iling amidst all that dust, with compartments ever similar
and slabs destitute of ornament, so that rows and rows of the sleepers
mingled without distinctive sign. The inscriptions seldom ventured on a
word of praise, and then how prudent, how delicate it was: the men were
very worthy, very pious: the women very gentle, very beautiful, very
chaste. A perfume of infancy arose, unlimited human affection spread:
this was death as understood by the primitive Christians--death which hid
itself to await the resurrection, and dreamt no more of the empire of the
world!

And all at once before Pierre's eyes arose a vision of the sumptuous
tombs of the Appian Way, displaying the domineering pride of a whole
civilisation in the sunlight--tombs of vast dimensions, with a profusion
of marbles, grandiloquent inscriptions, and masterpieces of
sculptured-work. Ah! what an extraordinary contrast between that pompous
avenue of death, conducting, like a highway of triumph, to the regal
Eternal City, when compared with the subterranean necropolis of the
Christians, that city of hidden death, so gentle, so beautiful, and so
chaste! Here only quiet slumber, desired and accepted night, resignation
and patience were to be found. Millions of human beings had here laid
themselves to rest in all humility, had slept for centuries, and would
still be sleeping here, lulled by the silence and the gloom, if the
living had not intruded on their desire to remain in oblivion so long as
the trumpets of the Judgment Day did not awaken them. Death had then
spoken of Life: nowhere had there been more intimate and touching life
than in these buried cities of the unknown, lowly dead. And a mighty
breath had formerly come from them--the breath of a new humanity destined
to renew the world. With the advent of meekness, contempt for the flesh,
terror and hatred of nature, relinquishment of terrestrial joys, and a
passion for death, which delivers and opens the portals of Paradise,
another world had begun. And the blood of Augustus, so proud of purpling
in the sunlight, so fired by the passion for sovereign dominion, seemed
for a moment to disappear, as if, indeed, the new world had sucked it up
in the depths of its gloomy sepulchres.

However, the Trappist insisted on showing the ladies the steps of
Diocletian, and began to tell them the legend. "Yes," said he, "it was a
miracle. One day, under that emperor, some soldiers were pursuing several
Christians, who to