So, not a little sweat bedewed men's brows between Conches and Ville-
aux-Fayes to Rigou's profit, all being willing to give it; whereas the labor dearly paid for by the general, the only man who did spend money in the district, brought him curses and hatred, which were showered upon him simply because he was rich.How could such facts be understood unless we had previously taken that rapid glance at the Mediocracy.Fourchon was right; the middle classes now held the position of the former lords.The small land-owners, of whom Courtecuisse is a type, were tenants in mortmain of a Tiberius in the valley of the Avonne, just as, in Paris, traders without money are the peasantry of the banking system.
Soudry followed Rigou's example from Soulanges to a distance of fifteen miles beyond Ville-aux-Fayes.These two usurers shared the district between them.
Gaubertin, whose rapacity was in a higher sphere, not only did not compete against that of his associates, but he prevented all other capital in Ville-aux-Fayes from being employed in the same fruitful manner.It is easy to imagine what immense influence this triumvirate --Rigou, Soudry, and Gaubertin--wielded in election periods over electors whose fortunes depended on their good-will.
Hate, intelligence, and means at command, such were the three sides of the terrible triangle which describes the general's closest enemy, the spy ever watching Les Aigues,--a shark having constant dealings with sixty to eighty small land-owners, relations or connections of the peasantry, who feared him as such men always fear their creditor.