IT HAS ALWAYS been supposed at Clochemerle that the notary Girodot played a sinister part in the engineering of the disturbances which succeeded the brawl in the church. He was in league, it was said, with the Jesuits, from whom the curé of Montéjour received his instructions when there was any action to be taken in the political sphere.
Actually, nothing was ever proved, and the whole matter is capable of various explanations, which do not necessarily involve complicity on the part of the Jesuits. But there is considerable reason to think that the notary Girodot did actually stir up trouble—in a way which it is difficult to specify—on account of his strong dislike for Barthélemy Piéchut, whom he could never forgive for holding the most important position in Clochemerle. A Government official and a university graduate, Girodot was privately of the opinion that the mayoralty was his by right, and should never have gone to a peasant. This was the term he applied to Piéchut, though he always greeted him quite pleasantly. But the mayor was not taken in by this; and he entrusted the greater part of his securities to a notary established elsewhere in the neighborhood.
At Montéjour, a town of two thousand inhabitants, six kilometers from Clochemerle by a hilly road, there was a curé of feverish energy backed by a set of pugnacious youngsters, directly instigated by him, and known as the Catholic Youth. The hooliganism of these boys of fourteen to sixteen was sometimes directed in the Church’s interests. There had long been rivalry between Montéjour and Clochemerle, arising from the excessive freedom of behavior which the Clochemerle lads had displayed towards the girls of Montéjour at the annual festival of this town in 1912. Since that date, there had been constant fights between the inhabitants of these two places. The Clochemerle contingent usually got the best of it—not from any superior strength, but because they showed greater craftiness and resource, and their treacherous methods had more decision and were better timed. The blackguardism they displayed in these encounters was combined with a remarkable streak of military ability, due undoubtedly to the intermarriage that had taken place in former times in these districts so often visited by invaders.
The people of Montéjour were very annoyed that their own underhand methods of fighting should prove unequal to the superior subtlety of similar ones employed by the inhabitants of Clochemerle, who excelled in luring the enemy into ambushes in which they gave him a thorough thrashing, with the advantage of superior numbers—the main object of the art of strategy, and one which Napoleon by no means despised. The inhabitants of Montéjour fought under a banner which had received the Church’s blessing, and they looked upon themselves as Soldiers of God; and this made it all the more painful for them to have to reappear in their own homes with faces bruised and battered by heretics. They did not fail to report that they had left large numbers of the enemy lying in ditches with their heads bashed; but these statements, though they saved their honor, did not restore their damaged self-esteem. The reader will now gather that the inhabitants of Montéjour were hardly reluctant to interfere in the events at Clochemerle—provided they could do so without personal risk. These zealous legionaries of the Lord felt a strong distaste for the thick sticks and hobnail shoes of the vigorous though profane inhabitants of Clochemerle.
The Montéjour contingent came several times to Clochemerle, at night. They arrived and departed unseen, but certain of the inhabitants heard sounds of voices and of bicycles ridden at full speed, which were doubtless accompaniments of the malefactors’ flight. Traces of their visit were discovered in the morning: insulting inscriptions on the doors of the town hall, the Beaujolais Stores, and the doctor’s house—which proved that they were thoroughly well posted in the course of events. One night the municipal posters were torn to ribbons and the windows of the town hall broken. The infantryman on the war memorial was found one morning covered with red paint. The memorial was the pride of Clochemerle: a young woman, symbolical of France, had her hand on the shoulder of a determined-looking soldier who stood in an attitude of protection, with fixed bayonet.
The effect of the war memorial soldier with a complete coat of red, in the very center of the main square, may be easily imagined. A single cry was heard throughout the town:
“Have you seen it?”
