"Then, at bottom, the government will be democratic?" Yes; if we take into consideration the unanimous devotion of the people, the spontaneous labour of everybody. No one commands. But, nevertheless, you can clearly see that in every higher work an intelligent body of the _élite_, an aristocracy of artists, takes the lead. The city is not built or organized by the entire people, but by a special class, a kind of guild or corporation. While the mob of bees seeks the common nourishment abroad, certain much larger bees, the wax-makers, elaborate the wax, prepare it, shape it, and skilfully make use of it. Like the medieval freemasons, this respectable corporation of architects toils and builds on the principles of a profound geometry. Like those of the old days, they are _the masters of the living stone_. But our worthy bees are far more deserving of the title! The materials which they employ they have made, have elaborated by their vital action, and vivified with their internal juices. Neither the honey nor the wax is a vegetable substance. Those little light bees which go in quest of the essence of the flowers bring it back already transformed and enriched by their virginal life. Sweet and pure, it passes from their mouth to the mouth of their elder sisters. These, the grave wax-makers, having received the aliment vivified and endowed with the charming sweetness which is, as it were, the soul of the race, elaborate it in their turn, and communicate to it their own peculiar life,--solidity. Wise and sedentary, they work up the liquid into a sedentary honey, a honey of the second quality, a kind of reflected honey. This is not all: the substance twice elaborated, and twice penetrated with animal juice, they incessantly moisten with their saliva, when using it so as to render it softer for working, but more tenacious afterwards. Was I wrong, then, in saying that this construction is truly one of "the living stones"? There is not an atom of the materials which is not three times impregnated with life. Who shall say of yonder hive whether the flower or the bee has furnished the greater part? The latter has certainly contributed an important share. Here, the home of the people is the people's substance and visible soul; from themselves they have extracted their city, and their city is, in truth, themselves. Bee and hive, it is one and the same thing. But let us observe them at work. Alone, in the centre of the still empty and to be created hive, the learned wax-maker advances. From beneath its wings it delicately extracts a thin slab of wax, and conveys it to its mouth, where it is well kneaded and pounded, and drawn out into the shape of a ribbon. Eight strips are in this wise furnished, wrought, and absorbed; and the result is eight little blocks, which the bee lays down as the first beams of the future edifice, the foundations of the new city.