mpartiality which historians or superior minds acquire by looking at
the subject from a higher point of view.

"What do you suppose that old gorilla wants at his age with a little
girl only fifteen years old?" society was still saying two years after
the arrival of the Rabouilleuse.

"Ah! that's true," they answered, "his days of merry-making are long
past."

"My dear fellow, the doctor is disgusted at the stupidity of his son,
and he persists in hating his daughter Agathe; it may be that he has
been living a decent life for the last two years, intending to marry
little Flore; suppose she were to give him a fine, active, strapping
boy, full of life like Max?" said one of the wise heads of the town.

"Bah! don't talk nonsense! After such a life as Rouget and Lousteau led
from 1770 to 1787, is it likely that either of them would have children
at sixty-five years of age? The old villain has read the Scriptures, if
only as a doctor, and he is doing as David did in his old age; that's
all."

"They say that Brazier, when he is drunk, boasts in Vatan that he
cheated him," cried one of those who always believed the worst of
people.

"Good heavens! neighbor; what won't they say at Issoudun?"

From 1800 to 1805, that is, for five years, the doctor enjoyed all the
pleasures of educating Flore without the annoyances which the ambitions
and pretensions of Mademoiselle de Romans inflicted, it is said, on
Louis le Bien-Aime. The little Rabouilleuse was so satisfied when she
compared the life she led at the doctor's with that she would have led
at her uncle Brazier's, that she yielded no doubt to the exactions of
her master as if she had been an Eastern slave. With due deference to
the makers of idylls and to philanthropists, the inhabitants of the
provinces have very little idea of certain virtues; and their scruples
are of a kind that is roused by self-interest, and not by any sentiment
of the right or the becoming. Raised from infancy with no prospect
before them but poverty and ceaseless labor, they are led to consider
anything that saves them from the hell of hunger and eternal toil as
permissible, particularly if it is not contrary to any law. Exceptions
to this rule are rare. Virtue, socially speaking, is the companion of a
comfortable life, and comes only with education.

Thus the Rabouilleuse was an object of envy to all the young
peasant-girls within a circuit of ten miles, although her conduct, from
a religious poi