was a sacrifice which the commune took upon itself in the interest of
the working-men.

They dispersed.

When Bouvard and Pecuchet re-entered their house, women's voices fell
upon their ears. The servants and Madame Bordin were breaking into
exclamations, the widow's screams being the loudest; and at sight of
them she cried:

"Ha! this is very fortunate! I have been waiting for you for the last
three hours! My poor garden has not a single tulip left! Filth
everywhere on the grass! No way of getting rid of him!"

"Who is it?"

"Pere Gouy."

He had come with a cartload of manure, and had scattered it pell-mell
over the grass.

"He is now digging it up. Hurry on and make him stop."

"I am going with you," said Bouvard.

At the bottom of the steps outside, a horse in the shafts of a dung-cart
was gnawing at a bunch of oleanders. The wheels, in grazing the flower
borders, had bruised the box trees, broken a rhododendron, knocked down
the dahlias; and clods of black muck, like molehills, embossed the green
sward. Gouy was vigorously digging it up.

One day Madame Bordin had carelessly said to him that she would like to
have it turned up. He set about the job, and, in spite of her orders to
desist, went on with it. This was the way that he interpreted the right
to work, Gorju's talk having turned his brain.

He went away only after violent threats from Bouvard.

Madame Bordin, by way of compensation, did not pay for the manual
labour, and kept the manure. She was wise: the doctor's wife, and even
the notary's, though of higher social position, respected her for it.

The charity workshops lasted a week. No trouble occurred. Gorju left the
neighbourhood.

Meanwhile, the National Guard was always on foot: on Sunday, a review;
military promenades, occasionally; and, every night, patrols. They
disturbed the village. They rang the bells of houses for fun; they made
their way into the bedrooms where married couples were snoring on the
same bolster; then they uttered broad jokes, and the husband, rising,
would go and get them a glass each. Afterwards, they would return to the
guard-house to play a hundred of dominoes, would consume a quantity of
cider there, and eat cheese, while the sentinel, worn out, would keep
opening the door every other minute. There was a prevailing absence of
discipline, owing to Beljambe's laxity.

When the days of June came, everyone was in favour of "flying to the
relief of Paris"; but F