nd simplicity, resumed in M. Anatole France's distinction of
thought and in his princely command of words.

It is followed by six more short chapters, concise and full, delicate and
complete like the petals of a flower, presenting to us the Adventure of
Crainquebille--Crainquebille before the justice--An Apology for the
President of the Tribunal--Of the Submission of Crainquebille to the Laws
of the Republic--Of his Attitude before the Public Opinion, and so on to
the chapter of the Last Consequences. We see, created for us in his
outward form and innermost perplexity, the old man degraded from his high
estate of a law-abiding street-hawker and driven to insult, really this
time, the majesty of the social order in the person of another police-
constable. It is not an act of revolt, and still less of revenge.
Crainquebille is too old, too resigned, too weary, too guileless to raise
the black standard of insurrection. He is cold and homeless and
starving. He remembers the warmth and the food of the prison. He
perceives the means to get back there. Since he has been locked up, he
argues with himself, for uttering words which, as a matter of fact he did
not say, he will go forth now, and to the first policeman he meets will
say those very words in order to be imprisoned again. Thus reasons
Crainquebille with simplicity and confidence. He accepts facts. Nothing
surprises him. But all the phenomena of social organisation and of his
own life remain for him mysterious to the end. The description of the
policeman in his short cape and hood, who stands quite still, under the
light of a street lamp at the edge of the pavement shining with the wet
of a rainy autumn evening along the whole extent of a long and deserted
thoroughfare, is a perfect piece of imaginative precision. From under
the edge of the hood his eyes look upon Crainquebille, who has just
uttered in an uncertain voice the sacramental, insulting phrase of the
popular slang--_Mort aux vaches_! They look upon him shining in the deep
shadow of the hood with an expression of sadness, vigilance, and
contempt.

He does not move. Crainquebille, in a feeble and hesitating voice,
repeats once more the insulting words. But this policeman is full of
philosophic superiority, disdain, and indulgence. He refuses to take in
charge the old and miserable vagabond who stands before him shivering and
ragged in the drizzle. And the ruined Crainquebille, victim of a
ridi