nd repeating all his old theories.
Perhaps it was jealous rancor that impelled him to protest against the
victory of life which the whole farm around him proclaimed so loudly.
Depopulation! why, it did not extend fast enough. Paris, which wished to
die, so people said, was really taking its time about it. All the same,
he noticed some good symptoms, for bankruptcy was increasing on all
sides--in science, politics, literature, and even art. Liberty was
already dead. Democracy, by exasperating ambitious instincts and setting
classes in conflict for power, was rapidly leading to a social collapse.
Only the poor still had large families; the elite, the people of wealth
and intelligence, had fewer and fewer children, so that, before final
annihilation came, there might still be a last period of acceptable
civilization, in which there would remain only a few men and women of
supreme refinement, content with perfumes for sustenance and mere breath
for enjoyment. He, however, was disgusted, for he now felt certain that
he would not see that period since it was so slow in coming.

"If only Christianity would return to the primitive faith," he
continued, "and condemn woman as an impure, diabolical, and harmful
creature, we might go and lead holy lives in the desert, and in that way
bring the world to an end much sooner. But the political Catholicism of
nowadays, anxious to keep alive itself, allows and regulates marriage,
with the view of maintaining things as they are. Oh! you will say, of
course, that I myself married and that I have children, which is true;
but I am pleased to think that they will redeem my fault. Gaston says
that a soldier's only wife ought to be his sword, and so he intends
to remain single; and as Lucie, on her side, has taken the veil at the
Ursulines, I feel quite at ease. My race is, so to say, already extinct,
and that delights me."

Mathieu listened with a smile. He was acquainted with that more or
less literary form of pessimism. In former days all such views, as, for
instance, the struggle of civilization against the birth-rate, and the
relative childlessness of the most intelligent and able members of the
community, had disturbed him. But since he had fought the cause of love
he had found another faith. Thus he contented himself with saying rather
maliciously: "But you forget your daughter Andree and her little boy
Leonce."

"Oh! Andree!" replied Seguin, waving his hand as if she did not belong
t