Fruitfulness was the invincible,
sovereign conqueress. Yet their conquest had not been meditated and
planned; ever serenely loyal in their dealings with others, they owed it
simply to the fulfilment of duty throughout their long years of toil. And
they now stood before it hand in hand, like heroic figures, glorious
because they had ever been good and strong, because they had created
abundantly, because they had given abundance of joy, and health, and hope
to the world amid all the everlasting struggles and the everlasting
tears.
XXIII
AND Mathieu and Marianne lived more than a score of years longer, and
Mathieu was ninety years old and Marianne eighty-seven, when their three
eldest sons, Denis, Ambroise, and Gervais, ever erect beside them,
planned that they would celebrate their diamond wedding, the seventieth
anniversary of their marriage, by a fete at which they would assemble all
the members of the family at Chantebled.
It was no little affair. When they had drawn up a complete list, they
found that one hundred and fifty-eight children, grandchildren, and
great-grandchildren had sprung from Mathieu and Marianne, without
counting a few little ones of a fourth generation.
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