ame Rouher's maiden name--thought him the handsomest
man in the world. True, her world did not extend beyond a few miles from
Clermont-Ferrand; but I fancy she might have gone further and fared
worse. You know old Conchon, and the pride he takes in his son-in-law.
Well, he would not hear of the marriage at first. Conchon was a
character in those days. Though he had but a poor practice at the
Clermont bar, he was clever; and if he had gone to Paris as a
journalist, instead of vegetating down there, I am sure he would have
made his way. He was very fond of his classics--of Horace and Tibullus
above all--and turned out some pretty Anacreontic verses for the local
'caveau;' for Clermont, like every other provincial centre, prided
itself on its 'caveau.'[57]

[Footnote 57: The diminutive of "cave" (cellar). Really a
gathering of poets and songwriters, which reached its highest
reputation in Paris during the early part of the present
century. The Saturday nights at the Savage Club are perhaps the
nearest approach to it in London.--EDITOR.]

"A time came, however, when Conchon's fortunes took a turn for the
better. You can form no idea of the political ignorance that prevailed
in the provinces even as late as the reign of Louis-Philippe. Any
measure advocated or promulgated by the Government was sure to be
received with suspicion by the populations as affecting their liberties,
and, what was of still greater consequence to them, their property. The
First Republic had given them license to despoil others; any subsequent
measure of the monarchies was looked upon by them as an attempt at
reprisal. In 1842 a general census was ordered. You may remember the
hostility it provoked in Paris; it was nothing to its effect in the
agricultural and wine-growing centres. The Republican wire-pullers
spread the report that the census meant nothing but the thin end of the
wedge of a bill for the duties upon wine to be paid by the grower. There
was a terrible row in Clermont-Ferrand and the neighbourhood; the
'Marseillaise' had to make way for the still more revolutionary
'Ca-ira.' Conchon was maire of Clermont-Ferrand, and he who was as
innocent of all this as a new-born babe, had his house burned over his
head. The Government argued that if the mob had burned the maire's
dwelling in preference to that of the prefect, it was because the former
was a more influential personage than the latter; for t