about quite naturally through the working of the social law by which the
need and the means of supplying it are correlated. Herein lies the whole
story. Races who have no wants are always poor. When I first came
to live here in this township, there were about a hundred and thirty
peasant families in it, and some two hundred hearths in the valley.
The local authorities were such as might be expected in the prevailing
wretchedness of the population. The mayor himself could not write, and
the deputy-mayor was a small farmer, who lived beyond the limits of the
Commune. The justice of the peace was a poor devil who had nothing but
his salary, and who was forced to relinquish the registration of births,
marriages, and deaths to his clerk, another hapless wretch who was
scarcely able to understand his duties. The old cure had died at the age
of seventy, and his curate, a quite uneducated man, had just succeeded
to his position. These people comprised all the intelligence of the
district over which they ruled.
“Those who dwelt amidst these lovely natural surroundings groveled in
squalor and lived upon potatoes, milk, butter, and cheese. The only
produce that brought in any money was the cheese, which most of them
carried in small baskets to Grenoble or its outskirts. The richer or
the more energetic among them sowed buckwheat for home consumption;
sometimes they raised a crop of barley or oats, but wheat was unknown.
The only trader in the place was the mayor, who owned a sawmill and
bought up timber at a low price to sell again. In the absence of roads,
his tree trunks had to be transported during the summer season; each log
was dragged along one at a time, and with no small difficulty, by means
of a chain attached to a halter about his horse’s neck, and an iron hook
at the farther end of the chain, which was driven into the wood. Any
one who went to Grenoble, whether on horseback or afoot, was obliged to
follow a track high up on the mountain side, for the valley was quite
impassable. The pretty road between this place and the first village
that you reach as you come into the canton (the way along which you must
have come) was nothing but a slough at all seasons of the year.
“Political events and revolutions had never reached this inaccessible
country--it lay completely beyond the limits of social stir and change.
Napoleon’s name, and his alone, had penetrated hither; he is held in
great veneration, thanks to one or two old soldiers who have returned to
their native homes, and who of evenings tell marvelous tales about his
adventures and his armies for the benefit of these simple folk. Their
coming back is, moreover, a puzzle that no one can explain. Before I
came here, the young men who went into the army all stayed in it for
good. This fact in itself is a sufficient revelation of the wretched
condition of the country. I need not give you a detailed description of
it.
“This, then, was the state of things when I first came to the canton,
which has several contented, well-tilled, and fairly prosperous communes
belonging to it upon the other side of the mountains. I will say nothing
about the hovels in the town; they were neither more nor less than
stables, in which men and animals were indiscriminately huddled
together. As there was no inn in the place, I was obliged to ask the
curate for a bed, he being in possession, for the time being, of this
house, then offered for sale. Putting to him question after question,
I came to have some slight knowledge of the lamentable condition of the
country with the pleasant climate, the fertile soil, and the natural
productiveness that had impressed me so much.
“At that time, sir, I was seeking to shape a future for myself that
should be as little as possible like the troubled life that had left me
weary; and one of those thoughts came into my mind that God gives us at
times, to enable us to take up our burdens and bear them. I resolved to
develop all the resources of this country, just as a tutor develops
the capacities of a child. Do not think too much of my benevolence; the
pressing need that I felt for turning my thoughts into fresh channels
entered too much into my motives. I had determined to give up the
remainder of my life to some difficult task. A lifetime would be
required to bring about the needful changes in a canton that Nature had
made so wealthy, and man so poor; and I was tempted by the practical
difficulties that stood in the way. As soon as I found that I could
secure the cure’s house and plenty of waste land at a small cost, I
solemnly devoted myself to the calling of a country surgeon--the very
last position that a man aspires to take. I determined to become the
friend of the poor, and to expect no reward of any kind from them. Oh! I
did not indulge in any illusions as to the nature of the country people,
nor as to the hindrances that lie in the way of every attempt to bring
about a better state of things among men or their surroundings. I have
never made idyllic pictures of my people; I have taken them at their
just worth--as poor peasants, neither wholly good nor wholly bad, whose
constant toil never allows them to indulge in emotion, though they can
feel acutely at times. Above all things, in fact, I clearly understood
that I should do nothing with them except through an appeal to their
selfish interests, and by schemes for their immediate well-being.
The peasants are one and all the sons of St. Thomas, the doubting
apostle--they always like words to be supported by visible facts.
“Perhaps you will laugh at my first start, sir,” the doctor went on
after a pause. “I began my difficult enterprise by introducing the
manufacture of baskets. The poor folks used to buy the wicker mats
on which they drain their cheeses, and all the baskets needed for the
insignificant trade of the district. I suggested to an intelligent young
fellow that he might take a lease on a good-sized piece of land by the
side of the torrent. Every year the floods deposited a rich alluvial
soil on this spot, where there should be no difficulty in growing
osiers. I reckoned out the quantity of wicker-work of various kinds
required from time to time by the canton, and went over to Grenoble,
where I found a young craftsman, a clever worker, but without any
capital. When I had discovered him, I soon made up my mind to set him
up in business here. I undertook to advance the money for the osiers
required for his work until my osier-farmer should be in a position to
supply him. I induced him to sell his baskets at rather lower prices
than they asked for them in Grenoble, while, at the same time, they were
better made. He entered into my views completely. The osier-beds and
the basket-making were two business speculations whose results were only
appreciated after a lapse of four years. Of course, you know that osiers
must be three years old before they are fit to cut.
“At the commencement of operations, the basket-maker was boarded and
lodged gratuitously. Before very long he married a woman from Saint
Laurent du Pont, who had a little money. Then he had a house built, in
a healthy and very airy situation which I chose, and my advice was
followed as to the internal arrangements. Here was a triumph! I had
created a new industry, and had brought a producer and several workers
into the town. I wonder if you will regard my elations as childish?
“For the first few days after my basket-maker had set up his business,
I never went past his shop but my heart beat somewhat faster. And when
I saw the newly-built house, with the green-painted shutters, the vine
beside the doorway, and the bench and bundles of osiers before it; when
I saw a tidy, neatly-dressed woman within it, nursing a plump, pink
and white baby among the workmen, who were singing merrily and busily
plaiting their wicker-work under the superintendence of a man who but
lately had looked so pinched and pale, but now had an atmosphere of
prosperity about him; when I saw all this, I confess that I could not
forego the pleasure of turning basket-maker for a moment, of going into
the shop to hear how things went with them, and of giving myself up to
a feeling of content that I cannot express in words, for I had all
their happiness as well as my own to make me glad. All my hopes became
centered on this house, where the man dwelt who had been the first to
put a steady faith in me. Like the basket-maker’s wife, clasping her
first nursling to her breast, did not I already fondly cherish the hopes
of the future of this poor district?
“I had to do so many things at once,” he went on, “I came into collision
with other people’s notions, and met with violent opposition, fomented
by the ignorant mayor to whose office I had succeeded, and whose
influence had dwindled away as mine increased. I determined to make him
my deputy and a confederate in my schemes of benevolence. Yes, in the
first place, I endeavored to instil enlightened ideas into the densest
of all heads. Through his self-love and cupidity I gained a hold upon my
man. During six months as we dined together, I took him deeply into my
confidence about my projected improvements. Many people would think this
intimacy one of the most painful inflictions in the course of my task;
but was he not a tool of the most valuable kind? Woe to him who despises
his axe, or flings it carelessly aside! Would it not have been very
inconsistent, moreover, if I, who wished to improve a district, had
shrunk back at the thought of improving one man in it?
