e hideous disease are there; the air is stagnant, the hamlet
lies in the valley bottom, close beside a torrent supplied with water
by the melted snows, and the sunlight only falls on the mountain-top,
so that the valley itself gets no good of the sun. Marriages among these
unfortunate creatures are not forbidden by law, and in this district
they are protected by superstitious notions, of whose power I had no
conception--superstitions which I blamed at first, and afterwards came
to admire. So cretinism was in a fair way to spread all over the valley
from this spot. Was it not doing the country a great service to put
a stop to this mental and physical contagion? But imperatively as the
salutary changes were required, they might cost the life of any man who
endeavored to bring them about. Here, as in other social spheres, if
any good is to be done, we come into collision not merely with
vested interests, but with something far more dangerous to meddle
with--religious ideas crystallized into superstitions, the most
permanent form taken by human thought. I feared nothing.

"In the first place, I sought for the position of mayor in the canton,
and in this I succeeded. Then, after obtaining a verbal sanction from
the prefect, and by paying down the money, I had several of these
unfortunate creatures transported over to Aiguebelle, in Savoy, by
night. There are a great many of them there, and they were certain to
be very kindly treated. When this act of humanity came to be known, the
whole countryside looked upon me as a monster. The cure preached against
me. In spite of all the pains I took to explain to all the shrewder
heads of the little place the immense importance of being rid of the
idiots, and in spite of the fact that I gave my services gratuitously to
the sick people of the district, a shot was fired at me from the corner
of a wood.

"I went to the Bishop of Grenoble and asked him to change the cure.
Monseigneur was good enough to allow me to choose a priest who would
share in my labors, and it was my happy fortune to meet with one of
those rare natures that seemed to have dropped down from heaven. Then
I went on with my enterprise. After preparing people's minds, I made
another transportation by night, and six more cretins were taken away.
In this second attempt I had the support of several people to whom I had
rendered some service, and I was backed by the members of the Communal
Council, for I had appealed to thei