Complete Works of Emile Zola (976 page)

“What an impolite fellow. If I were a man I’d vote for the other one!”

Monsieur Rochefontaine had just got into his landau again, when the cracking of a whip caused him to look round. It was Hourdequin coming up in his modest gig, driven by Jean. The farmer had only heard by chance of the candidate’s visit to Rognes, one of his waggoners having met the landau on the road; and he had immediately hastened off to meet the foe face to face, feeling all the more uneasy as for the last week he had been vainly trying to persuade Monsieur de Chédeville to put in an appearance. The old beau was doubt­less tied- fast to some woman’s apron-strings, probably those of the pretty wife of the usher of the Chamber.

“Ah, so it’s you?” the farmer cried cheerily to Monsieur Rochefontaine. “I didn’t know that you had already com­menced your campaign.”

The two vehicles were drawn up alongside of each other. Neither of the two men got down, but, after bending forward and shaking hands, they settled themselves in their seats, and in this position conversed together for a few minutes. They were acquainted with each other, having occasionally met at breakfast at the house of the mayor of Châteaudun.

“You are opposing me, then?” suddenly asked Monsieur Rochefontaine, in his curt way.

Hourdequin, who, from his position as mayor, did not care to display his opposition to the Government candidate too openly, lost countenance for a moment, seeing that Monsieur Rochefontaine was so well informed.

However, he was by no means deficient in sturdy courage, and he replied in a light and pleasant tone, so as to give a friendly appearance to his explanation:

“Oh, I don’t oppose any one. I look after myself; and the man who will protect me is the man for me. Here’s corn fallen to forty-six francs the quarter, just what it costs me to produce it. One may just as well starve without giving one’s-self the trouble to work!”

The other at once burst out excitedly:

“Oh, I understand; it’s Protection you want, isn’t it? A tax, a prohibitive duty on foreign wheat, so that French corn may go up to double its present price. Then you’d have France in a state of starvation, the four pound loaf at a franc, and all the poor folks dying from hunger! How dare you, a man of progress, advocate such a monstrous state of affairs?”

“A man of progress, a man of progress,” repeated Hourdequin in his cheery, pleasant fashion. “Yes, certainly, I’m a man of progress, but I have to pay so dearly for pro­gress that I soon shan’t be able to afford myself the luxury any longer. Machinery, chemical manures, and all the other new contrivances are all very fine things in their way, I’ve no doubt, and it’s very easy to argue in their favour, but there’s just this fault about them, that, in spite of all the logic in the world, they are bringing us to ruin.”

“Because you are too impatient, and because you expect science to give you immediate and complete results, and be­cause you grow so discouraged by the necessary preliminary experiments that you even doubt what has been formally proved, and finally fall back into a condition of denying everything.”

“Possibly that may be so. I may have only been making experiments. Well, suppose the Government decorates me for what I have already done, and lets some other folks continue the course!”

Hourdequin burst out into a hearty laugh at his own jocoseness, which he seemed to think quite conclusive.

“You wish the working-man to die of hunger, then?” Monsieur Rochefontaine sharply continued.

“Excuse me, I wish the peasant to be able to live.”

“But I, who employ twelve hundred hands, can’t raise their wages without becoming bankrupt. If corn rose to ninety francs, my workmen would die off like so many flies.”

“Well, do you suppose that I don’t employ men? With corn at forty-six francs we have to go with empty stomachs, and poor fellows are lying starving at the bottom of every ditch all over the country-side.” Then he added, laughingly:

“Well, every one argues from his own point of view. If I sell you bread at a low price, it is the soil of France that goes into bankruptcy; and if I sell you it at a high price, I can under­stand very well that the cost of workmanship will go up, and the price of manufactured goods increase, such as my clothes, tools, and the hundred other things that I require. Ah, it’s a pretty mess, and we shall end some day by ruining each other all round!”

The two men, the farmer and the manufacturer, the Pro­tectionist and the Free-trader, looked in each other’s faces, the one with a sly good-humoured smile, the other with an un­flinchingly hostile expression. They furnished a complete example of the modern war of economics, each taking his stand on the struggle for existence.

“The peasant will certainly be compelled to supply the workman with food,” said Monsieur Rochefontaine at last.