“A road was our first and most pressing need in bringing about a better
state of things. If we could obtain permission from the Municipal
Council to make a hard road, so as to put us in communication with the
highway to Grenoble, the deputy-mayor would be the first gainer by it;
for instead of dragging his timber over rough tracks at a great expense,
a good road through the canton would enable him to transport it more
easily, and to engage in a traffic on a large scale, in all kinds of
wood, that would bring in money--not a miserable six hundred francs a
year, but handsome sums which would mean a certain fortune for him some
day. Convinced at last, he became my proselytizer.
“Through the whole of one winter the ex-mayor got into the way of
explaining to our citizens that a good road for wheeled traffic would be
a source of wealth to the whole country round, for it would enable
every one to do a trade with Grenoble; he held forth on this head at the
tavern while drinking with his intimates. When the Municipal Council had
authorized the making of the road, I went to the prefect and obtained
some money from the charitable funds at the disposal of the department,
in order to pay for the hire of carts, for the Commune was unable to
undertake the transport of road metal for lack of wheeled conveyances.
The ignorant began to murmur against me, and to say that I wanted to
bring the days of the corvee back again; this made me anxious to finish
this important work, that they might speedily appreciate its benefits.
With this end in view, every Sunday during my first year of office I
drew the whole population of the township, willing or unwilling, up on
to the mountain, where I myself had traced out on a hard bottom the road
between our village and the highway to Grenoble. Materials for making it
were fortunately to be had in plenty along the site.
“The tedious enterprise called for a great deal of patience on my part.
Some who were ignorant of the law would refuse at times to give their
contribution of labor; others again, who had not bread to eat, really
could not afford to lose a day. Corn had to be distributed among these
last, and the others must be soothed with friendly words. Yet by the
time we had finished two-thirds of the road, which in all is about
two leagues in length, the people had so thoroughly recognized its
advantages that the remaining third was accomplished with a spirit that
surprised me. I added to the future wealth of the Commune by planting
a double row of poplars along the ditch on either side of the way. The
trees are already almost worth a fortune, and they make our road
look like a king’s highway. It is almost always dry, by reason of its
position, and it was so well made that the annual cost of maintaining it
is a bare two hundred francs. I must show it to you, for you cannot
have seen it; you must have come by the picturesque way along the valley
bottom, a road which the people decided to make for themselves three
years later, so as to connect the various farms that were made there
at that time. In three years ideas had rooted themselves in the common
sense of this township, hitherto so lacking in intelligence that a
passing traveler would perhaps have thought it hopeless to attempt to
instil them. But to continue.
“The establishment of the basket-maker was an example set before these
poverty-stricken folk that they might profit by it. And if the road was
to be a direct cause of the future wealth of the canton, all the primary
forms of industry must be stimulated, or these two germs of a better
state of things would come to nothing. My own work went forward by slow
degrees, as I helped my osier farmer and wicker-worker and saw to the
making of the road.
“I had two horses, and the timber merchant, the deputy-mayor, had three.
He could only have them shod whenever he went over to Grenoble, so I
induced a farrier to take up his abode here, and undertook to find him
plenty of work. On the same day I met with a discharged soldier, who
had nothing but his pension of a hundred francs, and was sufficiently
perplexed about his future. He could read and write, so I engaged him
as secretary to the mayor; as it happened, I was lucky enough to find a
wife for him, and his dreams of happiness were fulfilled.
“Both of these new families needed houses, as well as the basket-maker
and twenty-two others from the cretin village, soon afterwards twelve
more households were established in the place. The workers in each of
these families were at once producers and consumers. They were masons,
carpenters, joiners, slaters, blacksmiths, and glaziers; and there was
work enough to last them for a long time, for had they not their own
houses to build when they had finished those for other people? Seventy,
in fact, were build in the Commune during my second year of office. One
form of production demands another. The additions to the population
of the township had created fresh wants, hitherto unknown among these
dwellers in poverty. The wants gave rise to industries, and industries
to trade, and the gains of trade raised the standard of comfort, which
in its turn gave them practical ideas.
“The various workmen wished to buy their bread ready baked, so we came
to have a baker. Buckwheat could no longer be the food of a population
which, awakened from its lethargy, had become essentially active. They
lived on buckwheat when I first came among them, and I wished to effect
a change to rye, or a mixture of rye and wheat in the first instance,
and finally to see a loaf of white bread even in the poorest household.
Intellectual progress, to my thinking, was entirely dependent on a
general improvement in the conditions of life. The presence of a butcher
in the district says as much for its intelligence as for its wealth. The
worker feeds himself, and a man who feeds himself thinks. I had made a
very careful study of the soil, for I foresaw a time when it would be
necessary to grow wheat. I was sure of launching the place in a very
prosperous agricultural career, and of doubling the population, when
once it had begun to work. And now the time had come.
“M. Gravier, of Grenoble, owned a great deal of land in the commune,
which brought him in no rent, but which might be turned into
corn-growing land. He is the head of a department in the Prefecture, as
you know. It was a kindness for his own countryside quite as much as my
earnest entreaties that won him over. He had very benevolently yielded
to my importunities on former occasions, and I succeeded in making it
clear to him that in so doing he had wrought unconsciously for his own
benefit. After several days spent in pleadings, consultation, and talk,
the matter was thrashed out. I undertook to guarantee him against
all risks in the undertaking, from which his wife, a woman of no
imagination, sought to frighten him. He agreed to build four farmhouses
with a hundred acres of land attached to each, and promised to advance
the sums required to pay for clearing the ground, for seeds, ploughing
gear, and cattle, and for making occupation roads.
“I myself also started two farms, quite as much for the sake of bringing
my waste land into cultivation as with a view to giving an object-lesson
in the use of modern methods in agriculture. In six weeks’ time the
population of the town increased to three hundred people. Homes for
several families must be built on the six farms; there was a vast
quantity of land to be broken up; the work called for laborers.
Wheelwrights, drainmakers, journeymen, and laborers of all kinds flocked
in. The road to Grenoble was covered with carts that came and went. All
the countryside was astir. The circulation of money had made every one
anxious to earn it, apathy had ceased, the place had awakened.
“The story of M. Gravier, one of those who did so much for this canton,
can be concluded in a few words. In spite of cautious misgivings, not
unnatural in a man occupying an official position in a provincial
town, he advanced more than forty thousand francs, on the faith of my
promises, without knowing whether he should ever see them back again.
To-day every one of his farms is let for a thousand francs. His tenants
have thriven so well that each of them owns at least a hundred acres,
three hundred sheep, twenty cows, ten oxen, and five horses, and employs
more than twenty persons.
“But to resume. Our farms were ready by the end of the fourth year. Our
wheat harvest seemed miraculous to the people in the district, heavy as
the first crop off the land ought to be. How often during that year
I trembled for the success of my work! Rain or drought might spoil
everything by diminishing the belief in me that was already felt. When
we began to grow wheat, it necessitated the mill that you have seen,
which brings me in about five hundred francs a year. So the peasants say
that ‘there is luck about me’ (that is the way they put it), and believe
in me as they believe in their relics. These new undertakings--the
farms, the mill, the plantations, and the roads--have given employment
to all the various kinds of workers whom I had called in. Although the
buildings fully represent the value of the sixty thousand francs
of capital, which we sunk in the district, the outlay was more
than returned to us by the profits on the sales which the consumers
occasioned. I never ceased my efforts to put vigor into this industrial
life which was just beginning. A nurseryman took my advice and came
to settle in the place, and I preached wholesome doctrine to the poor
concerning the planting of fruit trees, in order that some day they
should obtain a monopoly of the sale of fruit in Grenoble.
