sure to get there
at last."

On reaching the Champs Elysees, when the artist saw nothing but
tree-tops on either side of him, and the great green mass of the
Tuileries gardens in the distance, he woke up, as it were, and began to
talk. When the cart had passed the end of the Rue du Roule he had caught
a glimpse of the side entrance of Saint Eustache under the giant roofing
of one of the market covered-ways. He was constantly referring to this
view of the church, and tried to give it a symbolical meaning.

"It's an odd mixture," he said, "that bit of church framed round by an
avenue of cast iron. The one will kill the other; the iron will slay
the stone, and the time is not very far off. Do you believe in chance,
Florent? For my part, I don't think that it was any mere chance of
position that set a rose-window of Saint Eustache right in the middle of
the central markets. No; there's a whole manifesto in it. It is modern
art, realism, naturalism--whatever you like to call it--that has grown
up and dominates ancient art. Don't you agree with me?"

Then, as Florent still kept silence, Claude continued: "Besides, that
church is a piece of bastard architecture, made up of the dying gasp of
the middle ages, and the first stammering of the Renaissance. Have you
noticed what sort of churches are built nowadays? They resemble all
kinds of things--libraries, observatories, pigeon-cotes, barracks; and
surely no one can imagine that the Deity dwells in such places. The
pious old builders are all dead and gone; and it would be better to
cease erecting those hideous carcasses of stone, in which we have no
belief to enshrine. Since the beginning of the century there has only
been one large original pile of buildings erected in Paris--a pile in
accordance with modern developments--and that's the central markets. You
hear me, Florent? Ah! they are a fine bit of building, though they but
faintly indicate what we shall see in the twentieth century! And so, you
see, Saint Eustache is done for! It stands there with its rose-windows,
deserted by worshippers, while the markets spread out by its side and
teem with noisy life. Yes! that's how I understand it all, my friend."

"Ah! Monsieur Claude," said Madame Francois, laughing, "the woman who
cut your tongue-string certainly earned her money. Look at Balthazar
laying his ears back to listen to you. Come, come, get along,
Balthazar!"

The cart was slowly making its way up the incline. At