The whole of Clochemerle made its way to the highest point. The soldier with his covering of fresh paint was a strange sight. The town was furious, not so much at the color, which was not unpleasing, but at the insult. The Fadet gang proposed an expedition to Montéjour to paint their war memorial green or black; this memorial, too, showed a figure of France serene and undisturbed, and a dauntless soldier. But this proposal could not solve the situation. The town council met in haste to discuss the matter. Dr. Mouraille said that the red color produced a far more martial effect, and had the further advantage of making the monument more easily seen. He suggested keeping the color, and putting on a second coat of paint with great care.
Anselme Lamolire raised strong objections to this proposal, on ethical grounds. Red, he observed, is the color of blood. It was most unsuitable that recollections of the war should be mingled with thoughts of blood. The men who fell in the war should be imagined as having had an ideal death, a glorious and peaceful end, and nothing sordid or vulgar or sad should be allowed to dim the luster of this conception. They must consider the younger generation, who should be taught to venerate the traditional heroism of the French private soldier, who knows how to die gracefully, with a smile on his lips. There is a way of meeting death in war that is essentially a French virtue, unique among the nations, and undoubtedly due to the sterling qualities of the French mind and character, the finest in the world, as everyone knows.
The timeliness of this reminder of national supremacy sent a thrill of patriotic feeling coursing through the town councilors’ veins. With a few further flashes of eloquence delivered point-blank at his opponent, Dr. Mouraille, Lamolire then finished him off.
“I am quite ready to believe,” he said, “that people who have dissected bodies have no respect for anything. But because we happen to live in the country we should not on that account have lower ideals than the cynical jokers in the large towns. We should show them what’s what.”
Eloquence supported by facts always has great power of persuasion. Anselme Lamolire was especially qualified to speak of those who laid down their lives in the war. He had lost three nephews and a son-in-law. He himself had guarded railway tracks for five months at the beginning. He ranked as a victim of the war. The council accordingly adopted his point of view, and decided to send for a specialist to restore the memorial to its old coloring.
But there was worse to come. One night, in the small hours, Clochemerle was shaken by an explosion. The long-drawn-out echoes which followed it gave the impression of an earthquake; and the inhabitants of Clochemerle remained silent, wondering,. though in fact the houses still retained a vertical position, whether they themselves were still in a horizontal one. Then the more courageous spirits ventured down into the street. The smell of the explosion led them to Monks’ Alley, and very shortly, as day broke, they saw how matters stood. A dynamite cartridge had been placed under the urinal and had torn away the sheet iron; flying fragments of the metal had broken one of the church windows. On this occasion the damage affected both parties. This piece of vandalism aroused great indignation. On the following day, two natives of Montéjour, walking alone along the road, were surprised by a party of stout-hearted people from Clochemerle and left in a critical condition.
In addition to these outbreaks, there was a constantly growing crop of private scandals, in which people in both camps were involved; and this only served to augment the general disquiet and uneasiness of mind. Some account of it must now be given.
While these varied incidents were taking place in crowded and headlong succession, upsetting family life and destroying old and well-worn customs which had been the joy of Clochemerle for three-quarters of a century past, love was wreaking havoc in a youthful, unsuspecting heart. Love’s victory was a resounding one; far and wide it resounded, for the social position of his victim was considerable. It is something of a tragedy for young girls of good family that they cannot carry on a love affair in a simple, straightforward way, in secret, below their station if need be, as do their sisters of humble origin, who can place their affections wherever they wish without risk of misdirecting a family fortune or making “a bad match.”
We must give our attention for a moment to the tender figure of a young girl, as fresh-looking and modest as you could wish; she has all the vivacity and all the melancholy that are associated with her age, moments of great exaltation and excitement alternating with fits of deep depression, which come from within herself and are independent of outward circumstances; she has no real sorrow nor has she hope, but she remains charming always, despite her moods which are transient as a changing sky: nay more, she has that fleeting grace, that fatal charm, that gentle radiance which are to be seen in those who, destined to give their whole hearts in love, and unconsciously bearing within themselves a timid submissiveness that is liable to change to violent revolt, are quickly responsive to the call of destiny when they first behold the being whom, by an infallible presentiment, they foresee as their life companion. Such was Hortense Girodot at the age of twenty, ready to die for love. And she had beauty too, not skin-deep only, but a beauty of devotion which remained a permanent discovery.
