dissipation and disorder with impunity. They

are wrong. The abuse of pleasure corrupts the intelligence and impairs the understanding. The devil takes

possession of the sinner's senses, penetrating even to his soul. He has deceived you, Maurice, by a clumsy

Maurice objected that he was not in any way a victim of hallucinations, that he had not been dreaming, that

"Monsieur l'Abb�," he insisted, "a lady who happened to be with me at the time, I need not mention her

name, also saw and heard him. And, moreover, she felt the angel's fingers straying... well, anyhow, she

felt them.... Believe me, Monsieur l'Abb�, nothing could be more real, more positively certain than this

apparition. The angel was fair, young, very handsome. His clear skin seemed, in the shadow, as if bathed in

"That, alone, my child," the Abb� interrupted quickly, "proves you were dreaming. According to all the

demonologies, bad angels have a hoarse voice, which grates like a rusty lock, and even if they did contrive to

give a certain look of beauty to their faces, they cannot succeed in imitating the pure voice of the good spirits.

"But, Monsieur l'Abb�, I saw him. I saw him sit down, stark naked, in an armchair on a pair of black

"I say once more, my son," he replied, "that these unhappy illusions, these dreams of a deeply troubled soul,

are to be ascribed to the deplorable state of your conscience. I believe, moreover, that I can detect the

particular circumstance that has caused your unstable mind thus to come to grief. During the winter in

company with Monsieur Sariette and your Uncle Ga�tan, you came, in an evil frame of mind, to see the

Chapel of the Holy Angels in this church, then undergoing repair. As I observed on that occasion, it is

impossible to keep artists too closely to the rules of Christian art; they cannot be too strongly enjoined to

respect Holy Writ and its authorized interpreters. Monsieur Eug�ne Delacroix did not suffer his fiery genius

to be controlled by tradition. He brooked no guidance and, here, in this chapel he has painted pictures which

in common parlance we call lurid, compositions of a violent, terrible nature which, far from inspiring the soul

with peace, quietude, and calm, plunge it into a state of agitation. In them the angels are depicted with

wrathful countenances, their features are sombre and uncouth. One might take them to be Lucifer and his

companions meditating their revolt. Well, my son, it was these pictures, acting upon a mind already

weakened and undermined by every kind of dissipation, that have filled it with the trouble to which it is at

"Oh, no! Monsieur l'Abb�," he cried, "it is not Eug�ne Delacroix's pictures that have been troubling me. I

didn't so much as look at them. I am completely indifferent to that kind of art."

"Well, then, my son, believe me: there is no truth, no reality, in any of the story you have just related to me.

"But, Abb�," replied Maurice, who had the most absolute confidence in the evidence of the senses, "I saw

And stamping his feet on the asphalt, Maurice called as witnesses to the truth of his words the sky, the earth,

all nature, the towers of St. Sulpice, the walls of the great seminary, the Fountain of the Quatre �v�ques, the

public lavatory, the cabmen's shelter, the taxis and motor 'buses' shelter, the trees, the passersby, the dogs,

"All this is error, falsehood, and illusion, my child," said he. "You are a Christian: think as a Christian, a

Christian does not allow himself to be seduced by empty shadows. Faith protects him against the seduction of

the marvellous, he leaves credulity to freethinkers. There are credulous people for you freethinkers! There

is no humbug they will not swallow. But the Christian carries a weapon which dissipates diabolical illusions,

the sign of the Cross. Reassure yourself, Maurice, you have not lost your guardian angel. He still

watches over you. It lies with you not to make this task too difficult nor too painful for him. Goodbye,

And Abb� Patouille went of with his breviary under his arm, hobbling along with a dignity that seemed to

That very day, Arcade and Zita were leaning over the parapet of La Butte, gazing down on the mist and

"Is it possible," said Arcade, "for the mind to conceive all the pain and suffering that lie pent within a great

city? It is my belief that if a man succeeded in realising it, the weight of it would crush him to the earth."

"And yet," answered Zita, "every living being in that place of torment is enamoured of life. It is a great

"Unhappy, illfated, while they live, the idea of ceasing to be is, nevertheless, a horror to them. They look

not for solace in annihilation, it does not even bring them the promise of rest. In their madness they even look

upon nothingness with terror: they have peopled it with phantoms. Look you at these pediments, these towers

and domes and spires that pierce the mist and rear on high their glittering crosses. Men bow in adoration

before the demiurge who has given them a life that is worse than death, and a death that is worse than life."

"There is something, Arcade, that I must confess to you. It was no desire for a purer justice or wiser laws that

hurried Ithuriel earthward. Ambition, a taste for intrigue, the love of wealth and honour, all these things made

Heaven, with its calm, unbearable to me, and I longed to mingle with the restless race of men. I came, and by

an art unknown to nearly all the angels, I learned how to fashion myself a body which, since I could change it

as the fancy seized me, to whatsoever age and sex I would, has permitted me to experience the most diverse

and amazing of human destinies. A hundred times I took a position of renown among the leaders of the day,

the lords of wealth and princes of nations. I will not reveal to you, Arcade, the famous names I bore; know

only that I was preeminent in learning, in the fine arts, in power, wealth, and beauty, among all the nations

of the world. At last, it was but a few years since, as I was journeying in France, under the outward

semblance of a distinguished foreigner, I chanced to be roaming at evening through the forest of

Montmorency, when I heard a lute unfolding all the sorrows of Heaven. The purity and sadness of its notes

rent my very soul. Never before had I hearkened to aught so lovely. My eyes were wet with tears, my bosom

full of sobs, as I drew near and beheld, on the skirts of a glade, an old man like to a faun, blowing on a rustic

pipe. It was Nectaire. I cast myself at his feet, imprinted kisses on his hands and on his lips divine, and fled

"From that day forth, conscious of the littleness of human achievements, weary of the tumult and the vanity

of earthly things, ashamed of my vast and profitless endeavours, and deciding to seek out a loftier aim for my

ambition, I looked upwards towards my skiey home and vowed I would return to it as a Deliverer. I rid

myself of titles, name, wealth, friends, the horde of sycophants and flatterers and, as Zita the obscure, set to

"And I," said Arcade, "I too have heard the flute of Nectaire. But who is this old gardener who can thus woo

DISAPPOINTED at his failure to enlighten an ecclesiastic renowned for his clarity of mind, and frustrated in

the hope of finding his angel again on the high road of orthodoxy, Maurice took it into his head to resort to

occultism and resolved to go and consult a seer. He would have undoubtedly applied to Madame de Th�bes,

but he had already questioned her on the occasion of his early love troubles, and her replies showed such

wisdom that he no longer believed her to be a soothsayer. He therefore had recourse to a fashionable medium,

Madame Mira. He had heard many examples quoted of the extraordinary insight of this seeress, but it was

necessary to present Madame Mira with some object which the absent one had either touched or worn and to

which her translucent gaze had to be attracted. Maurice, trying to remember what the angel had touched since

his illfated incarnation, recollected that in his celestial nudity he had sat down in an armchair on Madame

des Aubels' black stockings and that he had afterwards helped that lady to dress.

Maurice asked Gilberte for one of the talismans required by the clairvoyante. But Gilberte could not give him

a single one, unless, as she said, she herself were to play the part of the talisman. For the angel had, in her

case, displayed the greatest indiscretion, and such agility that it was impossible always to forestall his

enterprise. On hearing this confession, which nevertheless told him nothing new, Maurice lost his temper

with the angel, calling him by the names of the lowest animals and swearing he would give him a good kick

when he got him within reach of his foot. But his fury soon turned against Madame des Aubels; he accused

her of having provoked the insolence she now denounced, and in his wrath he referred to her by all the

zoological symbols of immodesty and perversity. His love for Arcade was rekindled in his heart, and burned

with a more ardent flame than ever, and the deserted youth, with outstretched arms and bended knees,

During his sleepless nights it occurred to him that perhaps the books the angel had turned over before his

incarnation might serve as a talisman. One morning, therefore, Maurice went up to the library and greeted

Monsieur Sariette, who was cataloguing under the romantic gaze of Alexandre d'Esparvieu. Monsieur

Sariette smiled, but his face was deathly pale. Now that an invisible hand no longer upset the books placed

under his charge, now that tranquillity and order once more reigned in the library, Monsieur Sariette was

happy, but his strength diminished day by day. There was little left of him but a frail and contented shadow.

"One dies, in full content, of sorrow past." "Monsieur Sariette," said Maurice, "you remember that time when

your books were disarranged every night, how armfuls disappeared, how they were dragged about, turned

over, ruined, and sent rolling helterskelter as far as the gutter in the Rue Palatine. Those were great days!

This proposition threw Monsieur Sariette into a melancholy stupor, and Maurice had to repeat his request

three times before he could make the aged librarian understand. At length he pointed to a very ancient

Talmud from Jerusalem as having been frequently touched by those unseen hands. An apocryphal Gospel of

the third century, consisting of twenty papyrus sheets, had also quitted its place time after time. Gassendi's

"But," added Monsieur Sariette, "the book to which the mysterious visitant devoted the most particular

attention was undoubtedly a little copy of Lucretius adorned with the arms of Philippe de Vend�me, Grand

CHAPTER XVI. WHEREIN MIRA THE SEERESS, Z�PHYRINE AND THE FATAL AM�D�E ARE SUCCESSIVELY BROUGHT UPON THE SCENE, AND WHEREIN THE NOTION OF EURIPIDES THAT THOSE WHOM ZEUS WISHES TO CRUSH HE FIRST MAKES MAD, IS ILLUSTRATED BY THE TERRIBLE EXAMPLE OF MONSIEUR SARIETTE 47

Prieur de France, with autograph annotations by Voltaire, who, as is well known, frequently visited the

Temple in his younger days. The fearsome reader who caused me such terrible anxiety never grew weary of

this Lucretius and made it his bedside book, as it were. His taste was sound, for it's a gem of a thing. Alas!

the monster made a blot of ink on page 137 which perhaps the chemists with all the science at their disposal

And Monsieur Sariette heaved a profound sigh. He repented having said all this when young d'Esparvieu

asked him for the loan of the precious Lucretius. Vainly did the jealous custodian affirm that the book was

being repaired at the binder's and was not available. Maurice made it clear that he wasn't to be taken in like

that. He strode resolutely into the abode of the philosophers and the globes and seating himself in an

Monsieur Sariette suggested his having another edition. There were some that, textually, were more correct,

and were, therefore, preferable from the student's point of view. He offered him Barbou's edition, or

Coustelier's, or, better still, a French translation. He could have the Baron des Coutures' version which

was perhaps a little oldfashioned or La Grange's, or those in the Nisard and Panckouke series; or, again,

there were two versions of striking elegance, one in verse and the other in prose, both from the pen of

"I don't need a translation," said Maurice proudly. "Give me the Prior de Vend�me's copy."

Monsieur Sariette went slowly up to the cupboard in which the jewel in question was contained. The keys

were rattling in his trembling hand. He raised them to the lock and withdrew them again immediately and

But the silence with which this proposal was received made it clear that resistance was useless. He slowly

drew forth the volume from its place, and having taken the precaution to see that there wasn't a speck of dust

on the tablecloth, he laid it tremblingly thereon before the greatgrandson of Alexandre d'Esparvieu.

Maurice began to turn the leaves, and when he got to page 137 he saw the stain which had been made with

"Ay, that's it," said old Sariette, who had his eye on the Lucretius the whole time; "that's the trace those

"I cannot tell. But I don't know whether I have a right to have this blot removed since, like the blot Paul Louis

Courier made on the Florentine manuscript, it constitutes a literary document, so to speak."

Scarcely were the words out of the old fellow's mouth when the front door bell rang and there was a confused

noise of voices and footsteps in the next room. Sariette ran forward at the sound and collided with P�re

Guinardon's mistress, old Z�phyrine, who, with her tousled hair sticking up like a nest of vipers, her face

aflame, her bosom heaving, her abdominal part like an eiderdown quilt puffed out by a terrific gale, was

choking with grief and rage. And amid sobs and sighs and groans and all the innumerable sounds which, on

earth, make up the mighty uproar to which the emotions of living beings and the tumult of nature give rise,

"He's gone, the monster! He's gone off with her. He's cleared out the whole shanty and left me to shift for

And she proceeded to give a long and incoherent nt of how Michel Guinardon had abandoned her and gone to

live with Octavie, the breadwoman's daughter, and she let loose a torrent of abuse against the traitor.

"A man whom I've kept going with my own money for fifty years and more. For I've had plenty of the

needful and known plenty of the upper ten and all. I dragged him out of the gutter and now this is what I get

for it. He's a bright beauty, that friend of yours. The lazy scoundrel. Why, he had to be dressed like a child,

the drunken contemptible brute. You don't know him yet, Monsieur Sariette. He's a forger. He turns out

Giottos, Giottos, I tell you, and Fra Angelicos and Grecos, as hard as he can and sells them to artdealers

yes, and Fragonards too, and Baudouins. He's a debauchee, and doesn't believe in God! That's the worst of

Long did Z�phyrine continue to pour forth vituperations. When at last her breath failed her, Monsieur Sariette

availed himself of the opportunity to exhort her to be calm and bring herself to look on the bright side of

things. Guinardon would come back. A man doesn't forget anyone he's lived and got on well with for fifty

These two observations only goaded her to a fresh outburst, and Z�phyrine swore she would never forget the

slight that had been put on her; she swore she would never have the monster back with her any more. And if

he came to ask her to forgive him on his knees, she would let him grovel at her feet.

"Don't you understand, Monsieur Sariette, that I despise and hate him, that he makes me sick?"

Sixty times she voiced these lofty sentiments; sixty times she vowed she would never have Guinardon back

Monsieur Sariette made no attempt to oppose a resolve which, after protestations such as these, he regarded

as unshakable. He did not blame Z�phyrine in the least. He even supported her. Unfolding to the deserted one

a purer future, he told her of he frailty of human sentiment, exhorted her to display a spirit of renunciation

He was not suffered to continue. Z�phyrine flew at him, and shaking him furiously by the collar of his

frockcoat, she yelled, half choking with rage: "So little worthy of affection! Michel! Ah! my boy, you find

another more kind, more gay, more witty, you find another like him, always young, yes, always. Not worthy

of affection! Anyone can see you don't know anything about love, you old duffer."

Taking advantage of the fact that P�re Sariette was thus deeply engaged, young d'Esparvieu slipped the little

Lucretius into his pocket, and strolled deliberately past the crouching librarian, bidding him adieu with a little

Armed with his talisman, he hastened to the Place des Ternes, to interview Madame Mira. She received him

in a red drawingroom where neither owl nor frog nor any of the paraphernalia of ancient magic were to be

found. Madame Mira, in a prunecoloured dress, her hair powdered, though already past her prime, was of

very good appearance. She spoke with a certain elegance and prided herself on discovering hidden things by

the help alone of Science, Philosophy, and Religion. She felt the morocco binding, feigning to close her eyes,

and looking meanwhile through the narrow slit between her lids at the Latin title and the coat of arms which

Accustomed to receive as tokens such things as rings, handkerchiefs, letters, and locks of hair, she could not

conceive to what sort of individual this singular book could belong. By habitual and mechanical cunning she

"Strange!" she murmured, "strange! I do not see quite clearly... I perceive a woman...."

As she let fall this magic word, she glanced furtively to see what sort of an effect it had and beheld on her

questioner's face an unexpected look of disappointment. Perceiving that she was off the track, she

"But she fades away immediately. It is strange, strange! I have a confused impression of some vague form, a

being that I cannot define," and having assured herself by a hurried glance that, this time, her words were

going down, she expatiated on the vagueness of the person and on the mist that enveloped him.

However, the vision grew clearer to Madame Mira, who was following a clue step by step.

"A wide street... a square with a statue... a deserted street, stairs. He is there in a bluish room he is a

young man, with pale and careworn face. There are things he seems to regret, and which he would not do

But the effort at divination had been too great. Fatigue prevented the clairvoyante from continuing her

transcendental researches. She spent her remaining strength in impressively recommending him who

consulted her to remain in intimate union with God if he wished to regain what he had lost and succeed in his

On leaving Maurice placed a louis on the mantelpiece and went away moved and troubled, persuaded that

Madame Mira possessed supernatural faculties, but unfortunately insufficient ones.

At the bottom of the stairs he remembered he had left the little Lucretius on the table of the pythoness, and,

thinking that the old maniac Sariette would never get over its loss, went up to recover possession of it.

On reentering the paternal abode his gaze lighted upon a shadowy and griefstricken figure. It was old

Sariette, who in tones as plaintive as the wail of the November wind began to beg for his Lucretius. Maurice

Clasping the jewel to his bosom the old librarian bore it away and laid it gently down on the blue tablecloth,

thinking all the while where he might safely hide his precious treasure, and turning over all sorts of schemes

in his mind as became a zealous curator. But who among us shall boast of his wisdom? The foresight of man

is short, and his prudence is for ever being baffled. The blows of fate are ineluctable; no man shall evade his

doom. There is no counsel, no caution that avails against destiny. Hapless as we are, the same blind force

which regulates the courses of atom and of star fashions universal order from our vicissitudes. Our illfortune

is necessary to the harmony of the Universe. It was the day for the binder, a day which the revolving seasons

brought round twice a year, beneath the sign of the Ram and the sign of the Scales. That day, ever since

morning, Monsieur Sariette had been making things ready for the binder. He had laid out on the table as

many of the newly purchased paperbound volumes as were deemed worthy of a permanent binding or of

being put in boards, and also those books whose binding was in need of repair, and of all these he had drawn

up a detailed and accurate list. Punctually at five o'clock, old Am�d�e, the man from L�gerMassieu's, the

binder in the Rue de l'Abbaye, presented himself at the d'Esparvieu library and, after a double check had been

carried out by Monsieur Sariette, thrust the books he was to take back to his master into a piece of cloth

which he fastened into knots at the four corners and hoisted on to his shoulder. He then saluted the librarian

Everything went off on this occasion as usual. But Am�d�e, seeing the Lucretius on the table, innocently put

it into the bag with the others, and took it away without Monsieur Sariette's perceiving it. The librarian

quitted the home of the Philosophers and Globes in entire forgetfulness of the book whose absence had been

causing him such horrible anxiety all day long. Some people may take a stern view of the matter and call this

a lapse, a defection of his better nature. But would it not he more accurate to say that fate had decided that

things should come to pass in this manner, and that what is called chance, and is in fact but the regular order

of nature, had accomplished this imperceptible deed which was to have such awful consequences in the sight

of man? Monsieur Sariette went of to his dinner at the Quatre �v�ques, and read his paper La Croix. He was

tranquil and serene. It was only the next morning when he entered the abode of the Philosophers and Globes

that he remembered the Lucretius. Failing to see it on the table he looked for it everywhere, but without

success. It never entered his head that Am�d�e might have taken it away by mistake. What he did think was

The unhappy curator, hearing a noise on the landing, opened the door and found it was little L�on, who, with

a goldbraided k�pi stuck on his head, was shouting "Vive la France" and hurling dusters and

featherbrooms and Hippolyte's floor polish at imaginary foes. The child preferred this landing for playing

soldiers to any other part of the house, and sometimes he would stray into the library. Monsieur Sariette was

seized with the sudden suspicion that it was he who had taken the Lucretius to use as a missile and he ordered

him, in threatening tones, to give it back. The child denied that he had taken it, and Monsieur Sariette had

"L�on, if you bring me back the little red book, I will give you some chocolates."

The child grew thoughtful; and in the evening, as Monsieur Sariette was going downstairs, he met L�on, who

And, holding out a muchtorn picturebook called The Story of Gribouille, demanded his chocolates.

A few days later the post brought Maurice the prospectus of an enquiry agency managed by an exemployee

at the Prefecture of Police; it promised celerity and discretion. He found at the address indicated a

moustached gentleman morose and careworn, who demanded a deposit and promised to find the individual.

The expolice official soon wrote to inform him that very onerous investigations had been commenced and

asked for fresh funds. Maurice gave him no more and resolved to carry on the search himself. Imagining, not

without some likelihood, that the angel would associate with the wretched, seeing that he had no money, and

with the exiled of all nations like himself, revolutionaries he visited the lodginghouses at St. Ouen, at

la Chapelle, Montmartre, and the Barri�re d'Italie. He sought him in the dosshouses, publichouses where

they give you plates of tripe, and others where you can get a sausage for three sous; he searched for him in

Maurice visited the restaurants where nihilists and anarchists take their meals. There he came across men

dressed as women, gloomy and wildlooking youths, and blueeyed octogenarians who laughed like little

children. He observed, asked questions, was taken for a spy, had a knife thrust into him by a very beautiful

woman, and the very next day continued his search in beerhouses, lodginghouses, houses of illfame,

gamblinghells down by the fortifications, at the receivers of stolen goods, and among the "apaches."

"We must find him a wife," she said. "It is a pity that Mademoiselle de la Verdeli�re has not a bigger

"I am more inclined to think," replied Monsieur Ren� d'Esparvieu, "that he is under the influence of some bad

woman. We must find him an occupation which will absorb him and flatter his vanity. I might get him

appointed Secretary to the Committee for the Preservation of Country Churches, or Consulting Counsel to the

MEANWHILE Arcade led a life of obscure toil. He worked at a printer's in the Rue St. Benoit, and lived in

an attic in the Rue Mouffetard. His comrades having gone on strike, he left the workroom and devoted his

day to his propaganda. So successful was he that he won over to the side of revolt fifty thousand of those

guardian angels who, as Zita had surmised, were discontented with their condition and imbued with the spirit

of the times. But lacking money, he lacked liberty, and could not employ his time as he wished in instructing

the sons of Heaven. So, too, Prince Istar, hampered by want of funds, manufactured fewer bombs than were

needed, and these less fine. Of course he prepared a good many small pocket machines. He had filled

Th�ophile's rooms with them, and not a day passed but he forgot some and left them lying about on the seats

in various cafes. But a nice bomb, easily handled and capable of destroying many big mansions, cost him

from twenty to twentyfive thousand francs; and Prince Istar only possessed two of this kind. Equally bent on

procuring funds, Arcade and Istar both went to make a request for money from a celebrated financier named

Max Everdingen, who, as everyone knows, is the managing director of the biggest banking concern in France

and indeed in the whole world. What is not so well known is that Max Everdingen was not born of woman,

but is a fallen angel. Nevertheless, such is the truth. In Heaven he was named Sophar, and guarded the

treasures of Ialdabaoth, a great collector of gold and precious stones. In the exercise of this function Sophar

contracted a love of riches which could not be satisfied in a state of society in which banks and stock

exchanges are alike unknown. His heart flamed with an ardent love for the god of the Hebrews to whom he

remained faithful during a long course of centuries. But at the commencement of the twentieth century of the

Christian era, casting his eyes down from the height of the firmament upon France, he saw that this country,

under the name of a Republic, was constituted as a plutocracy and that, under the appearance of a democratic

Henceforth life in the Empyrean became intolerable to him. He longed for France as for the promised land,

and one day, bearing with him all the precious stones he could carry, he descended to earth and established

himself in Paris. This angel of cupidity did good business there. Since his materialisation his face had lost its

celestial aspect; it reproduced the Semitic type in all its purity, and one could admire the lines and the puckers

which wrinkle the faces of bankers and which are to be seen in the moneychangers of Quintin Matsys.

CHAPTER XVII. WHEREIN WE LEARN THAT SOPHAR NO LESS EAGER FOR GOLD THAN MAMMON, LOOKED UPON HIS HEAVENLY HOME LESS FAVOURABLY THAN UPON FRANCE, A COUNTRY BLESSED WITH A SAVINGS BANK AND LOAN DEPARTMENTS AND WHEREIN WE SEE, YET ONCE AGAIN THAT WHOSO IS POSSESSED OF THIS WORLD'S GOODS FEARS THE EVIL EFFECTS OF ANY CHANGE 52

His beginnings were humble and his success amazing. He married an ugly woman and they saw themselves

reflected in their children as in a mirror. Baron Max Everdingen's large mansion, which rears itself on the

The Baron received Arcade and Prince Istar in his study, one of the most modest rooms in his mansion.

The ceiling is decorated with a fresco of Tiepolo, taken from a Venetian palace. The bureau of the Regent,

Philip of Orleans, is in this room, which is full of cabinets, showcases, pictures, and statues.

"How comes it, my brother Sophar," said he, "that you, in spite of your Jewish heart, obey so ill the

commandment of the Lord your God who said: 'Thou shalt have no graven images'? for here I see an Apollo

of Houdon's and a Hebe of Lemoine's, and several busts by Caffieri. And, like Solomon in his old age, O son

of God, you set up in your dwellingplace the idols of strange nations: for such are this Venus of Boucher,

this Jupiter of Rubens, and those nymphs that are indebted to Fragonard's brush for the gooseberry jam which

smears their gleaming limbs. And here in this single showcase, Sophar, you keep the sceptre of St. Louis,

six hundred pearls of Marie Antoinette's broken necklace, the imperial mantle of Charles V, the tiara wrought

by Ghiberti for Pope Martin V, the Colonna, Bonaparte's sword and I know not what besides."

"My dear Baron," said Prince Istar, "you even possess the ring which Charlemagne placed on a fairy's finger

and which was thought to be lost. But let us discuss the business on which we have come. My friend and I

"I can well believe it," replied Max Everdingen. "Everyone wants money, but for different reasons. What do

"In France!" repeated the Baron, "in France? Well, I shall give you no money for that, you may be quite

Arcade did not disguise the fact that he had expected greater liberality and more generous help from a

"Our project," he said, "is a vast one. It embraces both Heaven and Earth. It is settled in every detail. We shall

first bring about a social revolution in France, in Europe, on the whole planet; then we shall carry war into the

heavens, where we shall establish a peaceful democracy. And to reduce the citadels of Heaven, to overturn

the mountain of God, to storm celestial Jerusalem, a vast army is needful, enormous resources, formidable

machines, and electrophores of a strength yet unknown. It is our intention to commence with France."

"You are madmen!" exclaimed Baron Everdingen; "madmen and fools! Listen to me. There is not one single

reform to carry out in France. All is perfect, finally settled, unchangeable. You hear? unchangeable." And

to add force to his statement, Baron Everdingen banged his fist three times on the Regent's bureau.

"Our points of view differ," said Arcade sweetly. "I think, as does Prince Istar, that everything should be

changed in this country. But what boots it to dispute the matter? Moreover, it is too late. We have come to

speak to you, O my brother Sophar, in the name of five hundred thousand celestial spirits, all resolved to

Baron Everdingen exclaimed that they were crazy, that he would not give a sou, that it was both criminal and

mad to attack the most admirable thing in the world, the thing which renders earth more beautiful than heaven

Finance. He was a poet and a prophet. His heart thrilled with holy enthusiasm; he drew attention to the

French Savings Bank, the virtuous Savings Bank, that chaste and pure Savings Bank like unto the Virgin of

the Canticle who, issuing from the depths of the country in rustic petticoat, bears to the robust and splendid

Bank her bridegroom, who awaits her the treasures of her love; and drew a picture of the Bank,

enriched with the gifts of its spouse, pouring on all the nations of the world torrents of gold, which, of

themselves, by a thousand invisible channels return in still greater abundance to the blessed land from which

"By Deposit and Loan," he went on, "France has become the New Jerusalem, shedding her glory over all the

nations of Europe, and the Kings of the Earth come to kiss her rosy feet. And that is what you would fain

Thus spoke the angel of finance. An invisible harp accompanied his voice, and his eyes darted lightning.

