you put down everything in your papers, you can
testify with truth that the family has rendered greater services to
others than it has ever received. On two occasions, but for us, Plassans
would have been in a fine pickle. And it is perfectly natural that we
should have reaped only ingratitude and envy, to the extent that even
to-day the whole town would be enchanted with a scandal that should
bespatter us with mud. You cannot wish that, and I am sure that you will
do justice to the dignity of my attitude since the fall of the Empire,
and the misfortunes from which France will no doubt never recover."

"Let France rest, mother," he said, speaking again, for she had touched
the spot where she knew he was most sensitive. "France is tenacious of
life, and I think she is going to astonish the world by the rapidity of
her convalescence. True, she has many elements of corruption. I have not
sought to hide them, I have rather, perhaps, exposed them to view. But
you greatly misunderstand me if you imagine that I believe in her final
dissolution, because I point out her wounds and her lesions. I believe
in the life which ceaselessly eliminates hurtful substances, which makes
new flesh to fill the holes eaten away by gangrene, which infallibly
advances toward health, toward constant renovation, amid impurities and
death."

He was growing excited, and he was conscious of it, and making an angry
gesture, he spoke no more. His mother had recourse to tears, a few
little tears which came with difficulty, and which were quickly dried.
And the fears which saddened her old age returned to her, and she
entreated him to make his peace with God, if only out of regard for the
family. Had she not given an example of courage ever since the downfall
of the Empire? Did not all Plassans, the quarter of St. Marc, the
old quarter and the new town, render homage to the noble attitude she
maintained in her fall? All she asked was to be helped; she demanded
from all her children an effort like her own. Thus she cited the example
of Eugene, the great man who had fallen from so lofty a height, and who
resigned himself to being a simple deputy, defending until his latest
breath the fallen government from which he had derived his glory. She
was also full of eulogies of Aristide, who had never lost hope, who had
reconquered, under the new government, an exalted position, in spite of
the terrible and unjust catastrophe which had for a moment buried him
und