een Bastide Grammont, who was walking
rather rapidly on passing him. He declared that he exclaimed: "Don't
you find that Grammont has an uncanny face?" To which the other
answered affirmatively and said that one must be on one's guard against
him. Witnesses came forward who confirmed this conversation. Witnesses
came forward who claimed to have seen Bastide in front of the Bancal
house; he had emitted a shrill whistle a number of times and then
dodged into the shadow.

Bastide Grammont had lived at La Morne for five years. He was perhaps
the only man in the entire district who never concerned himself about
politics, and kept aloof from all party activity, and this proud
independence exposed him to the ill will, nay, the hatred, of his
fellow-citizens. When upon one occasion a demonstration in favor of the
Bourbons was to take place in Rodez, and the streets were filled with
an excited crowd, he rode with grave coolness on his dapple-gray horse
through the inflamed throng and returned the wild, angry glances
directed at him with a supercilious smile.

It was related of him that he had wasted his youth and a considerable
fortune in Paris, and had returned home from there sick and tired of
mankind. His mode of life pointed to a love of the singular. In former
years a learned father from the neighboring Benedictine abbey had often
been his guest; it seemed as if the quiet student of human nature took
a secret pleasure in the unbridled spirit and the pagan fervor of
Nature-worship of the hermit, Bastide; but when he forcibly abducted a
seamstress, pretty Charlotte Arlabosse, from Alby, and lived with her
in unlawful union, the Benedictine, in obedience to the command of his
superiors, was obliged to break off the intercourse. Thenceforth,
Bastide renounced all intimate human contact. He had no friend; he
wished for none. He secluded himself with disdainful pride; the sight
of a new face turned his distant and cold; people in society he treated
with insulting indifference. Perhaps it was only from a fear of
disappointment that he harshly withstood even the most friendly
advances, for there lay at times a vague yearning for love in the
depths of his eyes. To grow hard because unfulfilled claims afflict and
darken the soul, to retire into solitude because overweening pride
shuns to lay bare the glowing heart, to be unjust from a feeling of
shame and misunderstood defiance--that was perhaps his lot, and
certainly his shortcomi