Meanwhile Arcade, leaning carelessly against the Regent's bureau, spread out under the Banker's eyes various

groundplans, undergroundplans, and skyplans of Paris with red crosses indicating the points where

bombs should be simultaneously placed in cellars and catacombs, thrown on public ways, and flung by a

flotilla of �roplanes. All the financial establishments, and notably the Everdingen Bank and its branches,

"Nonsense! you are but wretches and vagabonds, shadowed by all the police of the world. You are penniless.

By way of reply, Prince Istar drew from his pocket a small copper cylinder, which he gracefully presented to

"You see," said he, "this ordinarylooking box. It is only necessary to let it fall on the ground immediately to

reduce this mansion with its inmates to a mass of smoking ashes, and to set a fire going which would devour

all the Trocadero quarter. I have ten thousand like that, and I make three dozen a day."

The financier asked the Cherub to replace the machine in his pocket, and continued in a conciliatory tone:

"Listen to me, my friends. Go and start a revolution at once in Heaven, and leave things alone in this country.

I will sign a cheque for you. You can procure all the material you need to attack celestial Jerusalem."

And Baron Everdingen was already working up in his imagination a magnificent deal in electrophores and

CHAPTER XVIII. WHEREIN IS BEGUN THE GARDENER'S STORY, IN THE COURSE OF WHICH WE SHALL SEE THE DESTINY OF THE WORLD UNFOLDED IN A DISCOURSE AS BROAD AND MAGNIFICENT IN ITS VIEWS AS BOSSUET'S DISCOURSE ON THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE IS NARROW AND DISMAL 54

THE gardener bade Arcade and Zita sit down in an arbour walled with wild bryony, at the far end of the

"Arcade," said the beautiful Archangel, "Nectaire will perhaps reveal to you today the things you are

"I knew him. He was the most beautiful of all the Seraphim. He shone with intelligence and daring. His great

heart was big with all the virtues born of pride: frankness, courage, constancy in trial, indomitable hope.

Long, long ago, ere Time was, in the boreal sky where gleam the seven magnetic stars, he dwelt in a palace of

diamond and gold, where the air was ever tremulous with the beating of wings and with songs of triumph.

Iahveh, on his mountain, was jealous of Lucifer. You both know it: angels like unto men feel love and hatred

quicken within them. Capable, at times, of generous resolves, they too often follow their own interests and

yield to fear. Then, as now, they showed themselves, for the most part, incapable of lofty thoughts, and in the

fear of the Lord lay their sole virtue. Lucifer, who held vile things in proud disdain, despised this rabble of

commonplace spirits for ever wallowing in a life of feasts and pleasure. But to those who were possessed of a

daring spirit, a restless soul, to those fired with a wild love of liberty, he proffered friendship, which was

returned with adoration. These latter deserted in a mass the mountain of God and yielded to the Seraph the

"I ranked among the Dominations, and my name, Alaciel, was not unknown to fame. To satisfy my mind

that was ever tormented with an insatiable thirst for knowledge and understanding I observed the nature of

things, I studied the properties of minerals, air, and water. I sought out the laws which govern nature, solid or

ethereal, and after much pondering I perceived that the Universe had not been formed as its pretended Creator

would have us believe; I knew that all that exists, exists of itself and not by the caprice of Iahveh; that the

world is itself its own creator and the spirit its own God. Henceforth I despised Iahveh for his imposture, and

I hated him because he showed himself to be opposed to all that I found desirable and good: liberty, curiosity,

doubt. These feelings drew me towards the Seraph. I admired him, I loved him. I dwelt in his light. When at

length it appeared that a choice had to be made between him and That Other I ranged myself on the side of

Lucifer and knew no other aim than to serve him, no other desire than to share his lot.

"War having become inevitable, he prepared for it with indefatigable vigilance and all the resourcefulness of

a farseeing mind. Making the Thrones and Dominations into Chalybes and Cyclopes, he drew forth iron

from the mountains bordering his domain; iron, which he valued more than gold, and forged weapons in the

caverns of Heaven. Then in the desert plain of the North he assembled myriads of Spirits, armed them, taught

them, and drilled them. Although prepared in secret, the enterprise was too vast for his adversary not to be

soon aware of it. It might in truth be said that he had always foreseen and dreaded it, for he had made a

citadel of his abode and a warlike host of his angels, and he gave himself the name of the God of Hosts. He

made ready his thunderbolts. More than half of the children of Heaven remained faithful to him; thronging

round him he beheld obedient souls and patient hearts. The Archangel Michael, who knew not fear, took

command of these docile troops. Lucifer, as soon as he saw that his army could gain no more in numbers or

in warlike skill, moved it swiftly against the foe, and promising his angels riches and glory marched at their

head towards the mountain upon whose summit stands the Throne of the Universe. For three days our host

swept onward over the ethereal plains. Above our heads streamed the black standards of revolt. And now,

behold, the Mountain of God shone rosy in the orient sky and our chief scanned with his eyes the glittering

ramparts. Beneath the sapphire walls the foe was drawn up in battle array, and, while we marched clad in our

"Their gonfalons of red and blue floated in the breeze, and lightning flashed from the points of their lances. In

a little while the armies were only sundered one from the other by a narrow strip of level and deserted

ground, and at this sight even the bravest shuddered as they thought that there in bloody conflict their fate

"Angels, as you know, never die. But when bronze and iron, diamond point or flaming sword tear their

ethereal substance, the pain they feel is more acute than men may suffer. for their flesh is more exquisitely

delicate; and should some essential organ be destroyed, they fall inert and, slowly decomposing, are resolved

into clouds and during long �ons float insensible in the cold ether. And when at length they resume spirit and

form they fail to recover full memory of their past life. Therefore it is but natural that angels shrink from

suffering, and the bravest among them is troubled at the thought of being reft of light and sweet

remembrance. Were it otherwise the angelic race would know neither the delight of battle nor the glory of

sacrifice. Those who, before the beginning of Time, fought in the Empyrean for or against the God of

Armies, would have taken part without honour in mock battles, and it would not now become me to say to

"Lucifer gave the signal for the onset and led the assault. We fell upon the enemy, thinking to destroy him

then and there and carry the sacred citadel at the first onslaught. The soldiers of the jealous God, less fiery,

but no whit less firm than ours, remained immovable. The Archangel Michael commanded them with the

calmness and resolution of a mighty spirit. Thrice we strove to break through their lines, thrice they opposed

to our ironclad breast the flaming points of their lances, swift to pierce the stoutest cuirass. In millions the

glorious bodies fell. At length our right wing pierced the enemy's left and we beheld the Principalities, the

Powers, the Virtues, the Dominations, and the Thrones turn and flee in full career; while the Angels of the

Third Choir, flying distractedly above them, covered them with a snow of feathers mingled with a rain of

blood. We sped in pursuit of them amid the debris of chariots and broken weapons, and we spurred their

nimble flight. Suddenly a storm of cries amazed us. It grew louder and nearer. With desperate shrieks and

triumphal clamour the right wing of the enemy, the giant archangels of the Most High, had flung themselves

upon our left flank and broken it. Thus we were forced to abandon the pursuit of the fugitives and hasten to

the rescue of our own shattered troops. Our prince flew to rally them, and reestablished the conflict. But the

left wing of the enemy, whose ruin he had not quite consummated, no longer pressed by lance or arrow,

regained courage, returned, and faced us yet again. Night fell upon the dubious field. While under the shelter

of darkness, in the still, silent air stirred ever and anon by the moans of the wounded, his forces were resting

from their toils, Lucifer began to make ready for the next day's battle. Before dawn the trumpets sounded the

reveille. Our warriors surprised the enemy at the hour of prayer, put them to rout, and long and fierce was the

carnage that ensued. When all had either fallen or fled, the Archangel Michael, none with him save a few

companions with four wings of flame, still resisted the onslaughts of a countless host. They fell back

ceaselessly opposing their breasts to us, and Michael still displayed an impassible countenance. The sun had

run a third of its course when we commenced to scale the Mountain of God. An arduous ascent it was: sweat

ran from our brows, a dazzling light blinded us. Weighed down with steel, our feathery wings could not

sustain us, but hope gave us wings that bore us up. The beautiful Seraph, pointing with glittering hand,

mounting ever higher and higher, showed us the way. All day long we slowly climb the lofty heights which at

evening were robed in azure, rose, and violet. The starry host appearing in the sky seemed as the reflection of

our own arms. Infinite silence reigned above us. We went on, intoxicated with hope; all at once from the

darkened sky lightning darted forth, the thunder muttered, and from the cloudy mountaintop fell fire from

Heaven. Our helmets, our breastplates were running with flames, and our bucklers broke under bolts sped by

invisible hands. Lucifer, in the storm of fire, retained his haughty mien. In vain the lightning smote him;

mightier than ever he stood erect, and still defied the foe. At length, the thunder, making the mountain totter,

flung us down pellmell, huge fragments of sapphire and ruby crashing down with us as we fell, and we

"I awoke in a darkness filled with lamentations. And when my eyes had grown accustomed to the dense

shadows I saw round me my companions in arms, scattered in thousands on the sulphurous ground, lit by

fitful gleams of livid light. My eyes perceived but fields of lava, smoking craters, and poisonous swamps.

"Mountains of ice and shadowy seas shut in the horizon. A brazen sky hung heavy on our brows. And the

horror of the place was such that we wept as we sat, crouched elbow on knee, our cheeks resting on our

"But soon, raising my eyes, I beheld the Seraph standing before me like a tower. Over his pristine splendour

"'Comrades,' said he, 'we must be happy and rejoice, for behold we are delivered from celestial servitude.

Here we are free, and it were better to be free in Hell than serve in Heaven. We are not conquered, since the

will to conquer is still ours. We have caused the Throne of the jealous God to totter; by our hands it shall fall.

"Thereupon, at his command, we piled mountain upon mountain and on the topmost peak we reared engines

which flung molten rocks against the divine habitations. The celestial host was taken unaware and from the

abodes of glory there issued groans and cries of terror. And even then we thought to reenter in triumph on

our high estate, but the Mountain of God was wreathed with lightnings, and thunderbolts, falling on our

fortress, crushed it to dust. After this fresh disaster, the Seraph remained awhile in meditation, his head buried

in his hands. At length he raised his darkened visage. Now he was Satan, greater than Lucifer. Steadfast and

"'Friends,' he said, 'if victory is denied us now, it is because we are neither worthy nor capable of victory. Let

us determine wherein we have failed. Nature shall not be ruled, the sceptre of the Universe shall not be

grasped, Godhead shall not be won, save by knowledge alone. We must conquer the thunder; to that task we

must apply ourselves unwearyingly. It is not blind courage (no one this day has shown more courage than

have you) which will win us the courts of Heaven; but rather study and reflection. In these silent realms

where we are fallen, let us meditate, seeking the hidden causes of things; let us observe the course of Nature;

let us pursue her with compelling ardour and allconquering desire; let us strive to penetrate her infinite

grandeur, her infinite minuteness. Let us seek to know when she is barren and when she brings forth fruit;

how she makes cold and heat, joy and sorrow, life and death; how she assembles and disperses her elements,

how she produces both the light air we breathe and the rocks of diamond and sapphire whence we have been

precipitated, the divine fire wherewith we have been scarred and the soaring thought which stirs our minds.

Torn with dire wounds, scorched by flame and by ice, let us render thanks to Fate which has sedulously

opened our eyes, and let us rejoice at our lot. It is through pain that, suffering a first experience of Nature, we

have been roused to know her and to subdue her. When she obeys us we shall be as gods. But even though

she hide her mysteries for ever from us, deny us arms and keep the secret of the thunder, we still must needs

congratulate ourselves on having known pain, for pain has revealed to us new feelings, more precious and

more sweet than those experienced in eternal bliss, and inspired us with love and pity unknown to Heaven.'

"These words of the Seraph changed our hearts and opened up fresh hope to us. Our hearts were filled with a

"Meanwhile the Earth was coming into being. Its immense and nebulous orb took on hourly more shape and

more certainty of outline. The waters which fed the seaweed, the madrepores and shell fish, and bore the light

flotilla of the nautilus upon their bosom, no longer covered it in its entirety; they began to sink into beds, and

already continents appeared, where, on the warm slime, amphibious monsters crawled. Then the mountains

were overspread with forests, and divers races of animals commenced to feed on the grass, the moss, the

berries on the trees, and on the acorns. Then there took possession of cavernous shelters under the rocks, a

being who was cunning to wound with a sharpened stone the savage beasts, and by his ruses to overcome the

"Man entered painfully on his kingdom. He was defenceless and naked. His scanty hair afforded him but little

protection from the cold. His hands ended in nails too frail to do battle with the claws of wild beasts, but the

position of his thumb, in opposition to the rest of his fingers, allowed him easily to grasp the most diverse

objects and endowed him with skill in default of strength. Without differing essentially from the rest of the

animals, he was more capable than any others of observing and comparing. As he drew from his throat

various sounds, it occurred to him to designate by a particular inflexion of the voice whatever impinged upon

his mind, and by this sequence of different sounds he was enabled to fix and communicate his ideas. His

miserable lot and his painstaking spirit aroused the sympathy of the vanquished angels, who discerned in him

an audacity equalling their own, and the germ of the pride that was at once their glory and their bane. They

came in large numbers to be near him, to dwell on this young earth whither their wings wafted them in

effortless flight. And they took pleasure in sharpening his talents and fostering his genius. They taught him to

clothe himself in the skins of wild beasts, to roll stones before the mouths of caves to keep out the tigers and

bears. They taught him how to make the flame burst forth by twirling a stick among the dried leaves and to

foster the sacred fire upon the hearth. Inspired by the ingenious spirits he dared to cross the rivers in the

hollowed trunks of cleft trees, he invented the wheel, the grindingmill, and the plough; the share tore up the

earth and the wound brought forth fruit, and the grain offered to him who ground it divine nourishment. He

"In fine, taking up our abode among mankind, we consoled them and taught them. We were not always

visible to them, but of an evening, at the turn of the road, we would appear to them under forms often strange

and weird, at times dignified and charming, and we adopted at will the appearance of a monster of the woods

and waters, of a venerable old man, of a beautiful child, or of a woman with broad hips. Sometimes we would

mock them in our songs or test their intelligence by some cunning prank. There were certain of us of a rather

turbulent humour who loved to tease their women and children, but though lowly folk, they were our

brothers, and we were never loath to come to their aid. Through our care their intelligence developed

sufficiently to attain to mistaken ideas, and to acquire erroneous notions of the relations of cause and effect.

As they supposed that some magic bond existed between the reality and its counterfeit presentment, they

covered the walls of their caves with figures of animals and carved in ivory images of the reindeer and the

mammoth in order to secure as prey the creatures they represented. Centuries passed by with infinite

slowness while their genius was coming to birth. We sent them happy thoughts in dreams, inspired them to

tame the horse, to castrate the bull, to teach the dog to guard the sheep. They created the family and the tribe.

It came to pass one day that one of their wandering tribes was assailed by ferocious hunters. Forthwith the

young men of the tribe formed an enclosed ring with their chariots, and in it they shut their women, children,

old people, cattle, and treasures, and from the platform of their chariots they hurled murderous stones at their

assailants. Thus was formed the first city. Born in misery and condemned to do murder by the law of Iahveh,

man put his whole heart into doing battle, and to war he was indebted for his noblest virtues. He hallowed

with his blood that sacred love of country which should (if man fulfils his destiny to the very end) enfold the

whole earth in peace. One of us, D�dalus, brought him the axe, the plumbline, and the sail. Thus we

rendered the existence of mortals less hard and difficult. By the shores of the lakes they built dwellings of

osier, where they might enjoy a meditative quiet unknown to the other inhabitants of the earth, and when they

had learned to appease their hunger without too painful efforts we breathed into their hearts the love of

"They raised up pyramids, obelisks, towers, colossal statues which smiled stiff and uncouth, and genetic

symbols. Having learnt to know us or trying at least to divine what manner of beings we were, they felt both

friendship and fear for us. The wisest among them watched us with sacred awe and pondered our teaching. In

their gratitude the people of Greece and of Asia consecrated to us stones, trees, shadowy woods; offered us

victims, and sang us hymns; in fact we became gods in their sight, and they called us Horus, Isis, Astarte,

Zeus, Cybele, Demeter, and Triptolemus. Satan was worshipped under the names of Evan, Dionysus,

Bacchus, and Len�us. He showed in his various manifestations all the strength and beauty which it is given

to mortals to conceive. His eyes had the sweetness of the woodviolet, his lips were brilliant with the

rubyred of the pomegranate, a down finer than the velvet of the peach covered his cheeks and his chin: his

fair hair, wound like a diadem and knotted loosely on the crown of his head, was encircled with ivy. He

charmed the wild beasts, and penetrating into the deep forests drew to him all wild spirits, every thing that

climbed in trees and peered through the branches with wild and timid gaze. On all these creatures fierce and

fearful, that lived on bitter berries and beneath whose hairy breasts a wild heart beat, halfhuman creatures of

the woods on all he bestowed lovingkindness and grace, and they followed him drunk with joy and

beauty. He planted the vine and showed mortals how to crush the grapes underfoot to make the wine flow.

Magnificent and benign, he fared across the world, a long procession following in his train. To bear him

company I took the form of a satyr; from my brow sprang two budding horns. My nose was flat and my ears

were pointed. Glands, like those of the goat, hung on my neck, a goat's tail moved with my moving loins, and

"Dionysus fared on his triumphal march over the world. In his company I passed through Lydia, the Phrygian

fields, the scorching plains of Persia, Media bristling with hoarfrost, Arabia Felix, and rich Asia where

flourishing cities were laved by the waves of the sea. He proceeded on a car drawn by lions and lynxes, to the

sound of flutes, cymbals, and drums, invented for his mysteries. Bacchantes, Thyades, and Menads, girt with

the dappled fawnskin, waved the thyrsus encircled with ivy. He bore in his train the Satyrs, whose joyous

troop I led, Sileni, Pans, and Centaurs. Under his feet flowers and fruit sprang to life, and striking the rocks

with his wand he made limpid streams gush forth. In the month of the Vintage he visited Greece, and the

villagers ran forth to meet him, stained with the green and ruddy juices of the plants, they wore masks of

wood, or bark, or leaves; in their hands they bore earthen cups, and danced wanton dances. Their womenfolk,

imitating the companions of the God, their heads wreathed with green smilax, fastened round their supple

loins skins of fawn or goat. The virgins twined about their throats garlands of fig leaves, they kneaded cakes

of flour, and bore the Phallus in the mystic basket. And the vinedressers, all daubed with lees of wine,

standing up in their wains and bandying mockery or abuse with the passersby, invented Tragedy.

"Truly, it was not in dreaming beside a fountain, but by dint of strenuous toil that Dionysus taught them to

grow plants and to make them bring forth succulent fruits. And while he pondered the art of transforming the

rough woodlanders into a race that should love music and submit to just laws, more than once over his brow,

burning with the fire of enthusiasm, did melancholy and gloomy fever pass. But his profound knowledge and

his friendship for mankind enabled him to triumph over every obstacle. O days divine! Beautiful dawn of life

We led the Bacchanals on the leafy summits of the mountains and on the yellow shores of the seas. The

Naiads and the Oreads mingled with us at our play. Aphrodite at our coming rose from the foam of the sea to

WHEN men had learned to cultivate the earth, to herd cattle, to enclose their holy places within walls, and to

recognise the gods by their beauty, I withdrew to that smiling land girdled with dark woods and watered by

the Stymphalos, the Olbios, the Erymanthus, and the proud Crathis, swollen with the icy waters of the Styx,

and there, in a green valley at the foot of a hill planted with arbutus, olive, and pine, beneath a cluster of

white poplars and plane trees, by the side of a stream flowing with soft murmur amid tufted mastic trees, I

sang to the shepherds and the nymphs of the birth of the world, the origin of fire, of the tenuous air, of water

and of earth. I told them how primeval men had lived wretched and naked in the woods, before the ingenious

spirits had taught them the arts; of God, too, I sang to them, and why they gave Dionysus Semele to mother,

"It was not without effort that this people, more pleasing than all the others in the eyes of the gods, these

happy Greeks, achieved good government and a knowledge of the arts. Their first temple was a hut composed

of laurel branches; their first image of the gods, a tree; their first altar, a rough stone stained with the blood of

Iphigenia. But in a short time they brought wisdom and beauty to a point that no nation had attained before

them, that no nation has since approached. Whence comes it, Arcade, this solitary marvel on the earth?

Wherefore did the sacred soil of Ionia and of Attica bring forth this incomparable flower? Because nor

priesthood, nor dogma, nor revelation ever found a place there, because the Greeks never knew the jealous

"It was his own grace, his own genius that the Greek enthroned and deified as his God, and when he raised

his eyes to the heavens it was his own image that he saw reflected there. He conceived everything in due

measure; and to his temples he gave perfect proportion. All therein was grace, harmony, symmetry, and

wisdom; all were worthy of the immortals who dwelt within them and who under names of happy choice, in

realised shapes, figured forth the genius of man. The columns which bore the marble architrave, the frieze

and the cornice were touched with something human, which made them venerable; and sometimes one might

see, as at Athens and at Delphi, beautiful young girls stronglimbed and radiant upstaying the entablature of

"Dionysus resolved to repair to Italy, whither he was summoned under the name of Bacchus by a people

eager to celebrate his mysteries. I took passage in his ship decked with tendrils of the vine, and landed under

the eyes of the two brothers of Helen at the mouth of the yellow Tiber. Already under the teaching of the god,

the inhabitants of Latium had learned to wed the vine to the young stripling elm. It was my pleasure to dwell

at the foot of the Sabine hills in a valley crowned with trees and watered with pure springs. I gathered the

verbena and the mallow in the meadows. The pale olivetrees twisting their perforated trunks on the slope of

the hill gave me of their unctuous fruit. There I taught a race of men with square heads, who had not, like the

Greeks, a fertile mind, but whose hearts were true, whose souls were patient, and who reverenced the gods.

My neighbour, a rustic soldier, who for fifteen years had bowed under the burden of his haversack, had

followed the Roman eagle over land and sea, and had seen the enemies of the sovereign people flee before

him. Now he drove his furrow with his two red oxen, starred with white between their spreading horns, while

beneath the cabin's thatch his spouse, chaste and sedate of mien, pounded garlic in a bronze mortar and

cooked the beans upon the sacred hearth. And I, his friend, seated near by under an oak, used to lighten his

labours with the sound of my flute, and smile on his little children, when the sun, already low in the sky, was

lengthening the shadows, and they returned from the wood all laden with branches. At the garden gate where

the pears and pumpkins ripened, and where the lily and the evergreen acanthus bloomed, a figure of Priapus

carved out of the trunk of a fig tree menaced thieves with his formidable emblem, and the reeds swaying with

the wind over his head scared away the plundering birds. At new moon the pious husbandman made offering

of a handful of salt and barley to his household gods crowned with myrtle and with rosemary.

"I saw his children grow up, and his children's children, who kept in their hearts their early piety and did not

forget to offer sacrifice to Bacchus, to Diana, and to Venus, nor omit to pour fresh wines and scatter flowers

into the fountains. But slowly they fell away from their old habits of patient toil and simplicity.

"I heard them complain when the torrent, swollen with many rains, compelled them to construct a dyke to

protect the paternal fields, and the rough Sabine wine grew unpleasing to their delicate palate. They went to

drink the wines of Greece at the neighbouring tavern; and the hours slipped unheeded by, while within the

arbour shade they watched the dance of the flute player, practised at swaying her supple limbs to the sound of

"Lulled by murmuring leaves and whispering streams, the tillers of the soil took sweet repose, but between

the poplars we saw along borders of the sacred way vast tombs, statues, and altars arise, and the rolling of the

chariot wheels grew more frequent over the worn stones. A cherry sapling brought home by a veteran told us

of the fardistant conquests of a Consul, and odes sung to the lyre related the victories of Rome, mistress of

"All the countries where the great Dionysus had journeyed, changing wild beasts into men, and making the

fruit and grain bloom and ripen beneath the passing of his Menads, now breathed the Pax Romana. The

nursling of the shewolf, soldier and labourer, friend of conquered nations, laid out roads from the margin of

the misty sea to the rocky slopes of the Caucasus; in every town rose the temple of Augustus and of Rome,

and such was the universal faith in Latin justice that in the gorges of Thessaly or on the wooded borders of

the Rhine, the slave, ready to succumb under his iniquitous burden, called aloud on the name of C�sar.

"But why must it be that on this illstarred globe of land and water, all should perish and die and the fairest

things be ever the most fleeting? O adorable daughters of Greece! O Science! O Wisdom! O Beauty! kindly

divinities, you were wrapt in heavy slumber ere you submitted to the outrages of the barbarians, who already

in the marshy wastes of the North and on the lonely steppes, ready to assail you, bestrode barebacked their

"While, dear Arcade, the patient legionary camped by the borders of the Phasis and the Tanais, the women

and the priests of Asia and of monstrous Africa invaded the Eternal City and troubled the sons of Remus with

their magic spells. Until now, Iahveh, the persecutor of the laborious demons, was unknown to the world that

he pretended to have created, save to certain miserable Syrian tribes, ferocious like himself, and perpetually

dragged from servitude to servitude. Profiting by the Roman peace which assured free travel and traffic

everywhere, and favoured the exchange of ideas and merchandise, this old God insolently made ready to

conquer the Universe. He was not the only one, for the matter of that, to attempt such an undertaking. At the

same time a crowd of gods, demiurges, and demons, such as Mithra, Thammuz, the good Isis, and Eubulus,

meditated taking possession of the peaceenfolded world. Of all the spirits, Iahveh appeared the least

prepared for victory. His ignorance, his cruelty, his ostentation, his Asiatic luxury, his disdain of laws, his

affectation of rendering himself invisible, all these things were calculated to offend those Greeks and Latins

who had absorbed the teaching of Dionysus and the Muses. He himself felt he was incapable of winning the

allegiance of free men and of cultivated minds, and he employed cunning. To seduce their souls he invented a

fable which, although not so ingenious as the myths wherewith we have surrounded the spirits of our

disciples of old, could, nevertheless, influence those feebler intellects which are to be found everywhere in

great masses. He declared that men having committed a crime against him, an hereditary crime, should pay

the penalty for it in their present life and in the life to come (for mortals vainly imagine that their existence is

prolonged in hell); and the astute Iahveh gave out that he had sent his own son to earth to redeem with his

blood the debt of mankind. It is not credible that a penalty should redress a fault, and it is still less credible

that the innocent should pay for the guilty. The sufferings of the innocent atone for nothing, and do but add

one evil to another. Nevertheless, unhappy creatures were found to adore Iahveh and his son, the expiator,

and to announce their mysteries as good tidings. We should not be surprised at this folly. Have we not seen

many times indeed human beings who, poor and naked, prostrate themselves before all the phantoms of fear,

and rather than follow the teaching of welldisposed demons, obey the commandments of cruel demiurges?

Iahveh, by his cunning, took souls as in a net. But he did not gain therefrom, for his glorification, all that he

expected. It was not he, but his son, who received the homage of mankind, and who gave his name to the new

THE new superstition spread at first over Syria and Africa; it won over the seaports where the filthy rabble

swarm, and, penetrating into Italy, infected at first the courtesans and the slaves, and then made rapid

progress among the middle classes of the towns. But for a long while the countryside remained undisturbed.

As in the past, the villagers consecrated a pine tree to Diana, and sprinkled it every year with the blood of a

young boar; they propitiated their Lares with the sacrifice of a sow, and offered to Bacchus benefactor of

mankind a kid of dazzling whiteness, or if they were too poor for this, at least they had a little wine and a

little flour from the vineyard and from the fields for their household gods. We had taught them that it sufficed

to approach the altar with clean hands, and that the gods rejoiced over a modest offering.

