Chapter Chapter 2 · A MAYOR

. A MAYOR

Importance! What is it, sir after all? The respect of

fools, the wonder of children, the envy of the rich, the

contempt of the wise man.--_Barnave_

Happily for the reputation of M. de Rênal as an administrator an

immense wall of support was necessary for the public promenade which

goes along the hill, a hundred steps above the course of the Doubs.

This admirable position secures for the promenade one of the most

picturesque views in the whole of France. But the rain water used to

make furrows in the walk every spring, caused ditches to appear, and

rendered it generally impracticable. This nuisance, which was felt

by the whole town, put M. de Rênal in the happy position of being

compelled to immortalise his administration by building a wall twenty

feet high and thirty to forty yards long.

The parapet of this wall, which occasioned M. de Rênal three journeys

to Paris (for the last Minister of the Interior but one had declared

himself the mortal enemy of the promenade of Verrières), is now raised

to a height of four feet above the ground, and as though to defy all

ministers whether past or present, it is at present adorned with tiles

of hewn stone.

How many times have my looks plunged into the valley of the Doubs, as I

thought of the Paris balls which I had abandoned on the previous night,

and leant my breast against the great blocks of stone, whose beautiful

grey almost verged on blue. Beyond the left bank, there wind five

or six valleys, at the bottom of which I could see quite distinctly

several small streams. There is a view of them falling into the Doubs,

after a series of cascades. The sun is very warm in these mountains.

When it beats straight down, the pensive traveller on the terrace

finds shelter under some magnificent plane trees. They owe their rapid

growth and their fine verdure with its almost bluish shade to the new

soil, which M. the mayor has had placed behind his immense wall of

support for (in spite of the opposition of the Municipal Council) he

has enlarged the promenade by more than six feet (and although he is an

Ultra and I am a Liberal, I praise him for it), and that is why both in

his opinion and in that of M. Valenod, the fortunate Director of the

workhouse of Verrières, this terrace can brook comparison with that of

Saint-Germain en Laye.

I find personally only one thing at which to cavil in the COURS DE LA

FIDELITE, (this official name is to be read in fifteen to twenty places

on those immortal tiles which earned M. de Rênal an extra cross.) The

grievance I find in the Cours de la Fidélité is the barbarous manner in

which the authorities have cut these vigorous plane trees and clipped

them to the quick. In fact they really resemble with their dwarfed,

rounded and flattened heads the most vulgar plants of the vegetable

garden, while they are really capable of attaining the magnificent

development of the English plane trees. But the wish of M. the mayor

is despotic, and all the trees belonging to the municipality are

ruthlessly pruned twice a year. The local Liberals suggest, but they

are probably exaggerating, that the hand of the official gardener

has become much more severe, since M. the Vicar Maslon started

appropriating the clippings. This young ecclesiastic was sent to

Besançon some years ago to keep watch on the abbé Chélan and some cures

in the neighbouring districts. An old Surgeon-Major of Napoleon's

Italian Army, who was living in retirement at Verrières, and who had

been in his time described by M. the mayor as both a Jacobin and a

Bonapartiste, dared to complain to the mayor one day of the periodical

mutilation of these fine trees.

"I like the shade," answered M. de Rênal, with just a tinge of that

hauteur which becomes a mayor when he is talking to a surgeon, who is

a member of the Legion of Honour. "I like the shade, I have _my_ trees

clipped in order to give shade, and I cannot conceive that a tree can

have any other purpose, provided of course _it is not bringing in any

profit_, like the useful walnut tree."

This is the great word which is all decisive at Verrières. "BRINGING IN

PROFIT," this word alone sums up the habitual trend of thought of more

than three-quarters of the inhabitants.

_Bringing in profit_ is the consideration which decides everything in

this little town which you thought so pretty. The stranger who arrives

in the town is fascinated by the beauty of the fresh deep valleys which

surround it, and he imagines at first that the inhabitants have an

appreciation of the beautiful. They talk only too frequently of the

beauty of their country, and it cannot be denied that they lay great

stress on it, but the reason is that it attracts a number of strangers,

whose money enriches the inn-keepers, a process which _brings in

profit_ to the town, owing to the machinery of the octroi.

It was on a fine, autumn day that M. de Rênal was taking a promenade

on the Cours de la Fidélité with his wife on his arm. While listening

to her husband (who was talking in a somewhat solemn manner) Madame de

Rênal followed anxiously with her eyes the movements of three little

boys. The eldest, who might have been eleven years old, went too

frequently near the parapet and looked as though he was going to climb

up it. A sweet voice then pronounced the name of Adolphe and the child

gave up his ambitious project. Madame de Rênal seemed a woman of thirty

years of age but still fairly pretty.

"He may be sorry for it, may this fine gentleman from Paris," said

M. de Rênal, with an offended air and a face even paler than usual.

"I am not without a few friends at court!" But though I want to

talk to you about the provinces for two hundred pages, I lack the

requisite barbarity to make you undergo all the long-windedness and

circumlocutions of a provincial dialogue.

This fine gentleman from Paris, who was so odious to the mayor of

Verrières, was no other than the M. Appert, who had two days previously

managed to find his way not only into the prison and workhouse of

Verrières, but also into the hospital, which was gratuitously conducted

by the mayor and the principal proprietors of the district.

"But," said Madame de Rênal timidly, "what harm can this Paris

gentleman do you, since you administer