Penguin Island
by
Anatole France
Part 5 out of 5
You have not seen angels then.--Liber Terribilis.
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We are now beginning to study a chemistry which will deal with effects
produced by bodies containing a quantity of concentrated energy the like of
which we have not yet had at our disposal.--Sir William Ramsay.
S. I
The houses were never high enough to satisfy them; they kept on making them
still higher and built them of thirty or forty storeys: with offices, shops,
banks, societies one above another; they dug cellars and tunnels ever deeper
downwards.
Fifteen millions of men laboured in a giant town by the light of beacons which
shed forth their glare both day and night. No light of heaven pierced through
the smoke of the factories with which the town was girt, but sometimes the red
disk of a rayless sun might be seen riding in the black firmament through
which iron bridges ploughed their way, and from which there descended a
continual shower of soot and cinders. It was the most industrial of all the
cities in the world and the richest. Its organisation seemed perfect. None of
the ancient aristocratic or democratic forms remained; everything was
subordinated to the interests of the trusts. This environment gave rise to
what anthropologists called the multi-millionaire type. The men of this type
were at once energetic and frail, capable of great activity in forming mental
combinations and of prolonged labour in offices, but men whose nervous
irritability suffered from hereditary troubles which increased as time went
on.
Like all true aristocrats, like the patricians of republican Rome or the
squires of old England, these powerful men affected a great severity in their
habits and customs. They were the ascetics of wealth. At the meetings of the
trusts an observer would have noticed their smooth and puffy faces, their
lantern cheeks, their sunken eyes and wrinkled brows. With bodies more
withered, complexions yellower, lips drier, and eyes filled with a more
burning fanaticism than those of the old Spanish monks, these
multimillionaires gave themselves up with inextinguishable ardour to the
austerities of banking and industry. Several, denying themselves all
happiness, all pleasure, and all rest, spent their miserable lives in rooms
without light or air, furnished only with electrical apparatus, living on eggs
and milk, and sleeping on camp beds. By doing nothing except pressing nickel
buttons with their fingers, these mystics heaped up riches of which they never
even saw the signs, and acquired the vain possibility of gratifying desires
that they never experienced.
The worship of wealth had its martyrs. One of these multi-millionaires, the
famous Samuel Box, preferred to die rather than surrender the smallest atom of
his property. One of his workmen, the victim of an accident while at work,
being refused any indemnity by his employer, obtained a verdict in the courts,
but repelled by innumerable obstacles of procedure, he fell into the direst
poverty. Being thus reduced to despair, he succeeded by dint of cunning and
audacity in confronting his employer with a loaded revolver in his hand, and
threatened to blow out his brains if he did not give him some assistance.
Samuel Box gave nothing, and let himself be killed for the sake of principle.
Examples that come from high quarters are followed. Those who possessed some
small capital (and they were necessarily the greater number), affected the
ideas and habits of the multi-millionaires, in order that they might be
classed among them. All passions which injured the increase or the
preservation of wealth, were regarded as dishonourable; neither indolence, nor
idleness, nor the taste for disinterested study, nor love of the arts, nor,
above all, extravagance, was ever forgiven; pity was condemned as a dangerous
weakness. Whilst every inclination to licentiousness excited public
reprobation, the violent and brutal satisfaction of an appetite was, on the
contrary, excused; violence, in truth, was regarded as less injurious to
morality, since it manifested a form of social energy. The State was firmly
based on two great public virtues: respect for the rich and contempt for the
poor. Feeble spirits who were still moved by human suffering had no other
resource than to take refuge in a hypocrisy which it was impossible to blame,
since it contributed to the maintenance of order and the solidity of
institutions.
Thus, among the rich, all were devoted to their social order, or seemed to be
so; all gave good examples, if all did not follow them. Some felt the gravity
of their position cruelly; but they endured it either from pride or from duty.
Some attempted, in secret and by subterfuge, to escape from it for a moment.
One of these, Edward Martin, the President, of the Steel Trust, sometimes
dressed himself as a poor man, went: forth to beg his bread, and allowed
himself to be jostled by the passers-by. One day, as he asked alms on a
bridge, he engaged in a quarrel with a real beggar, and filled with a fury of
envy, he strangled him.
