and," cried Pierre, hoping to save him by
reviving his sense of duty. "It isn't allowable for you to go off like
this."

Then he fervently strove to awaken his brother's scientific pride. He
spoke to him of his secret, of that great engine of warfare, which could
destroy armies and reduce cities to dust, and which he had intended to
offer to France, so that on emerging victorious from the approaching war,
she might afterwards become the deliverer of the world. And it was this
grand scheme that he had abandoned, preferring to employ his explosive in
killing innocent people and overthrowing a church, which would be built
afresh, whatever the cost, and become a sanctuary of martyrs!

Guillaume smiled. "I have not relinquished my scheme," said he, "I have
simply modified it. Did I not tell you of my doubts, my anxious
perplexity? Ah! to believe that one holds the destiny of the world in
one's grasp, and to tremble and hesitate and wonder if the intelligence
and wisdom, that are needful for things to take the one wise course, will
be forthcoming! At sight of all the stains upon our great Paris, all the
errors and transgressions which we lately witnessed, I shuddered. I asked
myself if Paris were sufficiently calm and pure for one to entrust her
with omnipotence. How terrible would be the disaster if such an invention
as mine should fall into the hands of a demented nation, possibly a
dictator, some man of conquest, who would simply employ it to terrorize
other nations and reduce them to slavery.... Ah! no, I do not wish to
perpetuate warfare, I wish to kill it."

Then in a clear firm voice he explained his new plan, in which Pierre was
surprised to find some of the ideas which General de Bozonnet had one day
laid before him in a very different spirit. Warfare was on the road to
extinction, threatened by its very excesses. In the old days of
mercenaries, and afterwards with conscripts, the percentage of soldiers
designated by chance, war had been a profession and a passion. But
nowadays, when everybody is called upon to fight, none care to do so. By
the logical force of things, the system of the whole nation in arms means
the coming end of armies. How much longer will the nations remain on a
footing of deadly peace, bowed down by ever increasing "estimates,"
spending millions and millions on holding one another in respect? Ah! how
great the deliverance, what a cry of relief would go up on the day when
some formidable engine