ith the misery and the abomination of
the beings she nourishes. And it was Jean, too, who, become a widower
and having enlisted again at the first rumor of war, brought the
inexhaustible reserve, the stock of eternal rejuvenation which the earth
keeps; Jean, the humblest, the staunchest soldier at the final downfall,
swept along in the terrible and fatal storm which, from the frontier
to Sedan, in sweeping away the Empire, threatened to sweep away the
country; always wise, circumspect, firm in his hope, loving with
fraternal affection his comrade Maurice, the demented child of the
people, the holocaust doomed to expiation, weeping tears of blood when
inexorable destiny chose himself to hew off this rotten limb, and after
all had ended--the continual defeats, the frightful civil war, the lost
provinces, the thousands of millions of francs to pay--taking up the
march again, notwithstanding, returning to the land which awaited him,
to the great and difficult task of making a new France.

Pascal paused; Clotilde had handed him all the packages, one by one,
and he had gone over them all, laid bare the contents of all, classified
them anew, and placed them again on the top shelf of the press. He was
out of breath, exhausted by his swift course through all this humanity,
while, without voice, without movement, the young girl, stunned by
this overflowing torrent of life, waited still, incapable of thought
or judgment. The rain still beat furiously upon the dark fields. The
lightning had just struck a tree in the neighborhood, that had split
with a terrible crash. The candles flared up in the wind that came in
from the open window.

"Ah!" he resumed, pointing to the papers again, "there is a world in
itself, a society, a civilization, the whole of life is there, with its
manifestations, good and bad, in the heat and labor of the forge which
shapes everything. Yes, our family of itself would suffice as an example
to science, which will perhaps one day establish with mathematical
exactness the laws governing the diseases of the blood and nerves
that show themselves in a race, after a first organic lesion, and
that determine, according to environment, the sentiments, desires, and
passions of each individual of that race, all the human, natural and
instinctive manifestations which take the names of virtues and vices.
And it is also a historical document, it relates the story of the Second
Empire, from the _coup d'etat_ to Sedan; fo