“To be able to do that,” retorted Hourdequin, “he himself must first have something to eat.”

Then he sprang down from his gig, and Monsieur Rochefontaine flung the name of some village to his coachman. Macqueron, annoyed that his friends of the council, standing at the door, had heard this conversation, now again proposed that they should all have a glass together, but the candidate once more refused, and without shaking hands with any one, threw himself back in his landau, while the two tall Percheron horses started off at a rattling trot.

Lengaigne, standing at his door on the other side of the road, where he had been setting a razor, had witnessed the whole scene. He now broke into a peal of jeering laughter, and, after a filthy expression, cried out to his neighbour;

“So you had all your trouble for nothing?”

Hourdequin, however, had gone into the tavern, and had accepted a glass of wine; and as soon as Jean had secured the horse to one of the shutters, he followed his master. Françoise quietly beckoned to him to come into the haberdashery shop, and then told him of her departure, and of all that had led to it. The young man was so affected by the girl’s story, and so afraid of doing something before the company that might com­promise her, that he at once returned into the tavern and sat down on a form, after simply saying that they must see each other again to come to some understanding.

“Well, confound it all,” cried Hourdequin, putting down his glass, “you must have pretty stiff digestions if you vote for that youngster!”

His conversation with Monsieur Rochefontaine had decided him to oppose him openly at all risks. He spared him no longer, but compared him with Monsieur de Chédeville, that worthy gentleman who showed no fine airs amongst the peasantry, but was glad to be able to render them any service he could. He was a genuine and true-hearted old-fashioned French nobleman, indeed; while that tall piece of stand-offish­ness, that mushroom millionaire, looked down at them con­temptuously from the height of his grandeur, and even refused to drink a glass of the wine of the district, fearing, no doubt, that it might poison him. It surely wasn’t possible that they meant to support him; nobody changed a good sound horse for a blind one.

“What fault have you got to find with Monsieur de Chéde­ville?” he continued. “For years past he has been your deputy, and has always looked after your interests. And now you desert him for a man whom you looked upon as a scoundrel at the last elections, when the Government opposed him. Con­found it all, what are you thinking about?”

Macqueron, who did not want to engage in a direct contest with the mayor, pretended to be busy helping his wife. All the peasants had listened to Hourdequin in stolid silence, with­out their faces giving the slightest clue as to their secret thoughts. It was Delhomme who answered at last:

“We didn’t know him then.”

“Ah, but you know him now, this fine fellow! You heard him say that he wanted to see corn cheap, and that he would vote for the importation of foreign corn to bring down the price of our own. I have already explained to you that that means complete ruin for us. After that, you surely can’t be such fools as to believe in the fine promises he makes you. When he has once got your votes, you’ll soon find him turning round and laughing at you.”

A vague smile played over Delhomme’s tanned face, and all the latent cunning of his narrow intelligence showed itself in the few sentences which he now slowly spoke.

“He said what he said, and we believe what we believe. He or another — does it much matter? We’ve only one wish, and that is that the Government should be strong enough so that people may do their business quietly; and the best way of ensuring that is surely to send the Government the deputy it asks for, isn’t it? It’s enough for us that this gentleman from Châteaudun is the Emperor’s friend.”

On hearing this last remark Hourdequin felt bewildered. Why, Monsieur de Chédeville himself had been the Emperor’s friend at the last election! Oh! the miserable race of serfs that ever belonged to the master who chastised and fed it! To-day, as ever, these fellows were still full of the hereditary humility and egotism, seeing nothing and caring for nothing beyond their meal that day.

“Well,” he shouted, “I swear to you by all that’s sacred that on the day this Rochefontaine is elected I will send in my resignation. Do they take me for a mere puppet, to say black to-day and white to-morrow? Why, if those blackguards of republicans were at the Tuileries, you’d be on their side, you would indeed!”

Macqueron’s eyes glistened brightly. The mayor had just decreed his own fall, for the undertaking which he had given would, in his present state of unpopularity, suffice to make all the country-side vote against Monsieur de Chédeville.

Just at that moment Hyacinthe, who was sitting unnoticed in his corner with his friend Canon, burst into such a loud titter that all eyes were turned upon him. Leaning his elbows on the table, resting his chin in his hands, and grinning con­temptuously as he gazed round at the assembled peasants, he cried out:

“A pack of poltroons! a pack of poltroons!”

