cannot fail to wound all who believe in human nature. To be a
millionaire--that, I grant, would be pleasant. A man as rich as Monte
Christo, able to do whatever he would, with the equipage of an English
duke, the palace of an Italian prince, the retinue of a Russian
noble--he, indeed, might be excused if his money seemed to him a kind of
god. But Gros-Jean, who lays up two sous at a time, and lives on black
bread and an onion; and Jacques, whose _grosse pièce_ but secures him
the headache of a drunkard next morning--what to them could be this
miserable deity? As for myself, however, it was my business, as Maire
of the commune, to take as little notice as possible of the follies
these people might say, and to hold the middle course between the
prejudices of the respectable and the levities of the foolish. With
this, without more, to think of, I had enough to keep all my faculties
employed.


THE NARRATIVE OF M. LE MAIRE CONTINUED: BEGINNING OF THE LATE REMARKABLE
EVENTS.

I do not attempt to make out any distinct connection between the simple
incidents above recorded, and the extraordinary events that followed. I
have related them as they happened; chiefly by way of showing the state
of feeling in the city, and the sentiment which pervaded the
community--a sentiment, I fear, too common in my country. I need not say
that to encourage superstition is far from my wish. I am a man of my
century, and proud of being so; very little disposed to yield to the
domination of the clerical party, though desirous of showing all just
tolerance for conscientious faith, and every respect for the prejudices
of the ladies of my family. I am, moreover, all the more inclined to be
careful of giving in my adhesion to any prodigy, in consequence of a