“Sceptre and crown have tumbled down And in the level dust been laid With the poor yokel’s scythe and spade.”[47] There were many faces in France and other countries which wore this same expression, even after the triumph of Democracy over the autocrats of Central Europe. They were not to be seen, however, on the terraces of the palace when the Treaty of Peace with Germany was signed in the “Hall of Mirrors,” where men in black were met together on yet another “Field of Blackbirds,” where, after months of bickering, the larger birds were expounding to their weaker brethren the latest infamies of Jungle Law. The well-dressed men and women who thronged those terraces were something between the proud aristocrats who created the legend of Versailles and the masses of the underworld who have survived them, and yet they seemed further from the two extremes than the extremes were from each other; they were not of the stuff of leaders and were too prosperous to be led; their manner was almost timid to the soldiers on duty at this ceremony, who, though men of the people, were disdainful to civilians after four years of war. One felt that this was a class which might, at no distant date, attempt to imitate some Roman Emperors and pay Pretorian Guards. A catastrophic war had contained no lesson for these people; for them, its culmination at Versailles was far more a social than a political event; they took no interest in politics, they wanted security for property and a Government of strong men who would keep the masses well in hand. They were not real democrats, and they cheered both long and loud, when the men, who between them had betrayed Democracy, emerged from the stately palace to see the fountains play. CHAPTER XVI LOOKING BACK AND FORWARD Some one has said that evolution is a fact and progress a sentiment. This definition casts a doubt on progress: it implies that progressive thinkers are in the category of sentimentalists who do not deal in facts. If no alternative existed between looking back on the slow advance of evolution and looking forward in a spirit of sentimental hope, the present situation would be dark indeed; a pessimist might be inclined to conclude that civilization had ceased to advance, that, on the contrary, its movement was retrograde. There is surely a middle course--a course not easy to pursue. It consists in standing on the ground of fact, however miry, with heart and head uplifted, and looking forward, with the determination not to let mankind sink to the level of the beasts that perish, eager to reach some higher ground. * * * * * Looking back over the past seven years, a reflective mind is appalled by their futility and waste, and yet an analysis of this period as a whole reveals that quality of ruthless logic, of inevitable sequence, to be found in some Greek tragedies, in which the naked truth in all its horror is portrayed with supreme dramatic art.