, with Marie, the
shepherdess, and with little Pierre. We remember how they climbed the
_Grise_, lost their way in the mist, and were obliged to spend the night
under the great oak-trees. When we were only about fifteen years of age,
with what delight we read this book, and how we loved that sweet Marie
for her simple grace and her affection, which all seemed so maternal.
How much better we liked her than the Widow Guerin, who was so snobbish
with her three lovers. And how glad we were to be present at that
wedding, celebrated according to the custom in Berry from time
immemorial.

It is easy to see the meaning of all these things. They show us how
natural kindliness is to the heart of man. If we try to find out why
Germain and Marie appear so delightful to us, we shall discover that it
is because they are simple-hearted, and follow the dictates of Nature.
Nature must not be deformed, therefore, by constraint nor transformed by
convention, as it leads straight to virtue.

We have heard the tune of this song before, and we have seen the
blossoming of some very fine pastoral poems and a veritable invasion of
sentimental literature. In those days tears were shed plentifully
over poetry, novels and plays. We have had Bernardin de Saint-Pierre,
Sedaine, Florian and Berquin. The Revolution, brutal and sanguinary as
it was, did not interrupt the course of these romantic effusions. Never
were so many tender epithets used as during the years of the Reign of
Terror, and in official processions Robespierre was adorned with flowers
like a village bride.

This taste for pastoral things, at the time of the Revolution, was not a
mere coincidence. The same principles led up to the idyll in literature
and to the Revolution in history. Man was supposed to be naturally good,
and the idea was to take away from him all the restraints which had
been invented for curbing his nature. Political and religious authority,
moral discipline and the prestige of tradition had all formed a kind of
network of impediments, by which man had been imprisoned by legislators
who were inclined to pessimism. By doing away with all these fetters,
the Golden Age was to be restored and universal happiness was to be
established. Such was the faith of the believers in the millennium
of 1789, and of 1848. The same dream began over and over again, from
Diderot to Lamartine and from Jean-Jacques to George Sand. The same
state of mind which we see reflected in _La Ma