self."

Pecuchet gave way before the evidence, and surpassed him in scientific
strictness. He would have considered himself dishonoured if he had said
"Charlemagne" and not "Karl the Great," "Clovis" in place of "Clodowig."

Nevertheless he was beguiled by Genoude, deeming it a clever thing to
join together both ends of French history, so that the middle period
becomes rubbish; and, in order to ease their minds about it, they took
up the collection of Buchez and Roux.

But the fustian of the preface, that medley of Socialism and
Catholicism, disgusted them; and the excessive accumulation of details
prevented them from grasping the whole.

They had recourse to M. Thiers.

It was during the summer of 1845, in the garden beneath the arbour.
Pecuchet, his feet resting on a small chair, read aloud in his cavernous
voice, without feeling tired, stopping to plunge his fingers into his
snuff-box. Bouvard listened, his pipe in his mouth, his legs wide apart,
and the upper part of his trousers unbuttoned.

Old men had spoken to them of '93, and recollections that were almost
personal gave life to the prosy descriptions of the author. At that time
the high-roads were covered with soldiers singing the "Marseillaise." At
the thresholds of doors women sat sewing canvas to make tents. Sometimes
came a wave of men in red caps, bending forward a pike, at the end of
which could be seen a discoloured head with the hair hanging down. The
lofty tribune of the Convention looked down upon a cloud of dust, amid
which wild faces were yelling cries "Death!" Anyone who passed, at
midday, close to the basin of the Tuileries could hear each blow of the
guillotine, as if they were cutting up sheep.

And the breeze moved the vine-leaves of the arbour; the ripe barley
swayed at intervals; a blackbird was singing. And, casting glances
around them, they relished this tranquil scene.

What a pity that from the beginning they had failed to understand one
another! For if the royalists had reflected like the patriots, if the
court had exhibited more candour, and its adversaries less violence,
many of the calamities would not have happened.

By force of chattering in this way they roused themselves into a state
of excitement. Bouvard, being liberal-minded and of a sensitive nature,
was a Constitutionalist, a Girondist, a Thermidorian; Pecuchet, being
of a bilious temperament and a lover of authority, declared himself a
_sans-culotte_, and even a Ro