Then, when he got home, excited at meeting so many crosses—­just as a poor, hungry wretch might be on passing some dainty provision shop—­he used to ask in a loud voice: 

“When shall we get rid of this wretched government?”

And his wife would be surprised, and ask: 

“What is the matter with you to-day?”

“I am indignant,” he replied, “at the injustice I see going on around us.  Oh, the Communards were certainly right!”

After dinner he would go out again and look at the shops where the decorations were sold, and he examined all the emblems of various shapes and colors.  He would have liked to possess them all, and to have walked gravely at the head of a procession, with his crush hat under his arm and his breast covered with decorations, radiant as a star, amid a buzz of admiring whispers and a hum of respect.

But, alas! he had no right to wear any decoration whatever.

He used to say to himself:  “It is really too difficult for any man to obtain the Legion of Honor unless he is some public functionary.  Suppose I try to be appointed an officer of the Academy!”

But he did not know how to set about it, and spoke on the subject to his wife, who was stupefied.

“Officer of the Academy!  What have you done to deserve it?”

He got angry.  “I know what I am talking about.  I only want to know how to set about it.  You are quite stupid at times.”

She smiled.  “You are quite right.  I don’t understand anything about it.”

An idea struck him:  “Suppose you were to speak to M. Rosselin, the deputy; he might be able to advise me.  You understand I cannot broach the subject to him directly.  It is rather difficult and delicate, but coming from you it might seem quite natural.”

Mme. Caillard did what he asked her, and M. Rosselin promised to speak to the minister about it; and then Caillard began to worry him, till the deputy told him he must make a formal application and put forward his claims.

“What were his charms?” he said.  “He was not even a Bachelor of Arts.”  However, he set to work and produced a pamphlet, with the title, “The People’s Right to Instruction,” but he could not finish it for want of ideas.

He sought for easier subjects, and began several in succession.  The first was, “The Instruction of Children by Means of the Eye.”  He wanted gratuitous theatres to be established in every poor quarter of Paris for little children.  Their parents were to take them there when they were quite young, and, by means of a magic lantern, all the notions of human knowledge were to be imparted to them.  There were to be regular courses.  The sight would educate the mind, while the pictures would remain impressed on the brain, and thus science would, so to say, be made visible.  What could be more simple than to teach universal history, natural history, geography, botany, zoology, anatomy, etc., etc., in this manner?