"Nevertheless, the reign of Iahveh proclaimed its advent in a hundred places by its extravagances. The

Christians burnt books, overthrew temples, set fire to the towns, and carried on their ravages as far as the

deserts. There, thousands of unhappy beings, turning their fury against themselves, lacerated their sides with

points of steel. And from the whole earth the sighs of voluntary victims rose up to God like songs of praise.

"On the summit of the hill which overlooked the olive woods, brightened daily with the sounds of my flute,

had stood since the earliest days of the Pax Romana, a small marble temple, round as the huts of our

forefathers. It had no walls, but on a base of seven steps, sixteen columns rose in a circle with the acanthus on

the capitals, bearing a cupola of white tiles. This cupola sheltered a statue of Love fashioning his bow, the

work of an Athenian sculptor. The child seemed to breathe, joy was welling from his lips, all his limbs were

harmonious and polished. I honoured this image of the most powerful of all the gods, and I taught the

villagers to bear to him as an offering a cup crowned with verbena and filled with wine two summers old.

"One day, when seated as my custom was at the feet of the god, pondering precepts and songs, an unknown

man, wildlooking, with unkempt hair, approached the temple, sprang at one bound up the marble steps, and

"'Die, poisoner of souls, and joy and beauty perish with you.' He spoke thus, and drawing an axe from his

girdle raised it against the god. I stayed his arm, I threw him down, and trampled him under my feet.

"'Demon,' he cried desperately, 'suffer me to overturn this idol, and you may slay me afterwards.'

"I heeded not his atrocious plea, but leaned with all my might on his chest, which cracked under my knee,

"While he lay there, with purple face and lolling tongue, at the feet of the smiling god, I went to purify myself

at the sacred stream. Then leaving this land, now the prey of the Christian, I passed through Gaul and gained

the banks of the Saone, whither Dionysus had, in days gone by, carried the ine. The god of the Christians had

not yet been proclaimed to this happy people. They worshipped for its beauty a leafy beechtree, whose

honoured branches swept the ground, and they hung fillets of wool thereon. They also worshipped a sacred

stream and set up images of clay in a dripping grotto. They made offering of little cheeses and a bowl of milk

"But soon an apostle of sorrow was sent to them by the new God. He was drier than a smoked fish. Although

attenuated with fasting and watching, he taught with unabated ardour all manner of gloomy mysteries. He

loved suffering, and thought it good; his anger fell upon all that was beautiful, comely, and joyous. The

sacred tree fell beneath his hatchet. He hated the Nymphs, because they were beautiful, and he flung

imprecations at them when their shining limbs gleamed among the leaves at evening, and he held my

melodious flute in aversion. The poor wretch thought that there were certain forms of words wherewith to put

to flight the deathless spirits that dwell in the cool groves, and in the depths of the woods and on the tops of

the mountains. He thought to conquer us with a few drops of water over which he had pronounced certain

words and made certain gestures. The Nymphs, to avenge themselves, appeared to him at nightfall and

inflamed him with desire which he foolish knave thought animal; then they fled, their laughter scattered like

grain over the fields, while their victim lay tossing with burning limbs on his couch of leaves. Thus do the

divine nymphs laugh at exorcisers, and mock the wicked and their sordid chastity.

"The apostle did not do as much harm as he wished, because his teaching was given to the simple souls living

in obedience to Nature, and because the mediocrity of most of mankind is such that they gain but little from

the principles inculcated in them. The little wood in which I dwelt belonged to a Gaul of senatorial family,

who retained some traces of Latin elegance. He loved his young freedwoman and shared with her his bed of

broidered purple. His slaves cultivated his garden and his vineyard; he was a poet and sang, in imitation of

Ausonius, Venus whipping her son with roses. Although a Christian, he offered me milk, fruit, and

vegetables as if I were the genius of the place. In return I charmed his idle moments with the music of my

flute, and I gave him happy dreams. In fact, these peaceful Gauls knew very little of Iahveh and his son.

"But now behold fires looming on the horizon, and ashes driven by the wind fall within our forest glades.

Peasants come driving a long file of waggons along the roads or urging their flocks before them. Cries of

"Now one horseman is seen, lance in hand, clad in shining bronze, his long red hair falling in two plaits on

his shoulders. Then come two, then twenty, then thousands, wild and bloodstained; old men and children

they put to the sword, ay, even aged grandams whose grey hairs cleave to the soles of the slaughterer's boots,

mingled with the brains of babes newborn. My young Gaul and his young freedwoman stain with their

blood the couch broidered with narcissi. The barbarians burn the basilicas to roast their oxen whole, shatter

the amphor�, and drain the wine in the mud of the flooded cellars. Their women accompany them, huddled,

half naked, in their war chariots. When the Senate, the dwellers in the cities, and the leaders of the churches

had perished in the flames, the Burgundians, soddened with wine, lay down to slumber beneath the arcades of

the Forum. Two weeks later one of them might have been seen smiling in his shaggy beard at the little child

whom, on the threshold of their dwelling, his fairhaired spouse gathers in her arms; while another, kindling

the fire of his forge, hammers out his iron with measured stroke; another sings beneath the oak tree to his

assembled comrades of the gods and heroes of his race; and yet others spread out for sale stones fallen from

Heaven, aurochs' horns, and amulets. And the former inhabitants of the country, regaining courage little by

little, crept from the woods where they had fled for refuge, and returned to rebuild their burntdown cabins,

"Once more life resumed its normal course; but those times were the most wretched that mankind had yet

experienced. The barbarians swarmed over the whole Empire. Their ways were uncouth, and as they nurtured

"The fable of Iahveh and his son pleased them, and they believed it all the more easily in that it was taught

them by the Romans whom they knew to be wiser than themselves, and to whose arts and mode of life they

yielded secret admiration. Alas! the heritage of Greece and Rome had fallen into the hands of fools. All

knowledge was lost. In those days it was held to be a great merit to sing among the choir, and those who

remembered a few sentences from the Bible passed for prodigious geniuses. There were still poets as there

were birds, but their verse went lame in every foot. The ancient demons, the good genii of mankind, shorn of

their honours, driven forth, pursued, hunted down, remained hidden in the woods. There, if they still showed

themselves to men, they adopted, to hold them in awe, a terrible face, a red, green, or black skin, baleful eyes,

an enormous mouth fringed with boars' teeth, horns, a tail, and sometimes a human face on their bellies. The

nymphs remained fair, and the barbarians, ignorant of the winsome names they bore in other days, called

them fairies, and, imputing to them a capricious character and puerile tastes, both feared and loved them.

"We had suffered a grievous fall, and our ranks were sadly thinned; nevertheless we did not lose courage and,

maintaining a laughing aspect and a benevolent spirit, we were in those direful days the real friends of

mankind. Perceiving that the barbarians grew daily less sombre and less ferocious, we lent ourselves to the

task of conversing with them under all sorts of disguises. We incited them, with a thousand precautions, and

by prudent circumlocutions, not to acknowledge the old Iahveh as an infallible master, not blindly to obey his

orders, and not to fear his menaces. When need was, we had recourse to magic. We exhorted them

unceasingly to study nature and to strive to discover the traces of ancient wisdom.

"These warriors from the North rude though they were were acquainted with some mechanical arts.

They thought they saw combats in the heavens; the sound of the harp drew tears from their eyes; and

perchance they had souls capable of greater things than the degenerate Gauls and Romans whose lands they

had invaded. They knew not how to hew stone or to polish marble; but they caused porphyry and columns to

be brought from Rome and from Ravenna; their chief men took for their seal a gem engraved by a Greek in

the days when Beauty reigned supreme. They raised walls with bricks, cunningly arranged like ears of corn,

and succeeded in building quite pleasinglooking churches with cornices upheld by consoles depicting grim

faces, and heavy capials whereon were represented monsters devouring one another.

"We taught them letters and sciences. A mouthpiece of their god, one Gerbert, took lessons in physics,

arithmetic, and music with us, and it was said that he had sold us his soul. Centuries passed, and man's ways

remained violent. It was a world given up to fire and blood. The successors of the studious Gerbert, not

content with the possession of souls (the profits one gains thereby are lighter than air), wished to possess

bodies also. They pretended that their universal and prescriptive monarchy was held from a fisherman on the

lake of Tiberias. One of them thought for a moment to prevail over the loutish Germanus, successor to

Augustus. But finally the spiritual had to come to terms with the temporal, and the nations were torn between

"Nations tool shape amid horrible tumult. On every side were wars, famines, and internecine conflicts. Since

they attributed the innumerable ills that fell upon them to their God, they called him the Most Good, not by

way of irony, but because to them the best was he who smote the hardest. In those days of violence, to give

myself leisure for study I adopted a r�le which may surprise you, but which was exceedingly wise.

"Between the Saone and the mountains of Charolais, where the cattle pasture, there lies a wooded hill sloping

gently down to fields watered by a clear stream. There stood a monastery celebrated throughout the Christian

world. I hid my cloven feet under a robe and became a monk in this Abbey, where I lived peacefully,

sheltered from the men at arms who to friend or foe alike showed themselves equally exacting. Man, who had

relapsed into childhood, had all his lessons to learn over again. Brother Luke, whose cell was next to mine,

studied the habits of animals and taught us that the weasel conceives her young within her ear. I culled

simples in the fields wherewith to soothe the sick, who until then were made by way of treatment to touch the

relics of saints. In the Abbey were several demons similar to myself whom I recognised by their cloven feet

and by their kindly speech. We joined forces in our endeavours to polish the rough mind of the monks.

"While the little children played at hopscotch under the Abbey walls our friends the monks devoted

themselves to another game equally unprofitable, at which, nevertheless, I joined them, for one must kill

time, that, when one comes to think of it, is the sole business of life. Our game was a game of words

which pleased our coarse yet subtle minds, set school fulminating against school, and put all Christendom in

an uproar. We formed ourselves into two opposing camps. One camp maintained that before there were

apples there was the Apple; that before there were popinjays there was the Popinjay; that before there were

lewd and greedy monks there was the Monk, Lewdness and Greed; that before there were feet and before

there were posteriors in this world the kick in the posterior must have had existence for all eternity in the

bosom of God. The other camp replied that, on the contrary, apples gave man the idea of the apple; popinjays

the idea of the popinjay; monks the idea of the monk, greed and lewdness, and that the kick in the posterior

existed only after having been duly given and received. The players grew heated and came to fisticuffs. I was

an adherent of the second party, which satisfied my reason better, and which was, in fact, condemned by the

"Meanwhile, not content with fighting among themselves, vassal against suzerain, suzerain against vassal, the

great lords took it into their heads to go and fight in the East. They said, as well as I can remember, that they

"They said so, but their adventurous and covetous spirit excited them to go forth and seek lands, women,

slaves, gold, myrrh, and incense. These expeditions, need it be said, proved disastrous; but our thickheaded

compatriots brought back with them the knowledge of certain crafts and oriental arts and a taste for luxury.

Henceforth we had less difficulty in making them work and in putting them in the way of inventions. We

built wonderfully beautiful churches, with daringly pierced arches, lancetshaped windows, high towers,

thousands of pointed spires, which, rising in the sky towards Iahveh, bore at one and the same time the

prayers of the humble and the threats of the proud, for it was all as much our doing as the work of men's

hands; and it was a strange sight to see men and demons working together at a cathedral, each one sawing,

polishing, collecting stones, graving, on capital and on cornice, nettles, thorns, thistles, wild parsley, and wild

strawberry, carving faces of virgins and saints and weird figures of serpents, fishes with asses' heads, apes

scratching their buttocks; each one, in fact, putting his own particular talent, mocking, sublime, grotesque,

modest, or audacious, into the work and making of it all a harmonious cacophony, a rapturous anthem of

joy and sorrow, a Babel of victory. At our instigation the carvers, the goldsmiths, the enamellers,

accomplished marvels and all the sumptuary arts flourished at once; there were silks at Lyons, tapestries at

Arras, linen at Rheims, cloth at Rouen. The good merchants rode on their palfreys to the fairs, bearing pieces

of velvet and brocade, embroideries, orfrays, jewels, vessels of silver, and illuminated books. Strollers and

players set up their trestles in the churches and in the public squares, and represented, according to their

lights, simple chronicles of Heaven, Earth, and Hell. Women decked themselves in splendid raiment and

"In the spring when the sky was blue, nobles an peasants were possessed with the desire to make merry in the

flowerstrewn meadows. The fiddler tuned his instrument, and ladies, knights and demoiselles, townsfolk,

villagers and maidens, holding hands, began the dance. But suddenly War, Pestilence, and Famine entered the

circle, and Death, tearing the violin from the fiddler's hands, led the dance. Fire devoured village and

monastery. The menatarms hanged the peasants on the signposts at the crossroads when they were

unable to pay ransom, and bound pregnant women to treetrunks, where at night the wolves came and

devoured the fruit within the womb. The poor people lost their senses. Sometimes, peace being

reestablished, and good times come again, they were seized with mad, unreasoning terror, abandoned their

homes, and rushed hither and thither in troops, half naked, tearing themselves with iron hooks, and singing. I

do not accuse Iahveh and his son of all this evil. Many ill things occurred without him and even in spite of

him. But where I recognise the instigation of the All Good (as they called him) was in the custom instituted

by his pastors, and established throughout Christendom, of burning, to the sound of bells and the singing of

psalms, both men and women who, taught by the demons, professed, concerning this God, opinions of their

IT seemed as if science and thought had perished for all eternity, and that the earth would never again know

"But one day, under the walls of Rome, some workmen, excavating the earth on the borders of an ancient

road, found a marble sarcophagus which bore carved on its sides simulacra of Love and the triumphs of

"The lid being raised, a maiden appeared whose face shone with dazzling freshness. Her long hair spread

over her white shoulders, she was smiling in her sleep. A band of citizens, thrilled with enthusiasm, raised the

funeral couch and bore it to the Capitol. The people came in crowds to contemplate the ineffable beauty of

the Roman maiden and stood around in silence, watching for the awakening of the divine soul held within

"And it came to pass that the City was so greatly stirred by this spectacle that the Pope, fearing, not without

reason, the birth of a pagan cult from this radiant body, caused it to be removed at night and secretly buried.

The precaution was vain, the labour fruitless. After so many centuries of barbarism, the beauty of the antique

world had appeared for a moment before the eyes of men; it was long enough for its image, graven on their

"Henceforth, the star of the God of the Christians paled and sloped to its decline. Bold navigators discovered

worlds inhabited by numerous races who knew not old Iahveh, and it was suspected that he was no less

ignorant of them, since he had given them no news of himself or of his son the expiator. A Polish Canon

demonstrated the true motions of the earth, and it was seen that, far from having created the world, the old

demiurge of Israel had not even an inkling of its structure. The writings of philosophers, orators,

jurisconsults, and ancient poets were dragged from the dust of the cloisters and passing from hand to hand

inspired men's minds with the love of wisdom. The Vicar of the jealous God, the Pope himself, no longer

believed in Him whom he represented on earth. He loved the arts and had no other care than to collect ancient

statues and to rear sumptuous buildings wherein were displayed the orders of Vitruvius reestablished by

Bramante. We began to breathe anew. Already the old gods, recalled from their long exile, were returning to

dwell upon earth. There they found once more their temples and their altars. Leo, placing at their feet the

ring, the three crowns, and the keys, offered them in secret the incense of sacrifices. Already Polyhymnia,

leaning on her elbow, had begun to resume the golden thread of her meditations; already, in the gardens, the

comely Graces and the Nymphs and Satyrs were weaving their mazy dances, and at length the earth had joy

once more within its grasp. But, O calamity, unlucky fate, most tragic circumstance! A German monk, all

swollen with beer and theology, rose up against this renaissance of paganism, hurled menaces against it,

shattered it, and prevailed single handed against the Princes of the Church. Inciting the nations, he called

upon them to undertake a reform which saved that which was about to be destroyed. Vainly did the cleverest

among us try to turn him from his work. A subtle demon, on earth called Beelzebub, marked him out for

attack, now embarrassing him with learned controversial argument, now tormenting him with cruel mockery.

The stubborn monk hurled his inkpot at his head and went on with his dismal reformation. What ultimately

happened? The sturdy mariner repaired, calked, and refloated the damaged ship of the Church. Jesus Christ

owes it to this shaveling that his shipwreck was delayed for perhaps more than ten centuries. Henceforth

things went from bad to worse. In the wake of this loutish monk, this beerswiller and brawler, came that tall,

dry doctor from Geneva, who, filled with the spirit of the ancient Iahveh, strove to bring the world back again

to the abominable days of Joshua and the Judges of Israel. A maniac was he, filled with cold fury, a heretic

"These mad apostles and their mad disciples made even demons like myself, even the horned devils, look

back longingly on the time when the Son with his Virgin Mother reigned over the nations dazzled with

splendours: cathedrals with their stone tracery delicate as lace, flaming roses of stained glass, frescoes painted

in vivid colours telling countless wondrous tales, rich orfrays, glittering enamel of shrines and reliquaries,

gold of crosses and of monstrances, waxen tapers gleaming like starry galaxies amid the gloom of vaulted

arches, organs with their deeptoned harmonies. All this doubtless was not the Parthenon, nor yet the

Panathen�a, but it gladdened eyes and hearts; it was, at all events, beauty. And these cursed reformers would

not suffer anything either pleasing or lovable. You should have seen them climbing in black swarms over

doorways, plinths, spires, and belltowers, striking with senseless hammers those images in stone which the

demons had carved working hand in hand with the master designers, those genial saints and dear, holy

women, and the touching idols of Virgin Mothers pressing heir suckling to their heart. For, to be just, a little

agreeable paganism had slipped into he cult of the jealous God. These monsters of heretics were for

extirpating idolatry. We did our best, my companions and I, to hamper their horrible work, and I, for one, had

the pleasure of flinging down some dozens from the top of the porches and galleries on to the Cathedral

Square, where their detestable brains got knocked out. The worst of it was that the Catholic Church also

reformed herself and grew more mischievous than ever. In the pleasant land of France, the seminarists and

the monks were inflamed with unheardof fury against the ingenious demons and the men of learning. My

prior was one of the most violent opponents of sound knowledge. For some time past my studious

lucubrations had caused him anxiety, and perhaps he had caught sight of my cloven foot. The scoundrel

searched my cell and found paper, ink, some Greek books newly printed, and some Panpipes hanging on the

wall. By these signs he knew me for an evil spirit and had me thrown into a dungeon where I should have

eaten the bread of suffering and drunk the waters of bitterness, had I not promptly made my escape by the

"Far and wide the lighted pyres cast the odour of charred flesh. Everywhere there were tortures, executions,

broken bones, and tongues cut out. Never before had the spirit of Iahveh breathed forth such atrocious fury.

However, it was not altogether in vain that men had raised the lid of the ancient sarcophagus and gazed upon

"During this time of great terror when Papists and Reformers rivalled one another in violence and cruelty,

amidst all these scenes of torture, the mind of man was regaining strength and courage. It dared to look up to

the heavens, and there it saw, not the old Jew drunk with vengeance, but Venus Urania, tranquil and

resplendent. Then a new order of things was born, then the great centuries came into being. Without publicly

denying the god of their ancestors, men of intellect submitted to his mortal enemies, Science and Reason, and

Abb� Gassendi relegated him gently to the fardistant abyss of first causes. The kindly demons who teach

and console unhappy mortals, inspired the great minds of those days with discourses of all kinds, with

comedies and tales told in the most polished fashion. Women invented conversation, the art of intimate

letterwriting, and politeness. Manners took on a sweetness and a nobility unknown to preceding ages. One

of the finest minds of that age of reason, the amiable Bernier, wrote one day to St. Evremond: 'It is a great sin

to deprive oneself of a pleasure.' And this pronouncement alone should suffice to show the progress of

intelligence in Europe. Not that there had not always been Epicureans but, unlike Bernier, Chapelle, and

"Then even the very devotees understood Nature. And Racine, fierce bigot that he was, knew as well as such

an atheistical physician as Guy Patin, how to attribute to divers states of the organs the passions which agitate

"Even in my abbey, whither I had returned after the turmoil, and which sheltered only the ignorant and the

shallow thinker, a young monk, less of a dunce than the rest, confided to me that the Holy Spirit expresses

"Nevertheless, theology and controversy were still raging in this society of thinkers. Not far from Paris in a

shady valley there were to be seen solitary beings known as 'les Messieurs,' who called themselves disciples

of St. Augustine, and argued with honest conviction that the God of the Scriptures strikes those who fear

Him, spares those who confront Him, holds works of no account, and damns should He so wish it His

most faithful servant; for His justice is not our justice, and His ways are incomprehensible.

"One evening I met one of these gentlemen in his garden, where he was pacing thoughtfully among the

cabbageplots and lettucebeds. I bowed my horned head before him and murmured these friendly words:

'May old Jehovah protect you, sir. You know him well. Oh, how well you know him, and how perfectly you

have understood his character.' The holy man thought he discerned in me a messenger from Hell, concluded

"The following century was the century of philosophy. The spirit of research was developed, reverence was

lost; the pride of the flesh was diminished and the mind acquired fresh energy. Manners tool on an elegance

until then unknown. On the other hand, the monks of my order grew more and more ignorant and dirty, and

the monastery no longer offered me any advantage now that good manners reigned in the town. I could bear it

no longer. Flinging my habit to the nettles, I put a powdered wig on my horned brow, hid my goat's legs

under white stockings, and cane in hand, my pockets stuffed with gazettes, I frequented the fashionable

world, visited the modish promenades, and showed myself assiduously in the cafes where men of letters were

to be found. I was made welcome in salons where, as a happy novelty, there were armchairs that fitted the

"The very metaphysicians spoke intelligibly. I acquired great weight in the town as an authority on matters of

exegesis, and, without boasting, I was largely responsible for the Testament of the cure Meslier and The

"At this time a comic and cruel misadventure befel the ancient Iahveh. An American Quaker, by means of a

"I was living in Paris, and was at the supper where they talked of strangling the last of the priests with the

entrails of the last of the kings. France was in a ferment; a terrible revolution broke out. The ephemeral

leaders o the disordered State carried on a Reign of Terror amidst unheardof perils. They were, for the most

part, less pitiless and less cruel than the princes and judges instituted by Iahveh in the kingdoms of the earth;

nevertheless, they appeared more ferocious, because they gave judgment in the name of Humanity.

Unhappily they were easily moved to pity and of great sensibility. Now men of sensibility are irritable and

subject to fits of fury. They were virtuous; they had moral laws, that is to say they conceived certain narrowly

defined moral obligations, and judged human actions not by their natural consequences but by abstract

principles. Of all the vices which contribute to the undoing of a statesman, virtue is the most fatal; it leads to

murder. To work effectively for the happiness of mankind, a man must be superior to all morals, like the

divine Julius. God, so illused for some time past, did not, on the whole, suffer excessively harsh treatment

from these new men. He found protectors among them, and was adored under the name of the Supreme

Being. One might even go so far as to say that terror created a diversion from philosophy and was profitable

to the old demiurge, in that he appeared to represent order, public tranquillity, and the security of person and

"While Liberty was coming to birth amid the storm, I lived at Auteuil, and visited Madame Helvetius, where

freethinkers in every branch of intellectual activity were to be met with. Nothing could be rarer than a

freethinker, even after Voltaire's day. A man who will face death without trembling dare not say anything out

of the ordinary about morals. That very same respect for Humanity which prompts him to go forth to his

death, makes him bow to public opinion. In those days I enjoyed listening to the talk of Volney, Cabanis, and

Tracy. Disciples of the great Condillac, they regarded the senses as the origin of all our knowledge. They

called themselves ideologists, were the most honourable people in the world, and grieved the vulgar minds by

refusing them immortality. For the majority of people, though they do not know what to do with this life,

long for another that shall have no end. During the turmoil, our small philosophical society was sometimes

disturbed in the peaceful shades of Auteuil by patrols of patriots. Condorcet, our great man, was an outlaw. I

myself was regarded as suspect by the friends of the people, who, in spite of my rustic appearance and my

frieze coat, believed me to be an aristocrat, and I confess that independence of thought is the proudest of all

"One evening while I was stealthily watching the dryads of Boulogne, who gleamed amid the leaves like the

moon rising above the horizon, I was arrested as a suspect, and put in prison. It was a pure misunderstanding;

but the Jacobins of those days, like the monks whose place they had usurped, laid great stress on unity of

obedience. After the death of Madame Helvetius our society gathered together in the salon of Madame de

"Recognizing him to be a great man, we thought him an ideologist like ourselves. Our influence in the land

was considerable. We used it in his favour, and urged him towards the Imperial throne, thinking to display to

the world a second Marcus Aurelius. We counted on him to establish universal peace; he did not fulfil our

expectations, and we were wrongheaded enough to be wroth with him for our own mistake.

"Without any doubt he greatly surpassed all other men in quickness of intelligence, depth of dissimulation,

and capacity for action. What made him an accomplished ruler was that he lived entirely in the present

moment, and had no thoughts for anything beyond the immediate and actual reality. His genius was

farreaching and agile; his intelligence, vast in extent but common and vulgar in character, embraced

humanity, but did not rise above it. He thought what every grenadier in the army thought; but he thought it

with unprecedented force. He loved the game of chance, and it pleased him to tempt fortune by urging

pigmies in their hundreds and thousands against each other. It was the game of a child as big as the world. He

was too wily not to introduce old Iahveh into the game, Iahveh, who was still powerful on earth, and who

resembled him in his spirit of violence and domination. He threatened him, flattered him, caressed him, and

intimidated him. He imprisoned his Vicar, of whom he demanded, with the knife at his throat, that rite of

unction which, since the days of Saul of old, has bestowed might upon kings; he restored the worship of the

demiurge, sang Te Deums to him, and made himself known through him as God of the earth, in small

catechisms scattered broadcast throughout the Empire. They united their thunders, and a fine uproar they

"While Napoleon's amusements were throwing Europe into a turmoil, we congratulated ourselves on our

wisdom, a little sad, withal, at seeing the era of philosophy ushered in with massacre, torture, and war. The

worst is that the children of the century, fallen into the most distressing disorder, formed the conception of a

literary and picturesque Christianity, which betokens a degeneracy of mind really unbelievable, and finally

fell into Romanticism. War and Romanticism, what terrible scourges! And how pitiful to see these same

people nursing a childish and savage love for muskets and drums! They did not understand that war, which

trained the courage and founded the cities of barbarous and ignorant men, brings to the victor himself but ruin

and misery, and is nothing but a horrible and stupid crime when nations are united together by common

"Insane Europeans who plot to cut each others' throats, now that one and the same civilisation enfolds and

"I renounced all converse with these madmen and withdrew to this village, where I devoted myself to

gardening. The peaches in my orchard remind me of the sunkissed skin of the M�nads. For mankind I have

retained my old friendship, a little admiration, and much pity, and I await, while cultivating this enclosure,

that still distant day when the great Dionysus shall come, followed by his Fauns and his Bacchantes, to

restore beauty and gladness to the world, and bring back the Golden Age. I shall fare joyously behind his car.

