The French indemnity flew to people's heads like champagne, and in a
kind of drunken frenzy every one imagined himself a millionaire.
Some had even seen exhibited a reproduction of the hidden treasure.
The great heap of glittering pieces was certainly there, a tempting
reality, piled up mountains high, millions on millions, craftily
arranged to glitter in the flaring gas-light before their covetous
eyes. The real treasure must be at least as substantial as its
counterfeit. People began to see gold everywhere; red streaks of
gold shone through the window-panes, instead of the warm spring sun;
they heard murmuring chinking streams of gold flowing behind the
walls of their houses, under the pavements of the streets, and every
one hastened to fill their hands, and thirsted for their share in
the subterranean gold whose stream was concealed from their eyes.
While their lips were being moistened by the stream of gold, they
were, as a matter of fact, drinking the transformed flesh and blood
of the heroes who had sacrificed themselves on the French
battlefields, and in this infamous travesty of the Christian mystery
of the Lord's Supper the devil himself took part and possession of
them. They followed new customs, new views of life, other ideals.
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