, and yet a power unknown, invisible, will compel
you to bury your poetry within your soul and turn your projects into
dreams.

The illustrious Gaudissart was fated to encounter here in Vouvray one of
those indigenous jesters whose jests are not intolerable solely because
they have reached the perfection of the mocking art. Right or wrong, the
Tourangians are fond of inheriting from their parents. Consequently the
doctrines of Saint-Simon were especially hated and villified among them.
In Touraine hatred and villification take the form of superb disdain
and witty maliciousness worthy of the land of good stories and practical
jokes,--a spirit which, alas! is yielding, day by day, to that other
spirit which Lord Byron has characterized as "English cant."

For his sins, after getting down at the Soleil d'Or, an inn kept by a
former grenadier of the imperial guard named Mitouflet, married to a
rich widow, the illustrious traveller, after a brief consultation
with the landlord, betook himself to the knave of Vouvray, the jovial
merry-maker, the comic man of the neighborhood, compelled by fame and
nature to supply the town with merriment. This country Figaro was once
a dyer, and now possessed about seven or eight thousand francs a year,
a pretty house on the slope of the hill, a plump little wife, and robust
health. For ten years he had had nothing to do but take care of his wife
and his garden, marry his daughter, play whist in the evenings, keep the
run of all the gossip in the neighborhood, meddle with the elections,
squabble with the large proprietors, and order good dinners; or else
trot along the embankment to find out what was going on in Tours,
torment the cure, and finally, by way of dramatic entertainment, assist
at the sale of lands in the neighborhood of his vineyards. In short, he
led the true Tourangian life,--the life of a little country-townsman. He
was, moreover, an important member of the bourgeoisie,--a leader among
the small proprietors, all of them envious, jealous, delighted to catch
up and retail gossip and calumnies against the aristocracy; dragging
things down to their own level; and at war with all kinds of
superiority, which they deposited with the fine composure of ignorance.
Monsieur Vernier--such was the name of this great little man--was just
finishing his breakfast, with his wife and daughter on either side of
him, when Gaudissart entered the room through a window that looked out
on the Loire