: "Oh, I can understand
all claims and all legitimate reprisals. But theft, cynical theft for the
purpose of profit and enjoyment, is beyond me! It lowers my hope of a
better and more equitable form of society. Yes, that burglary at the
Princess's house has greatly distressed me."

An enigmatical smile, sharp like a knife, again played over Janzen's
lips. "Oh! it's a matter of heredity with you!" said he. "The centuries
of education and belief that lie behind you compel you to protest. All
the same, however, when people won't make restoration, things must be
taken from them. What worries me is that Bergaz should have sold himself
just now. The public prosecutor will use that farcical burglary as a
crushing argument when he asks the jury for Salvat's head."

Such was Janzen's hatred of the police that he stubbornly clung to his
version of the affair. Perhaps, too, he had quarrelled with Bergaz, with
whom he had at one time freely associated.

Guillaume, who understood that all discussion would be useless, contented
himself with replying: "Ah! yes, Salvat! Everything is against that
unhappy fellow, he is certain to be condemned. But you can't know, my
friends, what a passion that affair of his puts me into. All my ideas of
truth and justice revolt at the thought of it. He's a madman certainly;
but there are so many excuses to be urged for him. At bottom he is simply
a martyr who has followed the wrong track. And yet he has become the
scapegoat, laden with the crimes of the whole nation, condemned to pay
for one and all!"

Bache and Morin nodded without replying. They both professed horror of
Anarchism; while Morin, forgetting that the word if not the thing dated
from his first master Proudhon, clung to his Comtist doctrines, in the
conviction that science alone would ensure the happiness and pacification
of the nations. Bache, for his part, old mystical humanitarian that he
was, claimed that the only solution would come from Fourier, who by
decreeing an alliance of talent, labour and capital, had mapped out the
future in a decisive manner. Nevertheless, both Bache and Morin were so
discontented with the slow-paced _bourgeoise_ Republic of the present
day, and so hurt by the thought that everything was going from bad to
worse through the flouting of their own particular ideas, that they were
quite willing to wax indignant at the manner in which the conflicting
parties of the time were striving to make use of Salvat in o