on by the power of the sun! If
necessary, they would return across the other side of the globe, they
would again and again make the circuit of the earth, until the day should
come when they could establish themselves in peace, truth, and justice.
After the next civilisation on the shores of the Atlantic, which would
become the world's centre, skirted by queenly cities, there would spring
up yet another civilisation, having the Pacific for its centre, with
seaport capitals that could not be yet foreseen, whose germs yet
slumbered on unknown shores. And in like way there would be still other
civilisations and still others! And at that last moment, the inspiriting
thought came to Pierre that the great movement of the nations was the
instinct, the need which impelled them to return to unity. Originating in
one sole family, afterwards parted and dispersed in tribes, thrown into
collision by fratricidal hatred, their tendency was none the less to
become one sole family again. The provinces united in nations, the
nations would unite in races, and the races would end by uniting in one
immortal mankind--mankind at last without frontiers, or possibility of
wars, mankind living by just labour amidst an universal commonwealth. Was
not this indeed the evolution, the object of the labour progressing
everywhere, the finish reserved to History? Might Italy then become a
strong and healthy nation, might concord be established between her and
France, and might that fraternity of the Latin races become the beginning
of universal fraternity! Ah! that one fatherland, the whole earth
pacified and happy, in how many centuries would that come--and what a
dream!

Then, on reaching the station the scramble prevented Pierre from thinking
any further. He had to take his ticket and register his luggage, and
afterwards he at once climbed into the train. At dawn on the next day but
one, he would be back in Paris.

END

*****

PARIS

FROM THE THREE CITIES

By Emile Zola

Translated By Ernest A. Vizetelly

BOOK I.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE

WITH the present work M. Zola completes the "Trilogy of the Three
Cities," which he began with "Lourdes" and continued with "Rome"; and
thus the adventures and experiences of Abbe Pierre Froment, the doubting
Catholic priest who failed to find faith at the miraculous grotto by the
Cave, and hope amidst the crumbling theocracy of the Vatican, are here
bro