Sons of the Soil

CHAPTER IX

CON­CERN­ING THE MEDIOC­RA­CY

“Well, Michaud, what's the news?” asked the gen­er­al as soon as his wife had left the room.

“Gen­er­al, if you will per­mit me to say so, it would be bet­ter not to talk over mat­ters in this room. Walls have ears, and I should like to be cer­tain that what we say reach­es none but our own.”

“Very good,” said the gen­er­al, “then let us walk to­wards the stew­ard's lodge by the path through the fields; no one can over­hear us there.”

A few mo­ments lat­er the gen­er­al, with Michaud and Sibilet, was cross­ing the mead­ows, while Madame de Mont­cor­net, with the abbe and Blon­det, was on her way to the gate of the Avonne.

Michaud re­lat­ed the scene that had just tak­en place at the Grand-​I-​Vert.

“Va­tel did wrong,” said Sibilet.

“They made that plain to him at once,” replied Michaud, “by blind­ing him; but that's noth­ing. Gen­er­al, you re­mem­ber the plan we agreed up­on,--to seize the cat­tle of those depreda­tors against whom judg­ment was giv­en? Well, we can't do it. Brunet, like his col­league Plis­soud, is not loy­al in his sup­port. They both warn the delin­quents when they are about to make a seizure. Ver­michel, Brunet's as­sis­tant, went to the Grand-​I-​Vert this morn­ing, os­ten­si­bly af­ter Pere Four­chon; and Marie Ton­sard, who is in­ti­mate with Bon­nebault, ran off at once to give the alarm at Conch­es. The depre­da­tions have be­gun again.”

“A strong show of au­thor­ity is be­com­ing dai­ly more and more nec­es­sary,” said Sibilet.

“What did I tell you?” cried the gen­er­al. “We must de­mand the en­force­ment of the judg­ment of the court, which car­ried with it im­pris­on­ment; we must ar­rest for debt all those who do not pay the dam­ages I have won and the costs of the suits.”

“These fel­lows imag­ine the law is pow­er­less, and tell each oth­er that you dare not ar­rest them,” said Sibilet. “They think they fright­en you! They have con­fed­er­ates at Ville-​aux-​Fayes; for even the pros­ecut­ing at­tor­ney seems to have ig­nored the ver­dicts against them.”

“I think,” said Michaud, see­ing that the gen­er­al looked thought­ful, “that if you are will­ing to spend a good deal of mon­ey you can still pro­tect the prop­er­ty.”

“It is bet­ter to spend mon­ey than to act harsh­ly,” re­marked Sibilet.

“What is your plan?” asked the gen­er­al of his bailiff.

“It is very sim­ple,” said Michaud. “In­close the whole for­est with walls, like those of the park, and you will be safe; the slight­est depre­da­tion then be­comes a crim­inal of­fence and is tak­en to the as­sizes.”

“At a franc and a half the square foot for the ma­te­ri­al on­ly, Mon­sieur le comte would find his wall would cost him a third of the whole val­ue of Les Aigues,” said Sibilet, with a laugh.

“Well, well,” said Mont­cor­net, “I shall go and see the at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al at once.”

“The at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al,” re­marked Sibilet, gen­tly, “may per­haps share the opin­ion of his sub­or­di­nate; for the neg­li­gence shown by the lat­ter is prob­ably the re­sult of an agree­ment be­tween them.”

“Then I wish to know it!” cried Mont­cor­net. “If I have to get the whole of them turned out, judges, civ­il au­thor­ities, and the at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al to boot, I'll do it; I'll go the Keep­er of the Seals, or to the king him­self.”

At a ve­he­ment sign made by Michaud the gen­er­al stopped short and said to Sibilet, as he turned to re­trace his steps, “Good day, my dear fel­low,”--words which the stew­ard un­der­stood.

“Does Mon­sieur le comte in­tend, as may­or, to en­force the nec­es­sary mea­sures to re­press the abuse of glean­ing?” he said, re­spect­ful­ly. “The har­vest is com­ing on, and if we are to pub­lish the statutes about cer­tifi­cates of pau­perism and the pre­ven­tion of pau­pers from oth­er dis­tricts glean­ing our land, there is no time to be lost.”

“Do it at once, and ar­range with Groi­son,” said the count. “With such a class of peo­ple,” he added, “we must fol­low out the law.”

So, with­out a mo­ment's re­flec­tion, Mont­cor­net gave in to a mea­sure that Sibilet had been propos­ing to him for more than a fort­night, to which he had hith­er­to re­fused to con­sent; but now, in the vi­olence of anger caused by Va­tel's mishap, he in­stant­ly adopt­ed it as the right thing to do.

When Sibilet was at some dis­tance the gen­er­al said in a low voice to his bailiff:--

“Well, my dear Michaud, what is it; why did you make me that sign?”

“You have an en­emy with­in the walls, gen­er­al, yet you tell him plans which you ought not to con­fide even to the se­cret po­lice.”

