Two hundred and twenty-six millions of kilometers (140,000,000 miles) from the Sun is the planet Mars, gravitating in an orbit exterior to that which the Earth takes annually round the same center.

Unfortunate Mars! What evil fairy presided at his birth? From antiquity, all curses seem to have fallen upon him. He is the god of war and of carnage, the protector of armies, the inspirer of hatred among the peoples, it is he who pours out the blood of Humanity in international hecatombs. Here, again, as in the case of Mercury and Venus, the appearance has originated the idea. Mars, in fact, burns like a drop of blood in the depths of the firmament, and it is this ruddy color that inspired its name and attributes, just as the dazzling whiteness of Venus made her the goddess of love and beauty. Why, indeed, should the origins of mythology be sought elsewhere than in astronomy?

While Humanity was attributing to the presumptive influence of Mars the defects inherent in its own terrestrial nature, this world, unwitting of our sorrows, pursued the celestial path marked out for it in space by destiny.