s; but he gave, with something of a Frenchman's lofty
fanfaronnade, larger odds to his adversary than his play justified. In
dominos, where such odds could not well be given, he insisted on playing
such small stakes as two or three francs might cover. In short, M.
Lebeau puzzled Graham. All about M. Lebeau, his manner, his talk, was
irreproachable, and baffled suspicion; except in this,--Graham gradually
discovered that the cafe had a quasi-political character. Listening to
talkers round him, he overheard much that might well have shocked the
notions of a moderate Liberal; much that held in disdain the objects
to which, in 1869, an English Radical directed his aspirations. Vote by
ballot, universal suffrage, etc.,--such objects the French had already
attained. By the talkers at the cafe Jean Jacques they were deemed to be
the tricky contrivances of tyranny. In fact, the talk was more scornful
of what Englishmen understand by radicalism or democracy than Graham
ever heard from the lips of an ultra-Tory. It assumed a strain
of philosophy far above the vulgar squabbles of ordinary party
politicians,--a philosophy which took for its fundamental principles
the destruction of religion and of private property. These two objects
seemed dependent the one on the other. The philosophers of the Jean
Jacques held with that expounder of Internationalism, Eugene Dupont,
"Nous ne voulons plus de religion, car les religions etouffent
l'intelligence."

[Discours par Eugene Dupont a la Cloture du Congres de Bruxelles,
Sept. 3, 1868]

Now and then, indeed, a dissentient voice was raised as to the existence
of a Supreme Being, but, with one exception, it soon sank into silence.
No voice was raised in defence of private property. These sages appeared
for the most part to belong to the class of ouvriers or artisans. Some
of them were foreigners,--Belgian, German, English; all seemed well off
for their calling. Indeed they must have had comparatively high wages,
to judge by their dress and the money they spent on regaling themselves.
The language of several was well chosen, at times eloquent. Some brought
with them women who seemed respectable, and who often joined in the
conversation, especially when it turned upon the law of marriage as a
main obstacle to all personal liberty and social improvement. If this
was a subject on which the women did not all agree, still they discussed
it, without prejudice and with admirable sang froid. Yet