To find this charming girl, this dreamer of dreams, this sensitive, highly strung nature in such an environment may well be a cause for wonder, especially when one considers what Hyacinthe Girodot and his wife were like. Their personal appearance conveyed the inevitable impression that the mere fact of their having ventured on parenthood had conferred dishonor on the whole human race. The notary’s wife (née Philippine Tapaque, of the Tapaque-Dondelle family, holders of a monopoly of the grocery trade at Dijon) was an arrogant woman, with a blotchy face resulting from an incurable intestinal inaction of thirty years’ standing, thin, lifeless hair, dull eyes, hairy lips, rough skin, and a mouth as engaging as the peephole of a prison cell. Her interests in life were her privileges, her dowry, her convictions, the family portraits in her drawing room, her piano playing, and her poker work. She was a tall, gawky creature of truly distressing appearance, whose leanness defied all possibility of spontaneous advances of an amorous nature, and was discouraging even to marital enterprise.
She was a good head taller than the notary, a paltry little fellow and her deplorable accomplice in procreation, whose sole claim to dignity, with his thin bowlegs and narrow chest, lay in his imposing paunch, whose appearance, on a frame such as his, was so odd that it suggested a cancerous growth rather than a normal stomach. His colorless, mawkish countenance was apparently composed of a species of soft putty, which disappeared into his solemn stand-up collar in the form of flabby dewlaps that looked as though they had been taken from the gray hide of some pachyderm. But his yellow eyes, hard and deceitful, showed a steely penetration which enabled him to discover, in everyone he met, what pecuniary profit he could extract from them. This ruling passion was Lawyer Girodot’s substitute for character and his invariable basis of procedure in business. The law, as manipulated by clever and highly respected rascals, still remains the best avenue for a career of honorable and leisurely plunder. He knew every law inside out, and excelled in literal interpretations of conflicting enactments, and in effecting such tangles and confusion amid the contradictions in which the law abounds, that it was more than the experts could do, in examining his documents, to extricate themselves from the maze.
How the pure and charming Hortense could ever have been begotten by these two monsters of ugliness, accentuated in one case by a stupid middle-class pretentiousness, and in the other by all too successful knavery, one cannot undertake to explain. One may suggest some sprightly humor on the part of atoms, or a revenge taken by cells which, too long the victims of immoral unions and weary of assembling in hateful Girodots, had blossomed one fine day into an adorable Girodot. These mysterious alternations are evidences of a law of equilibrium whereby the world is enabled to endure without falling into a state of utter debasement. On the manure heap of degeneracy, covetousness, and the lowest instincts of man, exquisite plants are sometimes seen to sprout. Unknown to herself, and unrealized by those around her, Hortense Girodot was one of those works of fragile perfection, like the outspread rainbow, which Nature may sometimes insert in horrible surroundings as a pledge of her fantastic friendship for our pitiful race.
In the matter of beauty, no comparison between Hortense Girodot and Judith Toumignon would have been possible. They were never thought of as rivals, for their fields of action were entirely distinct, and the special reasons for the reputation they enjoyed were wholly different. Each was a personification of woman at two different stages of her life: one was destined to be at her zenith in the rôle of the young fiancée; the other, without any intermediate period, had passed from adolescence to a queenly and fully developed maturity which was strangely enthralling to men. The showy, rich beauty of Judith made an immediate and irresistible appeal to the senses, without any of the equivocations of sentiment, while the more subtle beauty of Hortense required patience for its proper appreciation and called for some exercise of the imagination. The one suggested nudity with brazen welcome; the other had some indefinable quality which checked all unbridled flights of fancy.
