r parsimonious instincts, showing
them how much it cost to support the poor wretches, and pointing out how
largely they might gain by converting their plots of ground (to which
the idiots had no proper title) into allotments which were needed in the
township.

"All the rich were on my side; but the poor, the old women, the
children, and a few pig-headed people were violently opposed to me.
Unluckily it so fell out that my last removal had not been completely
carried out. The cretin whom you have just seen, not having returned to
his house, had not been taken away, so that the next morning he was the
sole remaining example of his species in the village. There were several
families still living there; but though they were little better than
idiots, they were, at any rate, free from the taint of cretinism. I
determined to go through with my work, and came officially in open day
to take the luckless creature from his dwelling. I had no sooner left
my house than my intention got abroad. The cretin's friends were there
before me, and in front of his hovel I found a crowd of women and
children and old people, who hailed my arrival with insults accompanied
by a shower of stones.

"In the midst of the uproar I should perhaps have fallen a victim to the
frenzy that possesses a crowd excited by its own outcries and stirred up
by one common feeling, but the cretin saved my life! The poor creature
came out of his hut, and raised the clucking sound of his voice. He
seemed to be an absolute ruler over the fanatical mob, for the sight
of him put a sudden stop to the clamor. It occurred to me that I might
arrange a compromise, and thanks to the quiet so opportunely restored, I
was able to propose and explain it. Of course, those who approved of my
schemes would not dare to second me in this emergency, their support
was sure to be of a purely passive kind, while these superstitious folk
would exert the most active vigilance to keep their last idol among
them; it was impossible, it seemed to me, to take him away from them.
So I promised to leave the cretin in peace in his dwelling, with
the understanding that he should live quite by himself, and that the
remaining families in the village should cross the stream and come to
live in the town, in some new houses which I myself undertook to build,
adding to each house a piece of ground for which the Commune was to
repay me later on.

"Well, my dear sir, it took me fully six months to overc