is and of
the Vaudois? The Jews, who instructed and polished Europe, are the only
ones who can save it to-day from the evangelical evil by which it
is devoured. But they have not fulfilled their duty. They have made
Christians of themselves among the Christians. And God punishes them. He
permits them to be exiled and to be despoiled. Anti-Semitism is making
fearful progress everywhere. From Russia my co-religionists are expelled
like savage beasts. In France, civil and military employments are
closing against Jews. They have no longer access to aristocratic
circles. My nephew, young Isaac Coblentz, has had to renounce a
diplomatic career, after passing brilliantly his admission examination.
The wives of several of my colleagues, when Madame Schmoll calls on
them, display with intention, under her eyes, anti-Semitic newspapers.
And would you believe that the Minister of Public Instruction has
refused to give me the cross of the Legion of Honor for which I have
applied? There's ingratitude! Anti-Semitism is death--it is death, do
you hear? to European civilization."

The little man had a natural manner which surpassed all the art in the
world. Grotesque and terrible, he threw the table into consternation by
his sincerity. Madame Martin, whom he amused, complimented him on this:

"At least," she said, "you defend your co-religionists. You are not,
Monsieur Schmoll, like a beautiful Jewish lady of my acquaintance who,
having read in a journal that she received the elite of Jewish society,
went everywhere shouting that she had been insulted."

"I am sure, Madame, that you do not know how beautiful and superior to
all other moralities is Jewish morality. Do you know the parable of the
three rings?"

This question was lost in the murmur of the dialogues wherein were
mingled foreign politics, exhibitions of paintings, fashionable
scandals, and Academy speeches. They talked of the new novel and of the
coming play. This was a comedy. Napoleon was an incidental character in
it.

The conversation settled upon Napoleon I, often placed on the stage
and newly studied in books--an object of curiosity, a personage in the
fashion, no longer a popular hero, a demi-god, wearing boots for his
country, as in the days when Norvins and Beranger, Charlet and Raffet
were composing his legend; but a curious personage, an amusing type in
his living infinity, a figure whose style is pleasant to artists, whose
movements attract thoughtless idl