“‘You take your cheeses there as it is,’ I used to tell them, ‘why not
take poultry, eggs, vegetables, game, hay and straw, and so forth?’ All
my counsels were a source of fortune; it was a question of who should
follow them first. A number of little businesses were started; they went
on at first but slowly, but from day to day their progress became more
rapid; and now sixty carts full of the various products of the district
set out every Monday for Grenoble, and there is more buckwheat grown for
poultry food than they used to sow for human consumption. The trade in
timber grew to be so considerable that it was subdivided, and since
the fourth year of our industrial era, we have had dealers in firewood,
squared timber, planks, bark, and later on, in charcoal. In the end four
new sawmills were set up, to turn out the planks and beams of timber.
“When the ex-mayor had acquired a few business notions, he felt the
necessity of learning to read and write. He compared the prices that
were asked for wood in various neighborhoods, and found such differences
in his favor, that he secured new customers in one place after another,
and now a third of the trade in the department passes through his
hands. There has been such a sudden increase in our traffic that we find
constant work for three wagon-builders and two harness-makers, each of
them employing three hands at least. Lastly, the quantity of ironware
that we use is so large that an agricultural implement and tool-maker
has removed into the town, and is very well satisfied with the result.
“The desire of gain develops a spirit of ambition, which has ever since
impelled our workers to extend their field from the township to the
canton, and from the canton to the department, so as to increase their
profits by increasing their sales. I had only to say a word to point out
new openings to them, and their own sense did the rest. Four years had
been sufficient to change the face of the township. When I had come
through it first, I did not catch the slightest sound; but in less than
five years from that time, there was life and bustle everywhere. The gay
songs, the shrill or murmuring sounds made by the tools in the workshops
rang pleasantly in my ears. I watched the comings and goings of a busy
population congregated in the clean and wholesome new town, where plenty
of trees had been planted. Every one of them seemed conscious of a happy
lot, every face shone with the content that comes through a life of
useful toil.
“I look upon these five years as the first epoch of prosperity in the
history of our town,” the doctor went on after a pause. “During that
time I have prepared the ground and sowed the seed in men’s minds as
well as in the land. Henceforward industrial progress could not be
stayed, the population was bound to go forward. A second epoch was
about to begin. This little world very soon desired to be better clad. A
shoemaker came, and with him a haberdasher, a tailor, and a hatter. This
dawn of luxury brought us a butcher and a grocer, and a midwife, who
became very necessary to me, for I lost a great deal of time over
maternity cases. The stubbed wastes yielded excellent harvests, and the
superior quality of our agricultural produce was maintained through
the increased supply of manure. My enterprise could now develop itself;
everything followed on quite naturally.
“When the houses had been rendered wholesome, and their inmates
gradually persuaded to feed and clothe themselves better, I wanted the
dumb animals to feel the benefit of these beginnings of civilization.
All the excellence of cattle, whether as a race or as individuals, and,
in consequence, the quality of the milk and meat, depends upon the care
that is expended upon them. I took the sanitation of cowsheds for the
text of my sermons. I showed them how an animal that is properly housed
and well cared for is more profitable than a lean neglected beast, and
the comparison wrought a gradual change for the better in the lot of
the cattle in the Commune. Not one of them was ill treated. The cows
and oxen were rubbed down as in Switzerland and Auvergne. Sheep-folds,
stables, byres, dairies, and barns were rebuilt after the pattern of
the roomy, well-ventilated, and consequently healthy steadings that M.
Gravier and I had constructed. Our tenants became my apostles. They
made rapid converts of unbelievers, demonstrating the soundness of my
doctrines by their prompt results. I lent money to those who needed it,
giving the preference to hardworking poor people, because they served as
an example. Any unsound or sickly cattle or beasts of poor quality were
quickly disposed of by my advice, and replaced by fine specimens. In
this way our dairy produce came, in time, to command higher prices in
the market than that sent by other communes. We had splendid herds, and
as a consequence, capital leather.
“This step forward was of great importance, and in this wise. In rural
economy nothing can be regarded as trifling. Our hides used to fetch
scarcely anything, and the leather we made was of little value, but
when once our leather and hides were improved, tanneries were easily
established along the waterside. We became tanners, and business rapidly
increased.
“Wine, properly speaking, had been hitherto unknown; a thin, sour
beverage like verjuice had been their only drink, but now wineshops were
established to supply a natural demand. The oldest tavern was enlarged
and transformed into an inn, which furnished mules to pilgrims to the
Grand Chartreuse who began to come our way, and after two years there
was just enough business for two innkeepers.
“The justice of the peace died just as our second prosperous epoch
began, and luckily for us, his successor had formerly been a notary in
Grenoble who had lost most of his fortune by a bad speculation, though
enough of it yet remained to cause him to be looked upon in the village
as a wealthy man. It was M. Gravier who induced him to settle among
us. He built himself a comfortable house and helped me by uniting his
efforts to mine. He also laid out a farm, and broke up and cleaned some
of the waste land, and at this moment he has three chalets up above on
the mountain side. He has a large family. He dismissed the old registrar
and the clerk, and in their place installed better-educated men, who
worked far harder, moreover, than their predecessors had done. One
of the heads of these two new households started a distillery of
potato-spirit, and the other was a wool-washer; each combined these
occupations with his official work, and in this way two valuable
industries were created among us.
“Now that the Commune had some revenues of its own, no opposition was
raised in any quarter when they were spent on building a town-hall, with
a free school for elementary education in the building and accommodation
for a teacher. For this important post I had selected a poor priest who
had taken the oath, and had therefore been cast out by the department,
and who at last found a refuge among us for his old age. The
schoolmistress is a very worthy woman who had lost all that she had, and
was in great distress. We made up a nice little sum for her, and she
has just opened a boarding-school for girls to which the wealthy farmers
hereabouts are beginning to send their daughters.
“If so far, sir, I have been entitled to tell you the story of my own
doings as the chronicle of this little spot of earth, I have reached
the point where M. Janvier, the new parson, began to divide the work of
regeneration with me. He has been a second Fenelon, unknown beyond the
narrow limits of a country parish, and by some secret of his own has
infused a spirit of brotherliness and of charity among these folk that
has made them almost like one large family. M. Dufau, the justice of
the peace, was a late comer, but he in an equal degree deserves the
gratitude of the people here.
“I will put the whole position before you in figures that will make
it clearer than any words of mine. At this moment the Commune owns two
hundred acres of woodland, and a hundred and sixty acres of meadow.
Without running up the rates, we give a hundred crowns to supplement the
cure’s stipend, we pay two hundred francs to the rural policeman, and
as much again to the schoolmaster and schoolmistress. The maintenance of
the roads costs us five hundred francs, while necessary repairs to the
townhall, the parsonage, and the church, with some few other expenses,
also amount to a similar sum. In fifteen years’ time there will be a
thousand francs worth of wood to fell for every hundred francs’ worth
cut now, and the taxes will not cost the inhabitants a penny. This
Commune is bound to become one of the richest in France. But perhaps I
am taxing your patience, sir?” said Benassis, suddenly discovering that
his companion wore such a pensive expression that it seemed as though
his attention was wandering.
“No! no!” answered the commandant.
“Our trade, handicrafts, and agriculture so far only supplied the needs
of the district,” the doctor went on. “At a certain point our prosperity
came to a standstill. I wanted a post-office, and sellers of tobacco,
stationery, powder and shot. The receiver of taxes had hitherto
preferred to live elsewhere, but now I succeeded in persuading him
to take up his abode in the town, holding out as inducements the
pleasantness of the place and of the new society. As time and place
permitted I had succeeded in producing a supply of everything for which
I had first created a need, in attracting families of hardworking people
into the district, and in implanting a desire to own land in them all.
