Such conduct may make him lose his place in the mayor's office.

You know with what care the government is beginning to weed out such opinions.

If your dear Athanase loses his place, where can he find other employment?
I advise him not to get himself in bad odor with the administration." "Monsieur le Chevalier," said the poor frightened mother, "how grateful I am to you! You are right: my son is the tool of a bad set of people; I shall enlighten him." The chevalier had long since fathomed the nature of Athanase, and recognized in it that unyielding element of republican convictions to which in his youth a young man is willing to sacrifice everything, carried away by the word "liberty," so ill-defined and so little understood, but which to persons disdained by fate is a banner of revolt; and to such, revolt is vengeance.

Athanase would certainly persist in that faith, for his opinions were woven in with his artistic sorrows, with his bitter contemplation of the social state.

He was ignorant of the fact that at thirty-six years of age,--the period of life when a man has judged men and social interests and relations,--the opinions for which he was ready to sacrifice his future would be modified in him, as they are in all men of real superiority.