arty to putting an injustice upon another commune. He
was annoyed at this, and thought I ought to do him a favour, no matter
at whose cost. I declined, and he went away. Some time after I met him,
when he exultingly told me that he had seen one of my colleagues, a
Republican, and had got from him the exemption he wanted. After that I
heard stories put about to the effect that Labitte cared nothing about
the pressure of the military service on the labouring people! Was I not
right? Was it not my duty to see no favouritism shown to one commune at
the expense of another?'

To these queries there was a prompt and general response, 'Yes! yes! You
were quite right,' and several voices cried out, 'Bravo!--quite right,
Labitte.'

Again, in dealing with the question of education, M. Labitte told his
hearers of three instances in which small communes had been made to
expend sums inordinately disproportionate to their resources upon what
he called 'scholastic palaces,' although a great majority of the people
in each instance distinctly refused to send their children to the lay
schools established in these 'palaces.' One case was that of a commune
of some seven hundred souls compelled to expend more than sixty thousand
francs, or 2,400_l._ sterling, upon a 'scholastic palace'! 'I opposed
these expenditures,' he said, 'for I think it is part of the duty of a
councillor-general to look closely into the use made of your money.'

This, also, the hearers applauded, not noisily at all, but with a kind
of gratified murmur, not unlike the very loud purring of a very large
cat. By this time it was evident that the speaker had his audience well
in hand, and M. Labitte took up some points of attack made on himself.
One of these was that he was a 'clerical.' He said that he certainly was
a 'clerical,' if that meant a man who had a religion and respected it,
and wished to see the religion of other people respected; and gliding on
from this to the question of the religious education of children, he
asked the people whether they wished to see the curates forbidden to
teach their children the principles of their religion. He was instantly
answered by a man standing in the crowd just outside the door of the
barn, who, in a loud and rather husky voice, shouted out that 'the
priest had no business in the school.' Several of the audience met this
interruption with derisive laughter, and two or three of them sharply
invited the man to hold his tongue