The tearing out of the first page is like the first shedding of blood in battle; it decides the carnage.
René-Jean turned over the page; next to the saint came the commentator, Pantoenus; he bestowed Pantoenus upon Gros-Alain.
Meanwhile, Georgette had torn her large piece into two smaller ones, and then the two into four; thus it might have been recorded in history that Saint-Bartholomew, after being flayed in Armenia, was quartered in Brittany.
VI.
The execution finished, Georgette held out her hand to René-Jean for more.
After the saint and his commentator came the frowning portraits of the glossarists. First came Gavantus; René-Jean tore him out and placed him in Georgettes hand.
A similar fate befell all the commentators of Saint-Bartholomew.
The act of giving imparts a sense of superiority. René-Jean kept nothing for himself. He knew that Gros-Alain and Georgette were watching him, and that was enough for him; he was satisfied with the admiration of his audience. René-Jean, inexhaustible in his magnificent generosity, offered Fabricius and Pignatelli to Gros-Alain, and Father Stilting to Georgette; Alphonse Tostat to Gros-Alain, Cornelius a Lapide to Georgette; Gros-Alain had Henry Hammond, and Georgette Father Roberti, together with an old view of the city of Douai, where the latter was born in 1619; Gros-Alain received the protest of the paper-manufacturers, while Georgette obtained the dedication to the Gryphs. And then came the maps, which René-Jean also distributed. He gave Ethiopia to Gros-Alain, and Lycaonia to Georgette; after which he threw the book on the floor.
This was an awful moment. With mingled feelings of ecstasy and awe, Gros-Alain and Georgette saw René-Jean frown, stiffen his limbs, clench his fists, and push the massive quarto off the desk. It is really quite tragical to see a stably old book treated with such disrespect. The heavy volume, pushed from its resting-place, hung a moment on the edge of the desk, hesitating, as if it were trying to keep its balance; then it fell, crumpled and torn, with disjointed clasps and loosened from its binding, all flattened out upon the floor. Luckily, it did not fall on the children.