So by degrees, as they saved a little money, the waste land began to
be broken up; spade husbandry and small holdings increased; so did the
value of property on the mountain.
“Those struggling folk who, when I knew them first, used to walk over
to Grenoble carrying their few cheeses for sale, now made the journey
comfortably in a cart, and took fruit, eggs, chickens and turkeys, and
before they were aware of it, everyone was a little richer. Even those
who came off worst had a garden at any rate, and grew early vegetables
and fruit. It became the children’s work to watch the cattle in the
fields, and at last it was found to be a waste of time to bake bread at
home. Here were signs of prosperity!
“But if this place was to be a permanent forge of industry, fuel must
be constantly added to the fire. The town had not as yet a renascent
industry which could maintain this commercial process, an industry which
should make great transactions, a warehouse, and a market necessary. It
is not enough that a country should lose none of the money that forms
its capital; you will not increase its prosperity by more or less
ingenious devices for causing this amount to circulate, by means of
production and consumption, through the greatest possible number of
hands. That is not where your problem lies. When a country is fully
developed and its production keeps pace with its consumption, if private
wealth is to increase as well as the wealth of the community at large,
there must be exchanges with other communities, which will keep a
balance on the right side of the balance-sheet. This thought has let
states with a limited territorial basis like Tyre, Carthage, Venice,
Holland, and England, for instance, to secure the carrying trade. I cast
about for some such notion as this to apply to our little world, so as
to inaugurate a third commercial epoch. Our town is so much like any
other, that our prosperity was scarcely visible to a passing stranger;
it was only for me that it was astonishing. The folk had come together
by degrees; they themselves were a part of the change, and could not
judge of its effects as a whole.
“Seven years had gone by when I met with two strangers, the real
benefactors of the place, which perhaps some day they will transform
into a large town. One of them is a Tyrolese, an exceedingly clever
fellow, who makes rough shoes for country people’s wear, and boots for
people of fashion in Grenoble as no one can make them, not even in Paris
itself. He was a poor strolling musician, who, singing and working, had
made his way through Italy; one of those busy Germans who fashion the
tools of their own work, and make the instrument that they play upon.
When he came to the town he asked if any one wanted a pair of shoes.
They sent him to me, and I gave him an order for two pairs of boots, for
which he made his own lasts. The foreigner’s skill surprised me. He gave
accurate and consistent answers to the questions I put, and his face and
manner confirmed the good opinion I had formed of him. I suggested that
he should settle in the place, undertaking to assist him in business in
every way that I could; in fact, I put a fairly large sum of money at
his disposal. He accepted my offer. I had my own ideas in this. The
quality of our leather had improved; and why should we not use it
ourselves, and before very long make our own shoes at moderate prices?
“It was the basket-maker’s business over again on a larger scale. Chance
had put an exceedingly clever hard-working man in my way, and he must
be retained so that a steady and profitable trade might be given to
the place. There is a constant demand for foot-gear, and a very slight
difference in price is felt at once by the purchaser.
“This was my reasoning, sir, and fortunately events have justified it.
At this time we have five tanyards, each of which has its bark-mill.
They take all the hides produced in the department itself, and even
draw part of their supply from Provence; and yet the Tyrolese uses more
leather than they can produce, and has forty work-people in his employ!
“I happened on the other man after a fashion no whit less strange, but
you might find the story tedious. He is just an ordinary peasant, who
discovered a cheaper way of making the great broad-brimmed hats that are
worn in this part of the world. He sells them in other cantons, and even
sends them into Switzerland and Savoy. So long as the quality and the
low prices can be maintained, here are two inexhaustible sources
of wealth for the canton, which suggested to my mind the idea of
establishing three fairs in the year. The prefect, amazed at our
industrial progress, lent his aid in obtaining the royal ordinance which
authorized them, and last year we held our three fairs. They are known
as far as Savoy as the Shoe Fair and the Hat Fair.
“The head clerk of a notary in Grenoble heard of these changes. He was
poor, but he was a well-educated, hardworking young fellow, and Mlle.
Gravier was engaged to be married to him. He went to Paris to ask for an
authorization to establish himself here as a notary, and his request was
granted. As he had not to pay for his appointment, he could afford to
build a house in the market square of the new town, opposite the
house of the justice of the peace. We have a market once a week, and a
considerable amount of business is transacted in corn and cattle.
“Next year a druggist surely ought to come among us, and next we want a
clockmaker, a furniture dealer, and a bookseller; and so, by degrees,
we shall have all the desirable luxuries of life. Who knows but that at
last we shall have a number of substantial houses, and give ourselves
all the airs of a small city? Education has made such strides that there
has never been any opposition made at the council-board when I proposed
that we should restore our church and build a parsonage; nor when I
brought forward a plan for laying out a fine open space, planted with
trees, where the fairs could be held, and a further scheme for a
survey of the township, so that its future streets should be wholesome,
spacious, and wisely planned.
“This is how we came to have nineteen hundred hearths in the place of a
hundred and thirty-seven; three thousand head of cattle instead of
eight hundred; and for a population of seven hundred, no less than two
thousand persons are living in the township, or three thousand, if the
people down the valley are included. There are twelve houses belonging
to wealthy people in the Commune, there are a hundred well-to-do
families, and two hundred more which are thriving. The rest have their
own exertions to look to. Every one knows how to read and write, and we
subscribe to seventeen different newspapers.
“We have poor people still among us--there are far too many of them, in
fact; but we have no beggars, and there is work enough for all. I have
so many patients that my daily round taxes the powers of two horses. I
can go anywhere for five miles round at any hour without fear; for if
any one was minded to fire a shot at me, his life would not be worth
ten minutes’ purchase. The undemonstrative affection of the people is
my sole gain from all these changes, except the radiant ‘Good-day, M.
Benassis,’ that every one gives me as I pass. You will understand, of
course, that the wealth incidentally acquired through my model farms has
only been a means and not an end.”
“If every one followed your example in other places, sir, France would
be great indeed, and might laugh at the rest of Europe!” cried Genestas
enthusiastically.
“But I have kept you out here for half an hour,” said Benassis; “it is
growing dark, let us go in to dinner.”
The doctor’s house, on the side facing the garden, consists of a ground
floor and a single story, with a row of five windows in each, dormer
windows also project from the tiled mansard-roof. The green-painted
shutters are in startling contrast with the gray tones of the walls.
A vine wanders along the whole side of the house, a pleasant strip of
green like a frieze, between the two stories. A few struggling Bengal
roses make shift to live as best they may, half drowned at times by the
drippings from the gutterless eaves.
As you enter the large vestibule, the salon lies to your right; it
contains four windows, two of which look into the yard, and two into the
garden. Ceiling and wainscot are paneled, and the walls are hung with
seventeenth century tapestry--pathetic evidence that the room had been
the object of the late owner’s aspiration, and that he had lavished all
that he could spare upon it. The great roomy armchairs, covered with
brocaded damask; the old fashioned, gilded candle-sconces above the
chimney-piece, and the window curtains with their heavy tassels, showed
that the cure had been a wealthy man. Benassis had made some additions
to this furniture, which was not without a character of its own. He
had placed two smaller tables, decorated with carved wooden garlands,
between the windows on opposite sides of the room, and had put a clock,
in a case of tortoise shell, inlaid with copper, upon the mantel-shelf.
