;
"Your cause is that of all land-owners"; "We will consider it; but,
situated as we are, prudence is very necessary"; "A monarchy could
certainly do more for the people than the people would do for itself,
even if it were, as in 1793, the sovereign people"; "The masses suffer,
and we are bound to do as much for them as for ourselves."

The relentless attorney-general expressed such kindly and benevolent
views respecting the condition of the lower classes that our future
Utopians, had they heard him, might have thought that the higher grade
of government officials were already aware of the difficulties of that
problem which modern society will be forced to solve.

It may be well to say here that at this period of the Restoration,
various bloody encounters had taken place in remote parts of the
kingdom, caused by this very question of the pillage of woods, and
the marauding rights which the peasants were everywhere arrogating to
themselves. Neither the government nor the court liked these outbreaks,
nor the shedding of blood which resulted from repression. Though they
felt the necessity of rigorous measures, they nevertheless treated
as blunderers the officials who were compelled to employ them, and
dismissed them on the first pretence. The prefects were therefore
anxious to shuffle out of such difficulties whenever possible.

At the very beginning of the conversation Sarcus (the rich) had made a
sign to the prefect and the attorney-general which Montcornet did not
see, but which set the tone of the discussion. The attorney-general was
well aware of the state of mind of the inhabitants of the valley des
Aigues through his subordinate, Soudry the young attorney.

"I foresee a terrible struggle," the latter had said to him. "They mean
to kill the gendarmes; my spies tell me so. It will be very hard to
convict them for it. The instant the jury feel they are incurring the
hatred of the friends of the twenty or thirty prisoners, they will not
sustain us,--we could not get them to convict for death, nor even for
the galleys. Possibly by prosecuting in person you might get a few
years' imprisonment for the actual murderers. Better shut our eyes
than open them, if by opening them we bring on a collision which costs
bloodshed and several thousand francs to the State,--not to speak of the
cost of keeping the guilty in prison. It is too high a price to pay for
a victory which will only reveal our judicial weakness to the eyes of