“I share your sus­pi­cions, my dear friend,” replied Mont­cor­net, “but I don't in­tend to com­mit the same fault twice over. I shall not part with an­oth­er stew­ard till I'm sure of a bet­ter. I am wait­ing to get rid of Sibilet, till you un­der­stand the busi­ness of stew­ard well enough to take his place, and till Va­tel is fit to suc­ceed you. And yet, I have no ground of com­plaint against Sibilet. He is hon­est and punc­tu­al in all his deal­ings; he hasn't kept back a hun­dred francs in all these five years. He has a per­fect­ly de­testable na­ture, and that's all one can say against him. If it were oth­er­wise, what would be his plan in act­ing as he does?”

“Gen­er­al,” said Michaud, grave­ly, “I will find out, for un­doubt­ed­ly he has one; and if you would on­ly al­low it, a good bribe to that old scoundrel Four­chon will en­able me to get at the truth; though af­ter what he said just now I sus­pect the old fel­low of hav­ing more se­crets than one in his pouch. That swin­dling old cord­wain­er told me him­self they want to drive you from Les Aigues. And let me tell you, for you ought to know it, that from Conch­es to Ville-​aux-​Fayes there is not a peas­ant, a pet­ty trades­man, a farmer, a tav­ern-​keep­er who isn't lay­ing by his mon­ey to buy a bit of the es­tate. Four­chon con­fid­ed to me that Ton­sard has al­ready put in his claim. The idea that you can be forced to sell Les Aigues has gone from end to end of the val­ley like an in­fec­tion in the air. It may be that the stew­ard's present house, with some ad­join­ing land, will be the price paid for Sibilet's spy­ing. Noth­ing is ev­er said among us that is not im­me­di­ate­ly known at Ville-​aux-​Fayes. Sibilet is a rel­ative of your en­emy Gaubertin. What you have just said about the at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al and the oth­ers will prob­ably be re­port­ed be­fore you have reached the Pre­fec­ture. You don't know what the in­hab­itants of this dis­trict are.”

“Don't I know them? I know they are the scum of the earth! Do you sup­pose I am go­ing to yield to such black­guards?” cried the gen­er­al. “Good heav­ens, I'd rather burn Les Aigues my­self!”

“No need to burn it; let us adopt a line of con­duct which will baf­fle the schemes of these Lil­liputians. Judg­ing by threats, gen­er­al, they are re­solved on war to the knife against you; and there­fore since you men­tion in­cen­di­arism, let me beg of you to in­sure all your build­ings, and all your farm­hous­es.”

“Michaud, do you know whom they mean by 'Shop­man'? Yes­ter­day, as I was rid­ing along by the Thune, I heard some lit­tle ras­cals cry out, 'The Shop­man! here's the Shop­man!' and then they ran away.”

“Ask Sibilet; the an­swer is in his line, he likes to make you an­gry,” said Michaud, with a pained look. “But--if you will have an an­swer --well, that's a nick­name these brig­ands have giv­en you, gen­er­al.”

“What does it mean?”

“It means, gen­er­al--well, it refers to your fa­ther.”

“Ha! the curs!” cried the count, turn­ing livid. “Yes, Michaud, my fa­ther was a shop­keep­er, an up­hol­ster­er; the count­ess doesn't know it. Oh! that I should ev­er--well! af­ter all, I have waltzed with queens and em­press­es. I'll tell her this very night,” he cried, af­ter a pause.

“They al­so call you a cow­ard,” con­tin­ued Michaud.

“Ha!”

“They ask how you man­aged to save your­self at Essling when near­ly all your com­rades per­ished.”

The ac­cu­sa­tion brought a smile to the gen­er­al's lips. “Michaud, I shall go at once to the Pre­fec­ture!” he cried, with a sort of fury, “if it is on­ly to get the poli­cies of in­sur­ance you ask for. Let Madame la comtesse know that I have gone. Ha, ha! they want war, do they? Well, they shall have it; I'll take my plea­sure in thwart­ing them,--ev­ery one of them, those bour­geois of Soulanges, and their peas­antry! We are in the en­emy's coun­try, there­fore pru­dence! Tell the foresters to keep with­in the lim­its of the law. Poor Va­tel, take care of him. The count­ess is in­clined to be timid; she must know noth­ing of all this; oth­er­wise I could nev­er get her to come back here.”

Nei­ther the gen­er­al nor Michaud un­der­stood their re­al per­il. Michaud had been too short a time in this Bur­gun­di­an val­ley to re­al­ize the en­emy's pow­er, though he saw its ac­tion. The gen­er­al, for his part, be­lieved in the suprema­cy of the law.

