hough the Republicans ostentatiously
announced their intention not to make a contest in which they were sure
to be beaten, M. Conrad de Witt and his nephew are not men to take
anything for granted where serious interests are concerned. There were
symptoms, too, that the Prefect of the Calvados, the Comte de Brancion,
a newcomer (as all prefects now are in France, the average tenure of a
prefect's official life since 1879 rarely exceeding eighteen months
in one place), had been advised from Paris to show his zeal by
contriving in some way to thwart, or at least to dampen, the victory of
the nephew in July, as a preliminary to prevent the victory of the uncle
in September. For M. Conrad de Witt was not only a Councillor-General of
the Calvados, and Mayor of his own commune of St.-Ouen-le-Pin, he was
sent to the Chamber of Deputies in 1885 as a Monarchist by the voters of
the Calvados by a majority of 13,722 on a total poll of 89,064, and when
he declined a re-nomination for the Council-General, he accepted a
re-nomination for the Chamber.

It was delightful to see the zealous interest taken in these contests,
not only by the family at Val Richer, but by all the countryside. The
elections for the Councils-General were held on Sunday, July 28, 1889.
All through the preceding Saturday scouts kept coming in to Val Richer
with the latest reports as to the state of things in the various
communes of the canton.

The tenor of these was uniform: 'There would be no contest; the only
possible Republican candidate, a respectable physician who had some
local strength in the commune in which he lived, founded upon his habit
of gratuitously attending the poor of that commune, had positively
declined to enter the field.' 'All the same,' said one energetic
volunteer from this very commune, 'we don't mean to let a single honest
voter stay at home. We understand this game. They want to make out that
we are lukewarm about the battle that is to come off in September. That
won't go!'

'Furthermore,' said another stalwart, keen-eyed, fresh-faced young
farmer, who might have passed as a Yorkshire yeoman, 'furthermore, I
don't trust this Republican cock till he's dead! I believe he's
shamming, but he shan't catch us asleep. This Prefect at Caen is as busy
as the Evil One. He means to play us a trick.'

The shrewd young farmer was right. Early, very early, on Sunday morning,
long before daybreak, indeed, there came hastening over to Val Richer