“Ha!” cried Lupin, “then he sees his danger.”

“If they appoint my son-in-law attorney-general we can’t help ourselves; the general will get him replaced by some Parisian devoted to his interests,” continued Rigou.  “If he gets a place in Paris for Gendrin and makes Guerbet chief-justice of the court at Auxerre, he’ll knock down our skittles!  The gendarmerie is on his side now, and if he gets the courts as well, and keeps such advisers as the abbe and Michaud we sha’n’t dance at the wedding; he’ll play us some scurvy trick or other.”

“How is it that in all these five years you have never managed to get rid of that abbe?” said Lupin.

“You don’t know him; he’s as suspicious as a blackbird,” replied Rigou.  “He is not a man at all, that priest; he doesn’t care for women; I can’t find out that he has any passion; there’s no point at which one can attack him.  The general lays himself open by his temper.  A man with a vice is the servant of his enemies if they know how to pull its string.  There are no strong men but those who lead their vices instead of being led by them.  The peasants are all right; their hatred against the abbe keeps up; but we can do nothing as yet.  He’s like Michaud, in his way; such men are too good for this world,—­God ought to call them to himself.”

“It would be a good plan to find some pretty servant-girl to scrub his staircase,” remarked Madame Soudry.  The words caused Rigou to give the little jump with which crafty natures recognize the craft of others.

“The Shopman has another vice,” he said; “he loves his wife; we might get hold of him that way.”

“We ought to find out how far she really influences him,” said Madame Soudry.

“There’s the rub!” said Lupin.

“As for you, Lupin,” said Rigou, in a tone of authority, “be off to the Prefecture and see the beautiful Madame Sarcus at once!  You must get her to tell you all the Shopman says and does at the Prefecture.”

“Then I shall have to stay all night,” replied Lupin.

“So much the better for Sarcus the rich; he’ll be the gainer,” said Rigou.  “She is not yet out of date, Madame Sarcus—­”

“Oh!  Monsieur Rigou,” said Madame Soudry, in a mincing tone, “are women ever out of date?”

“You may be right about Madame Sarcus; she doesn’t paint before the glass,” retorted Rigou, who was always disgusted by the exhibition of the Cochet’s ancient charms.

Madame Soudry, who thought she used only a “suspicion” of rouge, did not perceive the sarcasm and hastened to say:—­

“Is it possible that women paint?”

“Now, Lupin,” said Rigou, without replying to this naivete, “go over to Gaubertin’s to-morrow morning.  Tell him that my fellow-mayor and I” (striking Soudry on the thigh) “will break bread with him at breakfast somewhere about midday.  Tell him everything, so that we may all have thought it over before we meet, for now’s the time to make an end of that damned Shopman.  As I drove over here I came to the conclusion it would be best to get up a quarrel between the courts and him, so that the Keeper of the Seals would be wary of making the changes he may ask in their members.”