things are now, a peasant can only blame himself for his poverty; he
is a free man, and he can become a rich one. It is not as it used to
be. If a peasant lays by his money, he can always buy a bit of land
and become his own master."

"I've seen the olden time and I've seen the new, my dear wise
gentleman," said Fourchon; "the sign over the door has changed, that's
true, but the wine is the same,--to-day is the younger brother of
yesterday, that's all. Put that in your newspaper! Are we poor folks
free? We still belong to the same parish, and its lord is always
there,--I call him Toil. The hoe, our sole property, has never left
our hands. Let it be the old lords or the present taxes which take the
best of our earnings, the fact remains that we sweat our lives out in
toil."

"But you could undertake a business, and try to make your fortune,"
said Blondet.

"Try to make my fortune! And where shall I try? If I wish to leave my
own province, I must get a passport, and that costs forty sous. Here's
forty years that I've never had a slut of a forty-sous piece jingling
against another in my pocket. If you want to travel you need as many
crowns as there are villages, and there are mighty few Fourchons who
have enough to get to six of 'em. It is only the draft that gives us a
chance to get away. And what good does the army do us? The colonels
live by the solider, just as the rich folks live by the peasant; and
out of every hundred of 'em you won't find more than one of our breed.
It is just as it is the world over, one rolling in riches, for a
hundred down in the mud. Why are we in the mud? Ask God and the
usurers. The best we can do is to stay in our own parts, where we are