an oppressed district will recognize the truth of the picture,
and many an obscure down-trodden victim will find in this
brief hie jacet a publicity given to his private griefs which
sometimes soothes them.
When the General concluded a purely imaginary truce for
renewed hostilities, his ex-steward had pretty much completed
the network of threads in which he held Ville-aux-Fayes and
the whole district roui:d it. It will be better to give, in as
few words as possible, an account of the various ramifica-
tions of the Gaubertin family, for by means of his kin he had
THE PEASANTRY 153
involved the whole country in his toils, something as the boa
constrictor winds itself about a tree-trunk so cunningly that
the passing traveler mistakes the serpent for some Asiatic
vegetable product.
In the year 1793 there were three brothers of the name of
Mouchon in the Avonne valley. (It was about that time
that the name of the valley was changed ; hitherto it had been
the valley of the Aigues; now the hated name of the old
manor fell out of use and it became the Avonne valley.)
The oldest of the brothers, a steward of the manor of
Konquerolles, became a deputy of the department under the
Convention. He took a hint from his friend Gaubertin senior
(the public accuser who saved the Soulanges family), and in
like manner saved the lives and property of the Ronquerolles.
This brother had two daughters; one of them married Gen-
drin the barrister, the other became the wife of Frangois
Gaubertin. Finally, he died in 1804.
The second brother obtained the post-house at Conches
gratis, thanks to the elder's influence. His daughter, his
sole offspring and heiress, married a well-to-do farmer in the
neighborhood, Guerbet by name. He died in 1817.
But the youngest of the Mouchons took holy orders. He
was cure of Ville-aux-Fayes before the Revolution, cure again
after the restoration of the Catholic religion, and now the
year 1823 still found him cure of the little metropolis. He
had formerly declined the oath, and in consequence for a long
time had kept out of sight and lived in the "hermitage" at the
Aigues, protected by the Gaubertins, father and son ; and now,
at the age of sixty-seven, he enjoyed the affection and esteem
of his whole parish, for all his characteristics were common
to his flock. He was parsimonious to the verge of avarice,
was reported to be very rich, and these rumors of wealth
strengthened the respect which he met with on all sides. His
lordship the bishop thought very highly of the Abbe
Mouchon, usually spoken of as "the venerable cur of Ville-
aux-Fayes;" it was well-known there that the bishop had
pressed him more than once to accept a superb living at the
154 THE PEASANTRY
prefecture, and his repeated refusals, no less than his reputa-
tion for riches, had endeared the cure Mouchon to fellow-in-
habitants.
At this time Gaubertin, mayor of Ville-aux-Fayes, found
a solid supporter in his brother-in-law, M. Gendrin, president
of the Court of First Instance, while his own son now the
busiest solicitor in the place, and a by-word in the arrondisse-
ment talked already of selling his practice after five years.
He meant to be a barrister, and to succeed to his uncle Gen-
drin when the latter retired. President Gendrin's only son
was registrar of mortgages.
Soudry junior, who had fulfilled the functions of public
prosecutor for two years, was one of Gaubertin's zealous ad-
herents. Clever Mme. Soudry had done her part. She had
strengthened her husband's son's present position by immense
expectations when she married him to Rigou's only daughter.
One day the public prosecutor would inherit a double fortune,
the ex-monk's money would come to him as well as Soudry's
savings, and the young fellow would be one of the wealthiest
and most important men in the department.
The sub-prefect of Ville-aux-Fayes was a M. des Lupeaulx,
a nephew of the secretary of a State department. He was
meant to marry Mile. Elise Gaubertin, the mayor's youngest
daughter. Like her eldest sister, she had a portion of two
hundred thousand francs, besides expectations. Young <l<s
Lupeaulx had unwittingly done a clever thing on first coming
to the place in 1819 when he fell straightway in love with
Elise; but for his eligibility as a suitor, he would long since
have been compelled to ask for an exchange, but as it was, he
belonged prospectively to the Gaubertin clan, whose chief-
tain's eyes were fixed less upon the nephew than upon the
uncle in Paris. For all the uncle's influence, in his nephew's
interest, was at Gaubertin's disposition.
And so the church, the magistracy, permanent and remov-
able, the municipality and the administration, the four feet
of power, walked at the mayor's will.
