at busy times.  But between them they have more murders on their consciences than all the assassins that have ever been guillotined.  The mayor of Berville, a bourgeois who’s retired from business and a worthy man, said that Rougemont was the curse of the Department.  I know well enough that there’s always been some rivalry between Rougemont and Berville; but, the folks of Rougemont ply a wicked trade with the babies they get from Paris.  All the inhabitants have ended by taking to it, there’s nothing else doing in the whole village, and you should just see how things are arranged so that there may be as many funerals as possible.  Ah! yes, people don’t keep their stock-in-trade on their hands.  The more that die, the more they earn.  And so one can understand that La Couteau always wants to take back as many babies as possible at each journey she makes.”

Victoire recounted these dreadful things in her simple way, as one whom Paris has not yet turned into a liar, and who says all she knows, careless what it may be.

“And it seems things were far worse years ago,” she continued.  “I have heard my father say that, in his time, the agents would bring back four or five children at one journey—­perfect parcels of babies, which they tied together and carried under their arms.  They set them out in rows on the seats in the waiting-rooms at the station; and one day, indeed, a Rougemont agent forgot one child in a waiting-room, and there was quite a row about it, because when the child was found again it was dead.  And then you should have seen in the trains what a heap of poor little things there was, all crying with hunger.  It became pitiable in winter time, when there was snow and frost, for they were all shivering and blue with cold in their scanty, ragged swaddling-clothes.  One or another often died on the way, and then it was removed at the next station and buried in the nearest cemetery.  And you can picture what a state those who didn’t die were in.  At our place we care better for our pigs, for we certainly wouldn’t send them travelling in that fashion.  My father used to say that it was enough to make the very stones weep.  Nowadays, however, there’s more supervision; the regulations allow the agents to take only one nursling back at a time.  But they know all sorts of tricks, and often take a couple.  And then, too, they make arrangements; they have women who help them, and they avail themselves of those who may be going back into the country alone.  Yes, La Couteau has all sorts of tricks to evade the law.  And, besides, all the folks of Rougemont close their eyes—­they are too much interested in keeping business brisk; and all they fear is that the police may poke their noses into their affairs.  Ah! it is all very well for the Government to send inspectors every month, and insist on registers, and the Mayor’s signature and the stamp of the Commune; why, it’s just as if it did nothing.  It doesn’t prevent these women from quietly plying their trade and sending as many little ones as they can to kingdom-come.  We’ve got a cousin at Rougemont who said to us one day:  ’La Malivoire’s precious lucky, she got rid of four more during last month.’”