in presence of the wife, when the borrower was married) the amount of
the illegal interest. The peasant, delighted to feel he had to pay
only his five per cent interest annually, always imagined he should be
able to meet the payment by working doubly hard or by improving the
land and getting double returns upon it.

Hence the deceitful hopes excited by what imbecile economists call
"small farming,"--a political blunder to which we owe such mistakes as
sending French money to Germany to buy horses which our own land had
ceased to breed; a blunder which before long will reduce the raising
of cattle until meat will be unattainable not only by the people, but
by the lower middle classes (see "Le Cure de Village.")

So, not a little sweat bedewed men's brows between Conches and
Ville-aux-Fayes to Rigou's profit, all being willing to give it; whereas
the labor dearly paid for by the general, the only man who did spend
money in the district, brought him curses and hatred, which were
showered upon him simply because he was rich. How could such facts be
understood unless we had previously taken that rapid glance at the
Mediocracy. Fourchon was right; the middle classes now held the
position of the former lords. The small land-owners, of whom
Courtecuisse is a type, were tenants in mortmain of a Tiberius in the
valley of the Avonne, just as, in Paris, traders without money are the
peasantry of the banking system.

Soudry followed Rigou's example from Soulanges to a distance of
fifteen miles beyond Ville-aux-Fayes. These two usurers shared the
district between them.

Gaubertin, whose rapacity was in a higher sphere, not only did not