living under a state of things altogether peculiar to
themselves, far from the great cities, and yet in direct communication
with them, they are obliged by a common interest to identify themselves
with the events of the day. Every curate of the plain possesses an
immense influence in his parish and neighbourhood, and as at a moment
their support may be of great use in a political point of view, the
government, which is alive to everything, caresses, smiles on, and
cajoles them.

In the moorland districts, also, and in the little villages which border
the great forests, the _cures_ are everything, and do everything. They
perform the part of judge, doctor and apothecary, banker and architect,
carpenter and schoolmaster; they give the designs for the cottages, mark
the boundaries of estates, receive and put out the savings of their
flocks, marry, baptize, and bury, offer consolation to the afflicted,
encourage the unfortunate, purchase the crops, and sell a neighbour's
vineyard. They represent the sun, by the influence of whose rays
everything germinates and lives; it is their hand--the hand of
justice--that arrests and heals all quarrels; the unselfish source from
whence good counsels flow--the moral charter from which the peasant
reads and learns the duties of a citizen.

Ask not the population of our plains and forests, and secluded
agricultural districts, to which political party they belong; if they
are republicans, royalists, socialists or communists, reds or blues,
whites or tricolor,--they know nothing of all this. Their
opinions--their religion--are those of _Monsieur le Cure_. They know his
prudence, his charity, his good sense; they know he loves them like a
father; that he would not leave them for a bishopric--no, not for a
cardinal's scarlet hat;--that as he has lived, so will he die with them:
that is enough for them. Thus they consult him when they wish to form
an opinion for themselves, much in the same way as a sportsman, anxious
to take the field, looks up at the chanticleer on some village-steeple
to know what he ought to think of the cloudy sky above; and when they
see the good man sauntering past their cottages, with head erect and
animated step, smiling, and evidently full of cheerful, charitable
thoughts, and on good deeds intent, kissing the little children, giving
a rosy apple to one, and a playful tap to another; offering a sly word
of hope to the young girls, and a few kind ones to the aged and