of blowing up the Arc de
Triomphe. This he regarded as an odious monument which perpetuated
warfare, hatred among nations, and the false, dearly purchased,
sanguineous glory of conquerors. That colossus raised to the memory of so
much frightful slaughter which had uselessly put an end to so many human
lives, ought, he considered, to be slaughtered in its turn. Could he so
have arranged things that the earth should swallow it up, he might have
achieved the glory of causing no other death than his own, of dying
alone, struck down, crushed to pieces beneath that giant of stone. What a
tomb, and what a memory might he thus have left to the world!

"But there was no means of approaching it," he continued, "no basement,
no cellar, so I had to give up the idea.... And then, although I'm
perfectly willing to die alone, I thought what a loftier and more
terrible lesson there would be in the unjust death of an innocent
multitude, of thousands of unknown people, of all those that might happen
to be passing. In the same way as human society by dint of injustice,
want and harsh regulations causes so many innocent victims, so must
punishment fall as the lightning falls, indiscriminately killing and
destroying whatever it may encounter in its course. When a man sets his
foot on an ant-hill, he gives no heed to all the lives which he stamps
out."

Pierre, whom this theory rendered quite indignant, raised a cry of
protest: "Oh! brother, brother, is it you who are saying such things?"

Yet, Guillaume did not pause: "If I have ended by choosing this basilica
of the Sacred Heart," he continued, "it is because I found it near at
hand and easy to destroy. But it is also because it haunts and
exasperates me, because I have long since condemned it.... As I have
often said to you, one cannot imagine anything more preposterous than
Paris, our great Paris, crowned and dominated by this temple raised to
the glorification of the absurd. Is it not outrageous that common sense
should receive such a smack after so many centuries of science, that Rome
should claim the right of triumphing in this insolent fashion, on our
loftiest height in the full sunlight? The priests want Paris to repent
and do penitence for its liberative work of truth and justice. But its
only right course is to sweep away all that hampers and insults it in its
march towards deliverance. And so may the temple fall with its deity of
falsehood and servitude! And may its ruins crus