As they devoted their whole intelligence to business, they sought no
intellectual pleasures. The theatre, which had formerly been very flourishing
among them, was now reduced to pantomimes and comic dances. Even the pieces in
which women acted were given up; the taste for pretty forms and brilliant
toilettes had been lost; the somersaults of clowns and the music of negroes
were preferred above them, and what roused enthusiasm was the sight of women
upon the stage whose necks were bedizened with diamonds, or processions
carrying golden bars in triumph. Ladies of wealth were as much compelled as
the men to lead a respectable life. According to a tendency common to all
civilizations, public feeling set them up as symbols; they were, by their
austere magnificence, to represent both the splendour of wealth and its
intangible . The old habits of gallantry had been reformed, Tut fashionable
lovers were now secretly replaced by muscular labourers or stray grooms.
Nevertheless, scandals were rare, a foreign journey concealed nearly all of
them, and the Princesses of the Trusts remained objects of universal esteem.
The rich formed only a small minority, but their collaborators, who composed
the entire people, had been completely won over or completely subjugated by
them. They formed two classes, the agents of commerce or banking, and workers
in the factories. The former contributed an immense amount of work and
received large salaries. Some of them succeeded in founding establishments of
their own; for in the constant increase of the public wealth the more
intelligent and audacious could hope for anything. Doubtless it would have
been possible to find a certain number of discontented and rebellious persons
among the immense crowd of engineers and accountants, but this powerful
society had imprinted its firm discipline even on the minds of its opponents.
The very anarchists were laborious and regular.
As for the workmen who toiled in the factories that surrounded the town, their
decadence, both physical and moral, was terrible; they were examples of the
type of poverty as it is set forth by anthropology. Although the development
among them of certain muscles, due to the particular nature of their work,
might give a false idea of their strength, they presented sure signs of morbid
debility. Of low stature, with small heads and narrow chests, they were
further distinguished from the comfortable classes by a multitude of
physiological anomalies, and, in particular, by a common want of symmetry
between the head and the limbs. And they were destined to a gradual and
continuous degeneration, for the State made soldiers of the more robust among
them, and the health of these did not long withstand the brothels and the
drink-shops that sprang up around their barracks. The proletarians became more
and more feeble in mind. The continued weakening of their intellectual
faculties was not entirely due to their manner of life; it resulted also from
a methodical selection carried out by the employers. The latter, fearing that
workmen of too great ability might be inclined to put forward legitimate
demands, took care to eliminate them by every possible means, and preferred to
engage ignorant and stupid labourers, who were incapable of defending their
rights, but were yet intelligent enough to perform their toil, which highly
perfected machines rendered extremely simple. Thus the proletarians were
unable to do anything to improve their lot. With difficulty did they succeed
by means of strikes in maintaining the rate of their wages. Even this means
began to fail them. The alternations of production inherent in the capitalist
system caused such cessations of work that, in several branches of industry,
as soon as a strike was declared, the accumulation of products allowed the
employers to dispense with the strikers. In a word, these miserable employees
were plunged in a gloomy apathy that nothing enlightened and nothing
exasperated. They were necessary instruments for the social order and well
adapted to their purpose.
Upon the whole, this social order seemed the most firmly established that had
yet been seen, at least amon kind, for that of bees and ants is incomparably
more stable. Nothing could foreshadow the ruin of a system founded on what is
strongest in human nature, pride and cupidity. However, keen observers
discovered several grounds for uneasiness. The most certain, although the
least apparent, were of an economic order, and consisted in the continually
increasing amount of over-production, which entailed long and cruel
interruptions of labour, though these were, it is true, utilized by the
manufacturers as a means of breaking the power of the workmen, by facing them
with the prospect of a lock-out. A more obvious peril resulted from the
physiological state of almost the entire population. "The health of the poor
is what it must be," said the experts in hygiene, "but that of the rich leaves
much to be desired." It was not difficult to find the causes of this. The
supply of oxygen necessary for life was insufficient in the city, and men
breathed in an artificial air. The food trusts, by means of the most daring
chemical syntheses, produced artificial wines, meat, milk, fruit, and
vegetables, and the diet thus imposed gave rise to stomach and brain troubles.
The multi-millionaires were bald at the age of eighteen; some showed from time
to time a dangerous weakness of mind. Over-strung and enfeebled, they gave
enormous sums to ignorant charlatans; and it was a common thing for some
bath-attendant or other trumpery who turned healer or prophet, to make a rapid
fortune by the practice of medicine or theology. The number of lunatics
increased continually; suicides multiplied in the world of wealth, and many of
them were accompanied by atrocious and extraordinary circumstances, which bore
witness to an unheard o perversion of intelligence and sensibility.
