Ill-luck decreed that the holder of one of the minor portfolios (either agriculture or commerce) should travel through the department and stop for some hours in the county town. It sufficed for him to deliver a philosophic and moral speech at one assembly to flutter all the assemblies, divide each lodge into two, set brother against brother, and infuriate citizen Mandar, the chemist of the Rue Culture, master of the lodge “New Alliance,” and a radical, against M. Tricoul, vine-grower of Les Tournelles, master of the lodge “Sacred Friendship,” and an opportunist.
Mentally M. Worms-Clavelin made another complaint against the fallen ministry: that of having lavishly distributed academic decorations and given Orders of Merit for agricultural proficiency to radical-socialists only, thus robbing the _préfet_ of the advantage of governing with the aid of these decorations, or at least by means of tardily fulfilled promises of them.
M. _le préfet_ expressed his thoughts accurately as, alone in his study, he murmured these bitter words:
“If they believed they could play at politics by upsetting my loyal lodges and fastening my useful palms to the tail of every drunken dog in the department, they’ll find themselves finely mistaken!”
Thus it was that he heard of the fall of the ministry without any regret.
Besides, these changes that he had foreseen never surprised him. His administrative policy was always founded on the assumption that minister succeeds minister. He made a point of never serving a Home Secretary with ardent zeal. He refrained from being over-pleasing to any one, and shunned all opportunities of doing too well. This moderation, kept up during the continuance of one ministry, assured him the sympathy of the next one, thus sufficiently predisposed in his favour to acquiesce in its turn in the half-hearted zeal, which became a claim to the favour of a third cabinet. M. _le préfet_ Worms-Clavelin reigned without ruling, corresponded briefly with the Place Beauvau,[G] manœuvred the boards, and stayed in office.
[G] Where the French Home Office is situated.
In his study, through the half-open windows of which came the scent of flowering lilacs and the twittering of sparrows, he was meditating, in a gentle and peaceful mood, on the lingering extinction of the scandals which on two occasions had gone near to ruining the leaders of the party. He looked forward to the day, still far distant, on which it would again be possible to resume activity. He reflected that, in spite of passing difficulties, and notwithstanding the discord unluckily communicated to the masonic lodges and the electoral committees, he would have capital municipal elections. The mayors in this agricultural district were excellent. The spirit of the populace was so loyal that the two deputies, who, being compromised in several financial transactions, were threatened with legal proceedings, had yet retained all their influence in their districts. He said to himself that the _scrutin de liste_[H] would never have produced such favourable results. In his exaltation of mind thoughts that were almost philosophic came to the surface of his mind as to the ease with which men can be governed. He had a confused vision of this human beast allowing itself to be led, and straggling along in tireless gloomy tractableness beneath the eye of the shepherding dog.