Just at that moment Buteau came in. In crossing the threshold, his quick eye caught sight of Françoise in the haberdashery shop, and of Jean, sitting against the wall, listening and waiting for his master. Good! the girl and her lover were there, and now they’d see something!

“Ah, here comes my brother, the greatest poltroon of the lot!” exclaimed Hyacinthe.

Threatening expressions were now heard, and the peasants were about to turn their slanderer out of the tavern, when Leroi, otherwise Canon, raised his hoarse voice, which had ranted at all the Socialistic meetings in Paris.

“Hold your jaw, my fine fellow, they’re not such fools as they look. Listen to me, now, you other chaps, you peasants. What would you say if a notice should be stuck up on the door of the municipal office, printed in big letters, and containing this announcement: ‘Revolutionary Commune of Paris. First: All taxes are abolished. Second: Military service is abolished.’ Well, what would you say to that, you earth-grubbers?”

Canon’s words produced such an extraordinary effect that Delhomme, Fouan, Clou, and even Bécu himself sat gaping blankly, with widely staring eyes. Lequeu let his paper fall; Hourdequin, who was leaving the room, came back again; and Buteau, forgetting all about Françoise, sat down on a corner of the table. They all gazed at the ragged fellow, the vagabond tramp who was the terror of the districts he passed through, and who lived upon extorted alms and what he could steal. Only the previous week he had been expelled from La Borderie, where he had appeared in the gloaming like a spectre. It was owing to this that he was now staying with Hyacinthe, pending a fresh disappearance.

“Ah, I see that such an announcement would be welcome,” Canon continued gaily.

“Indeed it would!” confessed Buteau. “It was only yesterday that I took a lot of money to the collector again. There’s no end to those taxes! The authorities seem to want the very skin off one’s body!”

“And what a blessing it would be,” exclaimed Delhomme, “if one were not forced to see one’s sons marched off! It’s costing me a pretty penny, I can tell you, to get my Nénesse exempted.”

“And then, if you don’t pay,” added Fouan, “they take your lads from you and have them shot!”

Canon nodded his head, and grinned in triumph.

“Well, you see that after all those earth-grubbers are not quite such fools as you thought!” he said to Hyacinthe.

Then, turning to the others, he continued:

“They are always telling us that you are Conservatives, and that you wouldn’t allow any change. But it’s conserva­tive of your own interests that you are, isn’t it? You’ll let us work, and you’ll help in anything to your own advantage. You’d be prepared to do a good deal, wouldn’t you, for the sake of keeping your money and your children? Of course you would, or you’d be a set of arrant blockheads.”

No one was drinking now, and an uneasy expression began to appear on the peasants’ heavy faces. Canon continued his address, revelling beforehand in the effect which he was going to produce.

“And that’s why I’m at ease. I’ve known all about your feelings since you’ve driven me away from your doors with stones. As that stout gentleman here said, you will all rally to our side, to us, the Reds and the Communists, when we are installed at the Tuileries.”

“No, no! indeed no!” cried Buteau, Delhomme, and the others, all at once.

Hourdequin, who had been listening attentively, shrugged his shoulders.

“You’re wasting your breath, my good fellow,” he said.

Canon, however, still smiled with the confident expression of a believer, and leaning back against the wall, he rubbed first one shoulder and then the other with an air of quiet satisfaction. Then he began to tell them all about the coming revolution, vague mysterious hints of which had been wafted from farm to farm, alarming both masters and servants. Their Comrades in Paris, he said, would commence by forcibly assuming the reins of government. There would not be much difficulty about that, and it would not be necessary to shoot as many people as might, perhaps, be expected; all the big bazaar would topple down at the least touch; it was so thoroughly rotten. Then, as soon as they had gained supreme power, they would abolish all payment of rent and confiscate all large fortunes, so that that all the money, as well as all the machinery and plant, would come into possession of the nation. Then they would reorganise society upon an entirely new basis, making it one vast financial, industrial, and commercial house of business, in which each would have his fair share of work and comfort. In the country districts matters would be still simpler. They would commence by turning out the land­owners and taking possession of the soil!