The Equinox (Volume I, Number IX)

THE KEY OF THE MYSTERIES as the harmony of the orbs of heaven goes on for ever, careless of our revolutions and of our anguish. Eliphas Levi had been swept out of the church by the crowd. He had come out by the right-hand door. Almost at the same moment the left-hand door was flung violently open, and a furious group of men rushed out of the church. This group was whirling around a man whom fifty arms seemed to hold, whom a hundred shaken fists sought to strike. This man later complained of having been roughly handled by the police, but, as far as one could see in such an uproar, the police were rather protecting him against the exasperation of the mob. Women were running after him, shrieking: “ Kill him!” “ But what has he done?” cried other voices. “The wretch! He has struck the Archbishop with his fist!” said the women. Then others came out of the church, and contradictory accounts were flying to and fro. “The Archbishop was frightened, and has fainted,” said some. “He is dead !” replied others. “ Did you see the knife?” added a third comer. “It is as long as a sabre, and the blood was streaming on.the blade.” “The poor Archbishop has lost one of his slippers,” remarked an old woman, joining her hands. “Tt is nothing! It is nothing!” cried a woman who rented chairs. ‘‘You can come back to the church: Mon- seigneur is not hurt; they have just said so from the pulpit.” The crowd then made a movement to return to the church. 171