s, and wore his hair plastered down on his temples. When he said: "Our
holy father, the pope" in a certain manner, everyone laughed. He made a
point of working on Sunday during the hour of mass. He killed his pig
each year on Monday in Holy Week in order to have enough black pudding to
last till Easter, and when the priest passed by, he always said by way of
a joke: "There goes one who has just swallowed his God off a salver."

The priest, a stout man and also very tall, dreaded him on account of his
boastful talk which attracted followers. The Abbe Maritime was a politic
man, and believed in being diplomatic. There had been a rivalry between
them for ten years, a secret, intense, incessant rivalry. Sabot was
municipal councillor, and they thought he would become mayor, which would
inevitably mean the final overthrow of the church.

The elections were about to take place. The church party was shaking in
its shoes in Martinville.

One morning the cure set out for Rouen, telling his servant that he was
going to see the archbishop. He returned in two days with a joyous,
triumphant air. And everyone knew the following day that the chancel of
the church was going to be renovated. A sum of six hundred francs had
been contributed by the archbishop out of his private fund. All the old
pine pews were to be removed, and replaced by new pews made of oak. It
would be a big carpentering job, and they talked about it that very
evening in all the houses in the village.

Theodule Sabot was not laughing.

When he went through the village the following morning, the neighbors,
friends and enemies, all asked him, jokingly:

"Are you going to do the work on the chancel of the church?"

He could find nothing to say, but he was furious, he was good and angry.

Ill-natured people added:

"It is a good piece of work; and will bring in not less than two or three
per cent. profit."

Two days later, they heard that the work of renovation had been entrusted
to Celestin Chambrelan, the carpenter from Percheville. Then this was
denied, and it was said that all the pews in the church were going to be
changed. That would be well worth the two thousand francs that had been
demanded of the church administration.

Theodule Sabot could not sleep for thinking about it. Never, in all the
memory of man, had a country carpenter undertaken a similar piece of
work. Then a rumor spread abroad that the cure felt very grieved that he
had to give this wo