. And if in the depths of pestilential
workshops and factories the slavery of ancient times subsists in the
wage-earning system, if such men as Toussaint still die of want on their
pallets like broken-down beasts of burden, it is nevertheless a fact that
once already, on a memorable day of tempest, Liberty sprang forth from
the vat to wing her flight throughout the world. And why in her turn
should not Justice spring from it, proceeding from those troubled
elements, freeing herself from all dross, flowing forth with dazzling
limpidity and regenerating the nations?

However, the voices of Bache and Morin, rising in the course of their
chat with Guillaume, once more drew Pierre from his reverie. They were
now speaking of Janzen, who after being compromised in a fresh outrage at
Barcelona had fled from Spain. Bache fancied that he had recognised him
in the street only the previous day. To think that a man with so clear a
mind and such keen energy should waste his natural gifts in such a
hateful cause!

"When I remember," said Morin slowly, "that Barthes lives in exile in a
shabby little room at Brussels, ever quivering with the hope that the
reign of liberty is at hand--he who has never had a drop of blood on his
hands and who has spent two-thirds of his life in prison in order that
the nations may be freed!"

Bache gently shrugged his shoulders: "Liberty, liberty, of course," said
he; "only it is worth nothing if it is not organised."

Thereupon their everlasting discussion began afresh, with Saint-Simon and
Fourier on one side and Proudhon and Auguste Comte on the other. Bache
gave a long account of the last commemoration which had taken place in
honour of Fourier's memory, how faithful disciples had brought wreaths
and made speeches, forming quite a meeting of apostles, who all
stubbornly clung to their faith, as confident in the future as if they
were the messengers of some new gospel. Afterwards Morin emptied his
pockets, which were always full of Positivist tracts and pamphlets,
manifestos, answers and so forth, in which Comte's doctrines were
extolled as furnishing the only possible basis for the new, awaited
religion. Pierre, who listened, thereupon remembered the disputes in his
little house at Neuilly when he himself, searching for certainty, had
endeavoured to draw up the century's balance-sheet. He had lost his
depth, in the end, amidst the contradictions and incoherency of the
various precursors. Although