On the right of Marianne came
Ambroise, Therese, Gervais, Dr. Chambouvet, three widowers and a widow,
then another married couple, Madeleine and her husband, architect
Herbette, and then Benjamin alone. The other married folks afterwards
installed themselves according to the generation they belonged to; and
then, as had been decided, youth and childhood, the whole troop of young
people and little ones took seats as they pleased amid no little
turbulence.
What a moment of sovereign glory it was for Mathieu and Marianne! They
found themselves there in a triumph of which they would never have dared
to dream. Life, as if to reward them for having shown faith in her, for
having increased her sway with all bravery, seemed to have taken pleasure
in prolonging their existences beyond the usual limits so that their eyes
might behold the marvellous blossoming of their work. The whole of their
dear Chantebled, everything good and beautiful that they had there
begotten and established, participated in the festival. From the
cultivated fields that they had set in the place of marshes came the
broad quiver of great coming harvests; from the pasture lands amid the
distant woods came the warm breath of cattle and innumerable flocks which
ever increased the ark of life; and they heard, too, the loud babble of
the captured springs with which they had fertilized the now fruitful
moorlands, the flow of that water which is like the very blood of our
mother earth.
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