XI
The ministry had fallen. M. le préfet Worms-Clavelin felt neither surprise nor regret at this. In the depths of his heart he had always considered it too restless and too disturbing, an object of suspicion, and not without reason, to the agriculturist, the large merchant, and the small investor. Without affecting the fortunate indifference of the masses, this cabinet had exercised, to the préfet’s grief, a vexatious influence over freemasonry, the organisation by which, for fifteen years past, the whole political life of the department had been drawn together and held in check. M. le préfet Worms-Clavelin had been able to turn the masonic lodges of the department into boards vested with the preliminary choice of candidates for public offices, for electoral functions, and for party favours. Exercising in this way wide and definite prerogatives, the lodges, being as much opportunist as they were radical, combined, acted in concert with one another, and worked together for the republican cause. The préfet, rejoicing to see the ambition of some restraining the desires of others, gathered together, on the joint recommendation of the lodges, a band of senators, deputies, municipal councillors and road-surveyors, all equally loyal to the government, yet sufficiently diverse in opinion and sufficiently moderate to satisfy and reassure all republican parties, save the socialists. M. le préfet Worms-Clavelin had brought about this unanimity. And now the radical ministry must needs break up so happy a harmony.
Ill-luck decreed that the holder of one of the minor portfolios (either agriculture or commerce) should travel through the department and stop for some hours in the county town. It sufficed for him to deliver a philosophic and moral speech at one assembly to flutter all the assemblies, divide each lodge into two, set brother against brother, and infuriate citizen Mandar, the chemist of the Rue Culture, master of the lodge “New Alliance,” and a radical, against M. Tricoul, vine-grower of Les Tournelles, master of the lodge “Sacred Friendship,” and an opportunist.
Mentally M. Worms-Clavelin made another complaint against the fallen ministry: that of having lavishly distributed academic decorations and given Orders of Merit for agricultural proficiency to radical-socialists only, thus robbing the préfet of the advantage of governing with the aid of these decorations, or at least by means of tardily fulfilled promises of them.
M. le préfet expressed his thoughts accurately as, alone in his study, he murmured these bitter words:
“If they believed they could play at politics by upsetting my loyal lodges and fastening my useful palms to the tail of every drunken dog in the department, they’ll find themselves finely mistaken!”
Thus it was that he heard of the fall of the ministry without any regret.
Besides, these changes that he had foreseen never surprised him. His administrative policy was always founded on the assumption that minister succeeds minister. He made a point of never serving a Home Secretary with ardent zeal. He refrained from being over-pleasing to any one, and shunned all opportunities of doing too well. This moderation, kept up during the continuance of one ministry, assured him the sympathy of the next one, thus sufficiently predisposed in his favour to acquiesce in its turn in the half-hearted zeal, which became a claim to the favour of a third cabinet. M. le préfet Worms-Clavelin reigned without ruling, corresponded briefly with the Place Beauvau,[G] manœuvred the boards, and stayed in office.
[G] Where the French Home Office is situated.