"Yes, monsieur, I believe that by seeking the best side of things one goes astray less often than by doing the opposite. A determined speculator would be parsimonious in the details of his undertaking, and then one would be justified in suspecting his rectitude. But when we see an intelligent and active man pay handsomely for labor——"
"One moment, if you please," interposed the peasant. "You are upright men and noble hearts; I am glad to believe it of this young gentleman, as I am sure of it in your case, Monsieur Antoine. But, meaning no offence, I will venture to tell you that you see no farther than the end of your nose. Look you. I will suppose that I have a large sum of money to invest, and that my purpose is not to obtain simply a fair and legitimate return from it, as it is right for everybody to do, but to double or treble my capital in a few years. I am not foolish enough to announce my purpose to the people I am forced to ruin. I begin by wheedling them, by making a show of generosity, and, to remove all distrust, by making myself appear, if need be, a brainless prodigal. That done, I have my dupes where I want them. I have sacrificed a hundred thousand francs, I will say, on those little wiles. A hundred thousand francs is a deal of money for the province! but, so far as I am concerned, if I have several millions, it's simply the bonus that I pay. Everybody likes me; although some laugh at my simplicity, the greater number pity me and esteem me. No one takes any precautions. Time flies fast and my brain still faster; I have cast the net and all the fish are nibbling. First the little ones—the small fry that you swallow without anyone noticing it; then the big ones, until they have all disappeared."
"What do you mean by all your metaphors?" said Monsieur Antoine, shrugging his shoulders. "If you go on talking figuratively, I am going to sleep. Come, hurry, it's getting late."
"What I mean is plain enough," continued the peasant. "When I have once ruined all the small concerns that competed with me I become a more powerful lord than your ancestors were before the Revolution, Monsieur Antoine! I govern over the head of the laws, and while I have a poor devil locked up for the slightest peccadillo, I take the liberty to do whatever pleases me or suits my convenience. I take everybody's property—with their daughters and wives thrown in, if they take my fancy—I control the business and supplies of a whole department. By my skill I have forced down the price of crops; but, when everything is in my hands, I raise prices to suit myself, and, as soon as I can safely do it, I obtain a monopoly and starve the people. And then it's a small matter to kill off competition; I soon get control of the money, which is the key to everything. I do a banking business on the sly, wholesale and retail. I oblige so many people, that I am everybody's creditor and everybody belongs to me. People find out that they no longer like me; but they see that I am to be feared, and the most powerful handle me carefully, while the small fry tremble and sigh all about me. However, as I have some intelligence and cunning, I play the great man from time to time. I rescue a few families, I contribute to some charitable organization. It is a method of greasing the wheel of my fortune, which rolls on the more rapidly for it; for people begin again to have a little esteem for me. I am no longer considered kind-hearted and foolish, but just and great. From the prefect of the department to the village curé and from the curé to the beggar, everyone is in the hollow of my hand; but the whole province suffers and no one detects the cause. No other fortune than mine will increase, and every modest competence will shrink, because I shall have dried up all the springs of wealth, raised the price of the necessaries of life and lowered that of the superfluities—just the reverse of what should be. The dealer will find himself in trouble and the consumer too. But I shall prosper because I shall be, by virtue of my wealth, the only resource of dealer and consumer alike. And at last people will say, 'What in heaven's name is happening? the small tradesmen are stripped and the small buyers are stripped. We have more pretty houses and more fine clothes staring us in the face than we used to have, and all those things cost less, so they say; but we haven't a sou in our pockets. We have all been frantic to make a show and now we are consumed by debts. But Monsieur Cardonnet isn't responsible for it all, for he does good and, if it weren't for him, we should all be ruined. Let us make haste and do something for Monsieur Cardonnet; let him be mayor, prefect, deputy, minister, king, if possible, and the province is saved!'
"That, messieurs, is the way I would make other people carry me on their backs if I were Monsieur Cardonnet, and it is what I am very sure Monsieur Cardonnet intends to do. Now, tell me that I am wrong to look askance at him; that I am a prophet of evil, and that nothing of what I predict will happen. God grant that you may be right! but for my part I can feel the hail coming in the distance, and there is only one hope that sustains me; it is that the stream will be less foolish than men; that it will not allow itself to be bridled by the fine machines they put between its teeth, and that some fine morning it will give Monsieur Cardonnet's mills a body blow that will sicken him of playing with it, and will induce him to take his capital and its consequences and carry it somewhere else. Now, I have said my say. If I have formed a hasty judgment, may God who has heard me forgive me!"
The peasant had spoken with great animation. The fire of keen insight darted from his blue eyes, and a smile of sorrowful indignation played about his mobile lips. The traveller examined that strongly-marked face, shaded by a heavy grizzly beard, wrinkled by fatigue, by exposure to the air, perhaps by disappointment as well; and, despite the pain that his language caused, he could not help thinking him handsome, and admiring, in the facility with which he bluntly expressed his thoughts, a sort of natural eloquence instinct with sincerity and love of justice; for, although his words, of which we have failed to express all the rustic homeliness, were simple and sometimes vulgar, his gestures were emphatic and the tone of his voice commanded attention. A feeling of profound depression had taken possession of his hearers, while he drew without any artifice, and unsparingly, the portrait of the pitiless and persevering rich man. The wine had had no effect upon him, and every time that he raised his eyes to the young man's face, he seemed to look into his very soul and sternly question him. Monsieur Antoine, although slightly affected by the weight of the wine he was carrying, had lost nothing of his harangue, and submitting as usual to the ascendancy of that mind, of stouter temper than his own, he heaved a deep sigh from time to time.
When the peasant had finished, "May God forgive you, indeed, my friend, if your judgment is at fault," he said, raising his glass as an offering to the Deity: "and if you are right, may Providence avert such a scourge from the heads of the poor and weak!"
"Listen to me, Monsieur de Châteaubrun, and you too, my friend," cried the young man, taking a hand of each of his companions in his own, "God, who hears all the words of man, and who reads their real sentiments in the depths of their hearts, knows that these evils are not to be dreaded, and that your apprehensions are only chimeras. I know the man of whom you speak; I know him well; and, although his face is cold, his character obstinate, his intellect active and strong, I will answer to you for the loyalty of his purposes and the noble use he will make of his fortune. There is something alarming, I agree, in the firmness of his will, and I am not surprised that his inflexible manner has caused a sort of vertigo here, as if a supernatural being had appeared in the midst of your peaceful fields. But that strength of purpose is based upon moral and religious principles, which make him, if not the mildest and most affable of men, the most rigidly just and the most royally generous."
"So much the better, deuce take it!" rejoined the châtelain, clinking his glass against the peasant's. "I drink to your health, and I am happy to have reason to esteem a man when I am on the point of cursing him. Come, don't be obstinate, old fellow, but believe this young man, who talks like a book and knows more about the subject than you and I do. Why, he says that he knows Cardonnet! that he knows him well! what more do you want? He will answer for him. So we need not worry any more. And now, friends, let us go to bed," continued the châtelain, delighted to accept the guaranty of a man of whom he knew nothing at all, not even his name, for a man of whom he knew little; "the clock is striking eleven, and that's an undue hour."
"I am going to take my leave of you," said the traveller, "and continue my journey, asking your permission to come soon to thank you for your kindness."