d had
ceased to breed; a blunder which before long will reduce the raising of
cattle until meat will be unattainable not only by the people, but by
the lower middle classes (see "Le Cure de Village.")

So, not a little sweat bedewed men's brows between Conches and
Ville-aux-Fayes to Rigou's profit, all being willing to give it; whereas
the labor dearly paid for by the general, the only man who did spend
money in the district, brought him curses and hatred, which were
showered upon him simply because he was rich. How could such facts
be understood unless we had previously taken that rapid glance at the
Mediocracy. Fourchon was right; the middle classes now held the position
of the former lords. The small land-owners, of whom Courtecuisse is
a type, were tenants in mortmain of a Tiberius in the valley of the
Avonne, just as, in Paris, traders without money are the peasantry of
the banking system.

Soudry followed Rigou's example from Soulanges to a distance of fifteen
miles beyond Ville-aux-Fayes. These two usurers shared the district
between them.

Gaubertin, whose rapacity was in a higher sphere, not only did not
compete against that of his associates, but he prevented all other
capital in Ville-aux-Fayes from being employed in the same
fruitful manner. It is easy to imagine what immense influence this
triumvirate--Rigou, Soudry, and Gaubertin--wielded in election periods
over electors whose fortunes depended on their good-will.

Hate, intelligence, and means at command, such were the three sides of
the terrible triangle which describes the general's closest enemy, the
spy ever watching Les Aigues,--a shark having constant dealings with
sixty to eighty small land-owners, relations or connections of the
peasantry, who feared him as such men always fear their creditor.

Rigou was in his way another Tonsard. The one throve on thefts from
nature, the other waxed fat on legal plunder. Both liked to live well.
It was the same nature in two species,--the one natural, the other
whetted by his training in a cloister.

It was about four o'clock when Vaudoyer left the tavern of the
Grand-I-Vert to consult the former mayor. Rigou was at dinner. Finding
the front door locked, Vaudoyer looked above the window blinds and
called out:--

"Monsieur Rigou, it is I,--Vaudoyer."

Jean came round from the porte-cochere and said to Vaudoyer:--

"Come into the garden; Monsieur has company."

The company was Sibilet, who, under pre