“Eh! my good friend, there is the asses’ bridge. The people, the honest folk, require to be led. But in order to lead them it is necessary to have the right method. Some say drive with the rein tight. Others, drive with the rein loose; but I—do you know what I say?—take them along gaily.”
“Look at the shepherds; the good shepherds are not those who have always a raised stick; neither are they those that lie down beneath a willow and sleep in the corner of the field. The good shepherd is he who walks quietly ahead of his flock and plays the pipes. The beasts who feel themselves free, and who are really so, browse with appetite on the pasture and the thistle. When they are satisfied and the hour comes to return home, the shepherd pipes the retreat and the contented flock follow him to the sheepfold. My friend, I do the same, I play on the pipes, and my flock follow.”
“Thou playest on the pipes; that is all very well.... But still, among thy flock thou hast some Whites, and some Reds, some headstrong and some queer ones, as there are everywhere! Now, when an election for a deputy takes place, for example, how dost thou manage?”
“How I manage? Eh, my good soul. I leave it alone. For to say to the Whites, ‘Vote for the Republic,’ would be to lose one’s breath and one’s Latin, and to say to the Reds, ‘Vote for Henri V.,’ would be as effectual as to spit on that wall.”
“But the undecided ones, those who have no opinion, the poor innocents, all the good people who tack cautiously as the wind blows?”
“Ah, those there, when sometimes in the barber’s shop they ask me my advice, ‘Hold,’ I say to them, ‘Bassaquin is no better than Bassacan.’ Whether you vote for Bassaquin or Bassacan this summer you will have fleas. For Gigognan it is better to have a good rain than all the promises of the candidates. Ah! it would be a different matter if you nominated one of the peasant class. But so long as you do not nominate peasants for deputies, as they do in Sweden and Denmark, you will not be represented. The lawyers, doctors, journalists, small shopkeepers of all sorts whom you return, ask but one thing: to stay in Paris as much as possible, raking in all they can, and milking the poor cow without troubling their heads about our Gigognan! But if, as I say, you delegated the peasants, they would think of saving, they would diminish the big salaries, they would never make war, they would increase the canals, they would abolish the duties, and hasten to settle affairs in order to return before the harvest. Just imagine that there are in France twenty million tillers of the soil, and they have not the sense to send three hundred of them to represent the land! What would they risk by trying it? It would be difficult for the peasants’ deputy to do worse than these others!”
And every one replies: “Ah! that Monsieur Lassagne! though he is joking, there is some sense in what he says.”
“But,” I said, “as to thee personally, thee Lassagne, how hast thou managed to keep thy popularity in Gigognan, and thy authority for fifty years?”
“Oh, that is easy enough,” he laughed. “Come, let us leave the table, and take a little turn. When we have made the tour of Gigognan two or three times, thou wilt know as much as I do.”
We rose from the table, lit our cigars and went out to see the fun. In the road outside a game of bowls was going on. One of the players in throwing his ball unintentionally struck the mark, replacing it by his own ball, and thus gaining two points.