The law, such as the leg­is­la­ture of these days man­ufac­tures it, has not the virtue we at­tribute to it. It strikes un­equal­ly; it is so mod­ified in many of its modes of ap­pli­ca­tion that it vir­tu­al­ly re­futes its own prin­ci­ples. This fact may be not­ed more or less dis­tinct­ly through­out all ages. Is there any his­to­ri­an ig­no­rant enough to as­sert that the de­crees of the most vig­ilant of pow­ers were ev­er en­forced through­out France?--for in­stance, that the req­ui­si­tions of the Con­ven­tion for men, com­modi­ties, and mon­ey were obeyed in Provence, in the depths of Nor­mandy, on the bor­ders of Brit­tany, as they were at the great cen­tres of so­cial life? What philoso­pher dares de­ny that a head falls to-​day in such or such de­part­ment, while in a neigh­bor­ing de­part­ment an­oth­er head stays on its shoul­ders though guilty of a crime iden­ti­cal­ly the same, and of­ten more hor­ri­ble? We ask for equal­ity in life, and in­equal­ity reigns in law and in the death penal­ty!

When the pop­ula­tion of a town falls be­low a cer­tain fig­ure the ad­min­is­tra­tive sys­tem is no longer the same. There are per­haps a hun­dred cities in France where the laws are vig­or­ous­ly en­forced, and there the in­tel­li­gence of the cit­izens ris­es to the con­cep­tion of the prob­lem of pub­lic wel­fare and fu­ture se­cu­ri­ty which the law seeks to solve; but through­out the rest of France noth­ing is com­pre­hend­ed be­yond im­me­di­ate grat­ifi­ca­tion; peo­ple rebel against all that lessens it. There­fore in near­ly one half of France we find a pow­er of in­er­tia which de­feats all le­gal ac­tion, both mu­nic­ipal and gov­ern­men­tal. This re­sis­tance, be it un­der­stood, does not af­fect the es­sen­tial things of pub­lic poli­ty. The col­lec­tion of tax­es, re­cruit­ing, pun­ish­ment of great crimes, as a gen­er­al thing do sys­tem­at­ical­ly go on; but out­side of such rec­og­nized ne­ces­si­ties, all leg­isla­tive de­crees which af­fect cus­toms, morals, pri­vate in­ter­ests, and cer­tain abus­es, are a dead let­ter, ow­ing to the sullen op­po­si­tion of the peo­ple. At the very mo­ment when this book is go­ing to press, this dumb re­sis­tance, which op­posed Louis XIV. in Brit­tany, may still be seen and felt. See the un­for­tu­nate re­sults of the game-​laws, to which we are now sac­ri­fic­ing year­ly the lives of some twen­ty or thir­ty men for the sake of pre­serv­ing a few an­imals.

In France the law is, to at least twen­ty mil­lion of in­hab­itants, noth­ing more than a bit of white pa­per post­ed on the doors of the church and the town-​hall. That gives rise to the term “pa­pers,” which Mouche used to ex­press le­gal­ity. Many may­ors of can­tons (not to speak of the dis­trict may­ors) put up their bun­dles of seeds and herbs with the print­ed statutes. As for the dis­trict may­ors, the num­ber of those who do not know how to read and write is re­al­ly alarm­ing, and the man­ner in which the civ­il records are kept is even more so. The dan­ger of this state of things, well-​known to the gov­ern­ing pow­ers, is doubt­less di­min­ish­ing; but what cen­tral­iza­tion (against which ev­ery one de­claims, as it is the fash­ion in France to de­claim against all things good and use­ful and strong),--what cen­tral­iza­tion can­not touch, the Pow­er against which it will for­ev­er fling it­self in vain, is that which the gen­er­al was now about to at­tack, and which we shall take leave to call the Medioc­ra­cy.

A great out­cry was made against the tyran­ny of the no­bles; in these days the cry is against that of cap­ital­ists, against abus­es of pow­er, which may be mere­ly the in­evitable galling of the so­cial yoke, called Com­pact by Rousseau, Con­sti­tu­tion by some, Char­ter by oth­ers; Czar here, King there, Par­lia­ment in Great Britain; while in France the gen­er­al lev­el­ling be­gun in 1789 and con­tin­ued in 1830 has paved the way for the jug­gling do­min­ion of the mid­dle class­es, and de­liv­ered the na­tion in­to their hands with­out es­cape. The por­tray­al of one fact alone, un­for­tu­nate­ly on­ly too com­mon in these days, name­ly, the sub­jec­tion of a can­ton, a lit­tle town, a sub-​pre­fec­ture, to the will of a fam­ily clique,--in short, the pow­er ac­quired by Gaubertin,--will show this so­cial dan­ger bet­ter than all dog­mat­ic state­ments put to­geth­er. Many op­pressed com­mu­ni­ties will rec­og­nize the truth of this pic­ture; many per­sons se­cret­ly and silent­ly crushed by this tyran­ny will find in these words an obit­uary, as it were, which may half con­sole them for their hid­den woes.

At the very mo­ment when the gen­er­al imag­ined him­self to be re­new­ing a war­fare in which there had re­al­ly been no truce, his for­mer stew­ard had just com­plet­ed the last mesh­es of the net-​work in which he now held the whole ar­rondisse­ment of Ville-​aux-​Fayes. To avoid too many ex­pla­na­tions it is nec­es­sary to state, once for all, suc­cinct­ly, the ge­nealog­ical ram­ifi­ca­tions by means of which Gaubertin wound him­self about the coun­try, as a boa-​con­stric­tor winds around a tree,--with such art that a pass­ing trav­eller thinks he be­holds some nat­ural ef­fect of the trop­ical veg­eta­tion.