The doctor seldom occupied the salon; its atmosphere was damp and close,
like that of a room that is always kept shut. Memories of the dead cure
still lingered about it; the peculiar scent of his tobacco seemed to
pervade the corner by the hearth where he had been wont to sit. The
two great easy-chairs were symmetrically arranged on either side of the
fire, which had not been lighted since the time of M. Gravier’s visit;
the bright flames from the pine logs lighted the room.
“The evenings are chilly even now,” said Benassis; “it is pleasant to
see a fire.”
Genestas was meditating. He was beginning to understand the doctor’s
indifference to his every-day surroundings.
“It is surprising to me, sir, that you, who possess real public
spirit, should have made no effort to enlighten the Government, after
accomplishing so much.”
Benassis began to laugh, but without bitterness; he said, rather sadly:
“You mean that I should draw up some sort of memorial on various ways of
civilizing France? You are not the first to suggest it, sir; M. Gravier
has forestalled you. Unluckily, Governments cannot be enlightened, and a
Government which regards itself as a diffuser of light is the least open
to enlightenment. What we have done for our canton, every mayor ought,
of course, to do for his; the magistrate should work for his town, the
sub-prefect for his district, the prefect for the department, and the
minister for France, each acting in his own sphere of interest. For the
few miles of country road that I persuaded our people to make,
another would succeed in constructing a canal or a highway; and for
my encouragement of the peasants’ trade in hats, a minister would
emancipate France from the industrial yoke of the foreigner by
encouraging the manufacture of clocks in different places, by helping to
bring to perfection our iron and steel, our tools and appliances, or by
bringing silk or dyer’s woad into cultivation.
“In commerce, ‘encouragement,’ does not mean protection. A really wise
policy should aim at making a country independent of foreign supply,
but this should be effected without resorting to the pitiful shifts
of customs duties and prohibitions. Industries must work out their own
salvation, competition is the life of trade. A protected industry goes
to sleep, and monopoly, like the protective tariff, kills it outright.
The country upon which all others depend for their supplies will be the
land which will promulgate free trade, for it will be conscious of its
power to produce its manufactures at prices lower than those of any of
its competitors. France is in a better position to attain this end than
England, for France alone possesses an amount of territory sufficiently
extensive to maintain a supply of agricultural produce at prices that
will enable the worker to live on low wages; the Administration should
keep this end in view, for therein lies the whole modern question. I
have not devoted my life to this study, dear sir; I found my work by
accident, and late in the day. Such simple things as these are too
slight, moreover, to build into a system; there is nothing wonderful
about them, they do not lend themselves to theories; it is their
misfortune to be merely practically useful. And then work cannot be done
quickly. The man who means to succeed in these ways must daily look to
find within himself the stock of courage needed for the day, a courage
in reality of the rarest kind, though it does not seem hard to practise,
and meets with little recognition--the courage of the schoolmaster, who
must say the same things over and over again. We all honor the man who
has shed his blood on the battlefield, as you have done; but we ridicule
this other whose life-fire is slowly consumed in repeating the same
words to children of the same age. There is no attraction for any of us
in obscure well-doing. We know nothing of the civic virtue that led the
great men of ancient times to serve their country in the lowest rank
whenever they did not command. Our age is afflicted with a disease that
makes each of us seek to rise above his fellows, and there are more
saints than shrines among us.
“This is how it has come to pass. The monarchy fell, and we lost Honor,
Christian Virtue faded with the religion of our forefathers, and our own
ineffectual attempts at government have destroyed Patriotism. Ideas can
never utterly perish, so these beliefs linger on in our midst, but
they do not influence the great mass of the people, and Society has no
support but Egoism. Every individual believes in himself. For us the
future means egoism; further than that we cannot see. The great man who
shall save us from the shipwreck which is imminent will no doubt avail
himself of individualism when he makes a nation of us once more; but
until this regeneration comes, we bide our time in a materialistic and
utilitarian age. Utilitarianism--to this conclusion we have come. We
are all rated, not at our just worth, but according to our social
importance. People will scarcely look at an energetic man if he is
in shirt-sleeves. The Government itself is pervaded by this idea. A
minister sends a paltry medal to a sailor who has saved a dozen lives
at the risk of his own, while the deputy who sells his vote to those in
power receives the Cross of the Legion of Honor.
“Woe to a people made up of such men as these! For nations, like men,
owe all the strength and vitality that is in them to noble thoughts
and aspirations, and men’s feelings shape their faith. But when
self-interest has taken the place of faith and each one of us thinks
only of himself, and believes in himself alone, how can you expect to
find among us much of that civil courage whose very essence consists in
self-renunciation? The same principle underlies both military and civil
courage, although you soldiers are called upon to yield your lives up
once and for all, while ours are given slowly drop by drop, and the
battle is the same for both, although it takes different forms.
“The man who would fain civilize the lowliest spot on earth needs
something besides wealth for the task. Knowledge is still more
necessary; and knowledge, and patriotism, and integrity are worthless
unless they are accompanied by a firm determination on his part to set
his own personal interests completely aside, and to devote himself to a
social idea. France, no doubt, possesses more than one well-educated
man and more than one patriot in every commune; but I am fully
persuaded that not every canton can produce a man who to these valuable
qualifications unites the unflagging will and pertinacity with which a
blacksmith hammers out iron.
“The Destroyer and the Builder are two manifestations of Will; the one
prepares the way, and the other accomplishes the work; the first appears
in the guise of a spirit of evil, and the second seems like the spirit
of good. Glory falls to the Destroyer, while the Builder is forgotten;
for evil makes a noise in the world that rouses little souls to
admiration, while good deeds are slow to make themselves heard.
Self-love leads us to prefer the more conspicuous part. If it should
happen that any public work is undertaken without an interested motive,
it will only be by accident, until the day when education has changed
our ways of regarding things in France.
“Yet suppose that this change had come to pass, and that all of us
were public-spirited citizens; in spite of our comfortable lives among
trivialities, should we not be in a fair way to become the most wearied,
wearisome, and unfortunate race of philistines under the sun?
“I am not at the helm of State, the decision of great questions of this
kind is not within my province; but, setting these considerations aside,
there are other difficulties in the way of laying down hard and fast
rules as to government. In the matter of civilization, everything
is relative. Ideas that suit one country admirably are fatal in
another--men’s minds are as various as the soils of the globe. If we
have so often been ill governed, it is because a faculty for government,
like taste, is the outcome of a very rare and lofty attitude of mind.
The qualifications for the work are found in a natural bent of the soul
rather than in the possession of scientific formulae. No one need fear,
however, to call himself a statesman, for his actions and motives cannot
be justly estimated; his real judges are far away, and the results of
his deeds are even more remote. We have a great respect here in France
for men of ideas--a keen intellect exerts a great attraction for us;
but ideas are of little value where a resolute will is the one thing
needful. Administration, as a matter of fact, does not consist in
forcing more or less wise methods and ideas upon the great mass of
the nation, but in giving to the ideas, good or bad, that they already
possess a practical turn which will make them conduce to the general
welfare of the State. If old-established prejudices and customs bring a
country into a bad way, the people will renounce their errors of their
own accord. Are not losses the result of economical errors of every
kind? And is it not, therefore, to every one’s interest to rectify them
in the long run?
“Luckily I found a _tabula rasa_ in this district. They have followed my
advice, and the land is well cultivated; but there had been no previous
errors in agriculture, and the soil was good to begin with, so that it
has been easy to introduce the five-ply shift, artificial grasses,
and potatoes. My methods did not clash with people’s prejudices. The
faultily constructed plowshares in use in some parts of France were
unknown here, the hoe sufficed for the little field work that they did.
