"That, indeed, is exactly what the royalists say and hope, my children. That the royalists should be blind enough to incur that error in logic is easily understood. Nothing blinds so completely as passion, interests, or caste prejudices. But that we, my children, that we should shut our eyes to the obvious evidences of progress, evidences more glaring than the sun, and plunge ourselves in the dismal vapors of doubt;--that we, my children, should do the sanctity of our cause the injustice of questioning its power and its ultimate, supreme triumph, when on all sides it manifests--" "But, father--" "As I was saying, when it manifests its power on all sides! I repeat it--under such circumstances to allow oneself to be disheartened and discouraged, that would be to endanger our cause. But humanity pursues its steady march onward, despite the incredulity, the blindness, the weakness, and also the treasons and the crimes of man!" "But, father--does humanity, indeed, march steadily on the path of progress?" "Steadily, my sons." "But yet, centuries ago, our forefathers the Gauls lived free and happy! Nevertheless, were they not forced backward on the path of progress? They were despoiled and enslaved by the Roman conquest, and later by the Frankish Kings." "I did not say, my friends, that our forefathers did not suffer; what I said was that mankind marched onward. The latest descendants of an old world that was crumbling down on all sides to make room for the Christian world--an immense progress!--our fathers were bruised and mutilated under the falling ruins of ancient society. Nevertheless a deep-reaching and far-spreading social transformation was taking place. Mankind marches evermore--slowly, at times--never, however, does it take a step backward." "Father, I believe you--yet--"