n the ante-chambers of the consulates and the
embassies, with this legend beneath: 'Salvatoribus mundi'.

Then came upon a world in ruins an anxious youth. The children were
drops of burning blood which had inundated the earth; they were born
in the bosom of war, for war. For fifteen years they had dreamed of the
snows of Moscow and of the sun of the Pyramids.

They had not gone beyond their native towns; but had been told that
through each gateway of these towns lay the road to a capital of Europe.
They had in their heads a world; they saw the earth, the sky, the
streets and the highways; but these were empty, and the bells of parish
churches resounded faintly in the distance.

Pale phantoms, shrouded in black robes, slowly traversed the
countryside; some knocked at the doors of houses, and, when admitted,
drew from their pockets large, well-worn documents with which they
evicted the tenants. From every direction came men still trembling with
the fear that had seized them when they had fled twenty years before.
All began to urge their claims, disputing loudly and crying for help;
strange that a single death should attract so many buzzards.

The King of France was on his throne, looking here and there to see if
he could perchance find a bee [symbol of Napoleon D.W.] in the royal
tapestry. Some men held out their hats, and he gave them money; others
extended a crucifix and he kissed it; others contented themselves with
pronouncing in his ear great names of powerful families, and he replied
to these by inviting them into his grand salle, where the echoes were
more sonorous; still others showed him their old cloaks, when they had
carefully effaced the bees, and to these he gave new robes.

The children saw all this, thinking that the spirit of Caesar would
soon land at Cannes and breathe upon this larva; but the silence was
unbroken, and they saw floating in the sky only the paleness of the
lily. When these children spoke of glory, they met the answer:

"Become priests;" when they spoke of hope, of love, of power, of life:
"Become priests."

And yet upon the rostrum came a man who held in his hand a contract
between king and people. He began by saying that glory was a beautiful
thing, and ambition and war as well; but there was something still more
beautiful, and it was called liberty.

The children raised their heads and remembered that thus their
grandfathers had spoken. They remembered having seen in certain obs