In 1793 there were three broth­ers of the name of Mou­chon in the val­ley of the Avonne. Af­ter 1793 they changed the name of the val­ley to that of the Val­ley des Aigues, out of ha­tred to the old no­bil­ity.

The el­dest broth­er, stew­ard of the prop­er­ty of the Ron­querolles fam­ily, was elect­ed deputy of the de­part­ment to the Con­ven­tion. Like his friend, Gaubertin's fa­ther, the pros­ecu­tor of those days, who saved the Soulanges fam­ily, he saved the prop­er­ty and the lives of the Ron­querolles. He had two daugh­ters; one mar­ried to Gen­drin, the lawyer, the oth­er to Gaubertin. He died in 1804.

The sec­ond, through the in­flu­ence of his el­der broth­er, was made post­mas­ter at Conch­es. His on­ly child was a daugh­ter, mar­ried to a rich farmer named Guer­bet. He died in 1817.

The last of the Mou­chons, who was a priest, and the cu­rate of Ville-​aux-​Fayes be­fore the Rev­olu­tion, was again a priest af­ter the re-​es­tab­lish­ment of Catholic wor­ship, and again the cu­rate of the same lit­tle town. He was not will­ing to take the oath, and was hid­den for a long time in the her­mitage of Les Aigues, un­der the pro­tec­tion of the Gaubertins, fa­ther and son. Now about six­ty-​sev­en years of age, he was treat­ed with uni­ver­sal re­spect and af­fec­tion, ow­ing to the har­mo­ny of his na­ture with that of the in­hab­itants. Par­si­mo­nious to the verge of avarice, he was thought to be rich, and the cred­it of be­ing so in­creased the re­spect that was shown to him. Mon­seigneur the bish­op paid the great­est at­ten­tion to the Abbe Mou­chon, who was al­ways spo­ken of as the ven­er­able cu­rate of Ville-​aux-​Fayes; and the fact that he had sev­er­al times re­fused to go and live in a splen­did par­son­age at­tached to the Pre­fec­ture, where Mon­seigneur wished to set­tle him, made him dear­er still to his peo­ple.

Gaubertin, now may­or of Ville-​aux-​Fayes, re­ceived steady sup­port from his broth­er-​in-​law Gen­drin, who was judge of the mu­nic­ipal court. Gaubertin the younger, the so­lic­itor who had the most prac­tice be­fore this court and much re­pute in the ar­rondisse­ment, was al­ready think­ing of sell­ing his prac­tice af­ter five years' ex­er­cise of it. He want­ed to suc­ceed his Un­cle Gen­drin as coun­sel­lor when­ev­er the lat­ter should re­tire from the pro­fes­sion. Gen­drin's on­ly son was com­mis­sion­er of mort­gages.

Soudry's son, who for the last two years had been pros­ecut­ing-​at­tor­ney at the pre­fec­ture, was Gaubertin's hench­man. The clever Madame Soudry had se­cured the fu­ture of her hus­band's son by mar­ry­ing him to Rigou's on­ly daugh­ter. The unit­ed for­tunes of the Soudrys and the ex-​monk, which would come even­tu­al­ly to the at­tor­ney, made that young man one of the most im­por­tant per­son­ages of the de­part­ment.

The sub-​pre­fect of Ville-​aux-​Fayes, Mon­sieur des Lu­peaulx, nephew of the gen­er­al-​sec­re­tary of one of the most im­por­tant min­istries in Paris, was the prospec­tive hus­band of Made­moi­selle Elise Gaubertin, the may­or's youngest daugh­ter, whose dowry, like that of her el­der sis­ter, was two hun­dred thou­sand francs, not to speak of “ex­pec­ta­tions.” This func­tionary showed much sense, though not aware of it, in falling in love with Made­moi­selle Elise when he first ar­rived at Ville-​aux-​Fayes, in 1819. If it had not been for his so­cial po­si­tion, which made him “el­igi­ble,” he would long ago have been forced to ask for his ex­change. But Gaubertin in mar­ry­ing him to his daugh­ter thought much more of the un­cle, the gen­er­al-​sec­re­tary, than of the nephew; and in re­turn, the un­cle, for the sake of his nephew, gave all his in­flu­ence to Gaubertin.

Thus the Church, the mag­is­tra­cy both re­mov­able and ir­re­mov­able, the mu­nic­ipal­ity, and the pre­fec­ture, the four feet of pow­er, walked as the may­or pleased. Let us now see how that func­tionary strength­ened him­self in the spheres above and be­low that in which he worked.

