M. Brun had become prominent by his proposal that the common expression
"Adieu" should be obliterated from all the French classics, and a slight
fine imposed for its use in private life. "Then," he said, "the very
name of your imagined God will have echoed for the last time in the ear
of man." M. Armagnac specialized rather in a resistance to militarism,
and wished the chorus of the Marseillaise altered from "Aux armes,
citoyens" to "Aux greves, citoyens". But his antimilitarism was of a
peculiar and Gallic sort. An eminent and very wealthy English Quaker,
who had come to see him to arrange for the disarmament of the whole
planet, was rather distressed by Armagnac's proposal that (by way of
beginning) the soldiers should shoot their officers.

And indeed it was in this regard that the two men differed most from
their leader and father in philosophy. Dr Hirsch, though born in France
and covered with the most triumphant favours of French education, was
temperamentally of another type--mild, dreamy, humane; and, despite his
sceptical system, not devoid of transcendentalism. He was, in short,
more like a German than a Frenchman; and much as they admired him,
something in the subconsciousness of these Gauls was irritated at his
pleading for peace in so peaceful a manner. To their party throughout
Europe, however, Paul Hirsch was a saint of science. His large and
daring cosmic theories advertised his austere life and innocent, if
somewhat frigid, morality; he held something of the position of Darwin
doubled with the position of Tolstoy. But he was neither an anarchist
nor an antipatriot; his views on disarmament were moderate and
evolutionary--the Republican Government put considerable confidence in
him as to various chemical improvements. He had lately even discovered
a noiseless explosive, the secret of which the Government was carefully
guarding.

His house stood in a handsome street near the Elysee--a street which in
that strong summer seemed almost as full of foliage as the park itself;
a row of chestnuts shattered the sunshine, interrupted only in one place
where a large cafe ran out into the street. Almost opposite to this
were the white and green blinds of the great scientist's house, an iron
balcony, also painted green, running along in front of the first-floor
windows. Beneath this was the entrance into a kind of court, gay with
shrubs and tiles, into which the two Frenchmen passed in animated talk.

The door