TOWARDS THE END OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY a sickness struck the world.
Not everyone died, but all suffered from it. The virus which caused
the epidemic was called the « liberal virus. » This virus made its
appearance around the sixteenth century within the triangle described
by Paris-London-Amsterdam. The symptoms that the disease then
manifested appeared harmless. Men (whom the virus struck in preference
to women) not only became accustomed to it and developed the necessary
antibodies, but were able to benefit from the increased energy that it
elicited. But the virus traveled across the Atlantic and found a
favorable place among those who, deprived of antibodies, spread it. As
a result, the malady took on extreme forms. The virus reappeared in
Europe towards the end of the twentieth century, returning from
America where it had mutated. Now strengthened, it came to destroy a
great number of the antibodies that the Europeans had developed over
the course of the three preceding centuries. It provoked an epidemic
that would have been fatal to the human race if it had not been for
the most robust of the inhabitants of the old countries who survived
the epidemic and finally were able to eradicate the disease.