Another fatal symptom created a strong impression upon average minds. Terrible
accidents, henceforth periodical and regular, entered into people's
calculations, and kept mounting higher and higher in statistical tables. Every
day, machines burst into fragments, houses fell down, trains laden with
merchandise fell on to the streets, demolishing entire buildings and crushing
hundreds of passers-by. Through the ground, honey-combed with tunnels, two or
three storeys of work-shops would often crash, engulfing all those who worked
in them.
S. 2
In the southwestern district of the city, on an eminence which had preserved
its ancient name of Fort Saint-Michel, there stretched a square where some old
trees still spread their exhausted arms above the greensward. Landscape
gardeners had constructed a cascade, grottos, a torrent, a lake, and an
island, on its northern slope. From this side one could see the whole town
with its streets, its boulevards, its squares, the multitude of its roofs and
domes, its air-passages, and its crowds of men, covered with a veil of
silence, and seemingly enchanted by the distance. This square was the
healthiest place in the capital; here no smoke obscured the sky, and children
were brought here to play. In summer some employees from the neighbouring
offices and laboratories used to resort to it for a moment after their
luncheons, but they did not disturb its solitude and peace.
It was owing to this custom that, one day in June, about mid-day, a telegraph
clerk, Caroline Meslier, came and sat down on a bench at the end of a terrace.
In order to refresh her eyes by the sight of a little green, she turned her
back to the town. Dark, with brown eyes, robust and placid, Caroline appeared
to be from twenty-five to twenty-eight years of age. Almost immediately, a
clerk in the Electricity Trust, George Clair, took his place beside her. Fair,
thin, and supple, he had features of a feminine delicacy; he was scarcely
older than she, and looked still younger. As they met almost every day in this
place, a comradeship had sprung up between them, and they enjoyed chatting
together. But their conversation had never been tender, affectionate, or even
intimate. Caroline, although it had happened to her in the past to repent of
her confidence, might perhaps have been less reserved had not George Clair
always shown himself extremely restrained in his expressions and behaviour. He
always gave a purely intellectual character to the conversation, keeping it
within the realm of general ideas, and, moreover, expressing himself on all
subjects with the greatest freedom. He spoke frequently of the organization of
society, and the conditions of labour.
"Wealth," said he, "is one of the means of living happily; but people have
made it the sole end of existence."
And this state of things seemed monstrous to both of them.
They returned continually to various scientific subjects with which they were
both familiar.
On that day they discussed the evolution of chemistry.
"From the moment," said Clair, "that radium was seen to be transformed into
helium, people ceased to affirm the immutability of simple bodies; in this way
all those old laws about simple relations and about the indestructibility of
matter were abolished."
"However," said she, "chemical laws exist."
For, being a woman, she had need of belief.
He resumed carelessly:
"Now that we can procure radium in sufficient quantities, science possesses
incomparable means of analysis; even at present we get glimpses, within what
are called simple bodies, of extremely diversified complex ones, and we
discover energies in matter which seem to increase even by reason of its
tenuity."
As they talked, they threw bits of bread to the birds, and some children
played around them.
Passing from one subject to another:
"This hill, in the quaternary epoch," said Clair, "was inhabited by wild
horses. Last year, as they were tunnelling for the water mains, they found a
layer of the bones of primeval horses."
She was anxious to know whether, at that distant epoch, man had yet appeared.
He told her that man used to hunt the primeval horse long before he tried to
domesticate him.
"Man," he added, "was at first a hunter, then he became a shepherd, a
cultivator, a manufacturer . . . and these diverse civilizations succeeded
each other at intervals of time that the mind cannot conceive."
He took out his watch.
Caroline asked if it was already time to go back to the office.
He said it was not, that it was scarcely half-past twelve.
A little girl was making mud pies at the foot of their bench; a little boy of
seven or eight years was playing in front of them. Whilst his mother was
sewing on an adjoining bench, he played all alone at being a run-away horse,
and with that power of illusion, of which children are capable, he imagined
that he was at the same time the horse, and those who ran after him, and those
who fled in terror before him. He kept struggling with himself and shouting:
"Stop him, Hi! Hi! This is an awful horse, he has got the bit between his
teeth."
Caroline asked the question:
"Do you think that men were happy formerly?"
