rden bathed by the waters of the Avonne. The elegance of the
place compelled the department to build a fine edifice nearly opposite
to it for the sub-prefecture, provisionally lodged in a mere kennel.
The town itself also built a town-hall. The law-courts had lately been
installed in a new edifice; so that Ville-aux-Fayes owed to the active
influence of its present mayor a number of really imposing public
buildings. The gendarmerie had also built barracks which completed the
square formed by the marketplace.

These changes, on which the inhabitants prided themselves, were due to
the impetus given by Gaubertin, who within a day or two had received the
cross of the Legion of honor, in anticipation of the coming birthday
of the king. In a town so situated and so modern there was of course,
neither aristocracy nor nobility. Consequently, the rich merchants of
Ville-aux-Fayes, proud of their own independence, willingly espoused the
cause of the peasantry against a count of the Empire who had taken sides
with the Restoration. To them the oppressors were the oppressed. The
spirit of this commercial town was so well known to the government that
they send there as sub-prefect a man with a conciliatory temper, a pupil
of his uncle, the well-known des Lupeaulx, one of those men, accustomed
to compromise, who are familiar with the difficulties and necessities
of administration, but whom puritan politicians, doing infinitely worse
things, call corrupt.

The interior of Gaubertin's house was decorated with the unmeaning
commonplaces of modern luxury. Rich papers with gold borders, bronze
chandeliers, mahogany furniture of a new pattern, astral lamps, round
tables with marble tops, white china with gilt lines for dessert, red
morocco chairs and mezzo-tint engravings in the dining-room, and
blue cashmere furniture in the salon,--all details of a chilling and
perfectly unmeaning character, but which to the eyes of Ville-aux-Fayes
seemed the last efforts of Sardanapalian luxury. Madame Gaubertin played
the role of elegance with great effect; she assumed little airs and
was lackadaisical at forty-five years of age, as though certain of the
homage of her court.

We ask those who really know France, if these houses--those of Rigou,
Soudry, and Gaubertin--are not a perfect presentation of the village,
the little town, and the seat of a sub-prefecture?

Without being a man of mind, or a man of talent, Gaubertin had the
appearance of being