Old Clousier’s personal appearance was remarkable for a broad, high forehead and two bushes of white hair which stood out from his head on either side of it.  His highly colored complexion and well-developed corpulence might have made persons think, in spite of his actual sobriety, that he cultivated Bacchus as well as Troplong and Toullier.  His half-extinct voice was the sign of an oppressive asthma.  Perhaps the dry air of Montegnac had contributed to fix him there.  He lived in a house arranged for him by a well-to-do cobbler to whom it belonged.  Clousier had already seen Veronique at church, and he had formed his opinion of her without communicating it to any one, not even to Monsieur Bonnet, with whom he was beginning to be intimate.  For the first time in his life the juge de paix was to be thrown in with persons able to appreciate him.

When the company were seated round a table handsomely appointed (for Veronique had sent all her household belongings from Limoges to Montegnac) the six guests felt a momentary embarrassment.  The doctor, the mayor and the juge de paix knew nothing of Grossetete and Gerard.  But during the first course, old Grossetete’s hearty good-humor broke the ice of a first meeting.  In addition to this, Madame Graslin’s cordiality led on Gerard, and encouraged Roubaud.  Under her touch these souls full of fine qualities recognized their relation, and felt they had entered a sympathetic circle.  So, by the time the dessert appeared on the table, when the glass and china with gilded edges sparkled, and the choicer wines were served by Aline and Champion and Grossetete’s valet, the conversation became sufficiently confidential to allow these four choice minds, thus meeting by chance, to express their real thoughts on matters of importance, such as men like to discuss when they can do so and be sure of the discretion of their companions.

“Your furlough came just in time to let you witness the revolution of July,” said Grossetete to Gerard, with an air as if he asked an opinion of him.

“Yes,” replied the engineer.  “I was in Paris during the three famous days.  I saw all; and I came to sad conclusions.”

“What were they?” said the rector, eagerly.

“There is no longer any patriotism except under dirty shirts,” replied Gerard.  “In that lies the ruin of France!  July was the voluntary defeat of all superiorities,—­name, fortune, talent.  The ardent, devoted masses carried the day against the rich and the intelligent, to whom ardor and devotion are repugnant.”

“To judge by what has happened during the past year,” said Monsieur Clousier, “this change of government is simply a premium given to an evil that is sapping us,—­individualism.  Fifteen years hence all questions of a generous nature will be met by, What is that to me? —­the great cry of Freedom of Will descending from the religious heights where Luther, Calvin, Zwinglius, and Knox introduced it, into even political economy. Every one for himself; every man his own master,—­those two terrible axioms form, with the What is that to me? a trinity of wisdom to the burgher and the small land-owner.  This egotism results from the vices of our present civil legislation (too hastily made), to which the revolution of July has just given a terrible confirmation.”