PARIS
BY
EMILE ZOLA
TRANSLATED BY ERNEST A. VIZETELLY
FOR some reason of his own Guillaume was bent upon witnessing theexecution of Salvat. Pierre tried to dissuade him from doing so; andfinding his efforts vain, became somewhat anxious. He accordinglyresolved to spend the night at Montmartre, accompany his brother andwatch over him. In former times, when engaged with Abbe Rose incharitable work in the Charonne district, he had learnt that theguillotine could be seen from the house where Mege, the Socialist deputy,resided at the corner of the Rue Merlin. He therefore offered himself asa guide. As the execution was to take place as soon as it should legallybe daybreak, that is, about half-past four o'clock, the brothers did notgo to bed but sat up in the workroom, feeling somewhat drowsy, andexchanging few words. Then as soon as two o'clock struck, they startedoff.
The night was beautifully serene and clear. The full moon, shining like asilver lamp in the cloudless, far-stretching heavens, threw a calm,dreamy light over the vague immensity of Paris, which was like somespell-bound city of sleep, so overcome by fatigue that not a murmur arosefrom it. It was as if beneath the soft radiance which spread over itsroofs, its panting labour and its cries of suffering were lulled torepose until the dawn. Yet, in a far, out of the way district, dark workwas even now progressing, a knife was being raised on high in order thata man might be killed.
Pierre and Guillaume paused in the Rue St. Eleuthere, and gazed at thevaporous, tremulous city spread out below then. And as they turned theyperceived the basilica of the Sacred Heart, still domeless but alreadylooking huge indeed in the moonbeams, whose clear white light accentuatedits outlines and brought them into sharp relief against a mass ofshadows. Under the pale nocturnal sky, the edifice showed like a colossalmonster, symbolical of provocation and sovereign dominion. Never beforehad Guillaume found it so huge, never had it appeared to him to dominateParis, even in the latter's hours of slumber, with such stubborn andoverwhelming might.
This wounded him so keenly in the state of mind in which he foundhimself, that he could not help exclaiming: "Ah! they chose a good sitefor it, and how stupid it was to let them do so! I know of nothing morenonsensical; Paris crowned and dominated by that temple of idolatry! Howimpudent it is, what a buffet for the cause of reason after so manycenturies of science, labour, and battle! And to think of it being rearedover Paris, the one city in the world which ought never to have beensoiled in this fashion! One can understand it at Lourdes and Rome; butnot in Paris, in the very field of intelligence which has been so deeplyploughed, and whence the future is sprouting. It is a declaration of war,an insolent proclamation that they hope to conquer Paris also!"
Guillaume usually evinced all the tolerance of a savant, for whomreligions are simply social phenomena. He even willingly admitted thegrandeur or grace of certain Catholic legends. But Marie Alacoque'sfamous vision, which has given rise to the cult of the Sacred Heart,filled him with irritation and something like physical disgust. Hesuffered at the mere idea of Christ's open, bleeding breast, and thegigantic heart which the saint asserted she had seen beating in thedepths of the wound—the h