CHAPTER I 



THE OLD WEEVILS 



TN winter, when the insect takes an en- 

 forced rest, the study of numismatics 

 affords me some delightful moments. I love 

 to interrogate its metal disks, the records of 

 the petty things which men call history. In 

 this soil of Provence, where the Greek 

 planted the olive-tree and the Roman 

 planted the law, the peasant finds coins, 

 scattered more or less everywhere, when he 

 turns the sod. He brings them to me and 

 consults me upon their pecuniary value, 

 never upon their meaning. 



What matters to him the inscription on 

 his treasure-trove ! Men suffered of yore, 

 they suffer to-day, they will suffer in the 

 future : to him all history is summed up in 

 that ! The rest is sheer futility, a pastime of 

 the idle. 



I do not possess this lofty philosophy of 

 indifference to things of the past. I scratch 



