However, and we will mention it at once in order that we may not be obliged to recur to the subject, the prosperity of Montreuil-sur-Mer vanished with M. Madeleine; all that he had foreseen during his night of fever and hesitation was realized; lacking him, there actually was “a soul lacking.” After this fall, there took place at Montreuil-sur-Mer that egotistical division of great existences which have fallen, that fatal dismemberment of flourishing things which is accomplished every day, obscurely, in the human community, and which history has noted only once, because it occurred after the death of Alexander. Lieutenants are crowned kings; superintendents improvise manufacturers out of themselves. Envious rivalries arose. M. Madeleine’s vast workshops were shut; his buildings fell to ruin, his workmen were scattered. Some of them quitted the country, others abandoned the trade. Thenceforth, everything was done on a small scale, instead of on a grand scale; for lucre instead of the general good. There was no longer a centre; everywhere there was competition and animosity. M.