CHAPTER VI.
WHAT IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO IGNORE AND WHAT IS NO LONGER ALLOWED TO BE BELIEVED IN THE UNITED STATES.
The immediate effect of Barbicane's proposition was that of bringing out all astronomical facts relative to the Queen of Night.

Everybody began to study her assiduously.

It seemed as if the moon had appeared on the horizon for the first time, and that no one had ever seen her in the sky before.

She became the fashion; she was the lion of the day, without appearing less modest on that account, and took her place amongst the "stars" without being any the prouder.

The newspapers revived old anecdotes in which this "Sun of the wolves" played a part; they recalled the influence which the ignorance of past ages had ascribed to her; they sang about her in every tone; a little more and they would have quoted her witty sayings; the whole of America was filled with selenomania.
The scientific journals treated the question which touched upon the enterprise of the Gun Club more specially; they published the letter from the Observatory of Cambridge, they commented upon it and approved of it without reserve.
In short, even the most ignorant Yankee was no longer allowed to be ignorant of a single fact relative to his satellite, nor, to the oldest women amongst them, to have any superstitions about her left.