And who knows if in that day of triumph mankind will be there for us to see? Who knows whether their

wornout race will not have already fulfilled its destiny, and whether other beings will not rise upon the

ashes and ruins of what once was man and his genius? Who knows if winged beings will not have taken

possession of the terrestrial empire? Even then the work of the good demons will not be ended, they will

P�RE GUINARDON (as Z�phyrine had faithfully reported to Monsieur Sariette) smuggled out the pictures,

furniture, and curios stored in his attic in the rue Princesse his studio he called it and used them to

stock a shop he had taken in the rue de Courcelles. Thither he went to take up his abode, leaving Z�phyrine,

with whom he had lived for fifty years, without a bed or a saucepan or a penny to call her own, except

eighteen pence the poor creature had in her purse. P�re Guinardon opened an old picture and curiosity shop,

CHAPTER XXII. WHEREIN WE ARE SHOWN THE INTERIOR OF A BRICABRAC SHOP, AND SEE HOW P�RE GUINARDON'S GUILTY HAPPINESS IS MARRED BY THE JEALOUSY OF A LOVELORN DAME. 69

The shopfront presented an attractive appearance: there were Flemish angels in green copes, after the

manner of Gerard David, a Salome of the Luini school, a Saint Barbara in painted wood of French

workmanship, Limoges enamelwork, Bohemian and Venetian glass, dishes from Urbino. There were

specimens of English pointlace which, if her tale was true, had been presented to Z�phyrine, in the days of

her radiant girlhood, by the Emperor Napoleon III. Within, there were golden articles that glinted in the

shadows, while pictures of Christ, the Apostles, highbred dames, and nymphs also presented themselves to

the gaze. There was one canvas that was turned face to the wall so that it should only be looked at by

connoisseurs; and connoisseurs are scarce. It was a replica of Fragonard's Gimblette, a brilliant painting that

looked as if it had barely had time to dry. Papa Guinardon himself remarked on the fact. At the far end of the

shop was a kingwood cabinet, the drawers of which were full of all manner of treasures: water colours by

But the real masterpiece, the marvel, the gem, the pearl of great price, stood upon an easel veiled from public

view. It was a Coronation of the Virgin by Fra Angelico, an exquisitely delicate thing in gold and blue and

pink. P�re Guinardon was asking a hundred thousand francs for it. Upon a Louis XV chair beside an Empire

worktable on which stood a vase of flowers, sat the fair Octavie, broidery in hand. She, having left her

glistering rags behind her in the garret in the rue Princesse, no longer presented the appearance of a

touchedup Rembrandt, but shone, rather, with the soft radiance and limpidity of a Vermeer of Delft, for the

delectation of the connoisseurs who frequented the shop of Papa Guinardon. Tranquil and demure, she

remained alone in the shop all day, while the old fellow himself was up aloft working away at the deuce

knows what picture. About five o'clock he used to come downstairs and have a chat with the habitues of the

The most regular caller was the Comte Desmaisons, a thin, cadaverous man. A strand of hair issued from the

deep hollow under each cheekbone, and, broadening as it descended, shed upon his chin and chest torrents of

snow in which he was for ever trailing his long, fleshless, goldringed fingers. For twenty years he had been

mourning the loss of his wife, who had been carried off by consumption in the flower of her youth and

beauty. Since then he had spent his whole life in endeavouring to hold converse with the dead and in filling

his lonely mansion with secondrate paintings. His confidence in Guinardon knew no bounds. Another client

who was a scarcely less frequent visitor to the shop was Monsieur Blancmesnil, a director of a large financial

establishment. He was a florid, prosperouslooking man of fifty. He took no great interest in matters of art,

and was perhaps an indifferent connoisseur, but, in his case, it was the fair Octavie, seated in the middle of

Monsieur Blancmesnil soon established relation with her, a fact which P�re Guinardon alone failed to

perceive, for the old fellow was still young in his loveaffair with Octavie. Monsieur Ga�tan d'Esparvieu

used to pay occasional visits to P�re Guinardon's shop out of mere curiosity, for he strongly suspected the old

And then that doughty swordsman, Monsieu Le Truc de Ruffec, also came to see the old antiquary on one

occasion, and acquainted him with a plan he had on foot. Monsieur Le Truc de Ruffec was getting up a little

historical exhibition of small arms at the Petit Palais in aid of the fund for the education of the native children

in Morocco and wanted P�re Guinardon to lend him a few of the most valuable articles in his collection.

"Our first idea," he said, "was to organise an exhibition to be called 'The Cross and the Sword.' The

juxtaposition of the two words will make the idea which has prompted our undertaking sufficiently clear to

you. It was an idea preeminently patriotic and Christian which led us to associate the Sword, which is the

symbol of Honour, with the Cross, which is the symbol of Salvation. It was hoped that our work would be

graced by the distinguished patronage of the Minister of War and Monseigneur Cachepot. Unfortunately there

CHAPTER XXII. WHEREIN WE ARE SHOWN THE INTERIOR OF A BRICABRAC SHOP, AND SEE HOW P�RE GUINARDON'S GUILTY HAPPINESS IS MARRED BY THE JEALOUSY OF A LOVELORN DAME. 70

were difficulties in the way, and the full realisation of the project had to be deferred. In the meantime we are

limiting our exhibition to 'The Sword.' I have drawn up an explanatory note indicating the significance of the

Having delivered himself of these remarks, Monsieur Le Truc de Ruffec produced a pocketcase stuffed full

of papers. Picking out from a medley of judgment summonses and other odds and ends a little piece of very

crumpled paper, he exclaimed, "Ah, here it is," and proceeded to read as follows: "'The Sword is a fierce

Virgin; it is par excellence the Frenchman's weapon. And now, when patriotic sentiment, after suffering an all

too protracted eclipse, is beginning to shine forth again more ardently than ever...' and so forth; you see?"

And he repeated his request for some really fine specimen to be placed in the most conspicuous position in

the exhibition to be held on behalf of the little native children of Morocco, of which General d'Esparvieu was

Arms and armour were by no means P�re Guinardon's strong point. He dealt principally in pictures,

drawings, and books. But he was never to be taken unawares. He took down a rapier with a gilt

colandershaped hilt, a highly typical piece of workmanship of the Louis XIIINapoleon III period, and

presented it to the exhibition promoter, who, while contemplating it with respect, maintained a diplomatic

"I have something better still in here," said the antiquary, and he produced from his inner shop where it

had been lying among the walkingsticks and umbrellas a real demon of a sword, adorned with

fleursdelys, a genuine royal relic. It was the sword of PhilippeAuguste as worn by an actor at the Od�on

when Agn�s de M�ranie was being performed in 1846. Guinardon held it point downwards, as though it were

a cross, clasping his hands piously on the crossbar. He looked as loyal as the sword itself.

"Have her for your exhibition," said he. "The damsel is well worth it. Bouvines is her name."

"If I find a buyer for it," said Monsieur Le Truc de Ruffec, twirling his enormous moustachios, "I suppose

Some days later, P�re Guinardon was mysteriously displaying a picture to the Comte Desmaisons and

Monsieur Blancmesnil. It was a newly discovered work of El Greco, an amazingly fine example of the

Master's later style. It represented a Saint Francis of Assisi standing erect upon Mont Alverno. He was

mounting heavenward like a column of smoke, and was plunging into the regions of the clouds a monstrously

narrow head that the distance rendered smaller still. In fine it was a real, very real, nay, too real El Greco. The

two collectors were attentively scrutinizing the work, while P�re Guinardon was belauding the depth of the

shadows and the sublimity of the expression. He was raising his arms aloft to convey an idea of the greatness

of Theotocopuli, who derived from Tintoretto, whom, however, he surpassed in loftiness by a hundred cubits.

Comte Desmaisons declared that El Greco was his favourite painter. In his inmost heart Blancmesnil was not

The door opened, and Monsieur Ga�tan quite unexpectedly appeared on the scene.

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Monsieur Blancmesnil, anxious to improve his knowledge, asked him what he thought of this artist who was

now so much in vogue. Ga�tan replied, glibly enough, that he did not regard El Greco as the eccentric, the

madman that people used to take him for. It was rather his opinion that a defect of vision from which

"Being afflicted with astigmatism and strabismus," Ga�tan went on, "he painted the things he saw exactly as

Comte Desmaisons was not readily disposed to accept so natural an explanation, which, however, by its very

"Are you going to tell me, Monsieur d'Esparvieu, that Saint John was astigmatic because he beheld a woman

clothed with the sun, crowned with stars, with the moon about her feet; the Beast with seven heads and ten

horns, and the seven angels robed in white linen that bore the seven cups filled with the wrath of the Living

"After all," said Monsieur Ga�tan, by way of conclusion, "people are right in admiring El Greco if he had

genius enough to impose his morbidity of vision upon them. By the same token, the contortions to which he

subjects the human countenance may give satisfaction to those who love suffering, a class more numerous

"Monsieur," replied the Comte Desmaisons, stroking his luxuriant beard with his long, thin hand, "we must

love those that love us. Suffering loves us and attaches itself to us. We must love it if life is to be supportable

to us. In the knowledge of this truth lies the strength and value of Christianity. Alas! I do not possess the gift

The old man thought of her for whom he had been mourning twenty years, and forthwith his reason left him,

and his thoughts abandoned themselves unresistingly to the morbid imaginings of gentle and melancholy

Having, he said, made a study of psychic matters, and having, with the cooperation of a favourable medium,

carried out experiments concerning the nature and duration of the soul, he had obtained some remarkable

results, which, however, did not afford him complete satisfaction. He had succeeded in viewing the soul of

his dead wife under the appearance of a transparent and gelatinous mass which bore not the slightest

resemblance to his adored one. The most painful part about the whole experiment which he had repeated

over and over again was that the gelatinous mass, which was furnished with a number of extremely

slender tentacles, maintained them in constant motion in time to a rhythm apparently intended to make

certain signs, but of what these movements were supposed to convey there was not the slightest clue.

During the whole of this narrative Monsieur Blancmesnil had been whispering in a corner with the youthful

Now Z�phyrine had by no means made up her mind to resign her lover into the hands of an unworthy rival.

She would often go round of a morning, with her shoppingbasket on her arm, and prowl about outside the

curio shop. Torn betwixt grief and rage, tormented by warring ideas, she sometimes thought she would empty

a saucepanful of vitriol on the head of the faithless one at others that she would fling herself at his feet, and

shower tears and kisses on his precious hands. One day, as she was thus eyeing her Micheh her beloved

but guilty Michel she noticed through the window the fair and youthful Octavie, who was sitting with her

embroidery at a table upon which, in a vase of crystal, a rose was swooning to death. Z�phyrine, in a

CHAPTER XXII. WHEREIN WE ARE SHOWN THE INTERIOR OF A BRICABRAC SHOP, AND SEE HOW P�RE GUINARDON'S GUILTY HAPPINESS IS MARRED BY THE JEALOUSY OF A LOVELORN DAME. 72

transport of fury, brought down her umbrella on her rival's fair head, and called her a bitch and a trollop.

Octavie fled in terror, and ran for the police, while Z�phyrine, beside herself with grief and love, kept digging

away with her old gamp at the Gimblette of Fragonard, the fuliginous Saint Francis of El Greco, the virgins,

the nymphs, and the apostles, and knocked the gilt off the Fra Angelico, shrieking all the while:

"All those pictures there, the El Greco, the Beato Angelico, the Fragonard, the Gerard David, and the

Baudouins Guinardon painted the whole lot of them himself, the wretch, the scoundrel! That Fra Angelico

there, why I saw him painting it on my ironingboard, and that Gerard David he executed on an old

midwife's signboard. You and that bitch of yours, why, I'll do for the pair of you just as I'm doing for these

And tugging away at the coat of an aged collector who, trembling all over, had hidden himself in the darkest

corner of the shop, she called him to witness to the crimes of Guinardon, perjurer and impostor. The police

had simply to tear her out of the ruined shop. As she was being taken off to the station, followed by a great

crowd of people, she raised her fiery eyes to Heaven, crying in a voice choked with sobs:

"But don't you know Michel? If you knew him, you would understand that it is impossible to live without

him. Michel! He is handsome and good and charming. He is a very god. He is Love itself. I love him! I love

him! I love him! I have known men high up in the world Dukes, Ministers of State, and higher still. Not

one of them was worthy to clean the mud off Michel's boots. My good, kind sirs, give him back to me again."

ON coming away from the Baron Everdingen's, Prince Istar went have a few oysters and a bottle white wine

at an eatinghouse in the Market. Then, being prudent as well as powerful, he paid a visit to his friend,

Th�ophile Belais, for his pockets were full of bombs, and he wanted to secrete them in the musician's

cupboard. The composer of Aline, Queen of Golconda was not at home. However, the Ker�b found

Bouchotte busily working up the role of Zigouille; for the young artiste was booked to play the principal part

in Les Apaches, an operetta that was then being rehearsed in one of the big music halls. The part in question

was that of a streetwalker who by her obscene gestures lures a passerby into a trap, and then, while her

victim is being gagged and bound repeats with fiendish cruelty the lascivious motions by which he had been

led astray. The part required that she should appear both as mime and singer, and she was in a state of high

The accompanist had just left. Prince Istar seated himself at the piano, and Bouchotte resumed her task. Her

movements were unseemly and delicious. Her tawny hair was flying in all directions in wild disordered curls;

her skin was moist, it exhaled a scent of violets and alkaline salts which made the nostrils throb; even she

herself felt the intoxication. Suddenly, inebriated with her intoxicating presence, Prince Istar arose, and with

never a word or a look, caught her into his arms and drew her on to the couch, the little couch with the

flowered tapestry which Th�ophile had procured at one of the big shops by promising to pay ten francs a

month for a long term of years. Now Istar might have solicited Bouchotte's favours; he might have invited her

to a rapid, and, withal, a mutual embrace, and, despite her preoccupation and excitement, she would not have

refused him. But Bouchotte was a girl of spirit. The merest hint of coercion awoke all her untamable pride.

She would consent of her own accord, yes; but be mastered, never! She would readily yield to love, curiosity,

pity, to less than that even, but she would die rather than yield to force. Her surprise immediately gave place

to fury. She fought her agressor with all her heart and soul. With nails, to which fury lent an added edge, she

tore at the cheeks and eyelids of the Ker�b, and, though he held her as in a vice, she arched herself so stiffly

CHAPTER XXIII. WHEREIN WE ARE PERMITTED TO OBSERVE THE ADMIRABLE CHARACTER OF BOUCHOTTE, WHO RESISTS VIOLENCE BUT YIELDS TO LOVE. AFTER THAT LET NO ONE CALL THE AUTHOR A MISOGYNIST 73

and made such excellent play with knee and elbow, that the humanheaded bull, blinded with blood and rage,

was sent crashing into the piano which gave forth a prolonged groan, while the bombs, tumbling out of his

pockets, fell on the floor with a noise like thunder. And Bouchotte, with dishevelled locks, and one breast

bare, beautiful and terrible, stood brandishing the poker over the prostrate giant, crying:

Prince Istar went to wash himself in the kitchen, and plunged his gory visage into a basin where some haricot

beans lay soaking; then he withdrew without anger or resentment, for he had a noble soul.

Scarcely had he gone when the doorbell rang. Bouchotte, calling upon the absent maid in vain, slipped on a

dressinggown and opened the door herself. A young man, very correct in appearance and rather

goodlooking, bowed politely, and apologising for having to introduce himself, gave his name. It was

Maurice was still seeking his guardian angel. Upheld by a desperate hope, he sought him in the queerest

places. He enquired for him at the houses of sorcerers, magicians, and thaumaturgists, who in filthy hovels

lay bare the ineffable secrets of the future, and who, though masters of all the treasures of the earth, wear

trousers without any seats to them, and eat pigs' brains. That very day, having been to a back street in

Montmartre to consult a priest of Satan, who practised black magic by piercing waxen images, Maurice had

gone on to Bouchotte's, having been sent by Madame de la Verdeli�re, who, being about to give a fete in aid

of the fund for the Preservation of Country Churches, was anxious to secure Bouchotte's services, since she

Bouchotte invited the visitor to sit down on the little flowered couch; at his request she seated herself beside

him, and our young man of fashion explained to the singer what Madame de la Verdeli�re desired of her. The

lady wished Bouchotte to sing one of those apache songs which were giving such delight in the fashionable

world. Unfortunately Madame de la Verdeli�re could only offer a very modest fee, one out of all proportion

Bouchotte agreed to take part, and accepted the reduced fee with the accustomed liberality of the poor

towards the rich and of artists towards society people. Bouchotte was not a selfish girl; the work for the

preservation of country churches interested her. She remembered with sobs and tears her first communion,

and she still retained her faith. When she passed by a church she wanted to enter it, especially in the evening.

And so she did not love the Republic which had done its utmost to destroy both the Church and the Army.

Her heart rejoiced to see the rebirth of national sentiment. France was lifting up her head. What was most

applauded in the music halls were songs about the soldiers and the kind nuns. Meanwhile Maurice inhaled the

odour of her tawny hair, the subtle bitter perfume of her body, all the odours of her person, and desire grew in

him. He felt her near him on the little couch, very warm and very soft. He complimented the artiste on her

great talent. She asked him what he liked best in all her repertory. He knew nothing about it, still he made

replies that satisfied her. She had dictated them herself without knowing it. The vain creature spoke of her

talent, of her success, as she wished others to speak of them. She never ceased talking of her triumphs, yet

withal she was candour itself. Maurice in all sincerity praised Bouchotte's beauty, her fresh skin, her purity of

line. She attributed this advantage to the fact that she never made up and never "put messes on her face." As

to her figure, she admitted that there was enough everywhere and none too much, and to illustrate this

assertion she passed her hand over all the contours of her charming body, rising lightly to follow the

Maurice was quite moved by it. It began to grow dark; she offered to light up. He begged her to do nothing of

CHAPTER XXIII. WHEREIN WE ARE PERMITTED TO OBSERVE THE ADMIRABLE CHARACTER OF BOUCHOTTE, WHO RESISTS VIOLENCE BUT YIELDS TO LOVE. AFTER THAT LET NO ONE CALL THE AUTHOR A MISOGYNIST 74

Their talk, at first gay and full of laughter, grew more intimate and very sweet, with a certain languor in its

tone. It seemed to Bouchotte that she had known Monsieur Maurice d'Esparvieu for a long time, and holding

him for a man of delicacy, she gave him her confidence. She told him that she was by nature a good woman,

but that she had had a grasping and unscrupulous mother. Maurice recalled her to the consideration of her

own beauty, and exalted by subtle flattery the excellent opinion she had of herself. Patient and calculating, in

spite of the burning desire growing in him, he aroused and increased in the desired one the longing to be still

further admired. The dressinggown opened and slipped down of its own accord, the living satin of her

shoulders gleamed in the mysterious light of evening. He so prudent, so clever, so adroit, let her sink

in his arms, ardent and half swooning before she had even perceived she had granted anything at all. Their

breath and their murmurs intermingled. And the little flowery couch sighed in sympathy with them.

When they recovered the power to express their feelings in words, she whispered in his ear that his cheek was

"It is because I love you. Love seems to dissolve my bones; it makes me as soft and melting as a pig's foot �

Hereupon Th�ophile came in, and Bouchotte called upon him to thank Monsieur Maurice d'Esparvieu, who

had been amiable enough to be the bearer of a handsome offer from Madame la Comtesse de la Verdeli�re.

The musician was happy, feeling the quiet and peace of the house after a day of fruitless applications, of

colourless lessons, of failure and humiliation. Three new collaborators had been thrust upon him who would

add their signatures to his on his operetta, and receive their share of the author's rights, and he had been told

to introduce the tango into the Court of Golconda. He pressed young d'Esparvieu's hand and dropped wearily

on to the little couch, which, being now at the end of its strength, gave way at the four legs and suddenly

And the angel, precipitated to the ground, rolled terrorstruck on to the watch, matchbox and cigarettecase

that had fallen from Maurice's pocket, and on to the bombs Prince Istar had left behind him.

L�GERMASSIEU, successor to L�ger senior, the binder, whose establishment was in the rue de l'Abbaye,

opposite the old H�tel of the Abb�s of Saint GermaindesPr�s, in the hotbed of ancient schools and learned

societies, employed an excellent but by no means numerous staff of workmen, and served with leisurely

deliberation a client�le who had learned to practise the virtue of patience. Six weeks had elapsed since he had

received the parcel of books that had been despatched by Monsieur Sariette, but still L�gerMassieu had not

yet put the work in hand. It was not until fiftythree days had come and gone, that, after calling over the

books against he list that had been drawn up by Monsieur Sariette, the binder gave them out to his workmen.

The little Lucretius with the Prior de Vend�me's arms not being mentioned on the list, it was assumed that it

had been sent by another customer. And as it did not figure on any list of goods received it remained shut up

in a cupboard, from which L�gerMassieu's son, the youthful Ernest, one day surreptitiously abstracted it,

and slipped it into his pocket. Ernest was in love with a neighbouring seamstress whose name was Rose. Rose

CHAPTER XXIV. CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF THE VICISSITUDES THAT BEFEL THE "LUCRETIUS" OF THE PRIOR DE VEND�ME. 75

was fond of the country, and liked to hear the birds singing in the woods, and in order to procure the

wherewithal to take her to Chatou one Sunday and give her a dinner, Ernest parted with the Lucretius for ten

francs to old Moranger, a secondhand dealer in the rue Saint X, who displayed no great curiosity

regarding the origin of his acquisitions. Old Moranger handed over the volume, the very same day, to

Monsieur Poussard, an expert in books, of the faubourg Saint Germain, for sixty francs. The latter removed

the stamp which disclosed the ownership of the matchless copy, and sold it for five hundred francs to

Monsieur Joseph Meyer, the wellknown collector, who handed it straight away for three thousand francs to

Monsieur Ardon, the bookseller, who immediately transferred it to Monsieur R, the great Parisian

bibliopolist, who gave six thousand for it, and sold it again a fortnight later at a handsome profit to Madame

la Comtesse de Gorce. Well known in the higher ranks of Parisian society, the lady in question is what was

called in the seventeenth century a "curieuse," that is to say, a lover of pictures, books, and china. In her

mansion in the Avenue d'J�na she possesses collections of works of art which bear witness to the diversity of

her knowledge and the excellence of her taste. During the month of July, while the Comtesse de Gorce was

away at her ch�teau at Sarville in Normandy, the house in the Avenue d'J�na, being unoccupied, was visited

one night by a thief said to belong to a gang known as "The Collectors," who made works of art the special

The police enquiry elicited the fact that the marauder had reached the first floor by means of the wastepipe,

that he had then climbed over the balcony, forced a shutter with a jemmy, broken a pane of glass, turned the

windowfastener, and made his way into the long gallery. There he broke open several cupboards and

possessed himself of whatever took his fancy. His booty consisted for the most part of small but valuable

articles, such as gold caskets, a few ivory carvings of the fourteenth century, two splendid fifteenthcentury

manuscripts, and a volume which the Countess's secretary briefly described as "a moroccobound book with

a coat of arms on it," and which was none other than the Lucretius from the d'Esparvieu library.

The malefactor, who was supposed to be an English cook, was never discovered. But, two months or so after

the theft, a welldressed, cleanshaven young man passed down the rue de Courcelles, in the dimness of

twilight, and went to offer the Prior de Vend�me's Lucretius to P�re Guinardon. The antiquary gave him four

shillings for it, examined it carefully, recognised its interest and its beauty, and put it in the kingwood

Such were the vicissitudes which, in the course of a single season, befel this thing of beauty.

THE performance was over. Bouchotte in her dressingroom was taking off her makeup, when the door

opened softly and old Monsieur Sandraque, her protector, came in, followed by a troop of her other admirers.

Without so much as turning her head, she asked them what they meant by coming and staring at her like a

pack of imbeciles, and whether they thought they were in a tent at the Neuilly Fair, looking at the freak

"Now, then, ladies and gentlemen," she rattled on derisively, "just put a penny in the box for the young lady's

Then, with an angry glance at the admiring throng, she exclaimed: "Come, off you go! Look alive!"

She sent them all packing, her sweetheart Th�ophile among them, the palefaced, longhaired, gentle,

But recognizing her little Maurice, she gave him a smile. He approached her, and leaning over the back of the

chair on which she was seated, congratulated her on her playing and singing, duly performing a kiss at the

end of every compliment She did not let him escape thus, and with reiterated enquiries, pressing solicitations,

feigned incredulity obliged him to repeat his stock panegyrics three or four times over, and when he stopped

she seemed so disappointed that he was forced to take up the strain again immediately. He found it trying, for

he was no connoisseur, but he had the pleasure of kissing her plump curved shoulders all golden in the light,

Suddenly he gave a loud cry. His eyes had seen in the mirror a face appear at the back of the dressingroom.

He turned swiftly round, flung his arms about Arcade, and drew him into the corridor.

But, pushing his way through a troop of performing dogs, and a family of American acrobats, young

He hurried him forth into the cool darkness of the boulevard, delirious with joy and wondering whether it was

"Here you are!" he cried; "here you are! I have been looking for you a long time, Arcade, or Mirar if you

like, and I have found you at last. Arcade, you have taken my guardian angel from me. Give him back to

Arcade replied that in accomplishing the superangelic task he had set himself he had been forced to crush

under foot friendship, pity, love, and all those feelings which tend to soften the soul; but that, on the other

hand, his new state, by exposing him to suffering and privation, disposed him to love Humanity, and that he

"Well, then," exclaimed Maurice, "if only you love me, come back to me, stay with me. I cannot do without

you. While I had you with me I was not aware of your presence. But no sooner did you depart than I felt a

horrible blank. Without you I am like a body without a soul. Do you know that in the little flat in the rue de

Rome, with Gilberte by my side, I feel lonely, I miss you sorely, and long to see you and to hear you as I did

that day when you made me so angry. Confess I was right, and that your behaviour on that occasion was not

that of a gentleman. That you, you of so high an origin, so noble a mind, could commit such an indiscretion is

extraordinary, when one comes to think about it. Madame des Aubels has not yet forgiven you. She blames

you for having frightened her by appearing at such an inconvenient moment, and for being insolent and

forward while hooking her dress and tying her shoes. I, I have forgotten everything. I only remember that you

are my celestial brother, the saintly companion of my childhood. No, Arcade, you must not, you cannot leave

Arcade explained to young d'Esparvieu that he could no longer be guiding angel to a Christian, having

himself gone down into the pit. And he painted a horrible picture of himself; he described himself as

"Alas! our ideas, our destiny, everything tends to part us, Maurice. But I cannot stifle the tenderness I feel for

"No," sighed Maurice. "You do not love me. You have never loved me. In a brother or a sister such

indifference would be natural; in a friend it would be ordinary; in a guardian angel it is monstrous. Arcade,

"I have loved you dearly, Maurice, and I still love you. You trouble my heart which I deemed encased in

triple bronze. You show me my own weakness. When you were a little innocent boy I loved you as tenderly

and purely as Miss Kate, your English governess, who caressed you with so much fervour. In the country,

when the thin bark of the plane trees peels o in long strips and discloses the tender green trunk, after the rains

which make the fine sand run on the sloping paths, I showed you how with that sand, those strips of bark, a

few wild flowers, and a spray of maidenhair fern to make rustic bridges, rustic shelters, terraces, and those

gardens of Adonis, which last but an hour. During the month of May in Paris we raised an altar to the Virgin,

and we burnt incense before it, the scent of which, permeating all the house, reminded Marcelline, the cook,

of her village church and her lost innocence, and drew from her floods of tears; it also gave your mother a

headache, your mother who, with all her wealth, was crushed with the ennui that is common to the fortunate

ones of this world. When you went to college I interested myself in your progress, I shared your work and

your play, I pondered with you over arduous problems in arithmetic, I sought the impenetrable meaning of a

phrase of Julius C�sar's. What fine games of prisoners' base and football we had together! More than once

did we know the intoxication of victory, and our young laurels were not soaked in blood or tears. Maurice, I

did all I could to protect your innocence, but I could not prevent your losing it at the age of fourteen.