Her companion answered:
"They suffered less when they were younger. They acted like that little boy:
they played; they played at arts, at virtues, at vices, at heroism, at
beliefs, at pleasures; they had illusions which entertained them; they made a
noise; they amused themselves. But now. . . ."
He interrupted himself, and looked again at his watch.
The child, who was running, struck his foot against the little girl's pail,
and fell his full length on the gravel. He remained a moment stretched out
motionless, then raised himself up on the palms of his hands. His forehead
puckered, his mouth opened, and he burst into tears. His mother ran up, but
Caroline had lifted him from the ground and was wiping his eyes and mouth with
her handkerchief.
The child kept on sobbing and Clair took him in his arms.
"Come, don't cry, my little man! I am going to tell you a story.
"A fisherman once threw his net into the sea and drew out a little, sealed,
copper pot, which he opened with his knife. Smoke came out of it, and as it
mounted up to the clouds the smoke grew thicker and thicker and became a giant
who gave such a terrible yawn that the whole world was blown to dust.
Clair stopped himself, gave a dry laugh, and handed the child back to his
mother. Then he took out his watch again, and kneeling on the bench with his
elbows resting on its back he gazed at the town. As far as the eye could
reach, the multitude of houses stood out in their tiny immensity.
Caroline turned her eyes in the same direction.
"What splendid weather it is!" said she. "The sun's rays change the smoke on
the horizon into gold. The worst thing about civilization is that it deprives
one of the light of day."
We did not answer; his looks remained fixed on a place in the town.
After some seconds of silence they saw about half a mile away, in the richer
district on the other side of the river, a sort of tragic fog rearing itself
upwards. A moment afterwards an explosion was heard even where they were
sitting, and an immense tree of smoke mounted towards the pure sky. Little by
little the air was filled with an imperceptible murmur caused by the shouts of
thousands of men. Cries burst forth quite close to the square.
"What has been blown up?"
The bewilderment was great, for although accidents were common, such a violent
explosion as this one had never been seen, and everybody perceived that
something terribly strange had happened.
Attempts were made to locate the place of the accident; districts, streets,
different buildings, clubs, theatres, and shops were mentioned. Information
gradually became more precise and at last the truth was known.
"The Steel Trust has just been blown up."
Clair put his watch back into his pocket.
Caroline looked at him closely and her eyes filled with astonishment.
At last she whispered in his ear:
"Did you know it? Were you expecting it? Was it you . . .?"
He answered very calmly:
"That town ought to be destroyed."
She replied in a gentle and thoughtful tone:
"I think so too."
And both of them returned quietly to their work.
S. 3
From that day onward, anarchist attempts followed one another every week
without interruption. The victims were numerous, and almost all of them
belonged to the poorer classes. These crimes roused public resentment. It was
among domestic servants, hotel-keepers, and the employees of such small shops
as the Trusts still allowed to exist, that indignation burst forth most
vehemently. In popular districts women might be heard demanding unusual
punishments for the dynamitards. (They were called by this old name, although
it was hardly appropriate to them, since, to these unknown chemists, dynamite
was an innocent material only fit to destroy ant-hills, and they considered it
mere child's play to explode nitro-glycerine with a cartridge made of
fulminate of mercury.) Business ceased suddenly, and those who were least rich
were the first to feel the effects. They spoke of doing justice themselves to
the anarchists. In the mean time the factory workers remained hostile or
indifferent to violent action. They were threatened, as a result of the
decline of business, with a likelihood of losing their work, or even a
lock-out in all the factories. The Federation of Trade Unions proposed a
general strike as the most powerful means of influencing the employers, and
the best aid that could be given to the revolutionists, but all the trades
with the exception of the gliders refused to cease work.
The police made numerous arrests. Troops summoned from all parts of the
National Federation protected the offices of the Trusts, the houses of the
multi-millionaires, the public halls, the banks, and the big shops. A
fortnight passed without a single explosion, and it was concluded that the
dynamitards, in all probability but a handful of persons, perhaps even Still
fewer, had all been killed or captured, or that they were in hiding, or had
taken flight. Confidence returned; it returned at first among the poorer
classes. Two or three hundred thousand soldiers, who bad been lodged in the
most closely populated districts, stimulated trade, and people began to cry
out: "Hurrah for the army!"
The rich, who had not been so quick to take alarm, were reassured more slowly.
But at the Stock Exchange a group of "bulls" spread optimistic rumours and by
a powerful effort put a brake upon the fall in prices. Business improved.
