Your proposal does not suit me.  My conscience will not allow me to buy property below its proper value.  Before the Revolution the property of our abbey was estimated at—­[so much].  That is the price I choose to give, and not that to which it has fallen since the great depreciation of all property called national.  In a word, my friend, I wish to pay you more than you ask; let me know if that suits you.

Laurent Goussard thought at first that either she had misunderstood him or he her.  But when it became clear to him that owing to these pretended scruples of Mother Marie-des-Anges, he was the gainer of fifty thousand francs, he would not do violence to so tender a conscience, and he pocketed this profit (which came to him literally from heaven), but he went about relating everywhere the marvellous proceeding, which, as you can well imagine, put Mother Marie-des-Anges on a pinnacle of respect (especially from the holders of other national property) which leaves her nothing to fear from any future revolution.  Personally Laurent Goussard has become her slave, her henchman.  He does no business, he takes no step, he never moves a sack of flour without going to her for advice; and, as she said in joke the other day, if she took a fancy to make a John the Baptist of the sub-prefect, Laurent Goussard would bring her his head on a charger.  That is proof enough that he will also bring his vote and that of his friends to any candidate she may favor.

Among the clergy Mother Marie-des-Anges has, naturally, many affiliations,—­as much on account of her high reputation for goodness as for the habit of her order, but she particularly counts among the number of her most zealous servitors Monseigneur Troubert, bishop of the diocese, who, though formerly a familiar of the Congregation [see “The Vicar of Tours"], has nevertheless managed to secure from the dynasty of July an archbishopric which will lead to a cardinalship.

When you have the clergy you have, or you are very near having, the legitimist party with you,—­a party which, while passionately desirous of free education and filled with hatred for the July throne, is not averse, when occasion offers, to yielding to a monstrous union with the radical party.  Now the head of the legitimists in Arcis and its neighborhood is, of course, the family of Cinq-Cygne.  Never does the old marquise, whose haughty nature and powerful will you, madame, know well [see “An Historical Mystery"],—­never does she drive into Arcis from her chateau of Cinq-Cygne, without paying a visit to Mother Marie-des-Anges, who in former days educated her daughter Berthe, now the Duchesse Georges de Maufrigneuse.

But now we come to the most opposing and resisting side,—­that of the conservatives, which must not be confounded with the party of the administration.  Here we find as its leader the Comte de Gondreville, your husband’s colleague in the Chamber of peers.  Closely allied to the count is a very influential man, his old friend Grevin, formerly mayor and notary of Arcis, who, in turn, draws after him another elector of considerable influence, Maitre Achille Pigoult, to whom, on retiring from active life, he sold his practice as notary.