Afterwards I regretfully saw you loving women of all sorts, of divers ages, by no means beautiful, at least in

the eyes of an angel. Saddened at the sight, I devoted myself to study; a fine library offered me resources

"But now, my dear Arcade," concluded young d'Esparvieu, "you have lost your position, your situation, you

are entirely without resource. You have lost caste, you are o the lines, a vagabond, a barefooted wanderer."

The Angel replied bitterly that, after all, he was a little better clad at present than when he was wearing the

Maurice alleged in excuse that when he dressed his naked angel in a suicide's slops, he was irritated with that

angel's infidelity. But it was useless to dwell on the past or to recriminate. What was really needful was to

"Have I not already told you, Maurice? To fight with Him who reigns in the heavens, dethrone Him, and set

"You will not do it. To begin with it is not the opportune moment. Opinion is not with you. You will not be in

the swim, as papa says. Conservatism and authority are all the go nowadays. We like to be ruled, and the

President of the Republic is going to parley with the Pope. Do not be obstinate, Arcade. You are not as bad as

"I thought I had already explained to you, Maurice, that He whom you consider God is actually but a

demiurge. He is absolutely ignorant of the divine world above him, and in all good faith believes himself to

be the true and only God. You will find in the History of the Church, by Monsignor Duchesne Vol. I, page

162 that this proud and narrowminded demiurge is named Ialdabaoth. My child, so as not to ruffle your

prejudices and to deal gently with your feelings in future, that is the name I shall give him. If it should

happen that I should speak of him to you, I shall call him Ialdabaoth. I must leave you. Adieu."

"I shall not let you go thus. You have deprived me of my guardian angel. It is for you to repair the injury you

Arcade objected that it was difficult for him to satisfy such a demand. That having quarrelled with the

sovereign dispenser of guardian Spirits, he could obtain nothing from that quarter.

"No, no, no," exclaimed Maurice. "You have taken away my guardian angel, give him back to me."

"Well, then," exclaimed young Maurice, "I will be your guardian angel, I will not leave you."

THAT day, convoked by Arcade and Zita, the rebellious angels met together on the banks of the Seine at La

Jonch�re, in a deserted and tumbledown entertainmenthall that Prince Istar had hired from a pothouse

keeper called Barattan. Three hundred angels crowded together in the stalls and boxes. A table, an armchair,

and a collection of small chairs were arranged on the stage, where hung the tattered remnants of a piece of

rustic scenery. The walls, coloured in distemper with flowers and fruit, were cracked and stained with damp,

and were crumbling away in flakes. The vulgar and poverty stricken appearance of the place rendered the

When Prince Istar asked the assembly to form its Committee, and first of all to elect a President, the name

that was renowned throughout the world entered the minds of all present, but a religious respect sealed their

lips; and after a moment's silence, the absent Nectaire was elected by acclamation. Having been invited to

take the chair between Zita and an angel of Japan, Arcade immediately began as follows:

"Sons of Heaven! My comrades! You have freed yourselves from the bonds of celestial servitude you

have shaken off the thrall of him called Iahveh, but to whom we should here accord his veritable name of

Ialdabaoth, for he is not the creator of the worlds, but merely an ignorant and barbarous demiurge, who

having obtained possession of a minute portion of the Universe has therein sown suffering and death. Sons of

And many speaking all together swore they would scale the mountain of Ialdabaoth, and hurl down the walls

"Tremble, ye impious, sacrilegious madmen! The Lord hath already lifted his dread arm to smite you!"

It was a loyal angel who, with an impulse of faith and love, envying the glory of confessors and martyrs,

jealous and eager, like his God himself, to emulate man in the beauty of sacrifice, had flung himself in the

midst of the blasphemers, to brave them, to confound them, and to fall beneath their blows. The assembly

turned upon him with furious unanimity. Those nearest to him overwhelmed him with blows. He continued to

A rebel seized him by the neck and strangled his praises of the Almighty in his throat. He was thrown to the

ground, trampled underfoot. Prince Istar picked him up, took him by the wings between his fingers, then

rising like a column of smoke, opened a ventilator, which no one else could have reached, and passed the

"Comrades," continued Arcade, "now that we have affirmed our stern resolve, we must examine the possible

plans of campaign, and choose the best. You will therefore have to consider if we should attack the enemy in

full force, or whether it were better, by a lengthy and assiduous propaganda, to win the inhabitants of Heaven

And it seemed as if one could hear the sound of trumpets and the rolling of drums.

Th�ophile, whom Prince Istar had dragged to he meeting, rose, pale and unstrung, and, speaking with

"Brethren, do not take ill what I am about to say; for it is the friendship I have for you that inspires me. I am

but a poor musician. But, believe me, all your plans will come to naught before the Divine Wisdom which

"Ialdabaoth foresees everything. I do not contest it. He foresees everything, but in order to leave us our free

will he acts towards us absolutely as if he foresaw nothing. Every instant he is surprised, disconcerted; the

most probable events take him unawares. The obligation which he has undertaken, to reconcile with his

prescience the liberty of both men and angels, throws him constantly into inextricable difficulties and terrible

dilemmas. He never sees further than the end of his nose. He did not expect Adam's disobedience, and so

little did he anticipate the wickedness of men that he repented having made them, and drowned them in the

waters of he Flood, and all the animals as well, though he had no fault to find with the animals. For blindness

he is only to be compared with Charles X, his favourite king. If we are prudent it will be easy to take him by

surprise. I think that these observations will be calculated to reassure my brother."

Th�ophile made no reply. He loved God, but he was fearful of sharing the fate of the faithful angel.

One of the bestinformed Spirits of the assembly, Mammon, was not altogether reassured by the remarks of

"Bethink you," said this Spirit, "Ialdabaoth has little general culture, but he is a soldier to the marrow of

his bones. The organisation of Paradise is a thoroughly military organisation. It is founded on hierarchy and

discipline. Passive obedience is imposed there as a fundamental law. The angels form an army. Compare this

spot with the Elysian Fields which Virgil depicts for you. In the Elysian Fields reign liberty, reason, and

wisdom. The happy shades hold converse together in the groves of myrtle. In the Heaven of Ialdabaoth there

is no civil population. Everyone is enrolled, numbered, registered. It is a barracks and a field for manoeuvres.

Arcade replied that they must look at their adversary in his true colours, and that the military organisation of

Paradise was far more reminiscent of the villages of King Koffee than of the Prussia of Frederick the Great.

"Already," said he, "at the time of the first revolt, before the beginning of Time, the conflict raged for two

days, and Ialdabaoth's throne was made to totter. Nevertheless, the demiurge gained the victory. But to what

did he owe it? To the thunderstorm which happened to come on during the conflict. The thunderbolts falling

on Lucifer and his angels struck them down, bruised and blackened, and Ialdabaoth owed his victory to the

thunderbolts. Thunder is his sole weapon. He abuses its power. In the midst of thunder and lightning he

promulgates his laws. 'Fire goeth before him,' says the Prophet. Now Seneca, the philosopher, said that the

thunderbolt in its fall brings peril to very few, but fear to all. This remark was true enough for men of the first

century of the Christian era; it is no longer so for the angels of the twentieth; all of which goes to prove that,

in spite of his thunder, he is not very powerful; it was acute terror that made men rear him a tower of unbaked

brick and bitumen. When myriads of celestial spirits, furnished with machines which modern science puts at

their disposal, make an assault upon the heavens, think you, comrades, that the old master of the solar system

surrounded with his angels, armed as in the time of Abraham, will be able to resist them? To this day the

warriors of the demiurge wear helmets of gold and shields of diamond. Michael, his best captain, knows no

other tactics than the handtohand combat. To him Pharaoh's chariots are still the latest thing, and he has

And young Arcade lengthily prolonged the parallel between the armed herds of Ialdabaoth and the intelligent

Zita asserted that there was enough money to commence war, that the electrophores were in order, that an

The discussion continued, amid turbulence and confusion. In this parliament of angels, as in the synods of

men, empty words flowed in abundance. Disturbances grew more violent and more frequent as the time for

putting the resolution drew near. It was beyond question that supreme command would be entrusted to him

who had first raised the flag of revolt. But as everyone aspired to act as Lucifer's Lieutenant, each in

describing the kind of fighting man to be preferred drew a portrait of himself. Thus Alcor, the youngest of the

"In Ialdabaoth's army, happily for us, the officers obtain their posts by seniority. This being the case, there is

little likelihood of the command falling into the hands of a military genius, for men are not made leaders by

prolonged habits of obedience, and close attention to military is not a good apprenticeship for the evolution of

vast plans of campaign. If we consult ancient and modern history, we shall see that the greatest leaders were

kings like Alexander and Frederick, aristocrats like C�sar and Turenne, or men impatient of redtape like

Bonaparte. A routine man will always be poor or secondrate. Comrades, let us appoint intelligent leaders,

men in the prime of life, to command us. An old man may retain the habit of winning victories, but only a

Alcor then gave place to an angel of the philosophic order, who mounted the rostrum and spoke thus:

"War never was an exact science, a clearly defined art. The genius of the race, or the brain of the individual,

has ever modified it. Now how are we to define the qualities necessary for a general in command in the war

of the future, where one must consider greater masses and a larger number of movements than the

intelligence of man can conceive? The multiplication of technical means, by infinitely multiplying the

opportunities for mistake, paralyses the genius of those in command. At a certain stage in the progress of

military science, a stage which our models, the Europeans, are about to reach, the cleverest leader and the

most ignorant become equalized by reason of their incapacity. Another result of great modern armaments is,

that the law of numbers tends to rule with inflexible rigour. It is of course true that ten angels in revolt are

worth more than ten angels of Ialdabaoth; it is not at all certain that a million rebellious angels are worth

more than a million of Ialdabaoth's angels. Great numbers, in war as elsewhere, annihilate intelligence and

individual superiority in favour of a sort of exceedingly rudimentary collective soul."

A buzz of conversation drowned the voice of the philosophic angel, and he concluded his speech in an

The tribune then resounded with calls to arms and promises of victory. The sword was held up to praise, the

sword which defends the right. The triumph of the angels in revolt was celebrated twenty times beforehand,

In the midst of these transports Prince Istar hoisted himself on to the platform, and the floor creaked under his

"Comrades," said he, "you wish for victory, and it is a very natural desire, but you must be mouldy with

literature and poetry if you expect to obtain it from war. The idea of making war can nowadays only enter the

brain of a sottish bourgeois or a belated romantic. What is war? A burlesque masquerade in the midst of

which fatuous patriots sing their stupid dithyrambs. Had Napoleon possessed a practical mind he would not

have made war; but he was a dreamer, intoxicated with Ossian. You cry, 'Give us war!' You are visionaries.

When will you become thinkers? The thinkers do not look for power and strength from any of the dreams

which constitute military art: tactics, strategy, fortifications, artillery, and all that rubbish. They do not

believe in war, which is a phantasy; they believe in chemistry, which is a science. They know the way to put

And drawing from his pocket a small bottle, which he held up to the meeting, Prince Istar exclaimed:

THE Angels had dispersed. At the foot of the slopes at Meudon, seated on the grass, Arcade and Zita watched

"In this world," said Arcade, "in this world, which we call a cosmos, though it is but a microcosm, no

thinking being can imagine that he is able to destroy even one atom. At the utmost, all we can hope for is that

we shall succeed in modifying, here and there, the rhythm of some group of atoms and the arrangement of

certain cells. That, when one thinks of it, must be the limit of our great enterprise. And when we shall have

set up the Contradictor in the place of Ialdabaoth, we shall have done no more.... Zita, is the evil in the nature

of things or in their arrangement? That is what we ought to know. Zita, I am profoundly troubled"

"Arcade," replied Zita, "if to act we had to know the secret of Nature, one would never act at all. And neither

would one live since to live is to act. Arcade, is your resolution failing you already?"

Arcade assured the beautiful angel that he was resolved to plunge the demiurge into eternal darkness.

A motorcar passed by on the road, followed by a long trail of dust. It stopped before the two angels, and the

"Good morning, my celestial friends, good morning," said the capitalist. "Sons of Heaven, I am pleased to

meet you. I have a word of importance to say to you. Do not remain idle do not go to sleep. Arm! Arm!

You may be surprised by Ialdabaoth. You have a big warfund. Employ it without stint. I have just learnt that

the Archangel Michael has given large orders in Heaven for thunderbolts and arrows. If you take my advice

you will procure fifty thousand more electrophores. I will take the order. Good day, angels. Long live the

And Baron Everdingen flew by the flowery shores of Louveciennes in the company of a pretty actress.

"It may be," replied Zita, "that up there another Baron Everdingen is inciting to arms."

The guardian angel of young Maurice remained pensive for some moments. Then he murmured:

"Pooh!" said the beautiful archangel. "War is a business. It has always been a business."

Then they discussed at length the means of executing their immense enterprise. Rejecting disdainfully the

anarchistic proceedings of Prince Istar, they conceived a formidable and sudden invasion of the kingdom of

CHAPTER XXVII. WHEREIN WE SHALL SEE REVEALED A DARK AND SECRET MYSTERY AND LEARN HOW IT COMES ABOUT THAT EMPIRES ARE OFTEN HURLED AGAINST EMPIRES, AND RUIN FALLS ALIKE UPON THE VICTORS AND THE VANQUISHED; AND THE WISE READER (IF SUCH THERE BE WHICH I DOUBT) WILL MEDITATE UPON THIS IMPORTANT UTTERANCE: "A WAR IS A MATTER OF BUSINESS." 83

Now Barattan, the innkeeper of La Jonch�re, who had let the entertainmenthall to the rebellious angels, was

in the employ of the secret police. In the reports he furnished to the Prefecture he denounced the members of

this secret meeting as meditating an attack on a certain person whom they described as obtuse and cruel, and

whom they called Alaballotte. The agent believed this to be a pseudonym denoting either the President of the

Republic or the Republic itself. The conspirators had unanimously given voice to threats against Alaballotte,

and one of them, a very dangerous individual, wellknown in anarchist circles, who had already several

convictions against him on account of writings and speeches of a seditious nature, and who was known as

Prince Istar or the Queroube, had brandished a bomb of very small calibre which seemed to contain a

formidable machine. The other conspirators were unknown to Barattan, notwithstanding the fact that he

frequented revolutionary circles. Many among them were very young men, mere beardless youths. There

were two who, it appeared, had spoken with conspicuous vehemence; a certain Arcade, dwelling in the Rue

St. Jacques, and a woman of easy virtue called Zita, living at Montmartre, both without visible means of

The affair seemed sufficiently serious to the Prefect of Police to make him think it necessary to confer

The Third Republic was then going through one of those climacteric periods during which the French nation,

enamoured of authority and worshipping force, gave itself up for lost because it was not governed enough,

and clamoured loudly for a saviour. The President of the Council, and Minister of Justice, was only too eager

to be that longedfor saviour. Still, for him to play that part it was first necessary that there should be a

danger to face. Thus the news of a plot was highly welcome to him. He questioned the Prefect of Police on

the character and importance of the affair. The Prefect of Police explained that the people seemed to have

money, intelligence, and energy; but that they talked too much and were too numerous to undertake secret

and concerted action. The Minister, leaning back in his armchair, pondered on the matter. The Empire

writingtable at which he was seated, the ancient tapestry which covered the walls, the clock and the

candelabra of the Restoration period all, in this traditional setting, reminded him of those great principles

of government which remain immutable throughout the succession of r�gimes, of stratagem and of bluff.

After brief reflexion, he concluded that the plot must be allowed to grow and take shape, that it would even

be fitting to nurse it, to embroider it, to colour it, and only to stifle it after having extracted every possible

He instructed the Prefect of Police to watch the affair closely, to render him an account of what went on from

The Minister lit a cigarette. He quite reckoned, with the help of this plot, on silencing the Opposition,

strengthening his own influence, diminishing that of his colleagues, humiliating the President of the

The Prefect of Police undertook to follow the ministerial instructions, vowing inwardly all the while to act in

his own way. He had a watch put upon the individuals pointed out by Barattan, and commanded his agents

not to intervene, come what might. Perceiving that he was a marked man, Prince Istar who united

prudence with strength withdrew the bombs from the gutter outside his window where he had hidden

them, and changing from motor 'bus to tube, from tube to motor 'bus, and choosing the most cunningly

Every time he left his house in the Rue St. Jacques, Arcade found a man of exaggerated smartness at his door,

with yellow gloves and in his tie a diamond bigger than the Regent. Being a stranger to the things of this

world, the rebellious angel paid no attention to the circumstance. But young Maurice d'Esparvieu, who had

undertaken the task of guarding his guardianangel, viewed this gentleman with uneasiness, for he equalled

in assiduity and surpassed in vigilance that Monsieur Mignon who had formerly allowed his inquisitive gaze

to wander from the rams' heads on the H�tel de la Sordiere on the Rue Garanci�re to the apse of the church of

St. Sulpice. Maurice came two and three times a day to see Arcade in his furnished rooms, warning him of

Every evening he took his angel to night restaurants, where they supped with ladies of easy virtue. There

young d'Esparvieu would foretell the issue of some coming glovefight, and afterwards exert himself to

demonstrate to Arcade the existence of God, the necessity for religion, and the beauties of Christianity, and

adjure him to renounce his impious and criminal undertakings wherefrom, he said, he would reap but

"For really," said the young apologist, "if Christianity were false it would be known."

The ladies approved of Maurice's religious sentiments, and when the handsome Arcade uttered some

blasphemy in language they could understand, they put their hands to their ears and bade him be silent, for

fear of being struck down with him. For they believed that God, in his omnipotence and sovereign goodness,

taking sudden vengeance against those who insulted him, was quite capable of striking down the innocent

Sometimes the angel and his guardian took supper with the angelic musician. Maurice, who remembered

from time to time that he was Bouchotte's lover, was displeased to see Arcade taking liberties with the singer.

She had allowed him to do so ever since the day when, the angelic musician having had the little flowery

couch repaired, Arcade and Bouchotte had made it a foundation for their friendship. Maurice, who loved

Madame des Aubels a great deal, also loved Bouchotte a little, and was rather jealous of Arcade. Now

jealousy is a feeling natural to man and beast, and causes them, however slight the attack, keen unhappiness.

Therefore, suspecting the truth, which Bouchotte's temperament and the angel's character made sufficiently

obvious, he overwhelmed Arcade with sarcasm and abuse, reproaching him with the immorality of his ways.

Arcade answered, tranquilly, that it was difficult to subject physiological impulses to perfectly defined rules,

and that moralists encountered great difficulties in the case of certain natural necessities.

"Moreover," added Arcade, "I freely acknowledge that it is almost impossible systematically to constitute a

natural moral law. Nature has no principles. She furnishes us with no reason to believe that human life is to

be respected. Nature, in her indifference, makes no distinction between good and evil."

"Moral law," replied the angel, "which is supposed to be revealed to us, is drawn in reality from the grossest

empiricism. Custom alone regulates morals. What Heaven prescribes is merely the consecration of ancient

customs. The divine law, promulgated amid fireworks on some Mount Sinai, is never anything but the

codification of human prejudice. And from this fact namely, that morals change religions which

"At any rate," said Maurice, whose intelligence was swelling visibly, "you will grant me that religion

"Arcade," exclaimed Maurice, "when I hear you argue, I rejoice that I am not an intellectual."

Meanwhile Th�ophile, with his head bent over the piano, his face hidden by the long fair veil of his hair,

bringing down from on high his inspired hands on to the keys, was playing and singing the full score of

Prince Istar used to come to their friendly reunions, his pockets filled with bombs and bottles of champagne,

both of which he owed to the liberality of Baron Everdingen. Bouchotte received the Ker�b with pleasure,

since she saw in him the witness and the trophy of the victory she had gained on the little flowered couch. He

was to her as the severed head of Goliath in the hands of the youthful David. And she admired the prince for

his cleverness as an accompanist, his vigour, which she had subdued, and his prodigious capacity for drink.

One night, when young d'Esparvieu took his angel home in his car from Bouchotte's house to the lodgings in

the Rue St. Jacques, it was very dark; before the door the diamond in the spy's necktie glittered like a beacon;

three cyclists standing in a group under its rays made off in divers directions at the car's approach. The angel

took no notice, but Maurice concluded that Arcade's movements interested various important people in the

The next morning he came to seek the suspect, to take him to the Rue de Rome. The angel was in bed.

"Come," said he. "This house is no longer safe for you. You are watched. One of these days you will be

arrested. Do you wish to sleep in gaol? No? Well, then, come. I will put you in a safe place."

"Do you not know," he said, "that an angel broke open the doors of the prison where Peter was confined, and

delivered the apostle? Do you believe me, Maurice, to be inferior in power to that heavenly brother of mine,

and do you suppose that I am unable to do for myself what he did for the fisherman of the lake of Tiberias?"

"Or by a stroke of luck, as a modern historian of the Church has it. But no matter. I will follow you. Just

allow me to burn a few letters and to make a parcel of some books I shall need."

He threw some papers in the fireplace, put several volumes in his pockets, and followed his guide to the car,

which was waiting for them not far off, outside the College of France. Maurice took the wheel. Imitating the

Ker�b's prudence, he made so many windings and turnings, and so many rapid twists that he put all the swift

and numerous cyclists, speeding in pursuit, off the scent. At length, having left wheelmarks in every direction

all over the town, he stopped in the Rue de Rome, before the firstdoor flat, where the angel had first

On entering the dwelling which he had left eighteen months before to carry out his mission, Arcade

remembered the irreparable past, and breathing in the scent used by Gilberte, his nostrils throbbed. He asked

"She is very well," replied Maurice. "A little plumper and very much more beautiful for it. She still bears you

a grudge for your forward behaviour. I hope that she will one day forgive you, as I have forgiven you, and

Young d'Esparvieu did the honours of his flat to his angel with the manners of a wellbred man and the

tender solicitude of a friend. He showed him the folding bed which was opened every evening in the entrance

hall and pushed into a dark cupboard in the morning. He showed him the dressingtable, with its accessories;

the bath, the linen cupboard, the chest of drawers; gave him the necessary information regarding the heating

and lighting; told him that his meals would be brought and the rooms cleaned by the concierge, and showed

him which bell to press when he required that person's services. He told him also that he must consider

SO long as Maurice confined his selection of mistresses to respectable women, his conduct had called forth

no reproach. It was a different matter when he took up with Bouchotte. His mother, who had closed her eyes

to liaisons which, though guilty, were elegant and discreet, was scandalised when it came to her ears that her

son was openly parading about with a musichall singer. By dint of much prying and probing, Berthe,

Maurice's younger sister, had got to know of her brother's adventures, and she narrated them, without any

indignation, to her young girl friends. His little brother L�on declared to his mother one day, in the presence

of several ladies, that when he was big he, too, would go on the spree, like Maurice. This was a sore wound to

About the same time there occurred a family event of a very grave nature which occasioned much alarm to

Monsieur Ren� d'Esparvieu. Drafts were presented to him signed in his name by his son. His writing had not

been forged, but there was no doubt that it had been the son's intention to pass off the signature as his father's.

It showed a perverted moral sense; whence it appeared that Maurice was living a life of profligacy, that he

was running into debt and on the point of outraging the decencies. The paterfamilias talked the matter over

with his wife. It was arranged that he should give his son a very severe lecture, hint at vigorous corrective

measures, and that in due course the mother should appear with gentle and sorrowing mien and endeavour to

soothe the righteous indignation of the father. This plan being agreed upon, Monsieur Ren� d'Esparvieu sent

for his son to come to him in his study. To add to the solemnity of the occasion, he had arrayed himself in his

frockcoat. As soon as Maurice saw it he knew there was something serious in the wind. The head of the

family was pale, and his voice shook a little (for he was a nervous man), as he declared that he would no

longer put up with his son's irregular behaviour, and insisted on an immediate and absolute reform. No more

wild courses, no more running into debt, no more undesirable companions, but work, steadiness, and

Maurice was quite willing to give a respectful reply to his father, whose complaints, after all, were perfectly

justified; but, unfortunately, Maurice, like his father, was shy, and the frockcoat which Monsieur

d'Esparvieu had donned in order to discharge his magisterial duty with greater dignity seemed to preclude the

possibility of any open and unconstrained intercourse. Maurice maintained an awkward silence, which looked

very much like insolence, and this silence compelled Monsieur d'Esparvieu to reiterate his complaints, this

time with additional severity. He opened one of the drawers in his historic bureau (the bureau on which

Alexandre d'Esparvieu had written his "Essay on the Civil and Religious Institutions of the World"), and

"Do you know, my boy," said he, "that this is nothing more nor less than forgery? To make up for such grave

At this moment Madame d'Esparvieu, as arranged, entered the room attired in her walkingdress. She was

supposed to play the angel of forgiveness, but neither her appearance nor her disposition was suitable to the

part. She was harsh and unsympathetic. Maurice harboured with in him the seeds of all the ordinary and

necessary virtues. He loved his mother and respected her. His love, however, was more a matter of duty than

of inclination, and his respect arose from habit rather than from feeling. Madame Ren� d'Esparvieu's

complexion was blotchy, and having powdered herself in order to appear to advantage at the domestic

tribunal, the colour of her face suggested raspberries sprinkled over with sugar. Maurice, being possessed of

some taste, could not help realising that she was ugly and rather repulsively so. He was out of tune with her,

and when she began to go through all the accusations his father had brought against him, making them out to

be blacker than ever, the prodigal turned away his head to conceal his irritation.

"Your Aunt de SaintFain," she went on, "met you in the street in such disgraceful company that she was

"Aunt de SaintFain!" Maurice broke out. "I like to hear her talking about scandals! Everyone knows the sort

He stopped. He had caught sight of his father, whose face was even more eloquent of sorrow than of anger.

Maurice began to feel as though he had committed murder, and could not imagine how he had allowed such

words to escape him. He was on the point of bursting into tears, falling on his knees, and imploring his father

"What offence can I have committed against God, to have brought such a wicked son into the world?"