Newspapers with big circulations supported the movement. With patriotic
eloquence they depicted capital as laughing in its impregnable position at the
assaults of a few dastardly criminals, and public wealth maintaining its
serene ascendency in spite of the vain threats made against it. They were
sincere in their attitude, though at the same time they found it benefited
them. Outrages were forgotten or their occurrence denied. On Sundays, at the
race-meetings, the stands were adorned by women covered with pearls and
diamonds. It was observed with joy that the capitalists had not suffered.
Cheers were given for the multi-millionaires in the saddling rooms.
On the following day the Southern Railway Station, the Petroleum Trust, and
the huge church built at the expense of Thomas Morcellet were all blown up.
Thirty houses were in flames, and the beginning of a fire was discovered at
the docks. The firemen showed amazing intrepidity and zeal. They managed their
tall fire-escapes with automatic precision, and climbed as high as thirty
storeys to rescue the luckless inhabitants from the flames. The soldiers
performed their duties with spirit, and were given a double ration of coffee.
But these fresh casualties started a panic. Millions of people, who wanted to
take their money with them and leave the town at once, crowded the great
banking houses. These establishments, after paying out money for three days,
closed their doors amid mutterings of a riot. A crowd of fugitives, laden with
their baggage, besieged the railway stations and took the town by storm. Many
who were anxious to lay in a stock of provisions and take refuge in the
cellars, attacked the grocery stores, although they were guarded by soldiers
with fixed bayonets. The public authorities displayed energy. Numerous arrests
were made and thousands of warrants issued against suspected persons.
During the three weeks that followed no outrage was committed. There was a
rumour that bombs had been found in the Opera House, in the cellars of the
Town Hall, and beside one of the Pillars of the Stock Exchange. But it was
soon known that these were boxes of sweets that had been put in those places
by practical jokers or lunatics. One of the accused, when questioned by a
magistrate, declared that he was the chief author of the explosions, and said
that all his accomplices had lost their lives. These confessions were
published by the newspapers and helped to reassure public opinion. It was only
towards the close of the examination that the magistrates saw they had to deal
with a pretender who was in no way connected with any of the crimes.
The experts chosen by the courts discovered nothing that enabled them to
determine the engine employed in the work of destruction. According to their
conjectures the new explosive emanated from a gas which radium evolves, and it
was supposed that electric waves, produced by a special type of oscillator,
were propagated through space and thus caused the explosion. But even the
ablest chemist could say nothing precise or certain. At last two policemen,
who were passing in front of the Hotel Meyer, found on the pavement, close to
a ventilator, an egg made of white metal and provided with a capsule at each
end. They picked it up carefully, and, on the orders of their chief, carried
it to the municipal laboratory. Scarcely had the experts assembled to examine
it, than the egg burst and blew up the amphitheatre and the dome. All the
experts perished, and with them Collin, the General of Artillery, and the
famous Professor Tigre.
The capitalist society did not allow itself to be daunted by this fresh
disaster. The great banks re-opened their doors, declaring that they would
meet demands partly in bullion and partly in paper money guaranteed by the
State: The Stock Exchange and the Trade Exchange, in spite of the complete
cessation of business, decided not to suspend their sittings.
In the mean time the magisterial investigation into the case of those who had
been first accused had come to an end. Perhaps the evidence brought against
them might have appeared insufficient under other circumstances, but the zeal
both of the magistrates and the public made up for this insufficiency. On the
eve of the day fixed for the trial the Courts of justice were blown up and
eight hundred people were killed, the greater number of them being judges and
lawyers. A furious crowd broke into the prison and lynched the prisoners. The
troops sent to restore order were received with showers of stones and revolver
shots; several soldiers being dragged from their horses and trampled
underfoot. The soldiers fired on the mob and many persons were killed. At last
the public authorities succeeded in establishing tranquillity. Next day the
Bank was blown up.
From that time onwards unheard-of things took place. The factory workers, who
had refused to strike, rushed in crowds into the town and set fire to the
houses. Entire regiments, led by their officers, joined the workmen, went with
them through the town singing revolutionary hymns, and took barrels of
petroleum from the docks with which to feed the fires. Explosions were
continual. One morning a monstrous tree of smoke, like the ghost of a huge
palm tree half a mile in height, rose above the giant Telegraph Hall which
suddenly fell into a complete ruin.
Whilst half the town was in flames, the other half pursued its accustomed
life. In the mornings, milk pails could be heard jingling in the dairy carts.