Our wheelwright extolled my wheeled plows because he wished to increase
his own business, so I secured an ally in him; but in this matter, as in
all others, I sought to make the good of one conduce to the good of all.
“Then I turned my attention to another kind of production, that should
increase the welfare rather than the wealth of these poor folk. I
have brought nothing from without into this district; I have simply
encouraged the people to seek beyond its limits for a market for their
produce, a measure that could not but increase their prosperity in a
way that they felt immediately. They had no idea of the fact, but they
themselves were my apostles, and their works preached my doctrines.
Something else must also be borne in mind. We are barely five leagues
from Grenoble. There is plenty of demand in a large city for produce of
all kinds, but not every commune is situated at the gates of a city. In
every similar undertaking the nature, situation, and resources of the
country must be taken into consideration, and a careful study must be
made of the soil, of the people themselves, and of many other things;
and no one should expect to have vines grow in Normandy. So no tasks
can be more various than those of government, and its general principles
must be few in number. The law is uniform, but not so the land and the
minds and customs of those who dwell in it; and the administration of
the law is the art of carrying it out in such a manner that no injury is
done to people’s interests. Every place must be considered separately.
“On the other side of the mountain at the foot of which our deserted
village lies, they find it impossible to use wheeled plows, because the
soil is not deep enough. Now if the mayor of the commune were to take
it into his head to follow in our footsteps, he would be the ruin of
his neighborhood. I advised him to plant vineyards; they had a capital
vintage last year in the little district, and their wine is exchanged
for our corn.
“Then, lastly, it must be remembered that my words carried a certain
weight with the people to whom I preached, and that we were continually
brought into close contact. I cured my peasants’ complaints; an easy
task, for a nourishing diet is, as a rule, all that is needed to restore
them to health and strength. Either through thrift, or through sheer
poverty, the country people starve themselves; any illness among them is
caused in this way, and as a rule they enjoy very fair health.
“When I first decided to devote myself to this life of obscure
renunciation, I was in doubt for a long while whether to become a cure,
a country doctor, or a justice of the peace. It is not without reason
that people speak collectively of the priest, the lawyer, and the doctor
as ‘men of the black robe’--so the saying goes. They represent the three
principal elements necessary to the existence of society--conscience,
property, and health. At one time the first, and at a later period the
second, was all-important in the State. Our predecessors on this earth
thought, perhaps not without reason, that the priest, who prescribed
what men should think, ought to be paramount; so the priest was king,
pontiff, and judge in one, for in those days belief and faith were
everything. All this has been changed in our day; and we must even take
our epoch as we find it. But I, for one, believe that the progress of
civilization and the welfare of the people depend on these three men.
They are the three powers who bring home to the people’s minds the ways
in which facts, interests, and principles affect them. They themselves
are three great results produced in the midst of the nation by the
operation of events, by the ownership of property, and by the growth of
ideas. Time goes on and brings changes to pass, property increases or
diminishes in men’s hands, all the various readjustments have to be duly
regulated, and in this way principles of social order are established.
If civilization is to spread itself, and production is to be increased,
the people must be made to understand the way in which the interests
of the individual harmonize with national interests which resolve
themselves into facts, interests, and principles. As these three
professions are bound to deal with these issues of human life, it seemed
to me that they must be the most powerful civilizing agencies of our
time. They alone afford to a man of wealth the opportunity of mitigating
the fate of the poor, with whom they daily bring him in contact.
“The peasant is always more willing to listen to the man who lays down
rules for saving him from bodily ills than to the priest who exhorts him
to save his soul. The first speaker can talk of this earth, the scene
of the peasant’s labors, while the priest is bound to talk to him of
heaven, with which, unfortunately, the peasant nowadays concerns himself
very little indeed; I say unfortunately, because the doctrine of a
future life is not only a consolation, but a means by which men may be
governed. Is not religion the one power that sanctions social laws? We
have but lately vindicated the existence of God. In the absence of a
religion, the Government was driven to invent the Terror, in order to
carry its laws into effect; but the terror was the fear of man, and it
has passed away.
“When a peasant is ill, when he is forced to lie on his pallet, and
while he is recovering, he cannot help himself, he is forced to listen
to logical reasoning, which he can understand quite well if it is put
clearly before him. This thought made a doctor of me. My calculations
for the peasants were made along with them. I never gave advice unless
I was quite sure of the results, and in this way compelled them to admit
the wisdom of my views. The people require infallibility. Infallibility
was the making of Napoleon; he would have been a god if he had not
filled the world with the sound of his fall at Waterloo. If Mahomet
founded a permanent religion after conquering the third part of the
globe, it was by dint of concealing his deathbed from the crowd. The
same rules hold good for the great conqueror and for the provincial
mayor, and a nation or a commune is much the same sort of crowd; indeed,
the great multitude of mankind is the same everywhere.
“I have been exceedingly firm with those whom I have helped with money;
if I had not been inflexible on this point, they all would have laughed
at me. Peasants, no less than worldlings, end by despising the man that
they can deceive. He has been cheated? Clearly, then, he must have been
weak; and it is might alone that governs the world. I have never charged
a penny for my professional advice, except to those who were evidently
rich people; but I have not allowed the value of my services to be
overlooked at all, and I always make them pay for medicine unless the
patient is exceedingly poor. If my peasants do not pay me in money, they
are quite aware that they are in my debt; sometimes they satisfy their
consciences by bringing oats for my horses, or corn, when it is cheap.
But if the miller were to send me some eels as a return for my advice,
I should tell him that he is too generous for such a small matter. My
politeness bears fruit. In the winter I shall have some sacks of flour
for the poor. Ah! sir, they have kind hearts, these people, if one does
not slight them, and to-day I think more good and less evil of them than
I did formerly.”
“What a deal of trouble you have taken!” said Genestas.
“Not at all,” answered Benassis. “It was no more trouble to say
something useful than to chatter about trifles; and whether I chatted
or joked, the talk always turned on them and their concerns wherever
I went. They would not listen to me at first. I had to overcome their
dislikes; I belonged to the middle classes--that is to say, I was
a natural enemy. I found the struggle amusing. An easy or an uneasy
conscience--that is all the difference that lies between doing well or
ill; the trouble is the same in either case. If scoundrels would but
behave themselves properly, they might be millionaires instead of being
hanged. That is all.”
“The dinner is growing cold, sir!” cried Jacquotte, in the doorway.
Genestas caught the doctor’s arm.
“I have only one comment to offer on what I have just heard,” he
remarked. “I am not acquainted with any account of the wars of Mahomet,
so that I can form no opinions as to his military talents; but if you
had only watched the Emperor’s tactics during the campaign in France,
you might well have taken him for a god; and if he was beaten on the
field of Waterloo, it was because he was more than mortal, it was
because the earth found his weight too heavy to bear, and sprang from
under his feet! On every other subject I entirely agree with you, and
_tonnerre de Dieu_! whoever hatched you did a good day’s work.”
“Come,” exclaimed Benassis with a smile, “let us sit down to dinner.”
The walls of the dining-room were paneled from floor to ceiling, and
painted gray. The furniture consisted of a few straw-bottomed chairs,
a sideboard, some cupboards, a stove, and the late owner’s celebrated
clock; there were white curtains in the window, and a white cloth on the
table, about which there was no sign of luxury. The dinner service was
of plain white earthenware; the soup, made after the traditions of the
late cure, was the most concentrated kind of broth that was ever set
to simmer by any mortal cook. The doctor and his guest had scarcely
finished it when a man rushed into the kitchen, and in spite of
Jacquotte, suddenly invaded the dining-room.