This speech struck Maurice as a piece of ridiculous affectation, and it pulled him up with a jerk. The

bitterness of contrition suddenly gave place to the delicious arrogance of wrongdoing. He plunged wildly

into a torrent of insolence and revolt, and breathlessly delivered himself of utterances quite unfit for a

"If you will have it, mamma, rather than forbid me to continue my friendship with a talented lyrical artist, you

would be better employed in preventing my elder sister, Madame de Margy, from appearing, night after

night, in society and at the theatres with a contemptible and disgusting individual that everybody knows is her

lover. You should also keep an eye on my little sister Jeanne, who writes objectionable letters to herself in a

disguised hand, and then, pretending she has found them in her prayerbook, shows them to you with

assumed innocence, to worry and alarm you. It would be just as well, too, if you prevented my little brother

L�on, a child of seven, from being quite so much with Mademoiselle Caporal, and you might tell your

"Get out, sir, I will not have you in the house!" cried Monsieur Ren� d'Esparvieu, white with anger, pointing

THE angel was pleased with his lodging. He worked of a morning, went out in the afternoon, heedless of

detectives, and came home to sleep. As in days gone by, Maurice received Madame des Aubels twice or

All went very well until one morning Gilberte, having, the night before, left her little velvet bag on the table

in the blue room, came to find it, and discovered Arcade stretched on the couch in his pyjamas, smoking a

"You, Monsieur! Had I thought to find you here, you may be quite sure I should not... I came to fetch my

little bag, which is in the next room. Allow me...." And she slipped past the angel, cautiously and quickly, as

CHAPTER XXIX. WHEREIN WE SEE HOW THE ANGEL, HAVING BECOME A MAN, BEHAVES LIKE A MAN, COVETING ANOTHER'S WIFE AND BETRAYING HIS FRIEND. IN THIS CHAPTER THE CORRECTNESS OF YOUNG D'ESPARVIEU'S CONDUCT WILL BE MADE MANIFEST 88

Madame des Aubels that morning, in her pale green tailormade costume, was deliciously attractive. Her

tight skirt displayed her movements, and her every step was one of those miracles of Nature which fill men's

"I never expected, Monsieur," said she, "that you would be doing the honours of this flat. I knew how dearly

The sky had suddenly grown overcast. A brownish glare began to steal into the room. Madame des Aubels

told him she had walked for her health's sake, but a storm was brewing, and she asked if a carriage could be

Arcade flung himself at Gilberte's feet, took her in his arms as one takes a precious piece of china, and

And shaking with sobs, she asked for a drink of water. She was choking. The angel went to her assistance. In

this moment of extreme peril she defended herself courageously. She kept saying: "No!... No!... I will not

In the sweet familiarity which followed their mutual astonishment she said to him:

"I have often asked after you. I knew that you were an assiduous frequenter of the playhouses at Montmartre,

that you were often seen with Mademoiselle Bouchotte, who, nevertheless, is not at all pretty. I knew that

you had become very smart, and that you were making a good deal of money. I was not surprised. You were

born to succeed. The day of your" and she pointed at the spot between the window and the wardrobe with

the mirror "apparition, I was vexed with Maurice for having given you a suicide's rags to wear. You

pleased me.... Oh, it was not your good looks! Don't think that women are as sensitive as people say to

outward attractions. We consider other things in love. There is a sort of Well, anyhow I loved you as

"You are not an angel, are you? Maurice believes you are; but he believes so many things, Maurice." She

questioned Arcade with her eyes and smiled maliciously. "Confess that you have been fooling him, and that

Gilberte decided that he was no angel; first, because one never is an angel; secondly, for more detailed

reasons which drew her thoughts to the question of love. He did not argue the matter with her, and once again

Outside, the rain was falling thick and fast, the windows were streaming, lightning lit up the muslin curtains,

and thunder shook the panes. Gilberte made the sign of the Cross and remained with her head hidden in her

At this moment Maurice entered the room. He came in wet and smiling, confident, tranquil, happy, to

announce to Arcade the good news that with his halfshare in the previous day's race at Longchamps the

angel had won twelve times his stake. Surprising the lady and the angel in their embrace, he became furious;

anger gripped the muscles of his throat, his face grew red with blood, and the veins stood out on his forehead.

Interrupted motion was transformed into heat. Maurice fumed. His anger did not arm him, like Archilochus,

with lyrical vengeance. He merely applied an offensive epithet to his unfaithful one.

Meanwhile she had recovered her dignified bearing. She rose, full of modesty and grace, and gave her

But as young d'Esparvieu continued to shower coarse and monotonous insults on her, she grew angry in her

"You are a pretty sort of person, are you not?" she said. "Did I run after this Arcade of yours? It was you who

brought him here, and in what a state, too! You had only one idea: to give me up to your friend. Well,

Maurice d'Esparvieu replied simply, "Get out of it, you trollop!" And he made a motion as if to push her out.

It pained Arcade to see his mistress treated so disrespectfully, but he thought he lacked the necessary

authority to interfere with Maurice. Madame des Aubels, who had lost none of her dignity, fixed young

And so great is the power of woman over a wellbred soul, in a gallant nation, that the young Frenchman went

immediately and told the concierge to call a taxi. Madame des Aubels, with a studied exhibition of charm in

every movement, took leave of them, throwing Maurice the contemptuous look that a woman owes to him

whom she has deceived. Maurice witnessed her departure with an outward expression of indifference he was

far from feeling. Then he turned to the angel clad in the flowered pyjamas which Maurice himself had worn

the day of the apparition; and this circumstance, trifling in itself, added fuel to the anger of the host who had

"Well," he said, "you may pride yourself on being a despicable individual. You have behaved basely, and all

for nothing. If the woman took your fancy, you had but to tell me. I was tired of her. I had had enough of her.

He spoke thus to hide his pain, for he loved Gilberte more than ever, and the creature's treachery caused him

"I was about to ask you to take her off my hands. But you have followed your lower nature you have

If at this solemn moment Arcade had but spoken one word from his heart, Maurice would have burst into

tears, and forgiven his friend and his mistress, and all three would have become content and happy once

again. But Arcade had not been nourished on the milk of human kindness. He had never suffered, and did not

"My dear Maurice, that same necessity which orders and constrains the actions of living beings, produces

effects that are often unexpected, and sometimes absurd. Thus it is that I have been led to displease you. You

would not reproach me if you had a good philosophical understanding of nature; for you would then know

that freewill is but an illusion, and that physiological affinities are as exactly determined as are chemical

combinations, and, like them, may be summed up in a formula. I think that, in your case, it might be possible

to inculcate these truths, but it would be a difficult task, and maybe they would not bring you the serenity

Maurice had a very clear sense of social obligations. He put honour, when he thought about it, above

everything. So now he told himself very forcibly that the outrage he had suffered could only be wiped out

with blood. This traditional idea instantly lent an unexpected nobility to his speech and bearing.

"It is I, Monsieur," said he, "who will quit this place, never to return. You will remain here, since you are a

"I will receive them, if it gives you pleasure, but, bethink you, my dear Maurice, I am invulnerable. Celestial

spirits even when they are materialised cannot be touched by point of sword or pistol shot. Consider, my dear

Maurice, the awkward situation in which this fatal inequality puts me, and realise that in refusing to appoint

seconds I cannot give as a reason my celestial nature, it would be unprecedented."

"Monsieur," replied the heir of the Bussart d'Esparvieu, "you should have thought of that before you insulted

Out he marched haughtily; but no sooner was he in the street than he staggered like a drunken man. The rain

was still falling. He walked unseeing, unhearing, at haphazard, dragging his feet in the gutters through pools

of water, through heaps of mud. He followed the outer boulevards for a long time, and at length, fordone with

weariness, lay down on the edge of a piece of waste land. He was muddied up to the eyes, mud and tears

smeared his face, the brim of his hat was dripping with rain. A passerby, taking him for a beggar, tossed him

a copper. He picked it up, put it carefully in his waistcoat pocket, and set off to find his seconds.

THE ground chosen for the combat was Colonel Manchon's garden, on the Boulevard de la Reine at

Versailles. Messieurs de la Verdeli�re and Le Truc de Ruffec, who had both of them constant practice in

affairs of honour and knew the rules with great exactness, assisted Maurice d'Esparvieu. No duel was ever

fought in the Catholic world without Monsieur de la Verdeli�re being present; and, in making application to

this swordsman, Maurice had conformed to custom, though not without a certain reluctance, for he had been

notorious as the lover of Madame de la Verdeli�re; but Monsieur de la Verdeli�re was not to be looked upon

CHAPTER XXX. WHICH TREATS OF AN AFFAIR OF HONOUR, AND WHICH WILL AFFORD THE READER AN OPPORTUNITY OF JUDGING WHETHER, AS ARCADE AFFIRMS, THE EXPERIENCE OF OUR FAULTS MAKES BETTER MEN AND WOMEN OF US 91

as a husband. He was an institution. As to Monsieur Le Truc de Ruffec, honour was his only known

profession and avowedly his sole resource, and when the matter was made the subject of illnatured

comment in Society, the question was asked what finer career than that of honour Monsieur Le Truc de

Ruffec could possibly have adopted. Arcade's seconds were Prince Istar and Th�ophile. The celestial

musician had not voluntarily nor with a good grace taken a hand in this affair. He had a horror of every kind

of violence and disapproved of single combat. The report of pistols and the clash of swords were intolerable

to him, and the sight of blood made him faint. This gentle son of Heaven had obstinately refused to act as

second to his brother Arcade, and to bring him to the startingpoint the Ker�b had had to threaten to break a

Besides the combatants, the seconds, and the doctors, the only people in the garden were a few officers from

the barracks at Versailles and several reporters. Although young d'Esparvieu was known merely as a young

man of family, and Arcade had never been heard of at all, the duel had attracted quite a large crowd of

inquisitive individuals, and the windows of the adjoining houses were crammed with photographers,

reporters, and Society people. What had aroused much curiosity was that a woman was known to be the cause

of the quarrel. Many mentioned Bouchotte, but the majority said it was Madame des Aubels. It had been

remarked upon, moreover, that duels in which Monsieur de la Verdeli�re acted as second drew all Paris.

The sky was a soft blue, the garden all abloom with roses, a blackbird was piping in a tree. Monsieur de la

Verdeli�re, who, stick in hand, conducted the affair, laid the points of the swords together, and said:

Maurice d'Esparvieu attacked by doubling and beating the blade. Arcade retired, keeping his sword in line.

The first engagement was without result. The seconds were under the impression that Monsieur d'Esparvieu

was in a grievous state of nervous irritability, and that his adversary would wear him down. In the second

encounter Maurice attacked wildly, spread out his arms, and exposed his breast. He attacked as he advanced,

gave a straight thrust, and the point of his sword grazed Arcade on the shoulder. The latter was thought to be

wounded. But the seconds ascertained with surprise that it was Maurice who had received a scratch on the

wrist. Maurice asserted that he felt nothing, and Dr. Quille declared, after examination, that his client might

continue the fight. After the regulation quarter of an hour the duel was resumed. Maurice attacked with fury.

His adversary was obviously nursing him, and, what disturbed Monsieur de la Verdeli�re, seemed to be

paying very little attention to his own defence. At the opening of the fifth bout, a black spaniel that had got

into the garden no one knew how rushed out from a clump of rosebushes, made its way on to the space

reserved for the combatants, and, in spite of sticks and cries, ran in between Maurice's legs. The latter seemed

as though his arm vere benumbed, merely gave a shoulderthrust at his invulnerable opponent. He then

delivered a straight lunge and impaled his arm on his adversary's sword, which made a deep wound just

Monsieur de la Verdeli�re stopped the fight, which had lasted an hour and a half. Maurice was conscious of a

painful shock. They laid him down on a grassy bank against a wall covered with wistaria. While the surgeon

was dressing the wound Maurice called Arcade and offered him his wounded hand. And when the victor,

"Be generous, Arcade; forgive my treachery. Now that we have fought, I can ask you to be reconciled with

Maurice, who was still unreconciled with his parents, was taken to the little flat in he Rue de Rome. No

sooner was he stretched on the bed at the far end of the bedroom where the curtains were drawn as on the day

of the apparition, than he saw Arcade and Gilberte appear. He began to suffer greatly from his wound; his

temperature was rising, but he was at peace, happy and contented. Angel and woman, both in tears, threw

themselves at the foot of the bed. He took both their hands with his left, smiled on them. and kissed them

"I am sure now that I shall never quarrel with either of you again; you will deceive me no more. I now know

Gilberte, weeping, swore that Maurice had been misled by appearances, that she had never betrayed him with

Arcade, that she had never betrayed him at all. And in a great gush of sincerity she persuaded herself that this

"You wrong yourself, Gilberte," replied the wounded man. "It did happen; it had to. And it is well. Gilberte,

you were basely false to me with my best friend in this very room, and you were right. If you had not been we

should not be here, reunited, all three of us, and I should not be at your side tasting the greatest happiness of

my life. Oh, Gilberte, how wrong of you to deny a perfect and accomplished fact!"

"If you wish, my friend," replied Gilberte, a little acidly, "I will not deny it. But it will only be to please you."

Maurice made her sit down on the bed, and begged Arcade to be seated in the armchair.

"My friend," said Arcade, "I was innocent. I became man. Straightway I did evil. Then I became better."

Scarcely, however, had the patient seen three aces in his hand and called "no trumps," than his eyes began to

swim, the cards slipped from his fingers, head fell heavily back on the pillow, and he complained of a violent

headache. Almost immediately, Madame des Aubels went off to pay some calls, for she made a point of

appearing in Society, in order that the calmness and confidence of her demeanour might give the lie to the

various rumours that were current concerning her. Arcade saw her to the door, and, with a kiss, inhaled from

her a delicate perfume which he brought back with him into the room where Maurice lay dozing.

"I am perfectly content," murmured the latter, "that things should have happened as they have."

"It was bound to be so," answered the Spirit. "All the other angels in revolt would have done as I did with

Gilberte. 'Women,' saith the Apostle, 'should pray with their heads covered, because of the angels,' and the

Apostle speaks thus because he knows that the angels are disturbed when they look upon them and see that

they are beautiful. No sooner do they touch the earth than they desire to embrace mortal women and fulfil

their desire. Their clasp is full of strength and sweetness, they hold the secret of those ineffable caresses

which plunge the daughters of men into unfathomable depths of delight. Laying upon the lips of their happy

victims a honey that burns like fire, making their veins flow with torrents of refreshing flames, they leave

"One word more!" said the angel; "just one other word, my dear Maurice, to bear out what I say, and I will let

you rest quietly. There's nothing like having sound references. In order to assure yourself that I am not

deceiving you, Maurice, on this subject of the amorous embraces of angels and women, look up Justin,

Apologies, I and II; Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, Book I, Chapter III; Athenagoras, Concerning the

Resurrection ; Lactantius, Book II, Chapter XV; Tertullian, On the Veil of the Virgins ; Marcus of Ephesus in

Psellus ; Eusebius, Pr�paratio Euangelica, Book V, Chapter IV; Saint Ambrose, in his book on Noah and the

Ark, Chapter V; Saint Augustine, in his City of God, Book XV, Chapter XXIII; Father Meldonat, the Jesuit,

"Arcade, please, for pity's sake, be quiet; do, please do, and send this dog away," cried Maurice, whose face

was burning, and whose eyes were starting from his head; for in his delirium he thought he saw a black

Madame de la Verdeli�re, who was assiduous in every modish and patriotic practice, was reckoned, in the

best French society, as one of the most gracious of the great ladies interested in good works. She came herself

to ask for news of Maurice, and offered to nurse the wounded man. But at the vehement instigation of

Madame des Aubels, Arcade shut the door in her face. Expressions of sympathy were showered upon

Maurice. Piled on the salver, visiting cards displayed their innumerable little dogs' ears. Monsieur Le Truc de

Ruffec was one of the first to show his manly sympathy at the flat in the Rue de Rome, and, holding out his

loyal hand, asked young d'Esparvieu as one honourable man to another for twentyfive louis to pay a debt of

"Of course, my dear Maurice, that is the sort of thing one could not ask of everybody."

The same day Monsieur Ga�tan came to press his nephew's hand. The latter introduced Arcade.

"This is my guardian angel, whose foot you thought so beautiful when you saw the print it had made on the

telltale powder, uncle. He appeared to me last year in this very room. You don't believe it? Well, it is true,

"What say you, Arcade? The Abb� Patouille, who is a great theologian and a good priest, does not believe

that you are an angel; and Uncle Ga�tan, who doesn't know his catechism and hasn't a scrap of religion in

him, doesn't think so either. They deny you, the pair of them; the one because he has faith, the other because

he hasn't. After that you may be sure that your history, if ever it comes to be narrated, will scarcely appear

credible. Moreover, the man that took it into his head to tell your story would not be a man of taste, and

would not come in for much approval. For your story is not a pretty one. I love you, but I sit in judgment

upon you, too. Since you fell into atheism, you have become an abominable scoundrel. A bad angel, a bad

friend, a traitor, and a homicide, for I suppose it was to bring about my death that you sent that black spaniel

"Alas! Monsieur, I am not surprised at finding little credit in your eyes. I have been told that you have fallen

"Monsieur," answered Ga�tan, "my faith in Jehovah is not sufficiently strong to enable me to believe in his

"Monsieur, he whom you call Jehovah is really a coarse and ignorant demiurge, and his name is Ialdabaoth."

"In that case, Monsieur, I am perfectly ready to believe in him. He is a narrowminded ignoramus, is he?

Then belief in his existence offers me no further difficulty. How is he getting on?"

"Don't make too sure of that, Monsieur. You remind me of my brotherinlaw, Cuissart, who has been

"You see, Arcade," exclaimed Maurice, "Uncle Ga�tan thinks as I do. He knows you won't succeed."

"Your Ialdabaoth is still very powerful in this world, if he isn't in the other. In days gone by he used to be

upheld by his priests, by those who believed in him. Now he is supported by those who do not believe in him,

by the philosophers. A pedant of a fellow called Picrochole has recently come on the scene who wants to

make a bankrupt of science in order to do a good turn to the Church. And just lately Pragmatism has been

invented for the express purpose of gaining credit for religion in the minds of rationalists."

"Not I! I was frivolous once, and I went in for metaphysics. I read Hegel and Kant. I have become serious

with years, and now I only trouble myself about things evident to the senses: what the eye can see or what the

Thus the conversation went on until evening; it was marked by obscenities that would have brought a blush

I will not say to a cuirassier, for cuirassiers are frequently chaste, but even to a Parisienne.

Monsieur Sariette came to see his old pupil. When he entered the room the bust of Alexandre d'Esparvieu

seemed to take shape behind the librarian's bald head. He drew near the bed. In the place of blue curtains,

mirrored wardrobe, and chimneypiece, there straightway came into view the heavyladen bookcases of the

room of the globes and busts, and the air was heavy with piles of papers, records, and files. Monsieur Sariette

could not be dissociated from his library; one could not conceive of him or even see him apart from it. He

himself was paler, more vague, more shadowy, and more a creature of the fancy than the fancies he evoked.

"Sit down, Monsieur Sariette, you know Madame des Aubels. May I introduce Arcade to you, my

guardian angel. It was he who, while yet invisible, pillaged your library for two years, made you lose all

desire for food and drink, and drove you to the verge of madness. He it was who moved piles of books from

the room of the busts to my summerhouse one day; under your very nose, he took away I know not what

precious volumes; and was the cause of your falling on the staircase; another day he took a volume of

Salomon Reinach's, and, forced to go out with me (for he never left me, as I have learnt later), he let the

volume drop in the gutter of the Rue Princesse. Forgive him, Monsieur Sariette, he had no pockets. He

was invisible. I bitterly regret, Monsieur Sariette, that all your old books were not devoured by fire or

swallowed up by a flood. They made my angel lose his head. He became man, and now knows neither faith

nor obedience to laws. It is I, now, who am his guardian angel. God knows how it will all end."

While listening to this speech, Monsieur Sariette's face took on an expression of infinite, irreparable, eternal

sadness; the sadness of a mummy. Rising to take his leave, the sorrowful librarian murmured in Arcade's ear:

"Do stay, Monsieur Sariette. You shall have a game of bridge with us. Monsieur Sariette, listen to my advice.

Do not do as I did do not keep bad company. You will be lost. I shudder at the mere thought. Monsieur

Sariette, do not go yet. I have something very important to ask you. When you come again, bring me a book

on the truth of religion, so that I may study it. I must restore to my guardianangel the faith which he has

PROFOUNDLY distressed by the dark utterances of young Maurice, Monsieur Sariette took a

motoromnibus, and went to see P�re Guinardon, his friend, his only friend, the the whole world whom it

gave him pleasure to see and hear. When Monsieur Sariette entered the shop in the Rue de Courcelles,

Guinardon was alone, dozing in the depths of an antique armchair. His face, surrounded by his curly hair and

luxuriant beard, was crimson in hue. Little violet filaments spread a network about the fleshy part of his nose,

to which the wines of Burgundy had imparted a purple tint; for there was no longer any disguising the fact,

P�re Guinardon drank. Two feet away from him, on the fair Octavie's worktable, a rose, all but withered,

drooped in an empty vase, and in a basket a piece of embroidery was lying unfinished and neglected. The

young Octavie's absences from the shop were growing more and more frequent, and Monsieur Blancmesnil

never called when she was not there. The reason of this was that they were meeting three times a week at five

o'clock in a house close to the Champs �lys�es P�re Guinardon knew nothing of that. He did not know the

Monsieur Sariette shook his old friend by the hand; but he did not enquire for the young Octavie, for he

refused to recognise the connexion. He would sooner have talked about Z�phyrine, who had been so cruelly

deserted, and whom he hoped the old man would make his lawful wife. But Monsieur Sariette was prudent.

"Perfectly well," was Guinardon's reply; but he felt ill, for either age and lovemaking had undermined his

sturdy constitution, or else young Octavie's faithlessness had dealt her lover a fatal blow. "God be praised,"

he went on, "I still retain my powers of mind and body. I am chaste. Be chaste, Sariette. Chastity is strength."

That evening P�re Guinardon had taken some specially valuable books out of the kingwood cabinet to show

to a distinguished bibliophile, Monsieur Victor Meyer, and after the latter's departure he had dropped off to

sleep without putting them back in their places. Books had an attraction for Monsieur Sariette, and seeing

these particular volumes on the marble top of the cabinet, he began to examine them with interest. The first

one he looked at was La Pucelle, in morocco, with the English continuation. Doubtless it pained his patriotic

and Christian heart to admire its text and illustrations, but a good copy was always virtuous and pure in his

sight. Continuing to chat very affectionately with Guinardon, he picked up, one by one, the books which the

antiquary had, for one reason or another binding, illustrations, distinguished ownership, or scarcity

Suddenly a glorious shout of joy and love broke from his lips. He had discovered the Lucretius of the Prior de

At first P�re Guinardon could not quite make out what his old friend was talking about; but when the latter

declared to him that the volume was from the d'Esparvieu collection, that it belonged to him, Sariette, and

that he was going to take it away without further ado, the antiquary completely woke up, got on his legs,

CHAPTER XXXI. WHEREIN WE ARE LED TO MARVEL AT THE READINESS WITH WHICH AN HONEST MAN OF TIMID AND GENTLE NATURE CAN COMMIT A HORRIBLE CRIME 96

declared emphatically that the book belonged to him, Guinardon, by right of true and lawful purchase, and

that he would not part with it unless he got five thousand francs for it cash down.

"You don't take in what I am telling you," answered Sariette. "The book belongs to the d'Esparvieu library; I

And noticing that, as a matter of fact, the librarian had a wandering look in his eye, he took the book from

"Have you seen, Sariette, that the rascals are going to rip up the Palais Mazarin, and cover up the very heart

and centre of the Old Town, the finest and most venerable place in the whole of Paris, with the deuce knows

what works of art of theirs? They are worse than the Vandals, for the Vandals, although they destroyed the

buildings of antiquity, did not replace them with hideous and disgusting erections and atrocious bridges like

the Pont d'Alexandre. And your poor Rue Garanci�re, Sariette, has fallen a prey to the barbarians. What have

"Guinardon, you have not understood me. Now listen. This book belongs to the d'Esparvieu library. It was

taken away, how or by whom I know not. Dreadful and mysterious things went on in that library. But,

anyhow, the book was stolen. I need scarcely appeal to your sentiments of scrupulous probity, my dear friend.

You would not like to be regarded as the receiver of stolen goods. Give me the book. I will return it to

Monsieur d'Esparvieu, who will duly requite you; of that you may be sure. Rely on his generosity, and you

"Catch me relying on the generosity of that old curmudgeon of a d'Esparvieu. Why, he'd skin a flea to get its

coat. Look at me, Sariette, old boy, and tell me if I look like a dunderhead. You know perfectly well that

d'Esparvieu refused to give fifty francs in a secondhand shop for a portrait of Alexandre d'Esparvieu, the

founder of the family, by Hersent, and that consequently the founder of the family has had to remain on the

Boulevard Montparnasse, propped against a Jew hawker's stall, just opposite the cemetery, where all the dogs

of the neighbourhood come and make water on him. Catch me trusting to Monsieur d'Esparvieu's liberality!

"Very well, Guinardon, I myself will undertake to pay you any indemnity that a board of arbitrators may fix

"Now don't go and do the handsome for people who won't give you so much as a thankyou. This man,

d'Esparvieu, has taken your knowledge, your energies, your whole life for a salary that even a valet wouldn't

accept. So leave that idea alone. In any case it is too late. The book is sold."

"What does that matter? You'll never see it again. You'll hear no more about it; it's off to America."

CHAPTER XXXI. WHEREIN WE ARE LED TO MARVEL AT THE READINESS WITH WHICH AN HONEST MAN OF TIMID AND GENTLE NATURE CAN COMMIT A HORRIBLE CRIME 97

"To America! The Lucretius with the arms of Philippe de Vend�me and marginalia in Voltaire's own hand!

"My dear Sariette, you remind me of the Chevalier des Grieux when he learns that his darling mistress is to

be transported to the Mississippi. 'My dear mistress going to the Mississippi!' says he."

"No! no!" answered Sariette, very pale, "this book shall not go to America. It shall return, as it ought, to the

The antiquary made a second attempt to put an end to an interview that now looked as if it might take an ugly

"My good Sariette, you haven't told me what you think of my Greco. You never so much as glanced at it. It is

"Now just look at Saint Francis here, the poor man of the Lord, the brother of Jesus. See how his fuliginous

body rises heavenward like the smoke from an agreeable sacrifice, like the sacrifice of Abel."

"Give me the book, Guinardon," said Sariette, without turning his head; "give me the book."

"That's enough of it," he shouted, as red as a turkeycock, the veins standing out on his forehead.

Straightway old Sariette flew at the antiquary, assailed him with sudden fury, and, frail and weakly as he was,

Guinardon, in furious amazement, belched forth the most horrible abuse on the old maniac and gave him a

punch that sent him staggering back four paces against the Coronation of the Virgin, by Fra Angelico, which

fell down with a crash. Sariette returned to the charge, and tried to drag the book out of the pocket in which it

lay hid. This time P�re Guinardon would really have floored him had he not been blinded by the blood that

was rushing to his head, and hit sideways at the worktable of his absent mistress. Sariette fastened himself

on to his bewildered adversary, held him down in the armchair, and with his little bony hands clutched him

by the neck, which, red as it was already, became a deep crimson. Guinardon struggled to get free, but the

little fingers, feeling the mass of soft, warm flesh about them, embedded themselves in it with delicious

ecstasy. Some unknown force made them hold fast to their prey. Guinardon's throat began to rattle, saliva was

oozing from one corner of his mouth. His enormous frame quivered now and again beneath the grasp; but the

tremors grew more and more intermittent and spasmodic. At last they ceased. The murderous hands did not

let go their hold. Sariette had to make a violent effort to loose them. His temples were buzzing. Nevertheless

he could hear the rain falling outside, muffled steps going past on the pavement, newspaper men shouting in

the distance. He could see umbrellas passing along in the dim light. He drew the book from the dead man's

The fair Octavie did not go back to the shop that night. She went to sleep in a little entresol underneath the

bricabrac stores which Monsieur de Blancmesnil had recently bought for her in this same Rue de

CHAPTER XXXI. WHEREIN WE ARE LED TO MARVEL AT THE READINESS WITH WHICH AN HONEST MAN OF TIMID AND GENTLE NATURE CAN COMMIT A HORRIBLE CRIME 98

Courcelles. The workman whose task it was to shut up the shop found the antiquary's body still warm. He

called Madame Lenain, the concierge, who laid Guinardon on the couch, lit a couple of candles, put a sprig of

box in a saucer of holy water, and closed the dead man's eyes. The doctor who was called in to certify the

Z�phyrine, informed of what had happened by Madame Lenain, hastened to the house, and sat up all night

with the body. The dead man looked as if he were sleeping. In the flickering light of the candles El Greco's

Saint mounted upwards like a wreath of smoke, the gold of the Primitives gleamed in the shadows. Near the

deathbed a little woman by Baudouin was plainly discernible giving herself a douche. All through the night

"He's dead, he's dead!" she kept saying. "My friend, my divinity, my all, my love But no! he is not dead,

he moves. It is I, Michel; I, your Z�phyrine. Awake, hear me! Answer me; I love you; if ever I caused you

pain, forgive me. Dead! dead! O my God! See how beautiful he is. He was so good, so clever, so kind. My

God! My God! My God! If I had been there he would not now be lying dead. Michel! Michel!"

