ose things which we
formerly furnished them.

_Son._ Just as at Paris, they quit making handsome furniture and fine
clothes, in order to plant trees, and raise hogs and cows. Though quite
young, I have seen vast storehouses, sumptuous buildings, and quays
thronged with life on those banks of the Seine which are now given up to
meadows and forests.

_Father._ While the provinces are filling up with cities, Paris becomes
country. What a frightful revolution! Three mistaken Aldermen, aided by
public ignorance, have brought down on us this terrible calamity.

_Son._ Tell me this story, my father.

_Father._ It is very simple. Under the pretext of establishing three new
trades at Paris, and of thus supplying labor to the workmen, these men
secured the prohibition of wood, butter, and meats. They assumed the
right of supplying their fellow-citizens with them. These articles rose
immediately to an exorbitant price. Nobody made enough to buy them, and
the few who could procure them by using up all they made were unable to
buy anything else; consequently all branches of industry stopped at
once--all the more so because the provinces no longer offered a market.
Misery, death, and emigration began to depopulate Paris.

_Son._ When will this stop?

_Father._ When Paris has become a meadow and a forest.

_Son._ The three Aldermen must have made a great fortune.

_Father._ At first they made immense profits, but at length they were
involved in the common misery.

_Son._ How was that possible?

_Father._ You see this ruin; it was a magnificent house, surrounded by a
fine park. If Paris had kept on advancing, Master Pierre would have got
more rent from it annually than the whole thing is now worth to him.

_Son._ How can that be, since he got rid of competition?

_Father._ Competition in selling has disappeared; but competition in
buying also disappears every day, and will keep on disappearing until
Paris is an open field, and Master Pierre's woodland will be worth no
more than an equal number of acres in the forest of Bondy. Thus, a
monopoly, like every species of injustice, brings its own punishment
upon itself.

_Son._ This does not seem very plain to me, but the decay of Paris is
undeniable. Is there, then, no means of repealing this unjust measure
that Pierre and his colleagues adopted twenty years ago?

_Father._ I will confide my secret to you. I will remain at Paris for
this purpose; I will call the people to m