But the one who cast all others into the shade when he took the floor, who excelled in transposing the incoherent lamentations of Gallus and Merinos and the scatter-brained diatribes of Galurin into the rounded forms of oratorical periods, was Martinod. Martinod, the youngest of all, had a marvellous gift of gravity. Solemn by nature, he wore a long beard and never laughed. One could easily imagine him upon a mausoleum proclaiming the last judgment through a conch-shell. The melancholy that emanated from his entire person enveloped him in all the prestige of a grand funeral, the serious character of which is not to be denied. In the beginning I did not like Martinod. He never looked nice in the face and I suspected him of dark designs. But like all the others I fell under the spell of his utterances. He would begin in a melancholy tone, which would move one to tears. One might suppose him to have but just escaped from a terrible catastrophe. What a beggar he would have made, and how many half-francs he would have extracted from the most tightly closed fists! Then his voice would grow deeper, opening hearts and minds, and from his inexhaustible lips would flow the most resonant harmonies. He would discant upon the future, a golden age when equality would be the rule in every sphere,--equality of fortune, equality of happiness. Nothing would belong to any one, everything would belong to all. I felt a degree of shame at not understanding very well, because every one else in our group understood and approved. And even at the other tables people would stop drinking and playing cards to listen. The picture which he drew was admirably simple: men in their best clothes praising nature and embracing one another like brothers. Rapt in admiration, I would compare him to my music box, the notes of which made a dancer pirouette upon the cover. At other times Martinod would be gloomy, bitter and vindictive, heaping threats and sarcasms upon the social fabric of the day, unless it were immediately made over after his ideas. In the name of liberty he would give all Europe over to fire and sword. I would listen in terror, but on the way home grandfather would reassure me. “He was out of humour to-day. To-morrow the world will go better.” Thus the new and varied society with which I was mingling appeared very different from that in which until then I had been living at home or in school. When we reached the house my cheeks would be full of colour--they thought it was the good country air. Grandfather had no need to counsel me to say nothing about our visits to the Café of the Navigators. An infallible instinct warned me to say nothing about them at our house. It was a secret between him and me. We were accomplices. V THE RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY