"Order," "Patriotism," "Religion," "Family," etc., etc., that each successive tyrant class, despite its change of form, fraudulently sought refuge in to justify its criminal existence whenever threatened; the varying economic causes of the oppression of the toilers; the mistakes incurred by these in their struggles for redress; the varying fortunes of the conflict;--all these social dramas are therein reproduced in a majestic series of "novels" covering leading and successive episodes in the history of the race--an inestimable gift, above all to our own generation, above all to the American working class, the short history of whose country deprives it of historic back-ground. It is not until the fifth story is reached--the period of the Frankish conquest of Gaul, 486 of the present era--that the two distinct streams of the typical oppressed and typical oppressor meet. But the four preceding ones are necessary, and preparatory for the main drama, that starts with the fifth story and that, although carried down to the revolution of 1848 which overthrew Louis Philippe in France, reaches its grand climax in _The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic_, that is, the French Revolution. These stories are nineteen in number, and their chronological order is the following: 1. The Gold Sickle; or, Hena, the Virgin of the Isle of Sen; 2. The Brass Bell; or, The Chariot of Death; 3. The Iron Collar; or, Faustine and Syomara; 4. The Silver Cross; or, The Carpenter of Nazareth; 5. The Casque's Lark; or, Victoria, The Mother of the Fields; 6. The Poniard's Hilt; or, Karadeucq and Ronan; 7. The Branding Needle; or, The Monastery of Charolles; 8. The Abbatial Crosier; or, Bonaik and Septimine; 9. Carlovingian Coins; or, The Daughters of Charlemagne; 10. The Iron Arrow-Head; or, The Maid of the Buckler; 11. The Infant's Skull; or, The End of the World; 12. The Pilgrim's Shell; or, Fergan the Quarryman; 13. The Iron Pincers; or, Mylio and Karvel; 14. The Iron Trevet; or, Jocelyn the Champion; 15. The Executioner's Knife; or, Joan of Arc; 16. The Pocket Bible; or, Christian the Printer; 17. The Blacksmith's Hammer; or, The Peasant-Code; 18. The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic; 19. The Galley-Slave's Ring; or, The Family of Lebrenn.