d it. Du Bousquier thus passed for one of the richest men
of the department. This able man, the constant candidate of the
liberals, missing by seven or eight votes only in all the electoral
battles fought under the Restoration, and who ostensibly repudiated
the liberals by trying to be elected as a ministerial royalist
(without ever being able to conquer the aversion of the
administration),--this rancorous republican, mad with ambition,
resolved to rival the royalism and aristocracy of Alencon at the
moment when they once more had the upper hand. He strengthened himself
with the Church by the deceitful appearance of a well-feigned piety:
he accompanied his wife to mass; he gave money for the convents of the
town; he assisted the congregation of the Sacre-Coeur; he took sides
with the clergy on all occasions when the clergy came into collision
with the town, the department, or the State. Secretly supported by the
liberals, protected by the Church, calling himself a constitutional
royalist, he kept beside the aristocracy of the department in the one
hope of ruining it,--and he did ruin it. Ever on the watch for the
faults and blunders of the nobility and the government, he laid plans
for his vengeance against the "chateau-people," and especially against
the d'Esgrignons, in whose bosom he was one day to thrust a poisoned
dagger.

Among other benefits to the town he gave money liberally to revive the
manufacture of point d'Alencon; he renewed the trade in linens, and
the town had a factory. Inscribing himself thus upon the interests and
heart of the masses, by doing what the royalists did not do, du
Bousquier did not really risk a farthing. Backed by his fortune, he
could afford to wait results which enterprising persons who involve
themselves are forced to abandon to luckier successors.

Du Bousquier now posed as a banker. This miniature Lafitte was a
partner in all new enterprises, taking good security. He served
himself while apparently serving the interests of the community. He
was the prime mover of insurance companies, the protector of new
enterprises for public conveyance; he suggested petitions for asking
the administration for the necessary roads and bridges. Thus warned,
the government considered this action an encroachment of its own
authority. A struggle was begun injudiciously, for the good of the
community compelled the authorities to yield in the end. Du Bousquier
embittered the provincial nobility against