"I don't understand anything about all that."
"My dear Monsieur Pioche, that does not matter in the slightest. It is the best of reasons why you should appoint me your representative."
"I do not understand," the rustic persisted stolidly.
"Mon Dieu! Monsieur Pioche," Master Populus continued, "it is very simple; promise me your vote. See what I can do for you. You pay the Seigneur twenty-six livres annual feudal rent of your holding."
"No, twenty-seven."
"Well, say twenty-seven. Now I am the intendant of this new young fool of a Seigneur, who is away all the time at Versailles. I have the sole control. Let us strike a bargain. Give me your vote and I will quietly let you off ten livres of rental. If I wish, I can find some reason for reporting you at seventeen."
Pioche's eyes assumed an uncertain light of cunning and greed.
"Don't do it, Pioche," cried a one-eyed cobbler. "Notary Mule offers to abolish all these Seigneur's rights if we elect him to the States-General."
"Shut up, you tan-smelling bow-legs!" the enraged Populus retorted at a shout. "Who is this Mule, that he should represent the majesty of the bailiwick of Grelot? A cur whose very name is enough to relegate him to limbo; whose deeds are atrocities in ink, whose——"
"Nevertheless he is going to lift our dues. Master Mule is the people's man," the cobbler returned valiantly.