“Well, what is it?” asked the doctor.
“It is this, sir. The mistress, our Mme. Vigneau, has turned as white as
white can be, so that we are frightened about her.”
“Oh, well, then,” Benassis said cheerfully, “I must leave the table,”
and he rose to go.
In spite of the doctor’s entreaties, Genestas flung down his
table-napkin, and swore in a soldierly fashion that he would not finish
his dinner without his host. He returned indeed to the salon; and as he
warmed himself by the fire, he thought over the troubles that no man may
escape, the troubles that are found in every lot that it falls to man to
endure here upon earth.
Benassis soon came back, and the two future friends sat down again.
“Taboureau has just come up to speak to you,” said Jacquotte to her
master, as she brought in the dishes that she had kept hot for them.
“Who can be ill at his place?” asked the doctor.
“No one is ill, sir. I think from what he said that it is some matter of
his own that he wants to ask you about; he is coming back again.”
“Very good. This Taboureau,” Benassis went on, addressing Genestas, “is
for me a whole philosophical treatise; take a good look at him when
he comes, he is sure to amuse you. He was a laborer, a thrifty,
hard-working man, eating little and getting through a good deal of
work. As soon as the rogue came to have a few crowns of his own, his
intelligence began to develop; he watched the progress which I had
originated in this little district with an eye to his own profit. He had
made quite a fortune in eight year’s time, that is to say, a fortune
for our part of the world. Very likely he may have a couple of score
thousand francs by now. But if I were to give you a thousand guesses,
you would never find out how he made the money. He is a usurer, and
his scheme of usury is so profoundly and so cleverly based upon the
requirements of the whole canton, that I should merely waste my time if
I were to take it upon myself to undeceive them as to the benefits which
they reap, in their own opinion, from their dealings with Taboureau.
When this devil of a fellow saw every one cultivating his own plot of
ground, he hurried about buying grain so as to supply the poor with the
requisite seed. Here, as everywhere else, the peasants and even some
of the farmers had no ready money with which to pay for seed. To some,
Master Taboureau would lend a sack of barley, for which he was to
receive a sack of rye at harvest time, and to others a measure of wheat
for a sack of four. At the present day the man has extended this curious
business of his all over the department; and unless something happens to
prevent him, he will go on and very likely make a million. Well, my
dear sir, Taboureau the laborer, an obliging, hard-working, good-natured
fellow, used to lend a helping hand to any one who asked him; but as
his gains have increased _Monsieur_ Taboureau has become litigious,
arrogant, and somewhat given to sharp practice. The more money he makes,
the worse he grows. The moment that the peasant forsakes his life
of toil pure and simple for the leisured existence of the landowning
classes, he becomes intolerable. There is a certain kind of character,
partly virtuous, partly vicious, half-educated, half-ignorant, which
will always be the despair of governments. You will see an example of it
in Taboureau. He looks simple, and even doltish; but when his interests
are in question, he is certainly profoundly clever.”
A heavy footstep announced the approach of the grain lender.
“Come in, Taboureau!” cried Benassis.
Thus forewarned by the doctor, the commandant scrutinized the peasant in
the doorway. Taboureau was decidedly thin, and stooped a little. He
had a bulging forehead, covered with wrinkles, and a cavernous face, in
which two small gray eyes with a dark spot in either of them seemed to
be pierced rather than set. The lines of the miser’s mouth were close
and firm, and his narrow chin turned up to meet an exaggeratedly
hooked nose. His hair was turning gray already, and deep furrows which
converged above the prominent cheek-bones spoke of the wily shrewdness
of a horse-dealer and of a life spent in journeying about. He wore a
blue coat in fairly clean condition, the square side-pocket flaps stuck
out above his hips, and the skirts of the coats hung loose in front,
so that a white-flowered waistcoat was visible. There he stood firmly
planted on both feet, leaning upon a thick stick with a knob at the
end of it. A little spaniel had followed the grain-dealer, in spite of
Jacquotte’s efforts, and was crouching beside him.
“Well, what is it?” Benassis asked as he turned to this being.
Taboureau gave a suspicious glance at the stranger seated at the
doctor’s table, and said:
“It is not a case of illness, _M. le Maire_, but you understand how to
doctor the ailments of the purse just as well as those of the body. We
have had a little difficulty with a man over at Saint-Laurent, and I
have come to ask your advice about it.”
“Why not see the justice of the peace or his clerk?”
“Oh, because you are so much cleverer, sir, and I shall feel more sure
about my case if I can have your countenance.”
“My good Taboureau, I am willing to give medical advice to the poor
without charging for it; but I cannot look into the lawsuits of a
man who is as wealthy as you are for nothing. It costs a good deal to
acquire that kind of knowledge.”
Taboureau began to twist his hat about.
“If you want my advice, in order to save the hard coin you would have to
pay to the lawyer folk over in Grenoble, you must send a bag of rye to
the widow Martin, the woman who is bringing up the charity children.”
“_Dame_! I will do it with all my heart, sir, if you think it necessary.
Can I talk about this business of mine without troubling the gentleman
there?” he added, with a look at Genestas.
The doctor nodded, so Taboureau went on.
“Well, then, sir, two months ago a man from Saint-Laurent came over here
to find me. ‘Taboureau,’ said he to me, ‘could you sell me a hundred and
thirty-seven measures of barley?’ ‘Why not?’ say I, ‘that is my trade.
Do you want it immediately?’ ‘No,’ he says, ‘I want it for the beginning
of spring, in March.’ So far, so good. Well, we drive our bargain, and
we drink a glass, and we agree that he is to pay me the price that the
barley fetched at Grenoble last market day, and I am to deliver it
in March. I am to warehouse it at owner’s risk, and no allowance for
shrinkage of course. But barley goes up and up, my dear sir; the barley
rises like boiling milk. Then I am hard up for money, and I sell my
barley. Quite natural, sir, was it not?”
“No,” said Benassis, “the barley had passed out of your possession, you
were only warehousing it. And suppose the barley had gone down in value,
would you not have compelled your buyer to take it at the price you
agreed upon?”
“But very likely he would not have paid me, sir. One must look out for
oneself! The seller ought to make a good profit when the chance comes in
his way; and, after, all the goods are not yours until you have paid for
them. That is so, _Monsieur l’Officier_, is it not? For you can see that
the gentleman has been in the army.”
“Taboureau,” Benassis said sternly, “ill luck will come to you. Sooner
or later God punishes ill deeds. How can you, knowing as much as you do,
a capable man moreover, and a man who conducts his business honorably,
set examples of dishonesty to the canton? If you allow such proceedings
as this to be taken against you, how can you expect that the poor will
remain honest people and will not rob you? Your laborers will cheat
you out of part of their working hours, and every one here will be
demoralized. You are in the wrong. Your barley was as good as delivered.
If the man from Saint-Laurent had fetched it himself, you would not have
gone there to take it away from him; you have sold something that was no
longer yours to sell, for your barley had already been turned into money
which was to be paid down at the stipulated time. But go on.”
Genestas gave the doctor a significant glance, to call his attention
to Taboureau’s impassive countenance. Not a muscle had stirred in the
usurer’s face during this reprimand; there was no flush on his forehead,
and no sign of emotion in his little eyes.
“Well, sir, I am called upon to supply the barley at last winter’s
price. Now _I_ consider that I am not bound to do so.”
