ime they are similarly ignored. Everything is settled between the
clergy, the nobility, and the bourgeoisie. The priests, who are very
numerous, give the cue to the local politics; they lay subterranean
mines, as it were, and deal blows in the dark, following a prudent
tactical system, which hardly allows of a step in advance or retreat
even in the course of ten years. The secret intrigues of men who desire
above all things to avoid noise requires special shrewdness, a special
aptitude for dealing with small matters, and a patient endurance such
as one only finds in persons callous to all passions. It is thus that
provincial dilatoriness, which is so freely ridiculed in Paris, is full
of treachery, secret stabs, hidden victories and defeats. These worthy
men, particularly when their interests are at stake, kill at home with
a snap of the fingers, as we, the Parisians, kill with cannon in the
public thoroughfares.

The political history of Plassans, like that of all little towns in
Provence, is singularly characteristic. Until 1830, the inhabitants
remained observant Catholics and fervent royalists; even the lower
classes only swore by God and their legitimate sovereigns. Then there
came a sudden change; faith departed, the working and middle classes
deserted the cause of legitimacy, and gradually espoused the great
democratic movement of our time. When the Revolution of 1848 broke out,
the nobility and the clergy were left alone to labour for the triumph
of Henri V. For a long time they had regarded the accession of the
Orleanists as a ridiculous experiment, which sooner or later would bring
back the Bourbons; although their hopes were singularly shaken, they
nevertheless continued the struggle, scandalised by the defection of
their former allies, whom they strove to win back to their cause. The
Saint-Marc quarter, assisted by all the parish priests, set to
work. Among the middle classes, and especially among the people, the
enthusiasm was very great on the morrow of the events of February; these
apprentice republicans were in haste to display their revolutionary
fervour. As regards the gentry of the new town, however, the
conflagration, bright though it was, lasted no longer than a fire of
straw. The small houseowners and retired tradespeople who had had their
good days, or had made snug little fortunes under the monarchy, were
soon seized with panic; the Republic, with its constant shocks and
convulsions, made them tr