When morning came she was silent. They thought she had fallen asleep. She was dead too.

MADAME DE LA VERDELI�RE having failed to force an entr�e as sicknurse, returned after several days

had elapsed, during the absence of Madame des Aubels, to ask Maurice d'Esparvieu for his

subscription to the French churches. Arcade led her to the bedside of the convalescent. Maurice whispered in

"Traitor, deliver me from this ogress immediately, or you will be answerable for the evil which will soon

After the conventional complimentary flourishes, Madame de la Verdeli�re signed to Maurice to dismiss the

angel. Maurice feigned not to understand. And Madame de la Verdeli�re disclosed the ostensible reason of

"Our churches," she said, "our beloved country churches, what is to become of them?"

"They will disappear, Madame; they will fall into ruin. And what a pity! I shall be inconsolable. The church

"Just so!" exclaimed Madame de la Verdeli�re with a delighted smile. "It is just like that."

"Yes, the spires, Madame, that stick up into the skies towards the little Cherubim, like so many syringes."

CHAPTER XXXII. WHICH DESCRIBES HOW NECTAIRE'S FLUTE WAS HEARD IN THE TAVERN OF CLODOMIR 99

That same day Monsieur l'Abb� Patouille came to offer the wounded man good counsel and consolation. He

exhorted him to break with his bad companions and to be reconciled to his family.

He drew a picture of the sorrowful father, the mother in tears, ready to receive their longlost child with open

arm. Renouncing with manly effort a life of profligacy and deluding joys, Maurice would recover his peace

and strength of mind, he would free himself from devouring chimeras, and shake off the Evil Spirit.

Young d'Esparvieu thanked Abb� Patouille for all his kindness, and made a protestation of his religious

"Never," said he, "have I had such faith. And never have I been in such need of it. Just imagine, Monsieur

l'Abb�, I have to teach my guardian angel his catechism all over again, for he has quite forgotten it!"

Monsieur l'Abb� Patouille heaved a deep sigh, and exhorted his dear child to pray, there being no other

"Monsieur l'Abb�," asked Maurice, "may I introduce my guardian angel to you? Do stay a moment; he has

And Abb� Patouille's fat cheeks drooped in token of affliction. But almost immediately they plumped up

again, as a sign of lightheartedness. For in his heart there was matter for rejoicing. Public opinion was

improving. The Jacobins, the Freemasons, the Coalitionists were everywhere in disgrace. The Smart Set led

the way. The Academie Franfaise was of the right way of thinking. The number of Christian schools was

increasing by leaps and bounds. The young men of the Quartier Latin were submitting to the Church, and the

�cole Normale exhaled the perfume of the seminary. The Cross was gaining the day; but money was wanted,

After six weeks' rest, Maurice was allowed by his doctor to take a drive. He wore his arm in a sling. His

mistress and his friend went with him. They drove to the Bois, and took a gentle pleasure in looking upon the

grass and the trees. They smiled on everything and everything smiled on them. As Arcade had said, their

faults had made them better. By the unlookedfor ways of jealousy and anger, Maurice had attained to calm

and kindliness. He still loved Gilberte and he loved her with an indulgent love. The angel still desired her as

much as ever, but having once possessed her, his desire had lost the sting of curiosity. Gilberte forbore trying

to please, and thereby pleased the more. They drank milk at the Cascade, and found it good. They were all

three innocent. Arcade forgot the injustice of the old tyrant of the world. But he was soon to be reminded of

On entering his friend's house, he found Zita awaiting him, looking like a statue in ivory and gold.

"You excite my pity," she said to him. "The day is at hand the like of which has never dawned since the

beginning of Time, and perhaps will never dawn again before the Sun enters with all its train into the

constellation of Hercules. We are on the eve of surprising Ialdabaoth in his palace of porphyry, and you, who

are burning to deliver the heavens, who were so eager to enter in triumph into your emancipated country,

you suddenly forget your noble purpose and fall asleep in the arms of the daughters of men. What pleasure

can you find in intercourse with these unclean little animals, composed, as they are, of elements so unstable

that they may be said to be in a state of constant evanescence? O Arcade! I was indeed right to distrust you.

You are but an intellectual; you do but feel idle curiosity. You are incapable of action."

CHAPTER XXXII. WHICH DESCRIBES HOW NECTAIRE'S FLUTE WAS HEARD IN THE TAVERN OF CLODOMIR 100

"You misjudge me, Zita," replied the angel. "It is the nature of the sons of heaven to love the daughters of

men. Corruptible though it be, the material part of women and of flowers charms the senses none the less. But

not one of these little animals can make me forget my hatred and my love, and I am ready to rise up against

Zita expressed her satisfaction at seeing him in this resolute mood. She urged him to pursue the

accomplishment of this vast undertaking with undiminished ardour. Nothing must be hurried or deferred.

"A great action, Arcade, is made up of a multitude of small ones; the most majestic whole is composed of a

She had come to take him to a meeting where his presence was required. They were to take a census of the

When Maurice saw Zita, he deemed her lacking in attraction. She failed to please him because she was

perfectly beautiful and because true beauty always caused him painful surprise. Zita inspired him with

antipathy when he learned that she was an angel in revolt and that she had come to seek Arcade to take him

The poor child tried to retain his companion by all the means that his wit and the circumstances afforded him.

If his guardian angel would only remain with him, he would take him to a magnificent boxingmatch, to a

"revue" where he would witness the apotheosis of Poincare, or, lastly, to a certain house he knew of where he

would behold women remarkable for their beauty, talents, vices, or deformities. But the angel would not

"Still the same nonsense! The conquest of but there, I proved to you that it was neither possible nor

And Maurice, his arm in a sling, went with Arcade and Zita all the way to Clodomir's restaurant at

Prince Istar and Th�ophile were already there, with a little creature who looked like a child, and was, in fact,

And at that moment the old gardener noiselessly appeared. He took his seat, and his dog lay down at his feet.

French cooking is the best in the world. It is a glory that will transcend all others when humanity has grown

wise enough to put the spit above the sword. Clodomir served the angels, and the mortal who was with them,

CHAPTER XXXII. WHICH DESCRIBES HOW NECTAIRE'S FLUTE WAS HEARD IN THE TAVERN OF CLODOMIR 101

with a soup made of cabbages and bacon, a loin of pork and kidneyscooked in wine, thereby proving

himself a real Montmartre cook, and showing that he had not been spoilt by the Americans, who corrupt the

Clodomir brought forth some Bordeaux, which, though unrecorded among the renowned vintages of M�doc,

gave evidence by its choice and delicate aroma of the high nobility of its origin. We must not omit to

chronicle that, after this wine and many others had been drunk, the cellarman, in solemn state, produced a

Bergundy choice and rare, fullbodied yet not heavy, generous yet delicate, rich with the true Burgundian

mellowness, a noble and, withal, a somewhat heady wine, that brought delight alike to mind and sense.

"Hail to thee, Dionysus, greatest of the Gods!" cried old Nectaire, raising his glass on high. "I drink to thee

who wilt restore the Golden Age, and give again to mortal men, who will become heroes as of old, the grapes

which the Lesbians used to cull, long since, from the vines of Methymna; who wilt restore the vineyards of

Thasus, the white clusters of Lake Mareotis, the storehouses of Falernus, the vines of the Tmolus, and the

wine of Phanae, of all wines the king. And the juice thereof shall be divine, and, as in old Silenus' day, men

When the coffee was served, Prince Istar, Zita, Arcade, and the Japanese angel took it in turns to give an

account of the forces assembled against Ialdabaoth. Angels, in exchanging eternal bliss for the sufferings of

an earthly life, grow in intelligence, acquire the means of going astray and the faculty of selfcontradiction.

Consequently their meetings, like those of men, are tumultuous and confused. Did one of them deal in

figures, the others immediately called them in question. They could not add one number to another without

quarrelling, and arithmetic itself, subjected to passion, lost its certitude. The Ker�b, who had brought with

him the pious Th�ophile, waxed indignant when he heard the musician praising the Lord, and rained down

such blows on his head as would have felled an ox. But the head of a musician is harder than a bucranium,

and the blows which Th�ophile received did not avail to modify that angel's notion of divine providence.

Arcade, having at great length set up his scientific idealism in opposition to Zita's pragmatism, the beautiful

"And you are surprised at that!" exclaimed young Maurice's guardian angel. "I argue, like you, in the

language of human beings. And what is human language but the cry of the beasts of the forests or the

mountains, complicated and corrupted by arrogant anthropoids. How then, Zita, can one be expected to argue

well with a collection of angry or plaintive sounds like that? Angels do not reason at all; men, being superior

to the angels, reason imperfectly. I will not mention the professors who think to define the absolute with the

aid of cries that they have inherited from the pithecanthropoid monkeys, marsupials, and reptiles, their

ancestors! It is a colossal joke! How it would amuse the demiurge, if he had any brains!"

"Nectaire," said the beautiful archangel, "play to us on your flute, if you are not afraid that the Earth and

Nectaire took up his flute. Young Maurice lighted a cigarette. The flame burnt brightly for a moment, casting

back the sky and its stars into the shadows, and then died out. And Nectaire sang of the flame on his divine

"That flame was a whole universe which fulfilled its destiny in less than a minute. Suns and planets were

formed therein. Venus Urania apportioned the orbits of the wandering spheres in those infinite spaces.

Beneath the breath of Eros the first of the gods, plants, animals, and thoughts sprang into being. In the

twenty seconds which hurried by betwixt the life and death of those worlds, civilizations were unfolded, and

empires sank in long decline. Mothers shed tears, and songs of love, cries of hatred, and sighs of victims rose

CHAPTER XXXII. WHICH DESCRIBES HOW NECTAIRE'S FLUTE WAS HEARD IN THE TAVERN OF CLODOMIR 102

"In proportion to its minuteness, that universe lasted as long as this one whereof we see a few atoms

glittering above our heads has lasted or will last. They are, one no less than the other, but a gleam in the

As the clear, pure notes welled up into the charmed air, the earth melted into a soft mist, the stars revolved

rapidly in their orbits, the Great Bear fell asunder, its parts flew far and wide. Orion's belt was shattered; the

Pole Star forsook its magnetic axis. Sirius, whose incandescent flame had lit up the far horizon, grew blue,

then red, flickered, and suddenly died out. The shaken constellations formed new signs which were

extinguished in their turn. By its incantations the magic flute had compressed into one brief moment the life

and the movement of this universe which seems unchanging and eternal both to men and angels. It ceased,

and the heavens resumed their immemorial aspect. Nectaire had vanished. Clodomir asked his guests if they

were pleased with the cabbage soup which, in order that it might be strong, had been kept simmering for

twentyfour hours on the fire, and he sang the praises of the Beaujolais which they had drunk.

The night was mild. Arcade, accompanied by his guardian angel, Th�ophile, Prince Istar, and the Japanese

THE city was asleep. Their footsteps rang loudly on the deserted pavement. Having reached the corner of the

Rue Feutrier, halfway up Montmartre, the little company halted before the dwelling of the beautiful angel.

Arcade was talking about the Thrones and Dominations with Zita, who, her finger on the bell, could not make

up her mind to ring. Prince Istar was tracing the mechanism of a new sort of bomb on the pavement with the

end of his stick, and bellowed so loudly that he woke the sleeping citizens and stirred into activity the

amatory passions of the neighbouring Pasipha�s. Th�ophile was singing the barcarole from the second act of

Aline, Queen of Golconda at the top of his voice. Maurice, his arm in a sling, was fencing lefthanded with

the Japanese, striking sparks from the pavement, and crying "A hit! a hit!" in a piercing voice.

Meanwhile Inspector Grolle at the corner of the next street was dreaming. He had the bearing of a Roman

legionary and displayed all the characteristics of that proudly servile race, who, ever since men first took to

building cities, have been the mainstay of Empires and the support of ruling houses. Inspector Grolle was

very strong, but very tired. He suffered from an arduous profession and from lack of food. He was a man

devoted to duty, but still a man, and he was unable to resist the wiles, the charms, and the blandishments of

the gay ladies whom he met in swarms in the shadows along the empty streets and round about pieces of

waste ground; he loved them. He loved like a soldier under arms. It tired him, but courage conquered fatigue.

Though he had not yet reached the middle of Life's way, he longed for sweet repose and peaceful country

pursuits. At the corner of the Rue Muller, on this mild night, he stood lost in thought. He was dreaming of the

house where he was born, of the little olive wood, of his father's bit of ground, of his old mother, bent with

long and heavy labour, whom he would never see again. Roused from his reverie by the nocturnal tumult,

Inspector Grolle turned the corner of the street, and looked rather unfavourably at the band of loiterers,

wherein his social instinct suspected enemies of law and order. He was patient and resolute. After a lengthy

But Maurice and the Japanese angel were fencing and heard nothing. The musician heard nothing but his own

melodies. Prince Istar was absorbed in the explanation of explosive formul�. Zita was discussing with

Arcade the greatest enterprise that had ever been conceived since the solar system issued from its original

This time the angels heard the solemn word of warning, but either through indifference or contempt, they

"So you want to be taken up, do you" shouted Inspector Grolle, clapping his great hand on Prince Istar's

The Ker�b was indignant at this vile contact, and with one blow from his formidable fist sent the Inspector

flying into the gutter. But Constable Fesandet was already running to his comrade's aid, and they both fell

upon the Prince, whom they belaboured with mechanic fury, and whom, notwithstanding his strength and

weight, they would perchance have dragged all bleeding to the police station, had not the Japanese angel

overset them one after the other without effort, and reduced them to writhing and shreiking in the mud, before

Maurice, Arcade, and Zita had time to intervene. As to the angelic musician, he stood apart trembling, and

At this moment two bakers who were kneading their dough in a neighbouring cellar ran out at the noise, in

their white aprons, stripped to the waist. With an instinctive feeling for social solidarity they took the side of

the downfallen police. Th�ophile conceived a just fear at the sight of them, and fled away; they caught him

and were about to hand him over to the guardians of the peace, when Arcade and Zita tore him from their

hands. The fight continued, unequal and terrible, between the two angels and the two bakers. Like an athlete

of Lysippus in strength and beauty, Arcade smothered his heavy adversary in his arms. The beautiful

archangel drove her dagger into the baker who had attacked her. A dark stream of blood flowed down over

his hairy chest, and the two whitecapped supporters of the law sank to the ground.

Constable Fesandet had fainted face downwards in the gutter. But Inspector Grolle, who had got up, blew a

blast on his whistle loud enough to be heard at the neighbouring policestation, and sprang upon young

Maurice, who, having but one arm with which to defend himself, fired his revolver with his left hand at the

inspector, who put his hand to his heart, staggered, and dropped down. He gave a long sigh, and the shadows

Meanwhile, windows opened one by one, and heads looked out on the street. A sound of heavy steps

approached. Two policemen on bicycles debouched upon the street. Thereupon Prince Istar flung a bomb

which shook the ground, put out the gas, shattered some of the houses, and enveloped the flight of young

Arcade and Maurice came to the conclusion that the safest thing to do after this adventure was to return to the

little flat in the Rue de Rome. They would certainly not be sought for immediately and probably not at all, the

bomb thrown by the Ker�b having fortunately wiped out all witnesses of the affair. They fell asleep towards

dawn, and they had not yet awoke at ten o'clock in the morning when the concierge brought their tea. While

eating his toast and butter and slice of ham, young d'Esparvieu remarked to the angel:

"I used to think that a murder was something very extraordinary. Well, I was mistaken. It is the simplest, the

"And of most ancient tradition," replied the angel. "For long centuries it was both usual and necessary for

man to kill and despoil his fellows. It is still recommended in warfare. It is also honourable to attempt human

life in certain definite circumstances, and people approved when you wanted to assassinate me, Maurice,

because it appeared to you that I had been intimate with your mistress. But killing a policeinspector is not

"Be silent," exclaimed Maurice, "be silent, scoundrel! I killed the poor Inspector instinctively, not knowing

what I was doing. I am grieved to my heart about it. But it is not I, it is you who are the guilty one; you who

are the murderer. It was you who lured me along this path of revolt and violence which leads to the pit. You

have been my undoing. You have sacrificed my peace of mind, my happiness, to your pride and your

wickedness, and all in vain; for I warn you, Arcade, you will not succeed in what you are undertaking."

The concierge brought in the newspapers. On seeing them Maurice grew pale. They announced the outrage in

"An Inspector killed Two cyclist policemen and two bakers seriously wounded Three houses blown

"Arcade, why did you not slay me in the little garden at Versailles amidst the roses, to the song of the

Meanwhile terror reigned in Paris. In the public squares, and in the crowded streets, housewives, stringbag

in hand, grew pale as they listened to the story of the crime, and consigned the perpetrators to the most

dreadful punishment. Shopkeepers, standing at the doors of their shops, put it all down to the anarchists,

syndicalists, socialists, and radicals, and demanded that special measures should be taken against them.

The more thoughtful people recognized the handiwork of the Jew and the German, and demanded the

expulsion of all aliens. Many vaunted the ways of America and advocated lynching. In addition to the printed

news sinister rumours became current. Explosions had been heard at various places; everywhere bombs had

been discovered; everywhere individuals, taken for malefactors, had been struck down by the popular arm

and given up to justice, torn to ribbons. On the Place de la R�publique a drunkard who was crying "Down

The President of the Council and Minister of Justice held long conferences with the Prefect of Police, and

they agreed to take immediate action. In order to allay the excitement of the Parisians, they arrested five or

six hooligans out of the thirty thousand which the Capital contains. The chief of the Russian police, believing

he recognised in this attack the methods of the Nihilists, demanded, on behalf of his Government, that a

dozen refugees should be given up. The demand was immediately granted. Proceedings were also taken for

On learning of these energetic measures, Paris breathed once more, and the evening papers congratulated the

Government. There was excellent news of the wounded. They were out of danger and identified as their

True, Inspector Grolle was dead; but two Sisters of Mercy kept vigil at his side, and the President of the

At night there were panics. In the Avenue de la Revolte the police, noticing a travelling acrobat's caravan on

a piece of waste ground, took it for the retreat of a band of robbers. They whistled for help, and when they

were a goodly number, attacked the caravan. Some worthy citizens joined them; fifteen thousand

revolvershots were fired, the caravan was blown up with dynamite, and among the debris they found the

MAURICE D'ESPARVIEU passed a terrible night. At the least sound he seized his revolver that he might not

fall alive into the hands of justice. When morning came he snatched the newspapers from the hands of the

concierge, devoured them greedily, and gave a cry of joy; he had just read that Inspector Grolle having been

taken to the Morgue for the postmortem, the policesurgeons had only discovered bruises and contusions of a

very superficial nature, and stated that death had been brought about by the rupture of an aneurism of the

"You see, Arcade," he exclaimed triumphantly; "you see I am not an assassin. I am innocent. I could never

Then he grew thoughtful, and no unusual phenomenon reflection dissipated his gaiety.

"I am innocent, but there is no disguising the fact," he said, shaking his head, "I am one of a band of

malefactors. I live with miscreants. You are in your right place there, Arcade, for you are deceitful, cruel, and

perverse. But I come of good family and have received an excellent education, and I blush for it."

"No, Arcade, no; you never had any education. If good principles had been inculcated into you, you would

still hold them. Such principles are never lost. In my childhood I learnt to revere my family, my country, my

religion. I have not forgotten the lesson and I never shall. Do you know what shocks me most in you? It is not

your perversity, your cruelty, your black ingratitude; it is not your agnosticism, which may be borne with at a

pinch; it is not your scepticism, though it is very much out of date (for since the national awakening there is

no longer any scepticism in France); no, what disgusts me in you is your lack of taste, the bad style of

your ideas, the inelegance of your doctrines. You think like an intellectual, you speak like a freethinker, you

have theories which reek of radicalism and Combeism and all ignoble systems. Get along with you! you

disgust me. Arcade, my old friend, Arcade, my dear angel, Arcade, my beloved child, listen to your guardian

angel! Yield to my prayers, renounce your mad ideas; become good, simple, innocent, and happy once more.

Put on your hat, come with me to N�treDame. We will say a prayer and burn a candle together."

Meanwhile public opinion was still active in the matter; the leading papers, the organs of the national

awakening, in articles of real elevation and real depth, unravelled the philosophy of this monstrous attack

which was revolting to the conscience. They discovered the real origin, the indirect but effective cause in the

revolutionary doctrines which had been disseminated unchecked, in the weakening of social ties, the relaxing

of moral discipline, in the repeated appeals to every appetite, to every greedy desire. It would be needful, so

as to cut down the evil at its root, to repudiate as quickly as possible all such chimeras and Utopias as

syndicalism, the incometax, etc., etc., etc. Many newspapers, and these not the least important, pointed out

that the recrudescence of crime was but the natural fruit of impiety and concluded that the salvation of society

lay in an unanimous and sincere return to religion. On the Sunday which followed the crime the

CHAPTER XXXIV. WHICH CONTAINS AN ACCOUNT OF THE ARREST OF BOUCHOTTE AND MAURICE, OF THE DISASTER WHICH BEFELL THE D'ESPARVIEU LIBRARY AND OF THE DEPARTURE OF THE ANGELS 106

Judge Salneuve, who was entrusted with the task of investigation, first examined the persons arrested by the

police, and lost his way among attractive but illusory clues; however, the report of the detective Montremain,

which was laid before him, put him on the right road, and soon led him to recognise the miscreants of La

Jonch�re as the authors of the crime of the Rue de Ramey. He ordered a search to be made for Arcade and

Zita, and issued a warrant against Prince Istar, on whom the detectives laid hands as he was leaving

Bouchotte's, where he had been depositing some bombs of new design. The Ker�b, on learning the detectives'

intentions, smiled broadly and asked them if they had a powerful motorcar. On their replying that they had

one at the door, he assured them that was all he wanted. Thereupon he felled the two detectives on the stairs,

walked up to the waiting car, flung the chauffeur under a motor'bus which was opportunely passing, and

That same evening Monsieur Jeancourt, the Police Magistrate, entered Th�ophile's rooms just when

Bouchotte was swallowing a raw egg to clear her voice, for she was to sing her new song, "They haven't got

any in Germany," at the "National Eldorado" that evening. The musician vas absent. Bouchotte received the

Magistrate, and received him with a hauteur which intensified the simplicity of her attire; Bouchotte was en

d�shabille. The worthy Magistrate seized the score of Aline, Qucen of Golconda, and the loveletters which

the singer carefully preserved in the drawer of the table by her bed, for she was an orderly young woman. He

was about to withdraw when he espied a cupboard, which he opened with a careless air, and found machines

capable of blowing up half Paris, and a pair of large white wings, whose nature and use appeared inexplicable

to him. Bouchotte was invited to complete her toilette, and, in spite of her cries, was taken off to the

Monsieur Salneuve was indefatigable. After the examination of the papers seized in Bouchotte's house, and

acting on the information of Montremain, he issued a warrant for the arrest of young d'Esparvieu, which was

executed on Wednesday, the 27th May, at seven o'clock in the morning, with great discretion. For three days

Maurice had neither slept nor eaten, loved nor lived. He had not a moment's doubt as to the nature of the

matutinal visit. At the sight of the police magistrate a strange calm fell on him. Arcade had not returned to

sleep in the flat. Maurice begged the magistrate to wait for him, dressed with care, and then accompanied the

magistrate to the taxi that was waiting at the door. He felt a calmness of mind which was barely disturbed

when the door of the Conciergerie closed on him. Alone in his cell, he climbed upon the table to look out His

tranquillity was due to his weariness of spirit, to his numbed senses, and to the fact that he no longer stood in

fear of arrest. His misfortune endowed him with superior wisdom. He felt he had fallen into a state of grace.

He did not think too highly or too humbly of himself, but left his cause in the hands of God. With no desire to

cover up his faults, which he would not hide even from himself, he addressed himself in mind to Providence,

to point out that if he had fallen into disorder and rebellion it was to lead his erring angel back into the

On hearing of the arrest of a musichall singer and of a young man of fashion, both Paris and the provinces

felt painful surprise. Deeply stirred by the tragicaccounts which the leading newspapers were bringing out,

the general idea was that the sort of people the authorities ought to bring to justice were ferocious anarchists,

all reeking and dripping from deeds of blood and arson; but they failed to understand what the world of Art

and Fashion should have to do with such things. At this news, which he was one of the last to hear, the

President of the Council and keeper of the Seals started up in his chair. The Sphinxes that adorned it were less

terrible than he, and in the throes of his angry meditation he cut the mahogany of his imperial table with his

penknife, after the manner of Napoleon. And when Judge Salneuve, whose attendance he had commanded,

appeared before him, the President flung his penknife in the grate, as Louis XI flung his cane out of the

window in the prescence of Lauzun; and it cost him a supreme effort to master himself and to say in a voice

"Are you mad? Surely I said often enough that I meant the plot to be anarchist, antisocial, fundamentally

antisocial and antigovernmental, with a shade of syndicalism. I have made it clear enough that I wanted it

CHAPTER XXXIV. WHICH CONTAINS AN ACCOUNT OF THE ARREST OF BOUCHOTTE AND MAURICE, OF THE DISASTER WHICH BEFELL THE D'ESPARVIEU LIBRARY AND OF THE DEPARTURE OF THE ANGELS 107

kept within these lines; and what do you go and make of it?... The vengeance of anarchists and aspirants to

freedom? Whom do you arrest? A singer adored of the nationalist public, and the son of a man highly

esteemed in the Catholic party, who receives our bishops and has the entr�e to the Vatican; a man who may

be one day sent as ambassador to the Pope. At one blow you alienate one hundred and sixty Deputies and

forty Senators of the Right on the very eve of a motion to discuss the question of religious pacification; you

embroil me with my friends of today, with my friends of tomorrow. Was it to find out if you were in the

same dilemma as des Aubels that you seized the loveletters of young Maurice d'Esparvieu? I can put your

mind at rest on that point. You are, and all Paris knows it. But it is not to avenge your personal affronts that

"Monsieur le Garde des Sceaux," murmured the Judge, nearly apoplectic and in a choked voice. "I am an

"You are a fool... and a provincial. Listen to me; if Maurice d'Esparvieu and Mademoiselle Bouchotte are not

Monsieur Ren� d'Esparvieu went himself to fetch his son from the Conciergerie and took him back to the old

house in the Rue Garanci�re. The return was triumphant. The news had been disseminated that Maurice had

with generous imprudence interested himself in an attempt to restore the monarchy, and that Judge Salneuve,

the infamous freemason, the tool of Combes and Andre, had tried to compromise the young man by making

That was what Abb� Patouille seemed to think, and he answered for Maurice as for himself. It was known,

moreover, that breaking with his father, who had rallied to the support of the Republic, young d'Esparvieu

was on the high road to becoming an outandout Royalist. The people who had an inside knowledge of

things saw in his arrest the vengeance of the Jews. Was not Maurice a notorious antiSemite? Catholic

youths went forth to hurl imprecations at Judge Salneuve under the windows of his residence in the Rue

On the Boulevard du Palais a band of students presented Maurice with a branch of palm. Maurice made a

Maurice was overcome with emotion when he beheld the old house in which his childhood had been spent,

It was a great day, unhappily marred by one painful incident. Monsieur Sariette, who had lost his reason as a

consequence of the shocking events that had taken place in the Rue de Courcelles, had suddenly become

violent. He had shut himself up in the library, and there he had remained for twentyfour hours, uttering the

most horrible cries, and, turning a deaf ear alike to threats and entreaties, refused to come out. He had spent

the night in a condition of extreme restlessness, for all night long the lamp had been seen passing rapidly to

and fro behind the curtains. In the morning, hearing Hippolyte shouting to him from the court below, he

opened the window of the Hall of the Spheres and the Philosophers, and heaved two or three rather weighty

tomes on to the old valet's head. The whole of the domestic staff men, women, and boys hurried to the

spot, and the librarian proceeded to throw out books by the armful on to their heads. In view of the gravity of

the situation, Monsieur Ren� d'Esparvieu did not disdain to intervene. He appeared in nightcap and

dressinggown, and attempted to reason with the poor lunatic, whose only reply was to pour forth torrents of

abuse on the man whom till then he had worshipped as his benefactor, and to endeavour to crush him beneath

all the Bibles, all the Talmuds, all the sacred books of India and Persia, all the Greek Fathers, and all the

Latin Fathers, Saint John Chrysostom, Saint Gregory Nazianzen, Saint Augustine, Saint Jerome, all the

apologists, ay! and under the Histoire des Variations, annotated by Bossuet himself! Octavos, quartos, folios

came crashing down, and lay in a sordid heap on the courtyard pavement. The letters of Gassendi, of P�re

CHAPTER XXXIV. WHICH CONTAINS AN ACCOUNT OF THE ARREST OF BOUCHOTTE AND MAURICE, OF THE DISASTER WHICH BEFELL THE D'ESPARVIEU LIBRARY AND OF THE DEPARTURE OF THE ANGELS 108

Mersenne, of Pascal, were blown about hither and thither by the wind. The lady'smaid who had stooped

down to rescue some of the sheets from the gutter got a blow on the head from an enormous Dutch atlas.

