“Monseigneur, when I observe the stress that the peasantry lay on their poverty, I realize how they fear to lose that excuse for their immorality.”

Though everybody knew that the family had no principles and no scruples, nothing was ever said against the morals of the Grand-I-Vert.  At the beginning of this book it is necessary to explain, once for all, to persons accustomed to the decencies of middle-class life, that the peasants have no decency in their domestic habits and customs.  They make no appeal to morality when their daughters are seduced, unless the seducer is rich and timid.  Children, until the State takes possession of them, are used either as capital or as instruments of convenience.  Self-interest has become, specially since 1789, the sole motive of the masses; they never ask if an action is legal or immoral, but only if it is profitable.  Morality, which is not to be confounded with religion, begins only at a certain competence,—­just as one sees, in a higher sphere, how delicacy blossoms in the soul when fortune decorates the furniture.  A positively moral and upright man is rare among the peasantry.  Do you ask why?  Among the many reasons that may be given for this state of things, the principal one is this:  Through the nature of their social functions, the peasants live a purely material life which approximates to that of savages, and their constant union with nature tends to foster it.  When toil exhausts the body it takes from the mind its purifying action, especially among the ignorant.  The Abbe Brossette was right in saying that the state policy of the peasant is his poverty.

Meddling in everybody’s interests, Tonsard heard everybody’s complaints, and often instigated frauds to benefit the needy.  His wife, a kindly appearing woman, had a good word for evil-doers, and never withheld either approval or personal help from her customers in anything they undertook against the rich.  This inn, a nest of vipers, brisk and venomous, seething and active, was a hot-bed for the hatred of the peasants and the workingmen against the masters and the wealthy.

The prosperous life of the Tonsards was, therefore, an evil example.  Others asked themselves why they should not take their wood, as the Tonsards did, from the forest; why not pasture their cows and have game to eat and to sell as well as they; why not harvest without sowing the grapes and the grain.  Accordingly, the pilfering thefts which thin the woods and tithe the ploughed lands and meadows and vineyards became habitual in this valley, and soon existed as a right throughout the districts of Blangy, Conches, and Cerneux, all adjacent to the domain of Les Aigues.  This sore, for certain reasons which will be given in due time, did far greater injury to Les Aigues than to the estates of Ronquerolles or Soulanges.  You must not, however, fancy that Tonsard, his wife and children, and his old mother ever deliberately said to themselves, “We will live by theft, and commit