This power was strengthened in regions above and below ita
immediate sphere of action by the following means :
THE PEASANTRY 156
The department in which Ville-aux-Fayes is situated is
sufficiently populous to nominate six deputies. Ever since
the creation of the Left-Centre in the Chamber, Ville-aux-
Fayes had been represented by Leclercq, who, it may be re-
membered, was Gaubertin's son-in-law and the agent in
charge of the city wine-cellars, and since had become a gov-
ernor of the Bank of France. The number of electors which
this well-to-do valley furnished to the grand electoral college
was sufficiently considerable to ensure the election of M. de
Ronquerolles (the patron acquired, as explained, by the
Mouchon family), even if an arrangement had to be made.
The electors of Ville-aux-Fayes gave their support to the pre-
fect on condition that the Marquis de Ronquerolles should
continue to be elected by the grand college. So Gaubertin,
the first to hit upon this electioneering expedient, was in good
odor at the prefecture, which he saved many disappointments.
The prefect managed to return three out-and-out Ministerial-
ists, as well as two deputies for the Left-Centre, and as one of
these two last was a governor of the Bank of France, and the
other the Marquis de Ronquerolles, the Comte de Serizy's
brother-in-law, there was little to alarm the Cabinet. So the
Ministry of the Interior looked upon the elections in this par-
ticular department as very well regulated.
The Comte de Soulanges, a peer of France, a Marshal-
designate, and a faithful adherent of the House of Bourbon,
knew that his estates and woods were well managed and prop-
erly guarded by Soudry and Lupin the notary. He might be
considered to be Gendrin's patron, for he had successively
procured for him the posts of judge and president, with the
co-operation of M. de Ronquerolles.
MM. Leclercq and de Ronquerolles took their seats in the
Left- Centre, and towards the Left rather than to the Centre
side, a position in politics which presents numerous advan-
tages f.o those who can change their political conscience like
a suit of clothes.
M. Leclercq's brother had obtained the post of tax-collector
at Ville-aux-Fayes, and Leclercq himself, the banker-deputy
VOL. 10 36
156 THE PEASANTRY
of the arrondissement, had recently purchased a fine estate,
bringing in thirty thousand francs a year, together with a
park and a chateau, the whole lying just outside the town
a position which enabled him to influence the whole canton.
In these ways Gaubertin had power in the higher regions
of the State, in the two Chambers, and in the Cabinet; he
could count upon influence both potent and active, and as yet
he had not weakened it by asking for trifles, nor strained it
by too many serious demands.
Councillor Gendrin, appointed vice-president by the Cham-
ber, was the real power in the Court-Eoyal. The First Presi-
dent, one of the three Ministerialist deputies returned by the
department, and an indispensable orator of the Centre, was
away for half the year, and left his court to Vice-president
Gendrin.
The prefect himself was another deputy, and the prefect's
right hand was a member of his council, a cousin of Sarcus
the justice, called Money-Sarcus by way of distinction. But
for the family considerations which bound Gaubertin and
young des Lupeaulx, Mme. Sarcus' brother would have been
"put forward" as sub-prefect of the arrondissement of Ville-
aux-Fayes. Mme. Sarcus (wife of Money-Sarcus) was a
Vallat of Soulanges, and related to the Gaubertins. It was
said of her that she had shown a preference for the notary
Lupin when he was a young man ; and now, though she was a
woman of five-and-forty, with a grown-up son, an assistant-
surveyor, Lupin never went to the prefecture but he paid his
respects to Mme. Money-Sarcus, or dined with her.
The nephew of Guerbet, the postmaster, was, as we have
seen, the son of the Soulanges tax-collector, and filled the im-
portant post of examining magistrate at the tribunal of Ville-
aux-Fayes. The third magistrate was a Corbinet, son of the
notary of that name, and, of course, belonged body and soul
to the all-powerful mayor of Ville-aux-Fayes, and (to close
the list of legal functionaries) the deputy magistrate was
Vigor junior, son of the lieutenant of gendarmerie.
Now Sibilet's father, who had been clerk of the court ever
THE PEASANTRY 157
since there had been a court at all, had married his sister to
M. Vigor, the aforesaid lieutenant of gendarmerie at Ville-
aux-Fayes. Sibilet himself, good man, was a father of six,
and a cousin of Gaubertin's father through his wife, a Gau-
bertin- Vallat.
Only eighteen months ago the united efforts of both depu-
ties, of M. de Soulanges and President Gendrin, had success-
fully created a post of commissary of police and filled it.
