e
subject of discussion. The Divine Right--there is nothing but that!"

"Exactly, Monsieur le Comte."

The pale rays of an October sun were lengthening out behind the woods. A
moist wind was blowing, and as they walked over the dead leaves they
breathed like men who had just been set free.

All that they had not found the opportunity of saying escaped from them
in exclamations:

"What idiots!"

"What baseness!"

"How is it possible to imagine such obstinacy!"

"In the first place, what is the meaning of the Divine Right?"

Dumouchel's friend, that professor who had supplied them with
instruction on the subject of aesthetics, replied to their inquiries in a
learned letter.

"The theory of Divine Right was formulated in the reign of Charles II.
by the Englishman Filmer. Here it is:

"'The Creator gave the first man dominion over the world. It was
transmitted to his descendants, and the power of the king emanates from
God.'

"'He is His image,' writes Bossuet. 'The paternal empire accustoms us to
the domination of one alone. Kings have been made after the model of
parents.'

"Locke refuted this doctrine: 'The paternal power is distinguished from
the monarchic, every subject having the same right over his children
that the monarch has over his own. Royalty exists only through the
popular choice; and even the election was recalled at the ceremony of
coronation, in which two bishops, pointing towards the king, asked both
nobles and peasants whether they accepted him as such.'

"Therefore, authority comes from the people.

"'They have the right to do what they like,' says Helvetius; to 'change
their constitution,' says Vattel; to 'revolt against injustice,'
according to the contention of Glafey, Hotman, Mably, and others; and
St. Thomas Aquinas authorises them to 'deliver themselves from a
tyrant.' 'They are even,' says Jurieu, 'dispensed from being right.'"

Astonished at the axiom, they took up Rousseau's _Contrat Social_.
Pecuchet went through to the end. Then closing his eyes, and throwing
back his head, he made an analysis of it.

"A convention is assumed whereby the individual gives up his liberty.

"The people at the same time undertook to protect him against the
inequalities of nature, and made him owner of the things he had in his
possession."

"Where is the proof of the contract?"

"Nowhere! And the community does not offer any guaranty. The citizens
occupy themselves exclusively with politi