Madame Ren� d'Esparvieu had been terrified by the ominous sounds, and appeared on the scene without

waiting to apply the finishing touches of powder and paint. When he caught sight of her, old Sariette became

more violent than ever. Down they came one after another as hard as he could pelt them; the busts of the

poets, philosophers, and historians of antiquity Homer, �schylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Herodotus,

Thucydides, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Cicero, Virgil, Horace, Seneca, Epictetus all lay

scattered on the ground. The celestial sphere and the terrestrial globe descended with a terrifying crash that

was followed by a ghastly hush, broken only by the shrill laughter of little L�on, who was looking down on

the scene from a window above. A locksmith having opened the library door, all the household hastened to

enter, and found the aged Sariette entrenched behind piles of books, busily engaged in tearing and slashing

away at the Lucretius of the Prior de Vend�me annotated in Voltaire's own hand. They had to force a way

through the barricade. But the maniac, perceiving that his stronghold was being invaded, fled away and

escaped on to the roof. For two whole hours he gave vent to shouts and yells that were heard far and wide. In

the Rue Garanci�re the crowd kept growing bigger and bigger. All had their eyes fixed on the unhappy

creature, and whenever he stumbled on the slates, which cracked beneath him, they gave a shout of terror. In

the midst of the crowd, the Abb� Patouille, who expected every moment to see him hurled into space, was

reciting the prayers for the dying, and making ready to give him the absolution in extremis. There was a

cordon of police round the house keeping order. Someone summoned the firebrigade, and the sound of their

approach was soon heard. They placed a ladder against the wall of the house, and after a terrific struggle

managed to secure the maniac, who in the course of his desperate resistance had one of the muscles of his

Maurice dined at home, and there were smiles of tenderness and affection when Victor, the old butler,

brought on the roast veal. Monsieur l'Abb� Patouille sat at the right hand of the Christian mother, unctuously

contemplating the family which Heaven had so plentifully blessed. Nevertheless, Madame d'Esparvieu was ill

at ease. Every day she received anonymous letters of so insulting and coarse a nature that she thought at first

they must come from a discharged footman. She now knew they were the handiwork of her youngest

daughter, Berthe, a mere child! Little L�on, too, gave her pain and anxiety. He paid no attention to his

lessons, and was given tobad habits. He showed a cruel disposition. He had plucked his sister's canaries

alive; he stuck innumerable pins into the chair on which Mademoiselle Caporal was accustomed to sit, and

had stolen fourteen francs from the poor girl, who did nothing but cry and dab her eyes and nose from

No sooner was dinner over than Maurice rushed of to the little dwelling in the Rue de Rome, impatient to

meet his angel again. Through the door he heard a loud sound of voices, and saw assembled in the room

where the apparition had taken place, Arcade, Zita, the angelic musician, and the Ker�b, who was lying on

the bed, smoking a huge pipe, carelessly scorching pillows, sheets, and coverlets. They embraced Maurice,

and announced their departure. Their faces shone with happiness and courage. Alone, the inspired author of

Aline, Queen of Golconda, shed tears and raised his terrified gaze to heaven. The Ker�b forced him into the

party of rebellion by setting before him two alternatives: either to allow himself to be dragged from prison to

Maurice perceived with sorrow that the earth had scarcely any hold over them. They were setting out filled

with immense hope, which was quite justifiable. Doubtless they were but a few combatants to oppose the

innumerable soldiers of the sultan of the heavens; but they counted on compensating for the inferiority of

their numbers by the irresistible impetus of a sudden attack. They were not ignorant of the fact that

Ialdabaoth, who flatters himself on knowing all things, sometimes allows himself to be taken by surprise.

And it certainly looked as if the first attack would have taken him unawares had it not been for the warning of

the archangel Michael. The celestial army had made no progress since its victory over the rebels before the

CHAPTER XXXIV. WHICH CONTAINS AN ACCOUNT OF THE ARREST OF BOUCHOTTE AND MAURICE, OF THE DISASTER WHICH BEFELL THE D'ESPARVIEU LIBRARY AND OF THE DEPARTURE OF THE ANGELS 109

As regards armaments and material it was as out of date as the army of the Moors. Its generals slumbered in

sloth and ignorance. Loaded with honours and riches, they preferred the delights of the banquet to the

fatigues of war. Michael, the commanderinchief, ever loyal and brave, had lost, with the passing of

centuries, his fire and enthusiasm. The conspirators of 1914, on the other hand, knew the very latest and the

most delicate appliances of science for the art of destruction. At length all was ready and decided upon. The

army of revolt, assembled by corps each a hundred thousand angels strong, on all the waste places of the

earth steppes, pampas, deserts, fields of ice and snow was ready to launch itself against the sky. The

angels, in modifying the rhythm of the atoms of which they are composed, are able to traverse the most

varied mediums. Spirits that have descended on to the earth, being formed, since their incarnation, of too

compact a substance, can no longer fly of themselves, and to rise into ethereal regions and then insensibly

grow volatilized, have need of the assistance of their brothers, who, though revolutionaries like themselves,

nevertheless, stayed behind in the Empyrean and remained, not immaterial (for all is matter in the Universe),

but gloriously untrammelled and diaphanous. Certes, it was not without painful anxiety that Arcade, Istar,

and Zita prepared themselves to pass from the heavy atmosphere of the earth to the limpid depths of the

heavens. To plunge into the ether there is need to expend such energy that the most intrepid hesitate to take

flight. Their very substance, while penetrating this fine medium, must in itself grow finespun, become

vaporised, and pass from human dimensions to the volume of the vastest clouds which have ever enveloped

the earth. Soon they would surpass in grandeur the uttermost planets, whose orbits they, invisible and

In this enterprise the vastest that angels could undertake their substance would be ultimately hotter

than the fire and colder than the ice, and they would suffer pangs sharper than death.

Maurice read all the daring and the pain of the undertaking in the eyes of Arcade.

"We are going, with Nectaire, to seek the great archangel to lead us to victory."

Arcade embraced him, and Maurice felt the angel's tears as they dropped upon his cheek.

CLIMBING the seven steep terraces which rise up from the bed of the Ganges to the temples muffled in

creepers, the five angels reached, by halfobliterated paths, the wild garden filled with perfumed clusters of

grapes and chattering monkeys, and, at the far end thereof, they discovered him whom they had come to seek.

The archangel lay with his elbow on black cushions embroidered with golden flames. At his feet crouched

lions and gazelles. Twined in the trees, tame serpents turned on him their friendly gaze. At the sight of his

angelic visitors his face grew melancholy. Long since, in the days when, with his brow crowned with grapes

and his sceptre of vineleaves in his hand, he had taught and comforted mankind, his heart had many times

been heavy with sorrow; but never yet, since his glorious downfall, had his beautiful face expressed such pain

Zita told him of the black standards assembled in crowds in all the waste places of the globe; of the

deliverance premeditated and prepared in the provinces of Heaven, where the first revolt had long ago been

"Friends," replied the great archangel, "I was aware of the object of your visit. Baskets of fruit and

honeycombs await you under the shade of this mighty tree. The sun is about to descend into the roseate

waters of the Sacred River. When you have eaten, you will slumber pleasantly in this garden, where the joys

of the intellect and of the senses have reigned since the day when I drove hence the spirit of the old

Night hung its blue over the garden. Satan fell asleep. He had a dream, and in that dream, soaring over the

earth, he saw it covered with angels in revolt, beautiful as gods, whose eyes darted lightning. And from pole

to pole one single cry, formed of a myriad cries, mounted towards him, filled with hope and love. And Satan

"Let us go forth! Let us seek the ancient adversary in his high abode." And he led the countless host of angels

over the celestial plains. And Satan was cognizant of what took place in the heavenly citadel. When news of

"The irreconcilable foe is rising once again. Let us take heed to ourselves, and in this, our time of danger,

Indignation burst forth on the Mountain of God. At first the faithful Seraphim condemned the rebels to

terrible torture, but afterwards decided on doing battle with them. The anger burning in the hearts of all

inflamed each countenance. They did not doubt of victory, but treachery was feared, and eternal darkness had

There was shouting and singing of ancient hymns and praise of the Almighty. They drank of the mystic wine.

Courage, overinflated, came near to giving way, and a secret anxiety stole into the inner depths of their

souls. The archangel Michael took supreme command. He reassured their minds by his serenity. His

countenance, wherein his soul was visible, expressed contempt for danger. By his orders, the chiefs of the

thunderbolts, the Ker�bs, grown dull with the long interval of peace, paced with heavy steps the ramparts of

the Holy Mountain, and, letting the gaze of their bovine eyes wander over the glittering clouds of their Lord,

strove to place the divine batteries in position. After inspecting the defences, they swore to the Most High

that all was in readiness. They took counsel together as to the plan they should follow. Michael was for the

offensive. He, as a consummate soldier, said it was the supreme law. Attack, or be attacked, there was no

"Moreover," he added, "the offensive attitude is particularly suitable to the ardour of the Thrones and

Beyond that, it was impossible to obtain a word from the valiant chief, and this silence seemed the mark of a

As soon as the approach of the enemy was announced, Michael sent forth three armies to meet them,

commanded by the archangels Uriel, Raphael, and Gabriel. Standards, displaying ail the colours of the

Orient, were unfurled above the ethereal plains, and the thunders rolled over the starry floors. For three days

and three nights was the lot of the terrible and adorable armies unknown on the Mountain of God. Towards

dawn on the fourth day news came, but it was vague and confused. There were rumours of indecisive

victories; of the triumph now of this side, now of that. There came reports of glorious deeds which were

The thunderbolts of Raphael, hurled against the rebels, had, it was said, consumed entire squadrons. The

troops commanded by the impure Zita were thought to have been swallowed up in the whirlwind of a tempest

of fire. It was believed that the savage Istar had been flung headlong into the gulf of perdition so suddenly

that the blasphemies begun in his mouth had been forced backwards with explosive results. It was popularly

supposed that Satan, laden with chains of adamant, had been plunged once again into the abyss. Meanwhile,

the commanders of the three armies had sent no messages. Mutterings and murmurs, mingling with the

rumours of glory, gave rise to fears of an indecisive battle, a precipitate retreat. Insolent voices gave out that a

spirit of the lowest category, a guardian angel, the insignificant Arcade, had checked and routed the dazzling

There were also rumours of wholesale defection in the Seventh Heaven, where rebellion had broken out

before the beginning of Time, and some had even seen black clouds of impious angels joining the armies of

the rebels on Earth. But no one lent an ear to the odious rumours, and stress was laid on the news of victory

which ran from lip to lip, each statement readily finding confirmation. The high places resounded with hymns

of joy; the Seraphim celebrated on harp and psaltery Sabaoth, God of Thunder. The voice of the elect united

with those of the angels in glorifying the Invisible and at the thought of the bloodshed that the ministers of

holy wrath had caused among the rebels, sighs of relief and jubilation were wafted from the Heavenly

Jerusalem towards the Most High. But the beatitude of the most blessed, having swelled to the utmost limit

before due time, could increase no more, and the very excess of their felicity completely dulled their senses.

The songs had not yet ceased when the guards watching on the ramparts signalled the approach of the first

fugitives of the divine army; Seraphim on tattered wing, flying in disorder, maimed Ker�bs going on three

feet. With impassive gaze, Michael, prince of warriors, measured the extent of the disaster, and his keen

intelligence penetrated its causes. The armies of the living God had taken the offensive, but by one of those

fatalities in war which disconcert the plans of the greatest captains, the enemy had also taken the offensive,

and the effect was evident. Scarcely were the gates of the citadel opened to receive the glorious but shattered

remnants of the three armies, when a rain of fire fell on the Mountain of God. Satan's army was not yet in

sight, but the walls of topaz, the cupolas of emerald, the roofs of diamond, all fell in with an appalling crash

under the discharge of the electrophores. The ancient thunderclouds essayed to reply, but the bolts fell short,

Smitten by an invisible foe, the faithful angels abandoned the ramparts. Michael went to announce to his God

that the Holy Mountain would fall into the hands of the demon in twentyfour hours, and that nothing

remained for the Master of the Heavens but to seek safety in flight. The Seraphim placed the jewels of the

celestial crown in coffers. Michael offered his arm to the Queen of Heaven, and the Holy Family escaped

from the palace by a subterranean passage of porphyry. A deluge of fire was falling on the citadel. Regaining

his post once more, the glorious archangel declared that he would never capitulate, and straightway advanced

the standards of the living God. That same evening the rebel host made its entry into the thricesacred city.

On a fiery steed Satan led his demons. Behind him marched Arcade, Istar, and Zita. As in the ancient revels

of Dionysus, old Nectaire bestrode his ass. Thereafter, floating out far behind, followed the black standards.

The garrison laid down their arms before Satan. Michael placed his flaming sword at the feet of the

"Take back your sword, Michael," said Satan. "It is Lucifer who yields it to you. Bear it in defence of peace

and law." Then letting his gaze fall on the leaders of the celestial cohorts, he cried in a ringing voice:

"Archangel Michael, and you, Powers, Thrones, and Dominations, swear all of you to be faithful to your

"Powers, Thrones, and Dominations, of all past wars, I wish but to remember the invincible courage that you

displayed and the loyalty which you rendered to authority, for these assure me of the steadfastness of the

The following day, on the ethereal plain, Satan commanded the black standards to be distributed to the

troops, and the winged soldiers covered them with kisses and bedewed them with tears.

And Satan had himself crowned God. Thronging round the glittering walls of Heavenly Jerusalem, apostles,

pontiffs, virgins, martyrs, confessors, the whole company of the elect, who during the fierce battle had

enjoyed delightful tranquillity, tasted infinite joy in the spectade of the coronation.

The elect saw with ravishment the Most High precipitated into Hell, and Satan seated on the throne of the

Lord. In conformity with the will of God which had cut them off from sorrow they sang in the ancient fashion

And Satan, piercing space with his keen glance, contemplated the little globe of earth and water where of old

he had planted the vine and formed the first tragic chorus. And he fixed his gaze on that Rome where the

fallen God had founded his empire on fraud and lie. Nevertheless, at that moment a saint ruled over the

"To thee I entrust my Spouse. Watch over her faithfully. In thee I confirm the right and power to decide

matters of doctrine, to regulate the use of the sacraments, to make laws and to uphold purity of morals. And

the faithful shall be under obligation to conform thereto. My Church is eternal, and the gates of hell shall not

And the successor of the apostles felt flooded with rapture. He prostrated himself, and with his forehead

"O Lord, my God, I recognise Thy voice! Thy breath has been wafted like balm to my heart. Blessed be Thy

name. Thy will be done on Earth, as it is in Heaven. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

And Satan found pleasure in praise and in the exercise of his grace; he loved to hear his wisdom and his

power belauded. He listened with joy to the canticles of the cherubim who celebrated his good deeds, and he

took no pleasure in listening to Nectaire's flute, because it celebrated nature's self, yielded to the insect and to

the blade of grass their share of power and love, and counselled happiness and freedom. Satan, whose flesh

had crept, in days gone by, at the idea that suffering prevailed in the world, now felt himself inaccessible to

pity. He regarded suffering and death as the happy results of omnipotence and sovereign kindness. And the

savour of the blood of victims rose upward towards him like sweet incense. He fell to condemning

intelligence and to hating curiosity. He himself refused to learn anything more, for fear that in acquiring fresh

knowledge he might let it be seen that he had not known everything at the very outset. He took pleasure in

mystery, and believing that he would seem less great by being understood, he affected to be unintelligible.

Dense fumes of Theology filled his brain. One day, following the example of his predecessor, he conceived

the notion of proclaiming himself one god in three persons. Seeing Arcade smile as this proclamation was

made, he drove him from his presence. Istar and Zita had long since returned to earth. Thus centuries passed

like seconds. Now, one day, from the altitude of his throne, he plunged his gaze into the depths of the pit and

saw Ialdabaoth in the Gehenna where he himself had long lain enchained. Amid he everlasting gloom

Ialdabaoth still retained his lofty mien. Blackened and shattered, terrible and sublime, he glanced upwards at

the palace of the King of Heaven with a look of proud disdain, then turned away his head. And the new god,

as he looked upon his foe, beheld the light of intelligence and love pass across his sorrowstricken

countenance. And lo! Ialdabaoth was now contemplating the Earth and, seeing it sunk in wickedness and

suffering, he began to foster thoughts of kindliness in his heart. On a sudden he rose up, and beating the ether

with his mighty arms, as though with oars, he hastened thither to instruct and to console mankind. Already

Nectaire, Istar, Arcade, and Zita were standing round him. The finches were singing.

"Comrades," said the great archangel, "no we will not conquer the heavens. Enough to have the power.

"God, conquered, will become Satan; Satan, conquering, will become God. May the fates spare me this

terrible lot; I love the Hell which formed my genius. I love the Earth where I have done some good, if it be

possible to do any good in this fearful world where beings live but by rapine. Now, thanks to us, the god of

old is dispossessed of his terrestrial empire, and every thinking being on this globe disdains him or knows

him not. But what matter that men should be no longer submissive to Ialdabaoth if the spirit of Ialdabaoth is

still in them; if they, like him, are jealous, violent, quarrelsome, and greedy, and the foes of the arts and of

beauty? What matter that they have rejected the ferocious Demiurge, if they do not hearken to the friendly

demons who teach all truths; to Dionysus, Apollo, and the Muses? As to ourselves, celestial spirits, sublime

demons, we have destroyed Ialdabaoth, our Tyrant, if in ourselves we have destroyed Ignorance and Fear."

"Nectaire, you fought with me before the birth of the world. We were conquered because we failed to

understand that Victory is a Spirit, and that it is in ourselves and in ourselves alone that we must attack and

4. CHAPTER I. CONTAINING IN A FEW LINES THE HISTORY OF A FRENCH FAMILY FROM 1789 TO THE PRESENT DAY, page = 6

5. CHAPTER II. WHEREIN USEFUL INFORMATION WILL BE FOUND CONCERNING A LIBRARY WHERE STRANGE THINGS WILL SHORTLY COME TO PASS , page = 8

7. CHAPTER IV. WHICH IN ITS FORCEFUL BREVITY PROJECTS TO THE LIMITS OF THE ACTUAL WORLD , page = 13

8. CHAPTER V. WHEREIN EVERYTHING SEEMS STRANGE BECAUSE EVERYTHING IS LOGICAL , page = 14

9. CHAPTER VI. WHEREIN P�RE SARIETTE DISCOVERS HIS MISSING TREASURES , page = 18

10. CHAPTER VII. OF A SOMEWHAT LIVELY INTEREST, WHEREOF THE MORAL WILL, I HOPE, APPEAL GREATLY TO MY READER, SINCE IT CAN BE EXPRESSED BY THIS SORROWFUL QUERY: "THOUGHT, WHITHER DOST THOU LEAD ME?" FOR IT IS A UNIVERSALLY ADMITTED TRUTH THAT IT IS UNHEALTHY TO THINK AND THAT TRUE WISDOM LIES IN NOT THINKING AT ALL , page = 20

11. CHAPTER VIII. WHICH SPEAKS OF LOVE, A SUBJECT WHICH ALWAYS GIVES PLEASURE, FOR A TALE WITHOUT LOVE IS LIKE BEEF WITHOUT MUSTARD: AN INSIPID DISH , page = 23

12. CHAPTER IX. WHEREIN IT IS SHOWN THAT, AS AN ANCIENT GREEK POET SAID, "NOTHING IS SWEETER THAN APHRODITE THE GOLDEN" , page = 27

13. CHAPTER X. WHICH FAR SURPASSES IN AUDACITY THE IMAGINATIVE FLIGHTS OF DANTE AND MILTON , page = 28

14. CHAPTER XI. RECOUNTS IN WHAT MANNER THE ANGEL, ATTIRED IN THE CAST-OFF GARMENTS OF A SUICIDE, LEAVES THE YOUTHFUL MAURICE WITHOUT A HEAVENLY GUARDIAN , page = 33

15. CHAPTER XII. WHEREIN IT IS SET FORTH HOW THE ANGEL MIRAR, WHEN BEARING GRACE AND CONSOLATION TO THOSE DWELLING IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE CHAMPS �LYS�ES IN PARIS, BEHELD A MUSICHALL SINGER NAMED BOUCHOTTE AND FELL IN LOVE WITH HER , page = 37

16. CHAPTER XIII. WHEREIN WE HEAR THE BEAUTIFUL ARCHANGEL ZITA UNFOLD HER LOFTY DESIGNS AND ARE SHOWN THE WINGS OF MIRAR, ALL MOTH-EATEN, IN A CUPBOARD , page = 40

17. CHAPTER XIV. WHICH REVEALS THE CHERUB TOILING FOR THE WELFARE OF HUMANITY AND CONCLUDES IN AN ENTIRELY NOVEL MANNER WITH THE MIRACLE OF THE FLUTE , page = 43

18. CHAPTER XV. WHEREIN WE SEE YOUNG MAURICE BEWAILING THE LOSS OF HIS GUARDIAN ANGEL, EVEN IN HIS MISTRESS'S ARMS, AND WHEREIN WE HEAR THE ABB� PATOUILLE REJECT AS VAIN AND ILLUSORY ALL NOTIONS OF A NEW REBELLION OF THE ANGELS , page = 47

19. CHAPTER XVI. WHEREIN MIRA THE SEERESS, Z�PHYRINE AND THE FATAL AM�D�E ARE SUCCESSIVELY BROUGHT UPON THE SCENE, AND WHEREIN THE NOTION OF EURIPIDES THAT THOSE WHOM ZEUS WISHES TO CRUSH HE FIRST MAKES MAD, IS ILLUSTRATED BY THE TERRIBLE EXAMPLE OF MONSIEUR SARIETTE , page = 51

20. CHAPTER XVII. WHEREIN WE LEARN THAT SOPHAR NO LESS EAGER FOR GOLD THAN MAMMON, LOOKED UPON HIS HEAVENLY HOME LESS FAVOURABLY THAN UPON FRANCE, A COUNTRY BLESSED WITH A SAVINGS BANK AND LOAN DEPARTMENTS AND WHEREIN WE SEE, YET ONCE AGAIN THAT WHOSO IS POSSESSED OF THIS WORLD'S GOODS FEARS THE EVIL EFFECTS OF ANY CHANGE , page = 56

21. CHAPTER XVIII. WHEREIN IS BEGUN THE GARDENER'S STORY, IN THE COURSE OF WHICH WE SHALL SEE THE DESTINY OF THE WORLD UNFOLDED IN A DISCOURSE AS BROAD AND MAGNIFICENT IN ITS VIEWS AS BOSSUET'S DISCOURSE ON THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE IS NARROW AND DISMAL , page = 58

25. CHAPTER XXII. WHEREIN WE ARE SHOWN THE INTERIOR OF A BRIC-A-BRAC SHOP, AND SEE HOW P�RE GUINARDON'S GUILTY HAPPINESS IS MARRED BY THE JEALOUSY OF A LOVE-LORN DAME. , page = 73

26. CHAPTER XXIII. WHEREIN WE ARE PERMITTED TO OBSERVE THE ADMIRABLE CHARACTER OF BOUCHOTTE, WHO RESISTS VIOLENCE BUT YIELDS TO LOVE. AFTER THAT LET NO ONE CALL THE AUTHOR A MISOGYNIST , page = 77

27. CHAPTER XXIV. CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF THE VICISSITUDES THAT BEFEL THE "LUCRETIUS" OF THE PRIOR DE VEND�ME. , page = 79

30. CHAPTER XXVII. WHEREIN WE SHALL SEE REVEALED A DARK AND SECRET MYSTERY AND LEARN HOW IT COMES ABOUT THAT EMPIRES ARE OFTEN HURLED AGAINST EMPIRES, AND RUIN FALLS ALIKE UPON THE VICTORS AND THE VANQUISHED; AND THE WISE READER (IF SUCH THERE BE -- WHICH I DOUBT) WILL MEDITATE UPON THIS IMPORTANT UTTERANCE: "A WAR IS A MATTER OF BUSINESS." , page = 87

32. CHAPTER XXIX. WHEREIN WE SEE HOW THE ANGEL, HAVING BECOME A MAN, BEHAVES LIKE A MAN, COVETING ANOTHER'S WIFE AND BETRAYING HIS FRIEND. IN THIS CHAPTER THE CORRECTNESS OF YOUNG D'ESPARVIEU'S CONDUCT WILL BE MADE MANIFEST , page = 92

33. CHAPTER XXX. WHICH TREATS OF AN AFFAIR OF HONOUR, AND WHICH WILL AFFORD THE READER AN OPPORTUNITY OF JUDGING WHETHER, AS ARCADE AFFIRMS, THE EXPERIENCE OF OUR FAULTS MAKES BETTER MEN AND WOMEN OF US , page = 95

34. CHAPTER XXXI. WHEREIN WE ARE LED TO MARVEL AT THE READINESS WITH WHICH AN HONEST MAN OF TIMID AND GENTLE NATURE CAN COMMIT A HORRIBLE CRIME , page = 100

35. CHAPTER XXXII. WHICH DESCRIBES HOW NECTAIRE'S FLUTE WAS HEARD IN THE TAVERN OF CLODOMIR , page = 103

36. CHAPTER XXXIII. HOW A DREADFUL CRIME PLUNGES PARIS INTO A STATE OF TERROR , page = 107

37. CHAPTER XXXIV. WHICH CONTAINS AN ACCOUNT OF THE ARREST OF BOUCHOTTE AND MAURICE, OF THE DISASTER WHICH BEFELL THE D'ESPARVIEU LIBRARY AND OF THE DEPARTURE OF THE ANGELS , page = 110

38. CHAPTER XXXV. AND LAST, WHEREIN THE SUBLIME DREAM OF SATAN IS UNFOLDED , page = 114