The fundamental
policy of the Church is to march straight forward; even though she
may have to postpone the accomplishment of her projects for several
centuries, she never wastes a single hour, but is always pushing forward
with increasing energy. So it was the clergy who led the reaction of
Plassans; the nobility only lent them their name, nothing more. The
priests hid themselves behind the nobles, restrained them, directed
them, and even succeeded in endowing them with a semblance of life. When
they had induced them to overcome their repugnance so far as to make
common cause with the middle classes, they believed themselves certain
of victory. The ground was marvellously well prepared. This ancient
royalist town, with its population of peaceful householders and timorous
tradespeople, was destined to range itself, sooner or later, on the side
of law and order. The clergy, by their tactics, hastened the conversion.
After gaining the landlords of the new town to their side, they even
succeeded in convincing the little retail-dealers of the old quarter.
From that time the reactionary movement obtained complete possession of
the town. All opinions were represented in this reaction; such a mixture
of embittered Liberals, Legitimists, Orleanists, Bonapartists, and
Clericals had never before been seen. It mattered little, however, at
that time. The sole object was to kill the Republic; and the Republic
was at the point of death. Only a fraction of the people--a thousand
workmen at most, out of the ten thousand souls in the town--still
saluted the tree of liberty planted in the middle of the square in front
of the Sub-Prefecture.
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