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TO THE READER

The truth, the bitter truth.

DANTON.

Oh, sons and brothers, oh, poets
When the thing exists, speak the word.

V. HUGO.



I do not assert that all the personages in this story are models of virtue.
To some of them has been given a part which severe morality reproves. But I
am a realist and not an idealist, and for that I beg the reader a thousand