condemned to love her neighbours, or be forced
to be good-natured always, even to her bosom
friends. Simple people, tied to the dust and
smoke of towns, grow sentimental over rural
life. They believe that there can be no
heart-burning behind the ivy of a roadside
cottage. They imagine that cottagers are
necessarily better people than the spare
fellows who throw the shuttle in the gloomy
lanes of great cities.

The authorities of Romanville had given
it as their decided opinion that the rural
entourage of their ancient city, was, in no
respect better, but in every respect worse,
than it should be. This had been the conviction
of the inhabitants a long time, before
the eventful morning, on which we enjoyed
the honour of an introduction to the Sieur
Moineau. The cooks who met twice a week
on the Grande Place, to buy vegetables,
gossip about their mistresses, and realise
their fair per centages on their purchases,
had one and all declared that, in the long
course of their protracted experience, they
had never seen cheats so audacious as the
villagers round about Romanville. Opinions
travel rapidly in a provincial town; but, then
this rapid travelling finds, perhaps, a wholesome
check, in the proverbial slowness of the
sous-prefêt and his subordinates. The half-
dozen policemen who sauntered about the
triumphantly ill-paved streets, and bronzed
themselves valiantly under the fierce rays of
the sun at some curiously low salary, could
not reasonably be expected to do more than
this. They were only mortals after all,
though they wore the cocked hats so reverenced
by Frenchmen generally, and insisted
on, in Paris, when the new police was
established. The new corps wore caps for a
short time; but, we are assured, the people
would pay no respect whatever to the kepis.
The cocked hat is something to reverence,
or, at any rate, to fear.

It was on the eve of the day when we first
intrusted our hand to the awful grasp of the
Sieur Moineau, that a meeting took place at
Romanville, in a little, close bureau, originally
forming one of the door-keeper's residences,
under the archway of the local museum
and college. In this little bureau, were
those long green books; that coarse, brown
tea-paper upon which French underlings
write; that ample pan of sand for letter
drying; that curious inkstand, with a lump
of wool in the ink; that square, red earthen-
ware receptacle in a corner, which proved
that the expectorators who paid their attentions
to it, were not artillery officers; and,
finally, that series of green card-board boxes,
piled to the ceiling, which generally make
up a French bureau of modest pretensions,
The pens, sharp as needles, and the blue-
green ink, should not be forgotten. Everything
looked greasy, of course. First, the
men who were in the bureau, then the stools,
then the broad black space around the door-
handle. A not very acute olfactory nerve
might have gathered from the atmosphere a
distinct odour of garlic.

In this delightful retreat from the turmoil
of the town, the entire body of the Romanville
police was gathered on the eve of that
eventful morning, which gave a shock to the
nerves of the Sieur Moineau, under which he
is labouring at the present moment. The
cocked hats of the six policemen were piled
upon the desk; and the shiny, closely cropped
heads of the men were packed together
pressing around their chief. This chief was
a very serious man indeed; a man, you saw
it at a glance, with a curious story. He
wore the silver star of the legion, for services
performed far away from Romanville. Gossips
said that his present position as chief
of the Romanville constabulary, was given
to him when he was disgraced. But, nobody
knew what his antecedents were. He did
his duty strictly, but not harshly; still,
although a kind, he was not a compassionable
man. You never met him walking in the
streets with a fellow-townsman. His right
arm held behind his back in his left; his
eyes wandering calmly and coldly over the
prospect, he would take his solitary walk
round the ramparts any evening; read the
Constitutionnel afterwards (it was always
reserved for him at the café, on its arrival
from Paris); and retire to rest punctually at
ten o'clock. He was a man reduced to the
unvarying precision of a time-piece. He
walked round the ramparts the same number
of times every evening. It was at eight
o'clock precisely every evening that he opened
the door of the Cafe de la Grande Place, and
ordered invariably a choppe of Strasbourg
beer.

At the meeting of his forces, in his greasy
little bureau, he gave his orders in the calm,
methodical speech we expected to hear from
him. A sergeant of the local gendarmerie,
was also of the meeting; and to him the
chief more particularly addressed himself.
He told him to place a mounted patrol at
every octroi gate around the city, as early as
four o'clock the following morning, and to
prevent every market man or woman, who
carried a pail of any kind, from entering the
town. The patrol would detain all pail-
bearers who might present themselves till he
arrived. These orders were to be
communicated to the mounted patrols, on their
arrival at the scene of action. The policemen
were enjoined to keep the matter secret, on
pain of dismissal.

We left the milkmaids merrily singing and
gossiping on their way to Romanville.

"This is a droll affair," said the gendarme
posted at the octroi gates towards which the
Sieur Moineau's procession was advancing,
addressing a very peppery specimen of the time,
whose bayonet towered over his glazed shako.
"Very droll," replied the little warrior, as
he planted himself firmly in the middle of