The de­part­ment to which Ville-​aux-​Fayes be­longs is one the num­ber of whose pop­ula­tion gives it the right to elect six deputies. Ev­er since the cre­ation of the Left Cen­tre of the Cham­ber, the ar­rondisse­ment of Ville-​aux-​Fayes had sent a deputy named Lecler­cq, for­mer­ly bank­ing agent of the wine de­part­ment of the cus­tom-​house, a son-​in-​law of Gaubertin, and now a gov­er­nor of the Bank of France. The num­ber of elec­tors which this rich val­ley sent to the elec­toral col­lege was suf­fi­cient to in­sure, if on­ly through pri­vate deal­ing, the con­stant ap­point­ment of Mon­sieur de Ron­querolles, the pa­tron of the Mou­chon fam­ily. The vot­ers of Ville-​aux-​Fayes lent their sup­port to the pre­fect, on con­di­tion that the Mar­quis de Ron­querolles was main­tained in the col­lege. Thus Gaubertin, who was the first to broach the idea of this ar­range­ment, was fa­vor­ably re­ceived at the Pre­fec­ture, which he of­ten, in re­turn, saved from pet­ty an­noy­ances. The pre­fect al­ways se­lect­ed three firm min­is­te­ri­al­ists, and two deputies of the Left Cen­tre. The lat­ter, one of them be­ing the Mar­quis de Ron­querolles, broth­er-​in-​law of the Comte de Serisy, and the oth­er a gov­er­nor of the Bank of France, gave lit­tle or no alarm to the cab­inet, and the elec­tions in this de­part­ment were rat­ed ex­cel­lent at the min­istry of the in­te­ri­or.

The Comte de Soulanges, peer of France, se­lect­ed to be the next mar­shal, and faith­ful to the Bour­bons, knew that his forests and oth­er prop­er­ty were all well-​man­aged by the no­tary Lupin, and well-​watched by Soudry. He was a pa­tron of Gen­drin's, hav­ing ob­tained his ap­point­ment as judge part­ly by the help of Mon­sieur de Ron­querolles.

Messieurs Lecler­cq and de Ron­querolles sat in the Left Cen­tre, but near­er to the left than to the cen­tre,--a po­lit­ical po­si­tion which of­fers great ad­van­tages to those who re­gard their po­lit­ical con­science as a gar­ment.

The broth­er of Mon­sieur Lecler­cq had ob­tained the sit­ua­tion of col­lec­tor at Ville-​aux-​Fayes, and Lecler­cq him­self, Gaubertin's son-​in-​law, had late­ly bought a fine es­tate be­yond the val­ley of the Avonne, which brought him in a rental of thir­ty thou­sand francs, with park and chateau and a con­trol­ling in­flu­ence in its own can­ton.

Thus, in the up­per re­gions of the State, in both Cham­bers, and in the chief min­is­te­ri­al de­part­ment, Gaubertin could re­ly on an in­flu­ence that was pow­er­ful and al­so ac­tive, and which he was care­ful not to weary with unim­por­tant re­quests.

The coun­sel­lor Gen­drin, ap­point­ed judge by the Cham­ber, was the lead­ing spir­it of the Supreme Court; for the chief jus­tice, one of the three min­is­te­ri­al deputies, left the man­age­ment of it to Gen­drin dur­ing half the year. The coun­sel for the Pre­fec­ture, a cousin of Sar­cus, called “Sar­cus the rich,” was the right-​hand man of the pre­fect, him­self a deputy. Even with­out the fam­ily rea­sons which al­lied Gaubertin and young des Lu­peaulx, a broth­er of Madame Sar­cus would still have been de­sir­able as sub-​pre­fect to the ar­rondisse­ment of Ville-​aux-​Fayes. Madame Sar­cus, the coun­sel­lor's wife, was a Val­lat of Soulanges, a fam­ily con­nect­ed with the Gaubertins, and she was said to have “dis­tin­guished” the no­tary Lupin in her youth. Though she was now forty-​five years old, with a son in the school of en­gi­neers, Lupin nev­er went to the Pre­fec­ture with­out pay­ing his re­spects and din­ing with her.

The nephew of Guer­bet, the post­mas­ter, whose fa­ther was, as we have seen, col­lec­tor of Soulanges, held the im­por­tant sit­ua­tion of ex­am­in­ing judge in the mu­nic­ipal court of Ville-​aux-​Fayes. The third judge, son of Cor­bi­net, the no­tary, be­longed body and soul to the all-​pow­er­ful may­or; and, fi­nal­ly, young Vig­or, son of the lieu­tenant of the gen­darmerie, was the sub­sti­tute judge.

Sibilet's fa­ther, sher­iff of the court, had mar­ried his sis­ter to Mon­sieur Vig­or the lieu­tenant, and that in­di­vid­ual, fa­ther of six chil­dren, was cousin of the fa­ther of Gaubertin through his wife, a Gaubertin-​Val­lat. Eigh­teen months pre­vi­ous­ly the unit­ed ef­forts of the two deputies, Mon­sieur de Soulanges and Gaubertin, had cre­at­ed the place of com­mis­sary of po­lice for the sher­iff's sec­ond son.

Sibilet's el­dest daugh­ter mar­ried Mon­sieur Herve, a school-​mas­ter, whose school was trans­formed in­to a col­lege as a re­sult of this mar­riage, so that for the past year Soulanges had re­joiced in the pres­ence of a pro­fes­sor.