This contrast is perhaps the best description of Hortense Girodot. Picture her, then, as supple, delicate, still slender despite a newly acquired fullness of figure, a little pensive, with a trusting smile, with her dark auburn hair, which preserved her alike from the too fragile appearance of a blonde and the aloofness of a brunette. She was in love.
She loved a poet, Denis Pommier by name, a lazy young idler, but gay and full of enthusiasm, though given to wild fancies. He was the despair of his family, which is the usual function in the time of their youth, of poets, artists, and even geniuses, when their talents are slow to appear. This young man published, at long intervals and in short-lived magazines, poems of the oddest description, the typographical arrangement of which, fanciful to the last degree, was their most pleasing feature. This he made no attempt to deny, saying that he wrote for the eye; his dream was to found a suggestionist school. Discovering, however, that poetry is not the best method of stirring the masses, he had decided to change his weapons. He had ambition, fervor, and great powers of persuasion; and he knew how to interest women. When a very young man, he had set himself a time-limit for making a reputation which was to expire with the twenty-fifth year of his life; but having just entered his twenty-sixth, he had decided to grant himself an extension to last till he was thirty. In his opinion, a man who has not won glory at about that age has no further reason for lingering on in this world. Acting on this principle, he worked simultaneously at several great compositions, a cyclic romance of which the number of volumes had yet to be decided, a tragedy in verse, and three comedies.
Denis Pommier displayed intellectual activity of a very special kind. On the covers of several exercise books he had written the titles of his different works, and as he took his walks in the country he awaited the moment at which they should come gushing forth from him. He considered that a work of art should be written at the dictation of the gods, almost without erasure, and in an effortless manner which alone could preserve its flavor.
Having stayed for a long time at Lyons under pretense of study, Denis Pommier had been living at Clochemerle for the past eighteen months: and there, ostensibly for the purpose of literary work, he was living with his family as a surplus member of it, while they looked on him as a good-for-nothing young man destined to bring dishonor to a hard-working family of small landed proprietors. He had had ample opportunity for approaching Hortense Girodot and overwhelming her with poetical letters which made a deep impression on her tender nature.
When the time comes for a young man to open his heart to her, even the least deceitful of maidens finds herself a sudden possessor of unlimited resource. In her own home, Hortense had on various occasions introduced the name of Denis Pommier into the conversation. The indignation with which this was received by all the members of her family made it clear to her that she must give up all hope of being allowed to marry this boy; indeed, pressure was soon brought to bear on her to marry Gustave Lagache, the son of a friend of her father’s, in whom Girodot saw a possible collaborator whom he would have molded to his own methods. Hortense, in despair, spoke to the young man whom she regarded as her fiancé and told him of her troubles.
Difficulties had no meaning for a poet who was on terms of intimacy with the gods and took liberties with the Muses; he felt himself to be the master of his own future, never doubting that a great destiny awaited him. His family announced that they were prepared to sacrifice a sum of ten thousand francs to enable him to seek his fortune in Paris, and wished him good riddance. This sum, combined with what Hortense could procure by the sale of some jewelry, was sufficient to cover the initial expenses of an adventure which he conceived as an enchanted road to fame.
He decided to kidnap Hortense, and broke down her last shred of resistance by depriving her of her maidenhood unawares, at a moment when, by his reading of certain romances of tender passion, chosen with discernment, she had gradually fallen into a state of rapture which left her defenseless. It all happened in a moment, in a rural setting, on a day when the notary’s daughter was on her way to Villefranche for her piano lesson. The all too trusting Hortense bade farewell to her virginity with the handle of her music case, which had saved her from all apprehension, still on her wrist. And as her feelings of bashfulness, which had been too late aroused, were powerless to undo what had already been accomplished, and all reparation seemed impossible, she decided to bow to the inevitable, and laid her cheek lovingly on Denis Pommier’s shoulder. The latter laughingly assured her that he was very happy and very proud and, by way of rewarding her, recited his last poem for her benefit. He informed her that this lack of ceremony was in the Olympian tradition, the best of all traditions for poets and their ladyloves, whose behavior differs from that of the common run of mortals.
