254 A TOUR EOUND MY GABDEN. 



During tHs time, the flax, transformed into cloth likewise, 

 but finer and lighter, replaces the fig-leaf which constituted 

 the sole vestment of our first parents, and which has under- 

 gone such strange vicissitudes. Strange to say, the fig-leaf 

 now-a-days must be ten eUs long and at least half an ell wide. 

 Apropos of this, I cannot think why so many people persist 

 in clothing our first parents and the statues in public gardens 

 with a mjie-leaf. 



Flax envelopes, conceals, and keeps from contact with the 

 air the satin skins of our ladies. 



But both seem threatened with a cessation of these em- 

 ployments; science is lessening the use of sails; fashion is 

 making a reform in linen vestments. 



When once upon the precipitous declivity of decline and 

 dishonour, they are not long in becoming sad rags, degraded 

 strips, thrown away with disdain into holes and corners and 

 among the filth of cities. 



But this humiliation is the path of thorns which leads to 

 power; it is like the piU which purified Hercules and made 

 him a god. 



In general, demi-gods and great men die of hunger, and 

 arrive at immortality a little sooner than they wish, and 

 then their contemporaries willingly deify them in touching 

 festivals in which is mixed a little joy at having got rid of 

 them. 



Romulus only became a god after he had been torn to 

 pieces. Claudius gained immortality by means of mush- 

 rooms, poison, and the colic. 



Thus hemp and flax are not at all discouraged, and wait 

 philosophically in holes and comers for the fresh humiliations 

 which, like a road, separates them, it is true, from supreme 

 power, but which, nevertheless, conducts them to it. 



By night, ragged, half-starved men, go about with lanterns 

 in their hands collecting these rags, which they heap together 

 in large tubs, in which the flax and hemp become a sort of 

 infectious matter. 



Of this matter paper is made. 



Although paper, they have not yet become idols; they are 

 sold by the ream and the quire; but they will not have to 

 wait long. 



