Butscha, whose alert attention was comparable to that of a spy, looked

at Monsieur Mignon, expecting to see him flush with sudden and violent
indignation.

"A little more, young lady, and you will be wanting in respect for
your father," said the colonel, smiling, and noticing Butscha's look.

"See what it is to spoil one's children!"
"I am your only child," she said saucily.

"Child, indeed," remarked the notary, significantly.
"Monsieur," said Modeste, turning upon him, "my father is delighted to

have me for his governess; he gave me life and I give him knowledge;
he will soon owe me something."

"There seems occasion for it," said Madame Mignon.
"But mademoiselle is right," said Canalis, rising and standing before

the fireplace in one of the finest attitudes of his collection. "God,
in his providence, has given food and clothing to man, but he has not

directly given him art. He says to man: 'To live, thou must bow
thyself to earth; to think, thou shalt lift thyself to Me.' We have as

much need of the life of the soul as of the life of the body,--hence,
there are two utilities. It is true we cannot be shod by books or

clothed by poems. An epic song is not, if you take the utilitarian
view, as useful as the broth of a charity kitchen. The noblest ideas

will not sail a vessel in place of canvas. It is quite true that the
cotton-gin gives us calicoes for thirty sous a yard less than we ever

paid before; but that machine and all other industrial perfections
will not breathe the breath of life into a people, will not tell

futurity of a civilization that once existed. Art, on the contrary,
Egyptian, Mexican, Grecian, Roman art, with their masterpieces--now

called useless!--reveal the existence of races back in the vague
immense of time, beyond where the great intermediary nations, denuded

of men of genius, have disappeared, leaving not a line nor a trace
behind them! The works of genius are the 'summum' of civilization, and

presuppose utility. Surely a pair of boots are not as agreeable to
your eyes as a fine play at the theatre; and you don't prefer a

windmill to the church of Saint-Ouen, do you? Well then, nations are
imbued with the same feelings as the individual man, and the man's

cherished desire is to survive himself morally just as he propagates
himself physically. The survival of a people is the work of its men of

genius. At this very moment France is proving, energetically, the
truth of that theory. She is, undoubtedly, excelled by England in

commerce, industry, and navigation, and yet she is, I believe, at the
head of the world,--by reason of her artists, her men of talent, and

the good taste of her products. There is no artist and no superior
intellect that does not come to Paris for a diploma. There is no

school of painting at this moment but that of France; and we shall
reign far longer and perhaps more securely by our books than by our

swords. In La Briere's system, on the other hand, all that is glorious
and lovely must be suppressed,--woman's beauty, music, painting,

poetry. Society will not be overthrown, that is true, but, I ask you,
who would willingly accept such a life? All useful things are ugly and

forbidding. A kitchen is indispensable, but you take care not to sit
there; you live in the salon, which you adorn, like this, with

superfluous things. Of what USE, let me ask you, are these charming
wall-paintings, this carved wood-work? There is nothing beautiful but

that which seems to us useless. We called the sixteenth century the
Renascence with admirable truth of language. That century was the dawn

of a new era. Men will continue to speak of it when all remembrance of
anterior centuries had passed away,--their only merit being that they

once existed, like the million beings who count as the rubbish of a
generation."

"Rubbish! yes, that may be, but my rubbish is dear to me," said the
Duc d'Herouville, laughing, during the silent pause which followed the

poet's pompous oration.
"Let me ask," said Butscha, attacking Canalis, "does art, the sphere

in which, according to you, genius is required to evolve itself, exist
at all? Is it not a splendid lie, a delusion, of the social man? Do I

want a landscape scene of Normandy in my bedroom when I can look out
and see a better one done by God himself? Our dreams make poems more

glorious than Iliads. For an insignificant sum of money I can find at
Valogne, at Carentan, in Provence, at Arles, many a Venus as beautiful

as those of Titian. The police gazette publishes tales, differing
somewhat from those of Walter Scott, but ending tragically with blood,

not ink. Happiness and virtue exist above and beyond both art and
genius."

"Bravo, Butscha!" cried Madame Latournelle.
"What did he say?" asked Canalis of La Briere, failing to gather from

the eyes and attitude of Mademoiselle Mignon the usual signs of
artless admiration.

The contemptuousindifference which Modeste had exhibited toward La
Briere, and above all, her disrespectful speeches to her father, so

depressed the young man that he made no answer to Canalis; his eyes,
fixed sorrowfully on Modeste, were full of deep meditation. The Duc

d'Herouville took up Butscha's argument and reproduced it with much
intelligence, saying finally that the ecstasies of Saint-Theresa were

far superior to the creations of Lord Byron.
"Oh, Monsieur le duc," exclaimed Modeste, "hers was a purely personal

poetry, whereas the genius of Lord Byron and Moliere benefit the
world."

"How do you square that opinion with those of Monsieur le baron?"
cried Charles Mignon, quickly. "Now you are insisting that genius must

be useful, and benefit the world as though it were cotton,--but
perhaps you think logic as antediluvian as your poor old father."

Butscha, La Briere, and Madame Latournelle exchanged glances that were
more than half derisive, and drove Modeste to a pitch of irritation

that kept her silent for a moment.
"Mademoiselle, do not mind them," said Canalis, smiling upon her, "we

are neither beaten, nor caught in a contradiction. Every work of art,
let it be in literature, music, painting, sculpture, or architecture,

implies a positive social utility, equal to that of all other
commercial products. Art is pre-eminently commerce; presupposes it, in

short. An author pockets ten thousand francs for his book; the making
of books means the manufactory of paper, a foundry, a printing-office,

a bookseller,--in other words, the employment of thousands of men. The
execution of a symphony of Beethoven or an opera by Rossini requires

human arms and machinery and manufactures. The cost of a monument is
an almost brutal case in point. In short, I may say that the works of

genius have an extremelycostly basis and are, necessarily, useful to
the workingman."

Astride of that theme, Canalis spoke for some minutes with a fine
luxury of metaphor, and much inward complacency as to his phrases; but

it happened with him, as with many another great speaker, that he
found himself at last at the point from which the conversation

started, and in full agreement with La Briere without perceiving it.
"I see with much pleasure, my dear baron," said the little duke,

slyly, "that you will make an admirableconstitutional minister."
"Oh!" said Canalis, with the gesture of a great man, "what is the use

of all these discussions? What do they prove?--the eternal verity of
one axiom: All things are true, all things are false. Moral truths as

well as human beings change their aspect according to their
surroundings, to the point of being actually unrecognizable."

"Society exists through settled opinions," said the Duc d'Herouville.
"What laxity!" whispered Madame Latournelle to her husband.

"He is a poet," said Gobenheim, who overheard her.
Canalis, who was ten leagues above the heads of his audience, and who

may have been right in his last philosophical remark, took the sort of
coldness which now overspread the surrounding faces of a symptom of

provincial ignorance; but seeing that Modeste understood him, he was
content, being whollyunaware that monologue is particularly

disagreeable to country-folk, whose principal desire it is to exhibit
the manner of life and the wit and wisdom of the provinces to

Parisians.
"It is long since you have seen the Duchesse de Chaulieu?" asked the

duke, addressing Canalis, as if to change the conversation.
"I left her about six days ago."

"Is she well?" persisted the duke.
"Perfectly well."

"Have the kindness to remember me to her when you write."
"They say she is charming," remarked Modeste, addressing the duke.

"Monsieur le baron can speak more confidently than I," replied the
grand equerry.

"More than charming," said Canalis, making the best of the duke's
perfidy; "but I am partial, mademoiselle; she has been a friend to me

for the last ten years; I owe all that is good in me to her; she has