As Hortense was only too anxious to believe this, she had no difficulty in doing so—with her eyes closed—a circumstance of which the young scoundrel took advantage for the purpose “of proving to himself that he had not been dreaming,” as he charmingly remarked. Hortense, on the point of fainting, was wondering whether she too were not dreaming. Later, as she returned home alone, she was filled with wonder at the thought that the destiny of young girls may thus be determined without forewarning, and that young people like herself may encounter so sudden a revelation of a mystery of which their mothers speak in such dread terms. She realized from that moment that her own life was now henceforth inseparably linked with that of her bold lover, who was so thoroughly prepared to take an initiative and accept the consequences with an air of reassuring unconcern. A word from him, a mere gesture, and she would follow him to the ends of the earth.
On a certain night in September, the upper town was awakened by the sound of a gunshot, followed shortly by an uproar from the exhaust of a motorcycle starting off at a breakneck speed. The inhabitants who had had time to get their windows partly open saw a machine with sidecar careering dangerously down the main street with flames spurting from it, the noise arousing long-drawn-out echoes down in the valley. Some brave spirits, armed with sporting guns, started out to reconnoiter. They found the notary’s house lighted up, and it seemed to them that there was some disturbance within. They called out:
“Was it you, Monsieur Girodot, let off that shot?”
“Who is there, who is there?” replied a voice charged with emotion.
“Don’t you be frightened, Monsieur Girodot! It’s us, Beausoleil, Machavoine, and Poipanel. What’s happened?”
“Is it you, my friends, is it you?” Girodot answered briskly, and in a tone of exceptional kindness. “I’ll come and let you in.”
He received them in the dining room; and in such a state of distraction was he that he poured out into their glasses three-quarters of a bottle of Frontignan reserved for guests of special distinction. He explained that he had heard the gravel of the courtyard crunching beneath footsteps, and had distinctly seen a shadowy form stealing away, not far from the house. By the time he had put on his dressing gown and seized his gun the figure had disappeared. As no one answered his challenge, he had fired at random. In his opinion it was undoubtedly a case of burglars. The idea of burglars gave Girodot no peace at night, his safe always containing large sums of money.
“There are so many ruffians about nowadays!” he said.
He was thinking of the soldiers who had returned from the war in a dangerous frame of mind, and especially of those with pensions and Government allowances, which gives them plenty of time for working out crimes.
“Burglars, I hardly think so,” Beausoleil replied. “Trespassers, more likely. You have the finest pears in Clochemerle in your garden. People may well envy them.”
“My gardener costs me a pretty penny!” Girodot answered. “One can’t find anybody nowadays to take on that job. And the men who do come want this and that. . . .”
At that moment a cry of anguish was heard. The door was pushed open sharply, and Mme. Girodot appeared on the threshold. This irreproachable lady displayed herself in night attire as worn by all the good women of the Tapaque-Dondelle family, who prided themselves on never having been loose women—not even where their husbands were concerned. Her curlpapers and her angular face made an absurd picture. A loose bodice with sleeves covered her flat chest; her lower limbs were encased in a shabby petticoat. At that moment her face showed a ghastly pallor. Terror accentuated her ugliness.
“It’s Hortense,” she cried, “she’s gone!”
Seeing the visitors, she broke off.
“Hortense! . . .” Girodot echoed feebly, checking himself, aghast.
The three townspeople, scenting a mystery which they would be the first to hear—a rare windfall—were burning to learn more. Machavoine put out a feeler.
“Perhaps Mademoiselle Hortense only just came downstairs for a bit? Girls after they’re grown up, sometimes it happens they can’t sleep, they get ideas running through their heads . . . thinking it’s high time their turn came. . . . They’ve all been through it. That’s so, isn’t it, Madame Girodot? That’s what may have happened to your young lady, don’t you think?”
