“The clergy, then a good example—­if we except a few convents ravaged by frenzied Satanism and lechery—­launched itself into superhuman transports and attained God.  Saints swarmed, miracles multiplied, and while still omnipotent the Church was gentle with the humble, it consoled the afflicted, defended the little ones, and mourned or rejoiced with the people of low estate.  Today it hates the poor, and mysticism dies in a clergy which checks ardent thoughts and preaches sobriety of mind, continence of postulation, common sense in prayer, bourgeoisie of the soul!  Yet here and there, buried in cloisters far from these lukewarm priests, there perhaps still are real saints who weep, monks who pray, to the point of dying of sorrow and prayer, for each of us.  And they—­with the demoniacs—­are the sole connecting link between that age and this.

“The smug, sententious side of the bourgeoisie already existed in the time of Charles VII.  But cupidity was repressed by the confessor, and the tradesman, just like the labourer, was maintained by the corporations, which denounced overcharging and fraud, saw that decried merchandise was destroyed, and fixed a fair price and a high standard of excellence for commodities.  Trades and professions were handed down from father to son.  The corporations assured work and pay.  People were not, as now, subject to the fluctuations of the market and the merciless capitalistic exploitation.  Great fortunes did not exist and everybody had enough to live on.  Sure of the future, unhurried, they created marvels of art, whose secret remains for ever lost.

“All the artisans who passed the three degrees of apprentice, journeyman, and master, developed subtlety and became veritable artists.  They ennobled the simplest of iron work, the commonest faience, the most ordinary chests and coffers.  Those corporations, putting themselves under the patronage of Saints—­whose images, frequently besought, figured on their banners—­preserved through the centuries the honest existence of the humble and notably raised the spiritual level of the people whom they protected.

“All that is decisively at an end.  The bourgeoise has taken the place forfeited by a wastrel nobility which now subsists only to set ignoble fashions and whose sole contribution to our ‘civilization’ is the establishment of gluttonous dining clubs, so-called gymnastic societies, and pari-mutuel associations.  Today the business man has but these aims, to exploit the working man, manufacture shoddy, lie about the quality of merchandise, and give short weight.

“As for the people, they have been relieved of the indispensable fear of hell, and notified, at the same time, that they are not to expect to be recompensed, after death, for their sufferings here.  So they scamp their ill-paid work and take to drink.  From time to time, when they have ingurgitated too violent liquids, they revolt, and then they must be slaughtered, for once let loose they would act as a crazed stampeded herd.