Kings may usurp thrones, or republics may be established,
without scarcely any stir in the town. Plassans sleeps while Paris
fights. But though on the surface the town may appear calm and
indifferent, in the depths hidden work goes on which it is curious
to study. If shots are rare in the streets, intrigues consume the
drawing-rooms of both the new town and the Saint-Marc quarter. Until the
year 1830 the masses were reckoned of no account. Even at the present
time they are similarly ignored. Everything is settled between the
clergy, the nobility, and the bourgeoisie. The priests, who are very
numerous, give the cue to the local politics; they lay subterranean
mines, as it were, and deal blows in the dark, following a prudent
tactical system, which hardly allows of a step in advance or retreat
even in the course of ten years. The secret intrigues of men who desire
above all things to avoid noise requires special shrewdness, a special
aptitude for dealing with small matters, and a patient endurance such
as one only finds in persons callous to all passions. It is thus that
provincial dilatoriness, which is so freely ridiculed in Paris, is full
of treachery, secret stabs, hidden victories and defeats. These worthy
men, particularly when their interests are at stake, kill at home with
a snap of the fingers, as we, the Parisians, kill with cannon in the
public thoroughfares.
The political history of Plassans, like that of all little towns in
Provence, is singularly characteristic.
Pages:
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125