ing to do," said M. de Vilmorin, curbing his
exasperation, "is to transfer the government to other hands."

"And you think that will make a difference?"

"I know it will."

"Ah! I take it that being now in minor orders, you already possess the
confidence of the Almighty. He will have confided to you His intention
of changing the pattern of mankind."

M. de Vilmorin's fine ascetic face grew overcast. "You are profane,
Andre," he reproved his friend.

"I assure you that I am quite serious. To do what you imply would
require nothing short of divine intervention. You must change man, not
systems. Can you and our vapouring friends of the Literary Chamber
of Rennes, or any other learned society of France, devise a system of
government that has never yet been tried? Surely not. And can they say
of any system tried that it proved other than a failure in the end? My
dear Philippe, the future is to be read with certainty only in the
past. Ab actu ad posse valet consecutio. Man never changes. He is always
greedy, always acquisitive, always vile. I am speaking of Man in the
bulk."

"Do you pretend that it is impossible to ameliorate the lot of the
people?" M. de Vilmorin challenged him.

"When you say the people you mean, of course, the populace. Will you
abolish it? That is the only way to ameliorate its lot, for as long as
it remains populace its lot will be damnation."

"You argue, of course, for the side that employs you. That is natural, I
suppose." M. de Vilmorin spoke between sorrow and indignation.

"On the contrary, I seek to argue with absolute detachment. Let us
test these ideas of yours. To what form of government do you aspire? A
republic, it is to be inferred from what you have said. Well, you have
it already. France in reality is a republic to-day."

Philippe stared at him. "You are being paradoxical, I think. What of the
King?"

"The King? All the world knows there has been no king in France since
Louis XIV. There is an obese gentleman at Versailles who wears the
crown, but the very news you bring shows for how little he really
counts. It is the nobles and clergy who sit in the high places, with the
people of France harnessed under their feet, who are the real rulers.
That is why I say that France is a republic; she is a republic built
on the best pattern--the Roman pattern. Then, as now, there were great
patrician families in luxury, preserving for themselves power and
wealth, and what else is account