the Languedoc high school where I served my first term as a teacher, my good headmaster issued a warn-ing in a voice befitting a captain of education. “Here, with the nineteenth century, there is little danger; but when you touch on the religious wars, you must take great care! ” In truth, whoever lacks the strength, while seated at his desk, to rid his mind of the virus of the present may readily permit its poison to infiltrate even a commentary on the Iliad or the Ramayana.