In a deserted avenue some old navvy might be seen seated against a wall slowly
eating hunks of bread with perhaps a little meat. Almost all the presidents of
the trusts remained at their posts. Some of them performed their duty with
heroic simplicity. Raphael Box, the son of a martyred multi-millionaire, was
blown up as he was presiding at the general meeting of the Sugar Trust. He was
given a magnificent funeral and the procession on its way to the cemetery had
to climb six times over piles of ruins or cross upon planks over the uprooted
roads.
The ordinary helpers of the rich, the clerks, employees, brokers, and agents,
preserved an unshaken fidelity. The surviving clerks of the Bank that had been
blown up, made their way along the ruined streets through the midst of smoking
houses to hand in their bills of exchange, and several were swallowed up in
the flames while endeavouring to present their receipts.
Nevertheless, any illusion concerning the state of affairs was impossible. The
enemy was master of the town. Instead of silence the noise of explosions was
now continuous and produced an insurmountable feeling of horror. The lighting
apparatus having been destroyed, the city was plunged in darkness all through
the night, and appalling crimes were committed. The populous districts alone,
having suffered the least, still preserved measures of protection. The were
paraded by patrols of volunteers who shot the robbers, and at every street
corner one stumbled over a body lying in a pool of blood, the hands bound
behind the back, a handkerchief over the face, and a placard pinned upon the
breast.
It became impossible to clear away the ruins or to bury the dead. Soon the
stench from the corpses became intolerable. Epidemics raged and caused
innumerable deaths, while they also rendered the survivors feeble and
listless. Famine carried off almost all who were left. A hundred and one days
after the first outrage, whilst six army corps with field artillery and siege
artillery were marching, at night, into the poorest quarter of the city,
Caroline and Clair, holding each other's hands, were watching from the roof a
lofty house, the only one still left standing, but now surrounded by smoke and
flame. joyous songs ascended from the street, where the crowd was dancing in
delirium.
"To-morrow it will be ended," said the man, "and it will be better."
The young woman, her hair loosened and her face shining with the reflection of
the flames, gazed with a pious joy at the circle of fire that was growing
closer around them.
"It will be better," said she also.
And throwing herself into the destroyer's arms she pressed a passionate kiss
upon his lips.
S. 4
The other towns of the federation also suffered from disturbances and
outbreaks, and then order was restored. Reforms were introduced into
institutions and great changes took place in habits and customs, but the
country never recovered the loss of its capital, and never regained its former
prosperity. Commerce and industry dwindled away, and civilization abandoned
those countries which for so long it bad preferred to all others. They became
insalubrious and sterile; the territory that had supported so many millions of
men became nothing more than a desert. On the hill of Fort St. Michel wild
horses cropped the coarse grass.
Days flowed by like water from the fountains, and the centuries passed like
drops falling from the ends of stalactites. Hunters came to chase the bears
upon the hills that covered the forgotten city; shepherds led their flocks
upon them; labourers turned up the soil with their ploughs; gardeners
cultivated their lettuces and grafted their pear trees. They were not rich,
and they had no arts. The walls of their cabins were covered with old vines
and roses, A goat-skin clothed their tanned limbs, while their wives dressed
themselves with the wool that they themselves had spun. The goat-herds moulded
little figures of men and animals out of clay, or sang songs about the young
girl who follows her lover through woods or among the browsing goats while the
pine trees whisper together and the water utters its murmuring sound. The
master of the house grew angry with the beetles who devoured his figs; he
planned snares to protect his fowls from the velvet-tailed fox, and he poured
out wine for his neighbours saying:
"Drink! The flies have not spoilt my vintage; the vines were dry before they
came."
Then in the course of ages the wealth of the villages and the corn that filled
the fields were pillaged by barbarian invaders. The country changed its
masters several times. The conquerors built castles upon the hills;
cultivation increased; mills, forges) tanneries, and looms were established;
roads were opened through the woods and over the marshes; the river was
covered with boats. The hamlets became large villages and joining together
formed a town which protected itself by deep trenches and lofty walls. Later,
becoming the capital of a great State, it found itself straitened within its
now useless ramparts and it converted them into grass-covered walks.
It grew very rich and large beyond measure. The houses were never high enough
to satisfy the people; they kept on making them still higher and built them of
thirty or forty storeys, with offices, shops, banks, societies one above
another; they dug cellars and tunnels ever deeper downwards. Fifteen millions
of men laboured in the giant town.
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