was therefore mute.
After living all his life as a farmer at Saint-Leonard, he had bought
the only habitable house in Montegnac and cultivated with his own hands
the land belonging to it. Though he knew how to read and write, he would
have been incapable of fulfilling his functions were it not for the help
of his clerk and the _juge de paix_, who prepared his work for him. He
was very anxious to have a notary established in Montegnac, in order
that he might shift the burden of his responsibility on to that
officer's shoulders. But the poverty of the village and its outlying
districts made such a functionary almost useless, and the inhabitants
had recourse when necessary to the notaries of the chief town of the
arrondissement.

The _juge de paix_, named Clousier, was formerly a lawyer in Limoges,
where cases had deserted him because he insisted on putting into
practice that fine axiom that the lawyer is the best judge of the client
and the case. In 1809 he obtained his present post, the meagre salary of
which just enabled him to live. He had now reached a stage of honorable
but absolute poverty. After a residence of twenty-one years in this poor
village the worthy man, thoroughly countrified, looked, top-coat and
all, exactly like the farmers about him.

Under this coarse exterior Clousier hid a clear-sighted mind, given to
lofty meditation on public policy, though he himself had fallen into a
state of complete indifference, derived from his intimate knowledge
of men and their interests. This man, who baffled for a long time the
rector's perspicacity and who might in a higher sphere have proved
another l'Hopital, incapable of intrigue like all really profound
persons, was by this time living in the contemplative state of an
ancient hermit. Independent through privation, no personal consideration
acted on his mind; he knew the laws and judged impartially. His life,
reduced to the merest necessaries, was pure and regular. The peasants
loved Monsieur Clousier and respected him for the disinterested fatherly
care with which he settled their differences and gave them advice in
their daily affairs. The "goodman Clousier" as all Montegnac called him,
had a nephew with him as clerk, an intelligent young man, who afterwards
contributed much to the prosperity of the district.

Old Clousier's personal appearance was remarkable for a broad, high
forehead and two bushes of white hair which stood out from his head
on either side o