The Equinox (Volume I, Number X)

THE EQUINOX The old guard does not surrender, but neither does it die! The proof of it is the enthusiasm of our children, who mean, one day, to be also soldiers of the old guard! Napoleon is no more a man: he is the very genius of France, he is the second saviour of the world, and he also gave for a sign the cross to his apostles. St. Helena and Golgotha are the beacons of the new civilization; they are the two piles of an immense bridge made by the rainbow of the final deluge, and which throws a bridge between the two worlds. And can you believe that a past without aureole and without glory, might capture and devour so great a future? Could you think that the spur of a Tartar might one day tear up the pact of our glories, the testament of our liberties? Say rather that we may again become children, and enter again into our mother’s womb! “Go on! Go on!” said the voice of God to the wander- ing Jew. “Advance! Advance!” the destiny of the world cries out to France. And where do we go? To the unknown, to the abyss perhaps; no matter! But to the past, to the cemeteries of oblivion, to the swaddling-clothes which our childhood itself tore in shreds, towards the imbecility and ignorance of the earliest ages . . . never! never! XV THE NUMBER FIFTEEN FIFTEEN is the number of antagonism, and of catholicity. Christianity is at present divided into two churches: the 58