The sher­iff's youngest son was em­ployed on the gov­ern­ment do­mains, with the promise of suc­ceed­ing the clerk of reg­is­tra­tions so soon as that of­fi­cer had com­plet­ed the term of ser­vice which en­abled him to re­tire on a pen­sion.

The youngest Sibilet girl, now six­teen years old, was be­trothed to Cor­bi­net, broth­er of the no­tary. And an old maid, Made­moi­selle Gaubertin-​Val­lat, sis­ter of Madame Sibilet, the sher­iff's wife, held the of­fice for the sale of stamped pa­per.

Thus, wher­ev­er we turn in Ville-​aux-​Fayes we meet some mem­ber of the in­vis­ible coali­tion, whose avowed chief, rec­og­nized as such by ev­ery one, great and small, was the may­or of the town, the gen­er­al agent for the en­tire tim­ber busi­ness, Gaubertin!

If we turn to the oth­er end of the val­ley of the Avonne we shall see that Gaubertin ruled at Soulanges through the Soudrys, through Lupin the as­sis­tant may­or and stew­ard of the Soulanges es­tate, who was nec­es­sar­ily in con­stant com­mu­ni­ca­tion with the Comte de Soulanges, through Sar­cus, jus­tice of the peace, through Guer­bet, the col­lec­tor, through Gour­don, the doc­tor, who had mar­ried a Gen­drin-​Vate­bled. He gov­erned Blangy through Rigou, Conch­es through the post-​mas­ter, the despot­ic ruler of his own dis­trict.

Gaubertin's in­flu­ence was so great and pow­er­ful that even the in­vest­ments and the sav­ings of Rigou, Soudry, Gen­drin, Guer­bet, Lupin, even Sar­cus the rich him­self, were man­aged by his ad­vice. The town of Ville-​aux-​Fayes be­lieved im­plic­it­ly in its may­or. Gaubertin's abil­ity was not less ex­tolled than his hon­esty and his kind­ness; he was the ser­vant of his rel­atives and con­stituents (al­ways with an eye to a re­turn of ben­efits), and the whole mu­nic­ipal­ity adored him. The town nev­er ceased to blame Mon­sieur Mar­iotte, of Aux­erre, for hav­ing op­posed and thwart­ed that wor­thy Mon­sieur Gaubertin.

Not aware of their strength, no oc­ca­sion for dis­play­ing it hav­ing arisen, the bour­geoisie of Ville-​aux-​Fayes con­tent­ed them­selves with boast­ing that no strangers in­ter­med­dled in their af­fairs and they be­lieved them­selves ex­cel­lent cit­izens and faith­ful pub­lic ser­vants. Noth­ing, how­ev­er, es­caped their despot­ic rule, which in it­self was not per­ceived, the re­sult be­ing con­sid­ered a tri­umph of the lo­cal­ity.

The on­ly stranger in this fam­ily com­mu­ni­ty was the gov­ern­ment en­gi­neer in the high­way de­part­ment; and his dis­missal in fa­vor of the son of Sar­cus the rich was now be­ing pressed, with a fair chance that this one weak thread in the net would soon be strength­ened. And yet this pow­er­ful league, which mo­nop­olized all du­ties both pub­lic and pri­vate, sucked the re­sources of the re­gion, and fas­tened on pow­er like limpets to a ship, es­caped all no­tice so com­plete­ly that Gen­er­al Mont­cor­net had no sus­pi­cion of it. The pre­fect boast­ed of the pros­per­ity of Ville-​aux-​Fayes and its ar­rondisse­ment; even the min­is­ter of the in­te­ri­or was heard to re­mark: “There's a mod­el sub-​pre­fec­ture, which runs on wheels; we should be lucky in­deed if all were like it.” Fam­ily de­signs were so in­volved with lo­cal in­ter­ests that here, as in many oth­er lit­tle towns and even pre­fec­tures, a func­tionary who did not be­long to the place would have been forced to re­sign with­in a year.

When this despot­ic mid­dle-​class cous­in­ry seizes a vic­tim, he is so care­ful­ly gagged and bound that com­plaint is im­pos­si­ble; he is smeared with slime and wax like a snail in a bee­hive. This in­vis­ible, im­per­cep­ti­ble tyran­ny is up­held by pow­er­ful rea­sons,--such as the wish to be sur­round­ed by their own fam­ily, to keep prop­er­ty in their own hands, the mu­tu­al help they ought to lend each oth­er, the guar­an­tees giv­en to the ad­min­is­tra­tion by the fact that their agent is un­der the eyes of his fel­low-​cit­izens and neigh­bors. What does all this lead to? To the fact that lo­cal in­ter­ests su­per­sede all ques­tions of pub­lic in­ter­est; the cen­tral­ized will of Paris is fre­quent­ly over­thrown in the provinces, the truth of things is dis­guised, and coun­try com­mu­ni­ties snap their fin­gers at gov­ern­ment. In short, af­ter the main pub­lic ne­ces­si­ties have been at­tend­ed to, it will be seen that the laws, in­stead of act­ing up­on the mass­es, re­ceive their im­pulse from them; the pop­ula­tions adapt the law to them­selves and not them­selves to the law.

