The advent of the young couple’s last child, little Rose, had already increased their expenses to such a point that they had been obliged to seek refuge in the country, in a mere pauper’s hovel.  And yet, in spite of Beauchene’s sneers and Constance’s angry remarks, Mathieu outwardly remained very calm.  Constance and Marianne had never been able to agree; they differed too much in all respects; and for his part he laughed off every attack, unwilling as he was to let anger master him, lest a rupture should ensue.

But Beauchene waxed passionate on the subject.  That question of the birth-rate and the present-day falling off in population was one which he thought he had completely mastered, and on which he held forth at length authoritatively.  He began by challenging the impartiality of Boutan, whom he knew to be a fervent partisan of large families.  He made merry with him, declaring that no medical man could possibly have a disinterested opinion on the subject.  Then he brought out all that he vaguely knew of Malthusianism, the geometrical increase of births, and the arithmetical increase of food-substances, the earth becoming so populous as to be reduced to a state of famine within two centuries.  It was the poor’s own fault, said he, if they led a life of starvation; they had only to limit themselves to as many children as they could provide for.  The rich were falsely accused of social wrong-doing; they were by no means responsible for poverty.  Indeed, they were the only reasonable people; they alone, by limiting their families, acted as good citizens should act.  And he became quite triumphant, repeating that he knew of no cause for self-reproach, and that his ever-growing fortune left him with an easy conscience.  It was so much the worse for the poor, if they were bent on remaining poor.  In vain did the doctor urge that the Malthusian theories were shattered, that the calculations had been based on a possible, not a real, increase of population; in vain too did he prove that the present-day economic crisis, the evil distribution of wealth under the capitalist system, was the one hateful cause of poverty, and that whenever labor should be justly apportioned among one and all the fruitful earth would easily provide sustenance for happy men ten times more numerous than they are now.  The other refused to listen to anything, took refuge in his egotism, declared that all those matters were no concern of his, that he felt no remorse at being rich, and that those who wished to become rich had, in the main, simply to do as he had done.

“Then, logically, this is the end of France, eh?” Boutan remarked maliciously.  “The number of births ever increases in Germany, Russia, and elsewhere, while it decreases in a terrible way among us.  Numerically the rank we occupy in Europe is already very inferior to what it formerly was; and yet number means power more than ever nowadays.  It has been calculated that an average of four children per family is necessary in order that population may increase and the strength of a nation be maintained.  You have but one child; you are a bad patriot.”