om these lukewarm priests, there perhaps still are real saints who
weep, monks who pray, to the point of dying of sorrow and prayer, for
each of us. And they--with the demoniacs--are the sole connecting link
between that age and this.

"The smug, sententious side of the bourgeoisie already existed in the
time of Charles VII. But cupidity was repressed by the confessor, and
the tradesman, just like the labourer, was maintained by the
corporations, which denounced overcharging and fraud, saw that decried
merchandise was destroyed, and fixed a fair price and a high standard of
excellence for commodities. Trades and professions were handed down from
father to son. The corporations assured work and pay. People were not,
as now, subject to the fluctuations of the market and the merciless
capitalistic exploitation. Great fortunes did not exist and everybody
had enough to live on. Sure of the future, unhurried, they created
marvels of art, whose secret remains for ever lost.

"All the artisans who passed the three degrees of apprentice,
journeyman, and master, developed subtlety and became veritable artists.
They ennobled the simplest of iron work, the commonest faience, the most
ordinary chests and coffers. Those corporations, putting themselves
under the patronage of Saints--whose images, frequently besought,
figured on their banners--preserved through the centuries the honest
existence of the humble and notably raised the spiritual level of the
people whom they protected.

"All that is decisively at an end. The bourgeoise has taken the place
forfeited by a wastrel nobility which now subsists only to set ignoble
fashions and whose sole contribution to our 'civilization' is the
establishment of gluttonous dining clubs, so-called gymnastic societies,
and pari-mutuel associations. Today the business man has but these aims,
to exploit the working man, manufacture shoddy, lie about the quality of
merchandise, and give short weight.

"As for the people, they have been relieved of the indispensable fear of
hell, and notified, at the same time, that they are not to expect to be
recompensed, after death, for their sufferings here. So they scamp their
ill-paid work and take to drink. From time to time, when they have
ingurgitated too violent liquids, they revolt, and then they must be
slaughtered, for once let loose they would act as a crazed stampeded
herd.

"Good God, what a mess! And to think that the nineteenth century takes