and I will get it for you.”  He appeared three days afterward, bringing the 10,000 francs—­a great deal of it in large silver five-franc pieces, very difficult to carry.  He had collected the whole sum from small farmers and peasants in the neighbourhood—­the five-franc pieces coming always from the peasants, sometimes fifty sewed up in a mattress or in the woman’s thick, wadded Sunday skirt.  He said he could get as much more if W. wanted it.  It seems impossible for the peasant to part with his money or invest it.  He must keep it well hidden, but in his possession.

...  We had a pretty drive this afternoon to one of Florian’s farms, down a little green lane, some distance from the high-road and so hidden by the big trees that we saw nothing until we got close to the gate.  It was late—­all the cows coming home, the great Norman horses drinking at the trough, two girls with bare legs and high caps calling all the fowl to supper, and the farmer’s wife, with a baby in her arms and another child, almost a baby, pulling at her skirts, seated on a stone bench underneath a big apple-tree, its branches heavy with fruit.  She was superintending the work of the farm-yard and seeing that the two girls didn’t waste a minute of their time, nor a grain of the seed with which they were feeding the chickens.  A little clear, sparkling stream was meandering through the meadows, tall poplars on each side, and quite at the end of the stretch of green fields there was the low blue line of the sea.  The farmhouse is a large, old-fashioned building with one or two good rooms.  It had evidently been a small manor house.  One of the rooms is charming, with handsome panels of dark carved wood.  It seemed a pity to leave them there, and almost a pity, that the Florians could not have made their home in such a lovely green spot, but they would have been obliged to add to the house enormously, and it would have complicated their lives, being so far away from everything.

[Illustration:  Old gate-way.  Valogues.]

...  We have had a last walk and flanerie this morning.  We went to the Hospice, formerly a Benedictine convent, where there is a fine gate-way and court-yard with most extraordinary carving over the doors and gate—­monstrous heads and beasts and emblems alongside of cherubs and beautiful saints and angels.  One wonders what ideas those old artists had; it seems now such distorted imagination.  We walked through some of the oldest streets and past what had been fine hotels, but they are quite uninhabited now.  Sometimes a bric-a-brac shop on the ground-floor, and some sort of society on the upper story, but they are all neglected and half tumbling down.  There is still splendid carving on some of the old gate-ways and cornices, but bits of stone and plaster are falling off, grass is growing between the paving stones of the court-yards, and there is an air of poverty and neglect which is a curious contrast to the prosperous look of the country all around—­all the little farms and villages look so thriving.  The people are smiling and well fed; their animals, too—­horses, cows, donkeys—­all in good condition.