labour for the triumph of Henri V. For a long time they had regarded the accession of the Orleanists as a ridiculous experiment, which sooner or later would bring back the Bourbons; although their hopes were singularly shaken, they nevertheless continued the struggle, scandalised by the defection of their former allies, whom they strove to win back to their cause.  The Saint-Marc quarter, assisted by all the parish priests, set to work.  Among the middle classes, and especially among the people, the enthusiasm was very great on the morrow of the events of February; these apprentice republicans were in haste to display their revolutionary fervour.  As regards the gentry of the new town, however, the conflagration, bright though it was, lasted no longer than a fire of straw.  The small houseowners and retired tradespeople who had had their good days, or had made snug little fortunes under the monarchy, were soon seized with panic; the Republic, with its constant shocks and convulsions, made them tremble for their money and their life of selfishness.

Consequently, when the Clerical reaction of 1849 declared itself, nearly all the middle classes passed over to the Conservative party.  They were received with open arms.  The new town had never before had such close relations with the Saint-Marc quarter:  some of the nobility even went so far as to shake hands with lawyers and retired oil-dealers.  This unexpected familiarity kindled the enthusiasm of the new quarter, which henceforward waged bitter warfare against the republican government.  To bring about such a coalition, the clergy had to display marvellous skill and endurance.  The nobility of Plassans for the most part lay prostrate, as if half dead.  They retained their faith, but lethargy had fallen on them, and they preferred to remain inactive, allowing the heavens to work their will.  They would gladly have contented themselves with silent protest, feeling, perhaps, a vague presentiment that their divinities were dead, and that there was nothing left for them to do but rejoin them.  Even at this period of confusion, when the catastrophe of 1848 was calculated to give them a momentary hope of the return of the Bourbons, they showed themselves spiritless and indifferent, speaking of rushing into the melee, yet never quitting their hearths without a pang of regret.

The clergy battled indefatigably against this feeling of impotence and resignation.  They infused a kind of passion into their work:  a priest, when he despairs, struggles all the more fiercely.  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