"And now," resumed Marik Lebrenn with deep emotion, "now that you are initiated into the family tradition which founded our plebeian archives, do you, my children take the solemn pledge to perpetuate them, and to cause your children to follow your example? Do you, my son, and you, my daughter, in default of him, pledge yourselves to register in all sincerity the deeds and events of your own lives, be they just or unjust, praiseworthy or blamable, to the end that the day when you depart from this existence to another, the narrative of your own life may increase our family chronicles, and that the inexorable sense of justice of our descendants may praise or condemn our memory, according as we shall have deserved?" "Yes, father--we swear!" "Well, then, Sacrovir, this day on which you have completed your twenty-first year, you are free, agreeable to our traditions, to read these manuscripts. We shall begin the reading this very evening, in a family circle, and continue it from day to day. In order that George may participate, we shall translate into French, as we read." Marik Lebrenn, his wife and George being gathered together that evening, Sacrovir Lebrenn began the readings, starting with the first manuscript, entitled: "The Gold Sickle." EPILOGUE I request my reader to leap over the space of time that elapsed since we left the family of Lebrenn assembled in the room, held to be so mysterious by Gildas, and which contained the archives or narratives of the family, which they began to read successively. It is now Sunday, December 1, 1851. The same personages--Marik Lebrenn, Henory his wife, Sacrovir, his sister Velleda, and her husband--are assembled on the evening of that Sunday in the modest upper parlor connected with the linendraper's shop. Answering a question put to him by his father, Sacrovir was saying: "The prophecy came very near being fulfilled in 1848. The thrones shook everywhere--revolutions in Naples, Vienna, Berlin, Milan, Rome. Italy was on fire. The German Confederation contemplated declaring itself a republican federation at the diet of Frankfort. Frankfort was in revolt; Hungary up in arms; Poland and Spain shook to their very center; all Europe was in a revolutionary ferment, Russia alone excepted. What, however, could that country's autocrat do against the confederation of all the other peoples, leagued against him in a holy, the holiest of alliances! One more step, and our generation would have hailed the United States of Europe. Alas! The sublime moment was missed! The plan miscarried. Will it be long before the opportunity returns?"