It is well to recall to the younger generation these resolute words, between the lines of which they will read the gratitude they owe to the heroic "Scarred face," who so nearly died with the reputation of a mono-maniac. They, too, are beginning to grow enervated and accustomed to the delights of their underground Elysium, to the luxurious spaciousness of these endless catacombs, the legacy of gigantic toil on the part of their fathers, they too, are, inclined to think that all this happened of its own accord, or at least was inevitable, that after all there was no other way of escaping from the cold above ground, and that this simple expedient did not require a great outlay of imagination. Profound error! At its first appearance, the idea of Miltiades had been hailed, and rightly enough, as a flash of genius. But for him, but for his energy, and his eloquence, which was placed at the service of his imagination, but for his forcefulness, his charm, and his perseverance, which seconded his energy, let us add, but for the profound passion that Lydia, the noblest and most valiant of women, had been able to inspire in him, and which increased his heroism tenfold, humanity would have suffered the fate of all the other animal or vegetable species. What strikes us to-day in his discourse is the extraordinary and truly prophetic lucidity with which he sketched in general terms the conditions of existence in the new world. Without doubt, these expectations have been immensely surpassed. He did not foresee, he could not foresee, the prodigious accessions which his original idea has received owing to its development by thousands of auxiliary geniuses. He was far more right than he fancied, like the majority of reformers--who are generally wrongly accused, of being too much wrapt up in their own ideas. But on the whole, never was so magnificent a plan so promptly carried out. From that very day all these exquisite and delicate hands set to work, aided, it is true, by incomparable machines. Everywhere, at the head of all the workings, were to be found Lydia and Miltiades. Henceforth inseparable, they vied with one another in ardour; and before a year was out the galleries of the mines had become sufficiently large and comfortable, sufficiently decorated even and brilliantly lighted, to receive the vast and priceless collections of all kinds, which it was their object to place in safety there, in view of the future.