Who­ev­er has trav­elled in the south or west of France, or in Al­sace, in any oth­er way than from inn to inn to see build­ings and land­scapes, will sure­ly ad­mit the truth of these re­marks. The re­sults of mid­dle-​class nepo­tism may be, at present, mere­ly iso­lat­ed evils; but the ten­den­cy of ex­ist­ing laws is to in­crease them. This low-​lev­el despo­tism can and will cause great dis­as­ters, and the events of the dra­ma about to be played in the val­ley of Les Aigues will prove it.

The monar­chi­cal and im­pe­ri­al sys­tems, more rash­ly over­thrown than peo­ple re­al­ize, reme­died these abus­es by means of cer­tain con­se­crat­ed lives, by clas­si­fi­ca­tions and cat­egories and by those par­tic­ular coun­ter­pois­es since so ab­surd­ly de­fined as “priv­ileges.” There are no priv­ileges now, when ev­ery hu­man be­ing is free to climb the greased pole of pow­er. But sure­ly it would be safer to al­low open and avowed priv­ileges than those which are un­der­hand, based on trick­ery, sub­ver­sive of what should be pub­lic spir­it, and con­tin­uing the work of despo­tism to a low­er and baser lev­el than hereto­fore. May we not have over­thrown no­ble tyrants de­vot­ed to their coun­try's good, to cre­ate the tyran­ny of self­ish in­ter­ests? Shall pow­er lurk in se­cret places, in­stead of ra­di­at­ing from its nat­ural source? This is worth think­ing about. The spir­it of lo­cal sec­tion­al­ism, such as we have now de­pict­ed, will soon be seen to in­vade the Cham­ber.

Mont­cor­net's friend, the late pre­fect, Comte de la Roche-​Hugon, had lost his po­si­tion just be­fore the last ar­rival of the gen­er­al at Les Aigues. This dis­missal drove him in­to the ranks of the Lib­er­al op­po­si­tion, where he be­came one of the cho­rus of the Left, a po­si­tion he soon af­ter aban­doned for an em­bassy. His suc­ces­sor, luck­ily for Mont­cor­net, was a son-​in-​law of the Mar­quis de Troisville, un­cle of the count­ess, the Comte de Cast­er­an. He wel­comed Mont­cor­net as a re­la­tion and begged him to con­tin­ue his in­ti­ma­cy at the Pre­fec­ture. Af­ter lis­ten­ing to the gen­er­al's com­plaints the Comte de Cast­er­an in­vit­ed the bish­op, the at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al, the colonel of the gen­darmerie, coun­sel­lor Sar­cus, and the gen­er­al com­mand­ing the di­vi­sion to meet him the next day at break­fast.

The at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al, Baron Bourlac (so fa­mous in the Chanterie and Ri­fael suits), was one of those men well-​known to all gov­ern­ments, who at­tach them­selves to pow­er, no mat­ter in whose hands it is, and who make them­selves in­valu­able by such de­vo­tion. Hav­ing owed his el­eva­tion in the first place to his fa­nati­cism for the Em­per­or, he now owed the re­ten­tion of his of­fi­cial rank to his in­flex­ible char­ac­ter and the con­sci­en­tious­ness with which he ful­filled his du­ties. He who once im­pla­ca­bly pros­ecut­ed the rem­nant of the Chouans now pros­ecut­ed the Bona­partists as im­pla­ca­bly. But years and tur­moils had some­what sub­dued his en­er­gy and he had now be­come, like oth­er old dev­ils in­car­nate, per­fect­ly charm­ing in man­ner and ways.

The gen­er­al ex­plained his po­si­tion and the fears of his bailiff, and spoke of the ne­ces­si­ty of mak­ing an ex­am­ple and en­forc­ing the rights of prop­er­ty.

The high func­tionar­ies lis­tened grave­ly, mak­ing, how­ev­er, no re­ply be­yond mere plat­itudes, such as, “Un­doubt­ed­ly, the laws must be up­held”; “Your cause is that of all land-​own­ers”; “We will con­sid­er it; but, sit­uat­ed as we are, pru­dence is very nec­es­sary”; “A monar­chy could cer­tain­ly do more for the peo­ple than the peo­ple would do for it­self, even if it were, as in 1793, the sovereign peo­ple”; “The mass­es suf­fer, and we are bound to do as much for them as for our­selves.”

The re­lent­less at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al ex­pressed such kind­ly and benev­olent views re­spect­ing the con­di­tion of the low­er class­es that our fu­ture Utopi­ans, had they heard him, might have thought that the high­er grade of gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials were al­ready aware of the dif­fi­cul­ties of that prob­lem which mod­ern so­ci­ety will be forced to solve.

