Among the curious historical misconceptions which have gained such popularity since the days of the great war, none is more surprising than the belief that the French people (in contrast to their Teuton neighbors) are a liberty-loving race and detest all regimentation. The French have for centuries submitted to the rule of a bureaucracy quite as complicated and infinitely less efficient than the one which existed in Prussia in the pre-war days. The officials are a little less punctual about their office hours and the spotlessness of their collars and they are given to sucking a particularly vile sort of cigarette. Otherwise they are quite as meddlesome and as obnoxious as those in the eastern republic, and the public accepts their rudeness with a meekness that is astonishing in a race so addicted to rebellion. Calvin was the ideal Frenchman in his love for centralization. In some details he almost approached the perfection for detail which was the secret of Napoleon’s success. But unlike the great emperor, he was utterly devoid of all personal ambition. He was just a dreadfully serious man with a weak stomach and no sense of humor. He ransacked the Old Testament to discover what would be agreeable to his particular Jehovah. And then the people of Geneva were asked to accept this interpretation of the Jewish chronicles as a direct revelation of the divine will. Almost over night the merry city on the Rhone became a community of rueful sinners. A civic inquisition composed of six ministers and twelve elders watched night and day over the private opinions of all citizens. Whosoever was suspected of an inclination towards “forbidden heresies” was cited to appear before an ecclesiastic tribunal that he might be examined upon all points of doctrine and explain where, how and in what way he had obtained the books which had given him the pernicious ideas which had led him astray. If the culprit showed a repentant spirit, he might escape with a sentence of enforced attendance at Sunday School. But in case he showed himself obstinate, he must leave the city within twenty-four hours and never again show himself within the jurisdiction of the Genevan commonwealth. But a proper lack of orthodox sentiment was not the only thing that could get a man into trouble with the so-called Consistorium. An afternoon spent at a bowling-alley in a nearby village, if properly reported (as such things invariably are), could be reason enough for a severe admonition. Jokes, both practical and otherwise, were considered the height of bad form. An attempt at wit during a wedding ceremony was sufficient cause for a jail sentence. Gradually the New Zion was so encumbered with laws, edicts, regulations, rescripts and decrees that life became a highly complicated affair and lost a great deal of its old flavor.