“She’s sound asleep,” declared Girodot, who never entirely lost his presence of mind. “Come along, my friends, it’s high time for us all to go to bed. Thank you again for coming.”
He showed them out to the gate, very disappointed.
“I’d better make my report, Monsieur Girodot, hadn’t I?” Beausoleil asked.
“No, no, leave it, Beausoleil,” the notary replied, sharply. “We can see tomorrow if there are any traces. Don’t let us attach too much importance to this business. Perhaps, after all, there was nothing in it.”
This guarded attitude increased their suspicions, and also their sense of grievance. Machavoine avenged himself by saying, just as they left:
“That motor bike that kicked up such a row—it couldn’t have spat more fire if it’d been carrying off a treasure—it certainly couldn’t!”
“A fine show—good enough for the movies!” Poipanel put in.
And the murmur of their ungracious comments was lost in the night.
It was in very truth his own daughter upon whom the alarmed Girodot had fired. Happily, his aim had been poor. This manufacturer of unintelligible documents was entirely ignorant of the use of firearms; with him, docketed papers were surer weapons of assassination. But though he had missed his daughter, he had nevertheless scored a bull’s-eye so far as the already damaged reputation of the Girodots was concerned. This nocturnal alarm had the effect of concentrating attention on his house and upon Hortense’s disappearance, which coincided with that of Denis Pommier, the owner of a motorcycle of American pattern which was never seen again at Clochemerle.
Hortense herself was blindly happy, making for Paris in the clattering sidecar, which was continually stopping for kisses that made her oblivious of all else. Even as she sped along, she could scarcely take her eyes off Denis Pommier’s profile. She held him with the melting gaze of a girl in love, while he himself was only too pleased when the speedometer registered 60 m.p.h. In the hands of this young poet, with Love seated at his side, the motorcycle became an implement of the Muses.
There is something relentless about the serenity of Nature which has a crushing effect on the human mind. The lavish splendor of her phases, which completely ignores human strife, fills the race of men with the sensation of their own ephemeral insignificance and drives them mad. While vast masses of human beings are tearing each other to pieces in hatred, Nature, with sublime indifference, sheds her brilliance over all these horrors and, during the short breathing spaces which the combatants allow themselves, by some evening of magic loveliness or morning of festive beauty reveals the absurdity of all this raging madness. But all that beauty, which should help to reconcile mankind, is expended to no purpose. Its only effect is to incite them to still greater energy in their ruthless activities, fearing that they may vanish from sight and leave no trace, and unable to conceive any more impressive and lasting monument than wholesale destruction.
With her torrid heat, her lovely colors, her fertility, and her sky of cloudless blue, such was the spell that Nature cast over the inhabitants of Clochemerle. In wintertime they would have been more at rest, keeping themselves warm in their snug houses and amusing themselves with their family quarrels and jealousy of their neighbors. But at this time of year, doors and windows were flung wide open, and the inmates were forced into the street. Clouds of rumors pervaded the air, scattering their fruitful seeds which blossomed riotously in overheated brains.
It was a mad riot of unrestrained speech, not easy to explain. Along the gentle slopes of the mountain golden tints of autumn were already appearing; the pleasant, smiling landscape of this happy region stretched far away to the horizon, under a sky radiating kindness and affection. But Clochemerle’s three thousand inhabitants, heads buzzing with stupid frenzy, were spoiling all this delightful peace and calm. The whole town was pervaded by a booming undercurrent of the sounds of back-biting, threats, quarrels, plots, and scandal. Placed though it was in surroundings which should have made it the capital of contentment’s kingdom, an oasis of dreams in a world of tumult, this little borough, failing to uphold its tradition of good sense and good behavior, went raving mad.
