His conversation with Monsieur Rochefontaine had decided him to oppose him openly at all risks. He spared him no longer, but compared him with Monsieur de Chédeville, that worthy gentleman who showed no fine airs amongst the peasantry, but was glad to be able to render them any service he could. He was a genuine and true-hearted old-fashioned French nobleman, indeed; while that tall piece of stand-offishness, that mushroom millionaire, looked down at them contemptuously from the height of his grandeur, and even refused to drink a glass of the wine of the district, fearing, no doubt, that it might poison him. It surely wasn't possible that they meant to support him; nobody changed a good sound horse for a blind one.
"What fault have you got to find with Monsieur de Chédeville?" he continued. "For years past he has been your deputy, and has always looked after your interests. And now you desert him for a man whom you looked upon as a scoundrel at the last elections, when the Government opposed him. Confound it all, what are you thinking about?"
Macqueron, who did not want to engage in a direct contest with the mayor, pretended to be busy helping his wife. All the peasants had listened to Hourdequin in stolid silence, without their faces giving the slightest clue as to their secret thoughts. It was Delhomme who answered at last:
"We didn't know him then."
"Ah, but you know him now, this fine fellow! You heard him say that he wanted to see corn cheap, and that he would vote for the importation of foreign corn to bring down the price of our own. I have already explained to you that that means complete ruin for us. After that, you surely can't be such fools as to believe in the fine promises he makes you. When he has once got your votes, you'll soon find him turning round and laughing at you."
A vague smile played over Delhomme's tanned face, and all the latent cunning of his narrow intelligence showed itself in the few sentences which he now slowly spoke.
"He said what he said, and we believe what we believe. He or another—does it much matter? We've only one wish, and that is that the Government should be strong enough so that people may do their business quietly; and the best way of ensuring that is surely to send the Government the deputy it asks for, isn't it? It's enough for us that this gentleman from Châteaudun is the Emperor's friend."
On hearing this last remark Hourdequin felt bewildered. Why, Monsieur de Chédeville himself had been the Emperor's friend at the last election! Oh! the miserable race of serfs that ever belonged to the master who chastised and fed it! To-day, as ever, these fellows were still full of the hereditary humility and egotism, seeing nothing and caring for nothing beyond their meal that day.
"Well," he shouted, "I swear to you by all that's sacred that on the day this Rochefontaine is elected I will send in my resignation. Do they take me for a mere puppet, to say black to-day and white to-morrow? Why, if those blackguards of republicans were at the Tuileries, you'd be on their side, you would indeed!"
Macqueron's eyes glistened brightly. The mayor had just decreed his own fall, for the undertaking which he had given would, in his present state of unpopularity, suffice to make all the country-side vote against Monsieur de Chédeville.