rtunate,
therefore, is our candidate's likeness to this demigod, the worship
of whom is not confined to the town, but extends to the surrounding
country.

These voters _extra muros_ are sometimes curiously simple-minded, and
obvious contradictions trouble them not at all. Some agents sent into
the adjacent districts have used this fancied resemblance; and as in a
rural propaganda the object is less to strike fair than to strike hard,
Laurent Goussard's version, apocryphal as it is, is hawked about the
country villages with a coolness that admits of no contradiction.

While this pretended revolutionary origin is advancing our friend's
prospects in one direction, in another the tale put forth to the worthy
voters whom it is desirable to entice is different, but truer and not
less striking to the minds of the country-people. This is the gentlemen,
they are told, who has bought the chateau of Arcis; and as the chateau
of Arcis stands high above the town and is known to all the country
round, it is to these simple folk a species of symbol. They are always
ready to return to memories of the past, which is much less dead and
buried than people suppose; "Ah! he's the _seigneur_ of the chateau,"
they say.

This, madame, is how the electoral kitchen is carried on and the way in
which a deputy is cooked.

XVI. MARIE-GASTON TO THE COMTESSE DE L'ESTORADE

Arcis-sur-Aube, May 15, 1839.

Madame,--You do me the honor to say that my letters amuse you, and you
tell me not to fear that I send too many.

We are no longer at the Hotel de la Poste, having left it for the
chateau; but thanks to the rivalry existing between the two inns, the
Poste and the Mulet, in the latter of which Monsieur de Trailles has
established his headquarters, we are kept informed of what is going
on in the town and among our enemies. Since our departure, as our late
landlord informs us, a Parisian journalist has arrived at his hotel.
This individual, whose name I do not know, at once announced himself as
Jack-the-giant-killer, sent down to reinforce with his Parisian vim and
vigor the polemic which the local press, subsidized by the "bureau of
public spirit," has directed against us.

In that there is nothing very grave or very gay; since the world was a
world, governments have always found pens for sale, and never have
they failed to buy them; but the comedy of this affair begins with the
co-arrival and the co-presence in the hotel of a young lady