Upon the whole, this social order seemed the most firmly established that had yet been seen, at least amon kind, for that of bees and ants is incomparably more stable.  Nothing could foreshadow the ruin of a system founded on what is strongest in human nature, pride and cupidity.  However, keen observers discovered several grounds for uneasiness.  The most certain, although the least apparent, were of an economic order, and consisted in the continually increasing amount of over-production, which entailed long and cruel interruptions of labour, though these were, it is true, utilized by the manufacturers as a means of breaking the power of the workmen, by facing them with the prospect of a lock-out.  A more obvious peril resulted from the physiological state of almost the entire population.  “The health of the poor is what it must be,” said the experts in hygiene, “but that of the rich leaves much to be desired.”  It was not difficult to find the causes of this.  The supply of oxygen necessary for life was insufficient in the city, and men breathed in an artificial air.  The food trusts, by means of the most daring chemical syntheses, produced artificial wines, meat, milk, fruit, and vegetables, and the diet thus imposed gave rise to stomach and brain troubles.  The multi-millionaires were bald at the age of eighteen; some showed from time to time a dangerous weakness of mind.  Over-strung and enfeebled, they gave enormous sums to ignorant charlatans; and it was a common thing for some bath-attendant or other trumpery who turned healer or prophet, to make a rapid fortune by the practice of medicine or theology.  The number of lunatics increased continually; suicides multiplied in the world of wealth, and many of them were accompanied by atrocious and extraordinary circumstances, which bore witness to an unheard o perversion of intelligence and sensibility.

Another fatal symptom created a strong impression upon average minds.  Terrible accidents, henceforth periodical and regular, entered into people’s calculations, and kept mounting higher and higher in statistical tables.  Every day, machines burst into fragments, houses fell down, trains laden with merchandise fell on to the streets, demolishing entire buildings and crushing hundreds of passers-by.  Through the ground, honey-combed with tunnels, two or three storeys of work-shops would often crash, engulfing all those who worked in them.

S. 2

In the southwestern district of the city, on an eminence which had preserved its ancient name of Fort Saint-Michel, there stretched a square where some old trees still spread their exhausted arms above the greensward.  Landscape gardeners had constructed a cascade, grottos, a torrent, a lake, and an island, on its northern slope.  From this side one could see the whole town with its streets, its boulevards, its squares, the multitude of its roofs and domes, its air-passages, and its crowds of men, covered with a veil of silence, and seemingly enchanted by the distance.  This square was the healthiest place in the capital; here no smoke obscured the sky, and children were brought here to play.  In summer some employees from the neighbouring offices and laboratories used to resort to it for a moment after their luncheons, but they did not disturb its solitude and peace.