“Look here, Taboureau, deliver that barley and be very quick about it,
or make up your mind to be respected by nobody in the future. Even if
you gained the day in a case like this, you would be looked upon as
an unscrupulous man who does not keep to his word, and is not bound by
promises, or by honor, or----”
“Go on, there is nothing to be afraid of; tell me that I am a scamp, a
scoundrel, a thief outright. You can say things like that in business
without insulting anybody, M. le Maire. ‘Tis each for himself in
business, you know.”
“Well, then, why deliberately put yourself in a position in which you
deserve to be called by such names?”
“But if the law is on my side, sir?”
“But the law will certainly _not_ be on your side.”
“Are you quite sure about it, sir? Certain sure? For you see it is an
important matter.”
“Certainly I am. Quite sure. If I were not at dinner, I would have down
the code, and you should see for yourself. If the case comes on, you
will lose it, and you will never set foot in my house again, for I do
not wish to receive people whom I do not respect. Do you understand? You
will lose your case.”
“Oh! no, not at all, I shall not lose it, sir,” said Taboureau. “You
see, sir, it is this way; it is the man from Saint-Laurent who owes _me_
the barley; I bought it of him, and now he refuses to deliver it. I just
wanted to make quite certain that I should gain my case before going to
any expense at court about it.”
Genestas and the doctor exchanged glances; each concealed his amazement
at the ingenious device by which the man had sought to learn the truth
about this point of law.
“Very well, Taboureau, your man is a swindler; you should not make
bargains with such people.”
“Ah! sir, they understand business, those people do.”
“Good-bye, Taboureau.”
“Your servant, gentlemen.”
“Well, now,” remarked Benassis, when the usurer had gone, “if that
fellow were in Paris, do you not think that he would be a millionaire
before very long?”
After dinner, the doctor and his visitor went back to the salon, and
all the rest of the evening until bedtime they talked about war and
politics; Genestas evincing a most violent dislike of the English in the
course of conversation.
“May I know whom I have the honor of entertaining as a guest?” asked the
doctor.
“My name is Pierre Bluteau,” answered Genestas; “I am a captain
stationed at Grenoble.”
“Very well, sir. Do you care to adopt M. Gravier’s plan? In the morning
after breakfast he liked to go on my rounds with me. I am not at all
sure that you would find anything to interest you in the things that
occupy me--they are so very commonplace. For, after all, you own no land
about here, nor are you the mayor of the place, and you will see nothing
in the canton that you cannot see elsewhere; one thatched cottage is
just like another. Still you will be in the open air, and you will have
something to take you out of doors.”
“No proposal could give me more pleasure. I did not venture to make it
myself, lest I should thrust myself upon you.”
Commandant Genestas (who shall keep his own name in spite of the
fictitious appellation which he had thought fit to give himself)
followed his host to a room on the first floor above the salon.
“That is right,” said Benassis, “Jacquotte has lighted a fire for you.
If you want anything, there is a bell-pull close to the head of the
bed.”
“I am not likely to want anything, however small, it seems to me,”
exclaimed Genestas. “There is even a boot-jack. Only an old trooper
knows what a boot-jack is worth! There are times, when one is out on a
campaign, sir, when one is ready to burn down a house to come by a knave
of a boot-jack. After a few marches, one on the top of another, or above
all, after an engagement, there are times when a swollen foot and the
soaked leather will not part company, pull as you will; I have had to
lie down in my boots more than once. One can put up with the annoyance
so long as one is by oneself.”
The commandant’s wink gave a kind of profound slyness to his last
utterance; then he began to make a survey. Not without surprise, he saw
that the room was neatly kept, comfortable, and almost luxurious.
“What splendor!” was his comment. “Your own room must be something
wonderful.”
“Come and see,” said the doctor; “I am your neighbor, there is nothing
but the staircase between us.”
Genestas was again surprised when he entered the doctor’s room,
a bare-looking apartment with no adornment on the walls save an
old-fashioned wall-paper of a yellowish tint with a pattern of brown
roses over it; the color had gone in patches here and there. There was
a roughly painted iron bedstead, two gray cotton curtains were suspended
from a wooden bracket above it, and a threadbare strip of carpet lay
at the foot; it was like a bed in a hospital. By the bed-head stood a
rickety cupboard on four feet with a door that continually rattled with
a sound like castanets. Three chairs and a couple of straw-bottomed
armchairs stood about the room, and on a low chest of drawers in walnut
wood stood a basin, and a ewer of obsolete pattern with a lid, which
was kept in place by a leaden rim round the top of the vessel. This
completed the list of the furniture.
The grate was empty. All the apparatus required for shaving lay about in
front of an old mirror suspended above the painted stone chimney-piece
by a bit of string. The floor was clean and carefully swept, but it was
worn and splintered in various places, and there were hollows in it here
and there. Gray cotton curtains bordered with a green fringe adorned the
two windows. The scrupulous cleanliness maintained by Jacquotte gave a
certain air of distinction to this picture of simplicity, but everything
in it, down to the round table littered with stray papers, and the very
pens on the writing-desk, gave the idea of an almost monastic life--a
life so wholly filled with thought and feeling of a wider kind that
outward surroundings had come to be matters of no moment. An open door
allowed the commandant to see the smaller room, which doubtless the
doctor seldom occupied. It was scarcely kept in the same condition as
the adjoining apartment; a few dusty books lay strewn about over the no
less dusty shelves, and from the rows of labeled bottles it was easy to
guess that the place was devoted rather to the dispensing of drugs than
scientific studies.
“Why this difference between your room and mine, you will ask?” said
Benassis. “Listen a moment. I have always blushed for those who put
their guests in the attics, who furnish them with mirrors that distort
everything to such a degree that any one beholding himself might think
that he was smaller or larger than nature made him, or suffering from
apoplectic stroke or some other bad complaint. Ought we not to do our
utmost to make a room as pleasant as possible during the time that
our friend can be with us? Hospitality, to my thinking, is a virtue,
a pleasure, and a luxury; but in whatever light it is considered, nay,
even if you regard it as a speculation, ought not our guest or our
friend to be made much of? Ought not every refinement of luxury to be
reserved for him?
“So the best furniture is put into your room, where a thick carpet is
laid down; there are hangings on the walls, and a clock and wax candles;
and for you Jacquotte will do her best, she has no doubt brought
a night-light, and a pair of new slippers and some milk, and her
warming-pan too for your benefit. I hope that you will find that
luxurious armchair the most comfortable seat you have ever sat in, it
was a discovery of the late cure’s; I do not know where he found it, but
it is a fact that if you wish to meet with the perfection of comfort,
beauty, or convenience, you must ask counsel of the Church. Well, I hope
that you will find everything in your room to your liking. You will find
some good razors and excellent soap, and all the trifling details that
make one’s own home so pleasant. And if my views on the subject of
hospitality should not at once explain the difference between your room
and mine, to-morrow, M. Bluteau, you will arrive at a wonderfully clear
comprehension of the bareness of my room and the untidy condition of my
study, when you see all the continual comings and goings here. Mine is
not an indoor life, to begin with. I am almost always out of the house,
and if I stay at home, peasants come in at every moment to speak to
me. My body and soul and house are all theirs. Why should I worry about
social conventions in these matters, or trouble myself over the damage
unintentionally done to floors and furniture by these worthy folk? Such
things cannot be helped. Luxury properly belongs to the boudoir and the
guest-chamber, to great houses and chateaux. In short, as I scarcely do
more than sleep here, what do I want with superfluities of wealth? You
do not know, moreover, how little I care for anything in this world.”
They wished each other a friendly good-night with a warm shake of the
hand, and went to bed. But before the commandant slept, he came to more
than one conclusion as to the man who hour by hour grew greater in his
eyes.