heir martial and ferocious air, and the military order of their
arms and clothes, those courageous, warlike, and merciless soldiers who
had conquered the world, leaving behind them, as in Gaul, massacre,
spoliation and slavery. The moment the soldiers heard the name of Jesus
of Nazareth, and saw him brought in by one of their officers, they all
left their occupations and hastened round him. Genevieve anticipated, on
remarking the coarse and brutal manner of these soldiers, that Mary's
son was about to suffer fresh outrages.

The slave remembered having read in the narratives left by the ancestors
of her husband, Fergan, of the horrors committed by Caesar's soldiers,
the scourge of the Gauls, she did not doubt that these by whom the young
man was surrounded, were equally as cruel as those of the past times.
There was, in the middle of the court of the praetorium, a stone bench,
on which the soldiers made Jesus sit down, still bound; then approaching
him, they commenced insulting and railing at him.

'This, then, is the famous prophet!' said one.

'This, then, is he who announced that the time will come when the sword
will be exchanged for a reaping hook, and when there will be no more
war! no more battles!'

'No more wars! By the valiant gold god Mars! no more war!' exclaimed
other soldiers with indignation.

'Ah! these are your prophecies, thou prophet of evil!'

'No more war! That is, no more clarions, no more floating standards, no
more brilliant cuirasses, no more plumed helmets, which attract the eyes
of the women!'

'No more war! that is, no more conquests.'

'What! no more try our iron boots on the heads of the conquered people!'

'No longer drink their wine while courting their daughters, as here, as
in Gaul, as in the whole world, in fact!'

'No more war! By Hercules! And what then will become of the strong and
the valiant, cursed Nazarene? According to you, they will, from daybreak
till night, labor in the field or weave cloths like base slaves, instead
of dividing their time between battle, idleness, the tavern, and the
passion of love!'

'You, who call yourself the son of God,' said one of these Romans,
raising his fist against the young man; 'you are, then, the son of the
God Fear, coward that you are!'

'You, who call yourself the King of the Jews, would be acknowledged,
then, as king of all the poltroons of the universe!'

'Comrades!' exclaimed one of the soldiers, bursting into a laugh, 'si