Since the abominable morning of the 16th of August the situation had gotten worse: event followed event in headlong, subversive rhythm. Political controversy put the finishing touch to the universal bewilderment which was splitting up the town into two opposing factions, both equally incapable of justice and good faith, as always happens when conflicting views are held with impassioned conviction. It was the old antagonism between good and evil, the struggle between the righteous and the unrighteous. Each, be it said, deemed himself to be the righteous one, never doubting that truth and justice were on his side—save a few well-informed personages such as Piéchut, Girodot, or the Baroness, who acted in the name of altogether higher principles, before which truth must bow in humble submission.
A preliminary article by Tafardel, breathing out fire and slaughter, appeared in the Vintners’ Gazette of Belleville-sur-Saone, and found its way to Clochemerle, where it aroused violent comments among the Church party. It is a pity that we cannot reproduce it in full. It began with a series of imposing headlines:
SHOCKING ATTACK IN A CHURCH
INTOXICATED BEADLE HURLS HIMSELF FEROCIOUSLY
AT PEACEFUL CITIZEN
CURÉ ENCOURAGES SHAMEFUL OUTBREAK
All that followed was in a similar strain. Justly proud of himself, Tafardel went about everywhere, saying: “That’s one in the eye for the Jesuits, the Girodots, and the aristocracy!” The Baroness’ “whipper-snapper” had never ceased to rankle in his mind.
This dazzling composition awoke immediate echoes in the Lyons Chronicle, the principal organ of the Left. It so happened that the editor of the Vintners’ Gazette was the correspondent of this journal. The scandal at Clochemerle provided him with material for a lengthy article—at so much per line—preceded by headlines derived from his own imagination which, for sheer vigor, were by no means inferior to those devised by Tafardel. The people at Lyons were delighted to publish this. A municipal election was on the way, and was the occasion for an exchange between two newspapers, the Lyons Chronicle and the Standard, of blows of a particularly treacherous nature. The scandals of Clochemerle, as set forth in Tafardel’s version, gave the Lyons Chronicle the upper hand. But the Standard retorted superbly. Forty-eight hours later it published a still more intentionally misleading version—worked out in the private office of the editor himself—the headlines of which ran as follows:
NEW OUTRAGES
CORRUPT COUNCILORS INSTIGATE DRUNKEN BRAWL
SACRED EDIFICE PROFANED
DISTURBER EJECTED BY INDIGNANT WORSHIPERS
Given in this form, the news required further explanation. This was duly supplied during the following days. Rival contributors, despite their beggarly remuneration, displayed great zeal in inventing abominable intrigues, and slinging mud at people of whom they knew nothing, including Barthélemy Piéchut, Tafardel, the Baroness, Girodot, and the Cure Ponosse. Any unprejudiced person consulting the two hostile journals alternately must have arrived at the conclusion that the population of the town of Clochemerle in Beaujolais consisted entirely of scoundrels.
The effect of newspapers on simple minds, though not easy to fathom, is certainly overpowering. Violently rejecting the evidence of known facts, and setting aside a long-standing tradition of forbearance and brotherly love, the inhabitants of Clochemerle arrived at a state of mind in which their mutual feelings were based entirely on revelations culled from several journals with equal care, by one party with rejoicing, by the other with indignation. The result was soon apparent: anger became the prevailing sentiment, to the exclusion of any other feeling. The affair of Rose Bivaque, the disappearance of Hortense Girodot, and the interference of the Montéjour people, put the finishing touch to the process by which public opinion was being led to that pitch of blind delusion which paves the way for great catastrophes. The stage of insults was succeeded by one of assaults. A second window in the church was broken, this time intentionally. Stones were thrown at the windows of Justine Putet, Piéchut, Girodot, and Tafardel. They bombarded the presbytery garden, where Honorine had a narrow escape. Scribblings on doors became more numerous. Justine Putet called Tafardel a liar, accused him of complicity, and slapped his face. Under the violence of the blow the precious panama fell from his head. The old maid trampled on it. The window of the limousine in which the Baroness was driving was smashed by a projectile. Several anonymous letters were delivered by Blazot. Finally, a public misadventure was the occasion of a severe shock to the dignity of Oscar de Saint-Choul.