It may be well to say here that at this pe­ri­od of the Restora­tion, var­ious bloody en­coun­ters had tak­en place in re­mote parts of the king­dom, caused by this very ques­tion of the pil­lage of woods, and the ma­raud­ing rights which the peas­ants were ev­ery­where ar­ro­gat­ing to them­selves. Nei­ther the gov­ern­ment nor the court liked these out­breaks, nor the shed­ding of blood which re­sult­ed from re­pres­sion. Though they felt the ne­ces­si­ty of rig­or­ous mea­sures, they nev­er­the­less treat­ed as blun­der­ers the of­fi­cials who were com­pelled to em­ploy them, and dis­missed them on the first pre­tence. The pre­fects were there­fore anx­ious to shuf­fle out of such dif­fi­cul­ties when­ev­er pos­si­ble.

At the very be­gin­ning of the con­ver­sa­tion Sar­cus (the rich) had made a sign to the pre­fect and the at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al which Mont­cor­net did not see, but which set the tone of the dis­cus­sion. The at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al was well aware of the state of mind of the in­hab­itants of the val­ley des Aigues through his sub­or­di­nate, Soudry the young at­tor­ney.

“I fore­see a ter­ri­ble strug­gle,” the lat­ter had said to him. “They mean to kill the gen­darmes; my spies tell me so. It will be very hard to con­vict them for it. The in­stant the ju­ry feel they are in­cur­ring the ha­tred of the friends of the twen­ty or thir­ty pris­on­ers, they will not sus­tain us,--we could not get them to con­vict for death, nor even for the gal­leys. Pos­si­bly by pros­ecut­ing in per­son you might get a few years' im­pris­on­ment for the ac­tu­al mur­der­ers. Bet­ter shut our eyes than open them, if by open­ing them we bring on a col­li­sion which costs blood­shed and sev­er­al thou­sand francs to the State,--not to speak of the cost of keep­ing the guilty in prison. It is too high a price to pay for a vic­to­ry which will on­ly re­veal our ju­di­cial weak­ness to the eyes of all.”

Mont­cor­net, who was whol­ly with­out sus­pi­cion of the strength and in­flu­ence of the Medioc­ra­cy in his hap­py val­ley, did not even men­tion Gaubertin, whose hand kept these em­bers of op­po­si­tion al­ways alive, though smoul­der­ing. Af­ter break­fast the at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al took Mont­cor­net by the arm and led him to the Pre­fect's study. When the gen­er­al left that room af­ter their con­fer­ence, he wrote to his wife that he was start­ing for Paris and should be ab­sent a week. We shall see, af­ter the ex­ecu­tion of cer­tain mea­sures sug­gest­ed by Baron Bourlac, the at­tor­ney-​gen­er­al, whether the se­cret ad­vice he gave to Mont­cor­net was wise, and whether in con­form­ing to it the count and Les Aigues were en­abled to es­cape the “Evil grudge.”

Some minds, ea­ger for mere amuse­ment, will com­plain that these var­ious ex­pla­na­tions are far too long; but we once more call at­ten­tion to the fact that the his­to­ri­an of the man­ners, cus­toms, and morals of his time must obey a law far more strin­gent than that im­posed on the his­to­ri­an of mere facts. He must show the prob­abil­ity of ev­ery­thing, even the truth; where­as, in the do­main of his­to­ry, prop­er­ly so-​called, the im­pos­si­ble must be ac­cept­ed for the sole rea­son that it did hap­pen. The vi­cis­si­tudes of so­cial or pri­vate life are brought about by a crowd of lit­tle caus­es de­rived from a thou­sand con­di­tions. The man of sci­ence is forced to clear away the avalanche un­der which whole vil­lages lie buried, to show you the peb­bles brought down from the sum­mit which alone can de­ter­mine the for­ma­tion of the moun­tain. If the his­to­ri­an of hu­man life were sim­ply telling you of a sui­cide, five hun­dred of which oc­cur year­ly in Paris, the melo­dra­ma is so com­mon­place that brief rea­sons and ex­pla­na­tions are all that need be giv­en; but how shall he make you see that the self-​de­struc­tion of an es­tate could hap­pen in these days when prop­er­ty is reck­oned of more val­ue than life? “De re ves­tra ag­itur,” said a mak­er of fa­bles; this tale con­cerns the af­fairs and in­ter­ests of all those, no mat­ter who they be, who pos­sess any­thing.

Re­mem­ber that this coali­tion of a whole can­ton and of a lit­tle town against a gen­er­al, who, in spite of his rash courage, had es­caped the dan­gers of ac­tu­al war, is go­ing on in oth­er dis­tricts against oth­er men who seek on­ly to do what is right by those dis­tricts. It is a coali­tion which to-​day threat­ens ev­ery man, the man of ge­nius, the states­man, the mod­ern agri­cul­tur­al­ist,--in short, all in­no­va­tors.

This last ex­pla­na­tion not on­ly gives a true pre­sen­ta­tion of the per­son­ages of this dra­ma, and a se­ri­ous mean­ing even to its pet­ty de­tails, but it al­so throws a vivid light up­on the scene where so many so­cial in­ter­ests are now mar­shalling.