he many reasons that may be given for
this state of things, the principal one is this: Through the nature of
their social functions, the peasants live a purely material life which
approximates to that of savages, and their constant union with nature
tends to foster it. When toil exhausts the body it takes from the mind
its purifying action, especially among the ignorant. The Abbe Brossette
was right in saying that the state policy of the peasant is his poverty.

Meddling in everybody's interests, Tonsard heard everybody's complaints,
and often instigated frauds to benefit the needy. His wife, a kindly
appearing woman, had a good word for evil-doers, and never withheld
either approval or personal help from her customers in anything they
undertook against the rich. This inn, a nest of vipers, brisk and
venomous, seething and active, was a hot-bed for the hatred of the
peasants and the workingmen against the masters and the wealthy.

The prosperous life of the Tonsards was, therefore, an evil example.
Others asked themselves why they should not take their wood, as the
Tonsards did, from the forest; why not pasture their cows and have game
to eat and to sell as well as they; why not harvest without sowing the
grapes and the grain. Accordingly, the pilfering thefts which thin the
woods and tithe the ploughed lands and meadows and vineyards became
habitual in this valley, and soon existed as a right throughout the
districts of Blangy, Conches, and Cerneux, all adjacent to the domain
of Les Aigues. This sore, for certain reasons which will be given in
due time, did far greater injury to Les Aigues than to the estates of
Ronquerolles or Soulanges. You must not, however, fancy that Tonsard,
his wife and children, and his old mother ever deliberately said to
themselves, "We will live by theft, and commit it as cleverly as we
can." Such habits grow slowly. To the dried sticks they added, in the
first instance, a single bit of good wood; then, emboldened by habit
and a carefully prepared immunity (necessary to plans which this history
will unfold), they ended at last in cutting "their wood," and stealing
almost their entire livelihood. Pasturage for the cows and the abuses of
gleaning were established as customs little by little. When the Tonsards
and the do-nothings of the valley had tasted the sweets of these four
rights (thus captured by rural paupers, and amounting to actual robbery)
we can easily imagine they would never give