This dashing young nobleman had plumed himself on being able to restore peace and quiet to Clochemerle by exploiting his prestige and eloquence—qualities which his stylish appearance, with its prevailing light-colored tints, should render irresistible. He arrived on horseback one evening with many airs and graces, on a very poor mount which had ceased to respond to the encouragements of the spur, and obstinately continued to indulge some equine whim which made him entirely unmanageable. The suspicious animal displayed his bad temper by moving along at a jog trot as though he were but a sorry nag—a method of progression as uncomfortable to the rider as it was disastrous to his prospects of cutting a fine figure. Anxious to alter the horse’s pace, Oscar de Saint-Choul seized the first excuse for calling a halt, which, curiously enough, occurred at the washing place. He saluted the washerwomen in an off hand manner, with an easy movement of his arm which brought the knob of his ridingwhip to the level of his hat.
“Well, my good women,” he said, with the patronizing familiarity of those in high places, “having a good day’s washing?”
Fifteen stout gossips were there assembled—fifteenladies of the you-can’t-shut-me-up variety, invincible champions in tournaments of backchat and repartee; and among them was Babette Manapoux, who happened to be in a very excited state that day. She looked up.
“Why, I declare,” this buxom lady remarked, “if it isn’t our naughty boy! Well, my duck, left your darling behind and out on the loose for a bit?”
Fifteen resounding bursts of laughter made a din beneath the roof of the washhouse, the hearty joyousness of which was truly exasperating. The young nobleman had counted on being received with a deference which he would have no difficulty in sustaining. This kind of welcome was embarrassing, and made it hard for him to preserve the self-control of good breeding. Then his horse, attracted by the sound of running water, looked as though he were going to move forward to drink. Saint-Choul pretended to have a question to ask:
“Tell me, my good women—”
But for the life of him he could think of nothing more. He was encouraged by Babette Manapoux.
“Go ahead, duckie! Just you tell us all you’ve got to say. No need to be shy with the ladies, my gay young spark!”
At last, with a desperate effort, the young nobleman managed to utter the following words:
“Tell me, my good women, are you not frightfully hot?”
As he spoke these words, it occurred to him that the gift of a twenty-franc note would secure him an honorable retreat. But his horse left him no time to proceed to action. This whimsical steed was unexpectedly seized by an attack of singular and unwonted energy, which called for the utmost tenacity on Saint-Choul’s part to enable him to retain his seat. This, moreover, became a most urgent necessity, for, as he realized, to subside at the feet of these ladies of the washhouse would have been the direst calamity; while the contortions and grimaces he made in his efforts to remain in the saddle were so extraordinary that the clamorous delight of these bold ladies, spreading from house to house, drew the attention of the women of Clochemerle to the unhappy Oscar, who was now taking flight in the direction of his own manor house as though he were the hindmost straggler in a squadron of cavalry which had just turned tail and fled. Such an embodiment of terror was he that these women became suddenly endowed with a mighty access of courage. The Baroness’ son-in-law was accompanied to the confines of the lower town by a volley of very ripe tomatoes, and three of these domestic hand grenades, in a very juicy condition, burst open upon his light-colored suit.
This insult came to the Baroness’ ears. As we have already related, she regarded her son-in-law as a simpleton—a simpleton from every aspect and point of view.
If this great lady despised Oscar de Saint-Choul, however, she considered nevertheless that the most trifling insult offered to an idiot of good birth was a sufficient occasion for chastising a whole village of clodhoppers. Her ruthlessness was based on this maxim: “The imbeciles of our class are not vulgar imbeciles.” She decided to intervene in higher quarters without delay.