The elder Sibilet's second son had the appointment. Sibi-
let's eldest daughter had married M. Herve, a schoolmas-
ter; within a year of the marriage his establishment was
transformed, and Ville-aux-Fayes received the boon of a head-
master of a grammar school.
Another Sibilet, Maitre Corbinet's clerk, looked to the
Gaubertins, Leclercqs, and Soudrys to be his sureties when
the time should come for buying his employer's practice ; and
the youngest found employment in the Inland Revenue De-
partment for the time being, with a prospect of succeeding to
the position of Registrar when the present occupant should
reach the limit of service prescribed for obtaining a pension.
Sibilet's youngest daughter, a girl of sixteen, was engaged
to be married to Captain Corbinet, Maitre Corbinet's brother,
master of the post-office, and this completes the history of the
Sibilet family.
The postmaster at Ville-aux-Fayes was Vigor senior,
brother-in-law of Leclercq of the city cellars. He commanded
the National Guard. Mme. Sibilet's sister, an elderly spin-
ster and a Gaubertin-Vallat, held the office of stamp dis-
tributor.
Look where you liked in Ville-aux-Fayes, you found some
member of the invisible coalition, headed avowedly (for the
fact was openly recognized by great and small) by the mayor,
the general agent of the timber trade Monsieur Gaubertin !
If you left the seat of the sub-prefecture and went further
down the Avonne valley, you found Gaubertin again ruling
Soulanges through the Soudrys, and Lupin the deputy-mayor,
the steward of the manor of Soulanges, in constant communi-
158 THE PEASANTRY
cation with the Count ; through Sarcus, justice of the peace,
and his son's wife's father ; through Guerbet the tax-collector
and Gourdon the doctor, who had married a Gendrin-Vatte-
bled. Gaubertin governed Blangy through Rigou, and
Conches through the postmaster, whose word was law in his
own commune. And by the way in which the ambitious mayor
of Ville-aux-Fayes spread his influence far and wide in the
Avonne valley, it may be imagined how far he made himself
felt in the rest of the arrondissement.
The head of the firm of Leclercq was put forward as prin-
cipal deputy. It had been agreed upon from the very first
that he would relinquish his place to Gaubertin so soon as
he himself should obtain the post of receiver-general of the
department. Young Soudry, the public prosecutor, was to
become attorney-general to the Court-Royal; while the rich
examining-magistrate Guerbet was to be one of the coun-
cillors. This general promotion, far from being oppressive,
was to ensure the advancement of others, such for instance
as Vigor the deputy-magistrate, or Francois Yallat, Money-
Sarcus' wife's cousin, at present only prosecutor-substitute.
In fact, all the ambitious young men in the valley, and every
family which had anything to gain, were so many supporters
of the coalition.
Gaubertin's influence was so serious and so powerful in
the district that its secret springs of wealth, the savings
hoarded up by the Rigous, Soudrys, Gendrins, Guerbets, and
Lupins, nay, by Money-Sarcus himself, were all controlled by
him. Ville-aux-Fayes, moreover, believed in its mayor. Gau-
bertin's ability was not more cried up than his honesty and
his readiness to oblige. He was at the service of all his rela-
tions; there was not one of his constituents but could claim
his help ; but it was a game of give and take. His town coun-
cil looked up to him. Wherefore the whole department
blamed M. Mariotte of Auxerre for crossing good M. Gau-
bertin's path.
The Ville-aux-Fayes townspeople took their abilities for
granted, since nothing had ever occurred to put them to the
THE PEASANTRY 159
test; they prided themselves simply and solely on having no
outsiders among them, and thought themselves excellent pa-
triots. Thus nothing escaped this tyranny, so carefully
thought out that it was scarcely recognized as tyranny, for
the spectacle of natives filling every high place struck the
ordinary mind as a triumph of native intellect. For instance,
when the Liberal Opposition declared war against the Bour-
bons of the elder branch, Gaubertin saw an opening for a
natural son of his, for whom he was at a loss to provide. His
wife did not know of the existence of this Bournier, as he was
called, who for a long time had been kept in Paris. Leclercq
had looked after him till he became a foreman in a printing
office, but now Gaubertin set him up as a printer in the
town of Ville-aux-Fayes. Acting on the prompting of his
protector, the young fellow brought out a newspaper three
times a week, and the Courrier de I'Avonne began by taking
away the official announcements from the paper of the pre-
fecture. This local sheet, while supporting the Ministry, in-
clined to the Centre-Left, and obtained a large circulation
by publishing a summary of the market reports of Burgundy ;
but in reality it was worked in the interests of the Rigou-
Gaubertin-Soudry triumvirate. Young Bournier, the head
of a fairly large establishment which already hegan to
pay very well, paid court, to one of Attorney Marechal's
daughters, and appeared to be well received.
