he Floches, it would seem simply monstrous.

Evil tongues insinuated that she could perfectly go with him all the
same, but that she would certainly not marry him. A rich girl takes her
pleasure as it suits her; only, if she has a head, she does not commit a
folly. Finally all Coque-ville interested itself in the matter, curious
to know how things would turn out. Would Delphin get his two slaps? or
else Margot, would she let herself be kissed on both cheeks in some hole
in the cliff? They must see! There were some for the slaps and there
were some for the kisses. Coqueville was in revolution.

In the village two people only, the cure and the _garde champetre?_
belonged neither to the Mahes nor to the Floches. The _garde champetre_,
{2} a tall, dried-up fellow, whose name no one knew, but who was called
the Emperor, no doubt because he had served under Charles X, as a matter
of fact exercised no burdensome supervision over the commune which was
all bare rocks and waste lands. A sub-prefect who patronized him had
created for him the sinecure where he devoured in peace his very small
living.

2 Watchman.

As for the Abbe Radiguet, he was one of those simple-minded priests whom
the bishop, in his desire to be rid of him, buries in some out of the
way hole. He lived the life of an honest man, once more turned peasant,
hoeing his little garden redeemed from the rock, smoking his pipe and
watching his salads grow. His sole fault was a gluttony which he knew
not how to refine, reduced to adoring mackerel and to drinking, at
times, more cider than he could contain. In other respects, the father
of his parishioners, who came at long intervals to hear a mass to please
him.

But the cure and the _garde champetre_ were obliged to take sides after
having succeeded for a long time in remaining neutral. Now, the Emperor
held for the Mahes, while the Abbe Radiguet supported the Floches.
Hence complications. As the Emperor, from morning to night, lived like
a bourgeois [citizen], and as he wearied of counting the boats which put
out from Grand-port, he took it upon himself to act as village police.
Having become the partizan of the Mahes, through native instinct for the
preservation of society, he sided with Fouasse against Tupain; he tried
to catch the wife of Rouget in _flagrante delicto_ with Brisemotte, and
above all he closed his eyes when he saw Delphin slipping into Margot's
courtyard. The worst of it was that these tact