“From the second clause, I gain another piece of information.  At the end of the year I shall be in possession of five litres of corn over the one hundred that I have just lent.  If, then, I were to continue to work by the day, and to save part of my wages, as I have been doing, in the course of time I should be able to lend two sacks of corn; then three; then four; and when I should have gained a sufficient number to enable me to live on these additions of five litres over and above each, I shall be at liberty to take a little repose in my old age.  But how is this?  In this case, shall I not be living at the expense of others?  No, certainly, for it has been proved that in lending I perform a service; I complete the labour of my borrowers, and only deduct a trifling part of the excess of production, due to my lendings and savings.  It is a marvellous thing that a man may thus realise a leisure which injures no one, and for which he cannot be envied without injustice.”

The House.

Mondor had a house.  In building it, he had extorted nothing from any one whatever.  He owed it to his own personal labour, or, which is the same thing, to labour justly rewarded.  His first care was to make a bargain with an architect, in virtue of which, by means of a hundred crowns a year, the latter engaged to keep the house in constant good repair.  Mondor was already congratulating himself on the happy days which he hoped to spend in this retreat, declared sacred by our Constitution.  But Valerius wished to make it his residence.

“How can you think of such a thing?” said Mondor to Valerius.  “It is I who have built it; it has cost me ten years of painful labour, and now you would enjoy it!” They agreed to refer the matter to judges.  They chose no profound economists,—­there were none such in the country.  But they found some just and sensible men; it all comes to the same thing; political economy, justice, good sense, are all the same thing.  Now here is the decision made by the judges:—­If Valerius wishes to occupy Mondor’s house for a year, he is bound to submit to three conditions.  The first is to quit at the end of the year, and to restore the house in good repair, saving the inevitable decay resulting from mere duration.  The second, to refund to Mondor the 300 francs which the latter pays annually to the architect to repair the injuries of time; for these injuries taking place whilst the house is in the service of Valerius, it is perfectly just that he should bear the consequences.  The third, that he should render to Mondor a service equivalent to that which he receives.  As to this equivalence of services, it must be freely discussed between Mondor and Valerius.

The Plane.