uiet; they there had
plenty of room for their gestures; and they recovered breath there,
although they were always declaring that Paris was far too small for
them, and lacked sufficient air to inflate their ambitious lungs.

'Are you going anywhere particular?' asked Sandoz of Mahoudeau and Jory.

'No,' answered the latter, 'we are going with you. Where are _you_
going?'

Claude, gazing carelessly about him, muttered: 'I don't know. That way,
if you like.'

They turned on to the Quai d'Orsay, and went as far as the Pont de la
Concorde. In front of the Corps Legislatif the painter remarked, with an
air of disgust: 'What a hideous pile!'

'Jules Favre made a fine speech the other day. How he did rile Rouher,'
said Jory.

However, the others left him no time to proceed, the disputes began
afresh. 'Who was Jules Favre? Who was Rouher? Did they exist? A parcel
of idiots whom no one would remember ten years after their death.' The
young men had now begun to cross the bridge, and they shrugged their
shoulders with compassion. Then, on reaching the Place de la Concorde,
they stopped short and relapsed into silence.

'Well,' opined Claude at last, 'this isn't bad, by any means.'

It was four o'clock, and the day was waning amidst a glorious powdery
shimmer. To the right and left, towards the Madeleine and towards the
Corps Legislatif, lines of buildings stretched away, showing against
the sky, while in the Tuileries Gardens rose gradients of lofty rounded
chestnut trees. And between the verdant borders of the pleasure walks,
the avenue of the Champs Elysees sloped upward as far as the eye could
reach, topped by the colossal Arc de Triomphe, agape in front of the
infinite. A double current, a twofold stream rolled along--horses
showing like living eddies, vehicles like retreating waves, which the
reflections of a panel or the sudden sparkle of the glass of a carriage
lamp seemed to tip with white foam. Lower down, the square--with its
vast footways, its roads as broad as lakes--was filled with a constant
ebb and flow, crossed in every direction by whirling wheels, and peopled
with black specks of men, while the two fountains plashed and streamed,
exhaling delicious coolness amid all the ardent life.

Claude, quivering with excitement, kept saying: 'Ah! Paris! It's ours.
We have only to take it.'

They all grew excited, their eyes opened wide with desire. Was it not
glory herself that swept from the summit of that aven