In the last volume, Bergeret, now a professor in Paris, reflects on the quality of meat, the soul of dogs, and the essence of heroism. Panneton de la Barge delivers a passionate speech on the army which is “the consolation of the present and the hope of the future,” and ends by enlisting Bergeret’s influence to get his son out of two years’ military service. Madame de Bonmont has now fallen into the arms of Lacrisse, secretary of the Royalist group, for she wishes to save France. Lacrisse’s chief occupation is to coach generals in evidence to be used at the Dreyfus trial. Conspiracy. A letter from the Pretender; great sensation which leads to the conquest of Lacrisse, for Madame de Bonmont gives him “a historic embrace.” He then compels her reluctantly to subscribe to the funds. Royalist fête. And Panneton begins to cook the local elections with the help of Madame de Gromance: he finds that the one place where they can talk politics is a flat furnished with a graduated series of sofas. Meanwhile Bergeret indulges in charity to a beggar called Clopinel, and then remarks: “I have done wrong, I have given alms ... I have tasted the shameful joy of abasing my fellow-man, I have signed the odious pact which preserves strength for the strong, weakness for the weak. I have sold to my brother fraternity at short weight.... I have been tempted. Oh, seducer! Oh dangerous Clopinel! Delicious Clopinel....” Slump in Royalist plots, arrests. Lacrisse stands for the town council as a republican Liberal, with the help of Father Adéodat, who will let him be a republican in public if only he will be a true man in committee. And the Contemporary History ends at a Royalist dinner-party, on memories of a riot, the triumph of Mr Loubet, who triumphed just because he happened to be there; this is the downfall of reactionary and clerical hopes, but Madame de Gromance gives up to Dellion her hospitable heart.... It all sounds rather cruel, and there are touches, such as Lacrisse coaching Generals in the evidence they will deliver against Dreyfus, such as the description of M. de la Barge trying to get his son out of military service after proclaiming that the army is the ideal of his soul, which provoke in the reader just what Anatole France wants: not laughter, but an ironic, lingering, vinegary smile. Time after time, in every one of his books he obtains this effect; it is the effect of sharp contrast, of suddenness; it recalls a page of Machiavelli who, after describing how an Italian tyrant had one of his ministers sawn in half, alive, in the market-place, goes on: “But to return to more important things....”