nciples of association and
community which he had put in practice amongst them. Misery and ignorance
are always the cause of great evils. Misery is easily excited to anger,
and ignorance soon yields to perfidious counsels. For a long time, the
happiness of M. Hardy's workmen had been naturally envied, but not with a
jealousy amounting to hatred. As soon, however, as the secret enemies of
the manufacturer, uniting with his rival Baron Tripeaud, had an interest
in changing this peaceful state of things--it changed accordingly.

With diabolical skill and perseverance they succeeded in kindling the
most evil passions. By means of chosen emissaries, they applied to those
quarrymen and stonecutters of the neighborhood, whose bad conduct had
aggravated their misery. Notorious for their turbulence, audacity, and
energy, these men might exercise a dangerous influence on the majority of
their companions, who were peaceful, laborious, and honest, but easily
intimidated by violence. These turbulent leaders, previously embittered
by misfortune, were soon impressed with an exaggerated idea of the
happiness of M. Hardy's workmen, and excited to a jealous hatred of them.
They went still further; the incendiary sermons of an abbe, a member of
the Jesuits, who had come expressly from Paris to preach during Lent
against M. Hardy, acted powerfully on the minds of the women, who filled
the church, whilst their husbands were haunting the taverns. Profiting by
the growing fear, which the approach of the Cholera then inspired, the
preacher struck with terror these weak and credulous imaginations by
pointing to M. Hardy's factory as a centre of corruption and damnation,
capable of drawing down the vengeance of Heaven, and bringing the fatal
scourge upon the country. Thus the men, already inflamed with envy, were
still more excited by the incessant urgency of their wives, who, maddened
by the abbe's sermons, poured their curses on that band of atheists, who
might bring down so many misfortunes upon them and their children. Some
bad characters, belonging to the factory of Baron Tripeaud, and paid by
him (for it was a great interest the honorable manufacturer had in the
ruin of M. Hardy), came to augment the general irritation, and to
complete it by raising one of those alarming union-questions, which in
our day have unfortunately caused so much bloodshed. Many of M. Hardy's
workmen, before they entered his employ, had belonged to a society or
unio