'What would you, M. le Maire?' he said, with a shrug of his shoulders. 'We are made like that. I respect prejudices as you say. My wife is a good woman, she prays for two--but me! How can I tell that Jacques is not right after all? A _grosse pièce_ of a hundred sous, one sees that, one knows what it can do--but for the other!' He thrust up one shoulder to his ear, and turned up the palms of his hands. 'It is our duty at all times to respect the convictions of others,' I said, severely; and passed on to my own house, having no desire to encourage discussions at the street corner. A man in my position is obliged to be always mindful of the example he ought to set. But I had not yet done with this phrase, which had, as I have said, caught my ear and my imagination. My mother was in the great _salle_ of the _rez-de-chausée,_ as I passed, in altercation with a peasant who had just brought us in some loads of wood. There is often, it seems to me, a sort of _refrain_ in conversation, which one catches everywhere as one comes and goes. Figure my astonishment when I heard from the lips of my good mother the same words with which that good-for-nothing Jacques Richard had made the profession of his brutal faith. 'Go!' she cried, in anger; 'you are all the same. Money is your god. _De grosses pièces_, that is all you think of in these days.' '_Eh, bien,_ madame,' said the peasant; 'and if so, what then? Don't you others, gentlemen and ladies, do just the same? What is there in the world but money to think of? If it is a question of marriage, you demand what is the _dot_; if it is a question of office, you ask, Monsieur Untel, is he rich? And it is perfectly just. We know what money can do; but as for _le bon Dieu_, whom our grandmothers used to talk about--' And lo! our _gros paysan_ made exactly the same gesture as Jean Pierre. He put up his shoulders to his ears, and spread out the palms of his hands, as who should say, There is nothing further to be said. Then there occurred a still more remarkable repetition. My mother, as may be supposed, being a very respectable person, and more or less _dévote_, grew red with indignation and horror. 'Oh, these poor grandmothers!' she cried; 'God give them rest! It is enough to make the dead rise out of their graves.' 'Oh, I will answer for _les morts_! they will give nobody any trouble,' he said with a laugh. I went in and reproved the man severely, finding that, as I supposed, he had attempted to cheat my good mother in the price of the wood. Fortunately she had been quite as clever as he was. She went upstairs shaking her head, while I gave the man to understand that no one should speak to her but with the profoundest respect in my house. 'She has her opinions, like all respectable ladies,' I said, 'but under this roof these opinions shall always be sacred.' And, to do him justice, I will add that when it was put to him in this way Gros-Jean was ashamed of himself.