There was one outsider in the great Avonnaise family in
the person of the district surveyor; but the greatest efforts
were being made to exchange the stranger for a native Sar-
cus, Money-Sarcus' son, and in all likelihood this broken
thread in the mesh would very shortly be repaired.
The formidable league which filled every public and pri-
vate position with its own members, draining the wealth of
the neighborhood, and clinging to power as the remora clings
to the ship's keel, was not visible at first sight. General Mont-
cornet had no suspicion of it, and the prefecture congratu-
lated itself upon the flourishing condition of Ville-aux-Fayes.
At the Home Office it was said: "There is a model sub-pre
IflO THE PEASANTRY
fecture for you, everything there goes on wheels ! If all ai-
rondissements were like that one, how happy we should be !"
And family cliques came so effectually to the aid of local
feeling, that here as in many another little town, nay, pre-
fecture, any outsider appointed to an official position would
have been forced to leave the district within the year.
The victim of all-powerful bourgeois clannishness is so
thoroughly entangled and gagged that he does not dare to
complain; like the intruding snail in a beehive, he is sealed
up, be-waxed and be-glued. There are great inducements
to this course of invisible, intangible tyranny; there is the
strong desire to be among one's own people, to see after one's
own bits of property ; there is the mutual help which relatives
can afford, and the guarantees given to the administration
by the fact that its agent is working under the eyes of his
fellow-citizens and amenable to local public opinion. More-
over, nepotism is not confined to little country towns; it is
quite as common in higher branches of the civil service. But
what is the actual outcome? Local interests triumph over
wider and larger considerations; the intentions of the cen-
tral government in Paris are completely defeated, the real
facts of the case are twisted out of all knowledge, the prov-
ince laughs in the face of the central authority. Great na-
tional necessities once supplied, in fact, the remaining laws
generally speaking, instead of modifying the character of the
people are modified by them, and the masses, instead of adapt-
ing themselves to the law, adapt the law to themselves.
Any one who has traveled in the south or west of France,
or in Alsace (unless indeed he travels simply for the sake of
seeing landscapes and public monuments and sleeping in the
inns), must admit that these observations are just. As yet
the effects of bourgeois nepotism only appear as isolated symp-
toms, but the tendencies of recent legislation will aggravate
the disease, and this domination of dulness may cause fear-
ful evils, as will be abundantly evident in the course of this
drama in the Aigues valley.
Under old systems, overturned more rashly than is gep -
THE PEASANTRY 161
erally thought, under the Monarchy and the Empire, this kind
of abuse was kept in check by an upper hierarchy; a coun-
terpoise was found in class distinctions which were senselessl}'
denominated "privilege." But as soon as a general scramble
up the soaped pole of authority begins, "privilege" ceases to
exist. Would it not be wise, moreover, to recognize at once
that since there must be a "privileged class," it had better
consist of those who are openly and avowedly privileged ? that
those who have taken their position by stratagem and in-
trenched themselves in it by cunning, private self-seeking,
and fraudulent imitations of public spirit, are only doing the
work of despotism over again on a fresh foundation and a
notch lower in the social scale ? Shall we not have overthrown
a race of noble tyrants who had the interests of their country
at heart, only to create a race of self-seeking tyrants in their
stead? Shall authority issue from cellars instead of spread-
ing its influence from its natural place ?' These things should
be borne in mind. The Parochialism just portrayed will gain
ground in the Chamber of Deputies.
Montcornet's friend, the Comte de la Roche-Hugon, had
been dismissed a short time before the General's last visit.
This dismissal drove the statesman into the Liberal Opposi-
tion; he became one of the leading lights of the Left, and
then promptly deserted his party for an embassy. To him
succeeded, luckily for Montcornet, a son-in-law of the Mar-
quis de Troisville, the Comte de Casteran, Mme. de Mont-
cornet's uncle, who received him as a relation, and graciously
begged him to renew his acquaintance with the prefecture.
