f an administration
is to discover the wounds upon the body-politic, and remedy them by
sending men of energy to the diseased regions, with power to change
the state of things. Alas, so far from that, it approves and
encourages this ominous and fatal tranquillity. Besides, it may be
asked, how could the government send new administrators and able
magistrates? Who, of such men, is willing to bury himself in the
arrondissements, where the good to be done is without glory? If, by
chance, some ambitious stranger settles there, he soon falls into the
inertia of the region, and tunes himself to the dreadful key of
provincial life. Issoudun would have benumbed Napoleon.

As a result of this particular characteristic, the arrondissement of
Issoudun was governed, in 1822, by men who all belonged to Berry. The
administration of power became either a nullity or a farce,--except in
certain cases, naturally very rare, which by their manifest importance
compelled the authorities to act. The procureur du roi, Monsieur
Mouilleron, was cousin to the entire community, and his substitute
belonged to one of the families of the town. The judge of the court,
before attaining that dignity, was made famous by one of those
provincial sayings which put a cap and bells on a man's head for the
rest of his life. As he ended his summing-up of all the facts of an
indictment, he looked at the accused and said: "My poor Pierre! the
thing is as plain as day; your head will be cut off. Let this be a
lesson to you." The commissary of police, holding office since the
Restoration, had relations throughout the arrondissement. Moreover,
not only was the influence of religion null, but the curate himself
was held in no esteem.

It was this bourgeoisie, radical, ignorant, and loving to annoy
others, which now related tales, more or less comic, about the
relations of Jean-Jacques Rouget with his servant-woman. The children
of these people went none the less to Sunday-school, and were as
scrupulously prepared for their communion: the schools were kept up
all the same; mass was said; the taxes were paid (the sole thing that
Paris extracts of the provinces), and the mayor passed resolutions.
But all these acts of social existence were done as mere routine, and
thus the laxity of the local government suited admirably with the
moral and intellectual condition of the governed. The events of the
following history will show the effects of this state of things, which