The crowd raised acclamations, and shouted the word 'Love!' For it was King Love who alone could render work fruitful, by making the race ever more and more numerous, and inflaming it with desire, the eternal source of life.

But in all this there was already too much solemnity for Nanet and Nise, who had loved one another so playfully ever since childhood. Although those two little curly lambs had grown up, they remained like toys in their festival raiment, both clad in white, charming and delightful. And they were not content with a ceremonious hand-shake. They fell upon each other's neck.

'Ah! my little Nise, how happy I am to have you for my wife at last, after waiting for you for years and years!'

'Ah! my little Nanet, how happy I am to belong to you, for it is quite true, you have earned it!'

'And little Nise, do you remember when I pulled you up by the arms to help you over the walls, and when I carried you pick-a-back, and played at being a rearing horse?'

'And little Nanet, do you remember when we played at hide-and-seek, and you ended by finding me among the rosebushes, so well hidden there that it was enough to make me die of laughing?'

'Little Nise, little Nise, we'll love each other as we played, very heartily, with all, all the strength of health and gaiety.'

'Little Nanet, little Nanet, we played so much, and we will love one another so much, that we shall love yet again in our children, and play again even with our children's children.'

And they embraced, and laughed, and played together, raised to the highest felicity. The throng, filled with enthusiasm by the sight, traversed by a wave of sonorous gaiety, clapped hands and acclaimed love, almighty love, which without cessation creates more and more life and happiness. Then the singing began, chorus singing, in which the aged sang their well-earned rest, the men the triumph of their toil, the women the helpful sweetness of their love, the children the confident cheerfulness of their hopes. Afterwards came the dances, with a great final round and chain, which brought all that brotherly little people hand in hand, stretching out and revolving for hours to the strains of gay music, through the halls of the huge works. They had formerly toiled so much and suffered so much in the dirty, grimy, unhealthy inferno which had stood there, and which the flames had swept away. The sunshine, the air, and life, now entered freely. And the marriage ronde still came and went around the huge appliances, the colossal presses, the formidable steam hammers, the gigantic planing-machines, which wore a smiling aspect beneath their adornments of flowers and foliage, whilst the young married couple led the dance, as if in them rested the soul of all those things, that morrow of increase in equity and fraternity, which the victory of their long affection had ensured.

Luc was preparing a surprise for Jordan, for he also wished to celebrate the labour of the scientist whose endeavours would contribute more than a hundred years of politics could have done to the happiness of the city. When the night had fallen and it was quite dark, the whole works suddenly glowed, thousands of lamps casting the gay light of day-time over the place. Jordan's researches, it should be said, had at last yielded fruit. After many defeats he had devised a system for the transport of electrical force without loss, employing new appliances, ingenious means of transmission. Henceforth the cost of conveying coal was saved, it was burnt at the pit's mouth, and the machinery which transformed calorical into electrical energy sent it to La Crêcherie by special cables, which allowed of no loss on the way, in such wise that the cost price was now only half of what it had formerly been. This then was a first great victory, La Crêcherie profusely illumined, power distributed abundantly among both the large and the small appliances, comfort increased, work facilitated, and fortune augmented. And at the same time it was virtually a fresh step towards happiness.