as he came several times every day to inspect the work
of rebuilding; and they took his orders, though they did not carry
them out. No one really carried out any of his orders except Seraphe
Corniche, who, weeping from morning till night, protested that there
never was so good a man as M'sieu' Jean Jacques; and she cooked his
favourite dishes, giving him no peace until he had eaten them.

The days, the weeks went on, with Jean Jacques growing thinner and
thinner, but going about with his head up like the gold Cock of
Beaugard, and even crowing now and then, as he had done of yore. He
faced the inevitable with something of his old smiling volubility;
treating nothing of his disaster as though it really existed; signing
off this asset and that; disposing of this thing and that; stripping
himself bare of all the properties on his life's stage, in such a manner
as might have been his had he been receiving gifts and not yielding up
all he owned. He chatted as his belongings were, figuratively speaking,
being carried away--as though they were mechanical, formal things to
be done as he had done them every day of a fairly long life; as a clerk
would check off the boxes or parcels carried past him by the porters.
M. Fille could hardly bear to see him in this mood, and the New Cure
hovered round him with a mournful and harmlessly deceptive kindness. But
the end had to come, and practically all the parish was present when it
came. That was on the day when the contents of the Manor were sold at
auction by order of the Court. One thing Jean Jacques refused absolutely
and irrevocably to do from the first--refused it at last in anger and
even with an oath: he would not go through the Bankruptcy Court. No
persuasion had any effect. The very suggestion seemed to smirch his
honour. His lawyer pleaded with him, said he would be able to save
something out of the wreck, and that his creditors would be willing that
he should take advantage of the privileges of that court; but he only
said in reply:

"Thank you, thank you altogether, monsieur, but it is impossible--'non
possumus, non possumus, my son,' as the Pope said to Bonaparte. I owe
and I will pay what I can; and what I can't pay now I will try to pay
in the future, by the cent, by the dollar, till all is paid to the last
copper. It is the way with the Barbilles. They have paid their way and
their debts in honour, and it is in the bond with all the Barbilles of
the past that I do as t