PRES. You have come from the country, too: do you know what you are accused of? SCH. Yes, M. le président. PRES. What have you to say in your defence? SCH. I did not know I was doing wrong. PRES. Your levity amazes me. You are a schoolmistress, and you do not realize that the sacred mission with which you are entrusted, the mission of preparing citizens and citizenesses for the glories of the future, demands that your life should be exemplary. You are appointed to give the elementary course of lessons in civic morality: is it thus that you practise that morality? You have no answer? According to the notes I have here you insisted upon nursing your two children yourself. Do you love them? SCH. It was just because I love them. PRES. But you decided that two were enough. You ventured to limit the work of the Creator. SCH. I should have liked nothing better than to have four or five children. PRES. Indeed! Then allow me to inform you that you’ve not taken the best means for arriving at that desirable result. [_He laughs, turning to his assessor on the right, who laughs also_]. SCH. One must have money enough to bring them up. PRES. Ah! Stop a moment. If some people were to make that bad excuse I might understand it. But from you, who enjoy the inestimable advantage of being under the protection of the State, I do not understand it. You are never out of work. SCH. I earn 83 francs a month, and my husband, who teaches too, earns the same. That makes 166 francs a month to live on and to rear two children. When there were four of us we could just scrape along, but with five we couldn’t have managed it. PRES. You forget to mention that when your children are coming you have a right to a month’s holiday on full salary. SCH. Yes, at one time, M. le président, but not now. In 1900 a ministerial circular announced to us that there was not enough money, and we could practically only have holidays at half salary. To get the whole salary we must have a certificate from the inspector, giving reasons. One has to petition for it. PRES. Well, then one petitions. SCH. It’s hard to seem like a beggar simply because one has children. PRES. Oho! You’re proud. SCH. That’s not illegal. PRES. And that’s why you went to the woman Thomas?