all."

Montcornet, who was wholly without suspicion of the strength and
influence of the Mediocracy in his happy valley, did not even mention
Gaubertin, whose hand kept these embers of opposition always alive,
though smouldering. After breakfast the attorney-general took Montcornet
by the arm and led him to the Prefect's study. When the general left
that room after their conference, he wrote to his wife that he was
starting for Paris and should be absent a week. We shall see, after
the execution of certain measures suggested by Baron Bourlac, the
attorney-general, whether the secret advice he gave to Montcornet was
wise, and whether in conforming to it the count and Les Aigues were
enabled to escape the "Evil grudge."

Some minds, eager for mere amusement, will complain that these various
explanations are far too long; but we once more call attention to the
fact that the historian of the manners, customs, and morals of his time
must obey a law far more stringent than that imposed on the historian of
mere facts. He must show the probability of everything, even the truth;
whereas, in the domain of history, properly so-called, the impossible
must be accepted for the sole reason that it did happen. The
vicissitudes of social or private life are brought about by a crowd of
little causes derived from a thousand conditions. The man of science
is forced to clear away the avalanche under which whole villages lie
buried, to show you the pebbles brought down from the summit which alone
can determine the formation of the mountain. If the historian of human
life were simply telling you of a suicide, five hundred of which occur
yearly in Paris, the melodrama is so commonplace that brief reasons and
explanations are all that need be given; but how shall he make you see
that the self-destruction of an estate could happen in these days when
property is reckoned of more value than life? "De re vestra agitur,"
said a maker of fables; this tale concerns the affairs and interests of
all those, no matter who they be, who possess anything.

Remember that this coalition of a whole canton and of a little town
against a general, who, in spite of his rash courage, had escaped the
dangers of actual war, is going on in other districts against other men
who seek only to do what is right by those districts. It is a coalition
which to-day threatens every man, the man of genius, the statesman, the
modern agriculturalist,--in short, all innovators.