children will; but, in bequeathing you my wealth, I bequeath you my heart and my faith. You will bequeath it to others, if you have to pass through a phase in the existence of mankind which makes it impracticable for you to found the establishment advantageously. But Emile once said something that impressed me. One day when I asked him what he would do with an estate like mine, he answered: '_I would try_!' Let him try then, and, after careful reflection, after a careful study of reality, may he who has always dreamed of the salvation of mankind in the organization and development of agricultural science, find the means of transition which will prevent a deplorable break in the chain between the past and the future! "I trust to his intelligence because it has its source in the heart. May God give you genius, Emile, and may He give it to the men of your time! for the genius of one man is almost nothing. For my part, I have nothing more to do but to fall asleep peacefully in my grave. If I am privileged to live a few days with you two, I shall have begun to live on the eve of my death. But I shall not have lived in vain, indolent, disheartened and useless as I have been, if I have found the man who can and will act in my place. "Keep the secret of my opinions and our plans until after your marriage, and even until after the new and thorough education which Emile must make it his duty to acquire. I aspire to see you free and powerful, in order that I may die at peace. And after all, my children, whatever course you may take, whatever errors you may commit, whatever success may crown your efforts, I confess that it is impossible for me to be anxious concerning the future of the world. In vain will the tempest rage over the generations now born or to be born; in vain will error and falsehood labor to perpetuate the horrible confusion which certain minds call to-day, in derision apparently, social order; in vain will wickedness wage war on earth; eternal truth will have its day at last. And if my spirit is able to return, a few centuries hence, to visit this immense heritage and glide beneath the venerable trees that my hand planted, it will see men free, happy, equal, united, that is to say, just and wise! These shaded paths where I have walked so often, oppressed by ennui and sorrow, whither I have fled in horror from the presence of the men of to-day, will shelter then, like the arched roof of a divine temple, a numerous family kneeling to pray and bless the Author of nature and the Father of mankind! This will be the _garden of the commune_, that is to say, its gynæceum, its festal and banqueting hall, its theatre and its church; for speak not to me of the cramped spaces where stone and cement pen up men and thought; nor of your superb colonnades and magnificent squares, in comparison with this natural architecture, of which the Supreme Creator bears all the expense! I have expressed in the trees and flowers, in the brooks, in the cliffs and