The Comte de Casteran listened to Montcornet's complaints,
and asked the bishop, the colonel of gendarmerie, the at-
torney-general, Councillor Sarcus, and the commandant of
the division, to meet him at breakfast on the following day.
Baron Bourlac, the attorney-general, first brought into
prominence by the trials of La Chanterie and Rifoel, was a
man of a kind invaluable to a government, by reason of his
staunch support of any party in power. He owed his eleva-
tion to a fanatical worship of the Emperor, and his con-
1B THE PEASANTRY
tinuance in his judicial rank partly to an inflexible nature,
partly to the professional conscience which he brought to
the performance of his duties. As a public prosecutor he had
once ruthlessly hunted out the remnants of Chouannerie. now
he prosecuted Bonapartists with equal zeal. But time and
storms had softened him down, and, as most frequently hap-
pens, the hero of terrific legends had grown charming in his
ways and manner.
The Comte de Montcornet set forth his position, and men-
tioned his head-forester's fears. Then he began to talk about
the necessity of making examples and of maintaining the
cause of property.
His audience of high officials heard him out with solemn
faces, giving him vague generalities by way of answer. "Oh,
/)f course, of course, force should be on the side of the law.
Your cause is the cause of every landowner. We will give
the matter our attention, but in our position we are obliged
to be very careful. A monarchy is bound to do more for the
people than the people would do for themselves if they were
sovereign rulers as in 1793. The people have heavy burdens;
our duty to them is as clear as our duty to you."
Then the inexorable attorney-general suavely set forth va-
rious thoughtful and benevolent views touching the lower or-
ders, which would have convinced future constructors of
Utopias that the higher ranks of the officialdom of that day
were not unacquainted with the knotty points of the problem
to be solved by modern society.
It may not be out of place to say here, that at this very
time, during the Epoch of the Restoration, sanguinary col-
lisions were very common all over the kingdom, and upon this
very point in question. Wood-stealing and other peasants'
encroachments were regarded as vested interests. The
Court and the Ministry strongly objected to all disturbances
of this kind and to the bloodshed consequent upon forcible
repression, successful and unsuccessful. It was felt that
severity was needed, but the local authorities were made to
feel that they had blundered if the peasants were put down
harshly, and if on the other hand they showed any weakness
THE PEASANTRY 163
ihey were cashiered. So prefects were apt to equivocate when
these deplorable accidents happened.
At the very outset Money-Sarcus had made a sign (unseen
by Montcornet) which the prefect and public-prosecutor both
understood, a sign which changed the tone of the conversa-
tion that followed. The attorney-general knew pretty much
how things were in the Aigues valley through his assistant,
young Soudry.
"I can see that there will be a terrible struggle," the public-
prosecutor had told his chief (he had corne over from Ville-
aux-Fayes on purpose to see him). "We shall have gen-
darmes killed I know that from my spies ; and the trial will
be an ugly business. No jury will be got to convict with a
prospect of the hatred of twenty or thirty families before
them; they will not give us the heads of the murderers, nor
the amount of penal servitude which we shall require for the
accomplices. The utmost we should obtain, if you conducted
the prosecution in person, would be a few years' imprison-
ment for the worst offenders. It is better to shut our eyes,
for if we keep them open the end of it all will be a collision
which will cost lives, and perhaps six thousand francs to the
Government, to say nothing of the expense of keeping the men
in the hulks. That is paying dear for a victory which will
make the weakness of justice apparent to all eyes."
Montcornet was incapable of suspecting the influence of
"mediocracy" in the valley, so he never so much as mentioned
Gaubertin, who stirred up and rekindled the smouldering
flames.
When breakfast was over, the Baron took Montcornet's
arm and carried him off to the prefect's study. When they
issued from this conference Montcornet wrote to his wife
that he was setting out for Paris, and should not return for
a week. The wisdom of the measures advised by Baron
Bourlac will be seen later on, when they were carried into
execution. If a way yet remained to the Aigues of escaping
the "ill-will," it was only through the policy which Bourlac
privately recommended to Montcornet.
164 THE PEASANTRY
These explanations will seem tedious to those who care for
nothing but the interest of the story, but it is worth while
to observe here that the historian of manners is bound by
rules even more stringent than those which control the his-
torian of fact. The historian of manners is bound to make
everything appear probable even truth itself, while, in the
domain of history proper, the impossible requires no apology ;