The mind of Bonhomme Gagnon had been poisoned against Jean by his association with Pamphile and Mère Tabeau, and the rest of the neighbours were strangely ready to think ill of him and to believe that he had been justly punished for his pride and presumption. He had wished to set himself upon an eminence far above the neighbours, and had tried to make himself a great lord, a species of pope, in the parish of St. Placide; but the good God, seeing that he held his head so high, had brought him down and humbled him in the dust. His great house was a heap of ashes; his plans were shattered, his prospects ruined; and he who had thought himself the perfection of all the virtues, the sum of all the talents, was finding by bitter experience that he was only a common man. Every man must learn this lesson, sooner or later, that his pride may be broken, his spirit chastened, that he may be able to bear the yoke, to walk side by side with his fellows and to walk humbly before his God. Thus the neighbours, by a strange mixture of piety and hypocrisy, conspired to humble one who had dared to raise his head above them, and deified the envy and malice of their own hearts. Mère Tabeau was at the fire, to see and hear everything; but on this occasion, strange to say, she kept in the background, and had little to say beyond assenting, with nods and knowing looks, to all that was said in disparagement of Jean Baptiste. Before the fire was quite burned out, and before the neighbours had dispersed, she slipped away to her little hut, where she found Pamphile seated before a cracked mirror, carefully trimming, by the light of a candle, the remains of his once flowing mane of glossy black hair. "Eh, my nephew," she cackled. "Eh, Monsieur the millionaire, Monsieur the hero, you have been singed a little, I see. What a pity!" "Yes," drawled Pamphile, "it is a great loss to me. That chevelure was part of my capital, you see--useful in my business, you understand. It was part of the make-up, my dear aunt, like the white tie and the diamond. It was to me what the silk hat is to the advocate, the tonsure to the priest, the biretta to the cardinal, the tiara to the pope. I was in good company, my dear aunt, but now I am shorn of my strength, a common man." "Nom de nom!" ejaculated Mère Tabeau. "You are a devil to talk like that at such a time. You will be joking when you are going to the gallows." "Without doubt, my dear aunt. Life itself is a joke; and death is the best joke of all. The only trouble is to see the point of it, whether it is man, God, or the devil who is fooled. For me, I think it is the devil who is the butt, and I laugh at him. Ha! Ha! Foolish old devil! We make him think that we belong to him, and in the end we die in the odour of sanctity. Ha! Ha! What a joke! You see it, my lovely aunt?" "_Sacre!_" said Mère Tabeau. "_Sacré!_" "If that is all you have to say I think that I will go to bed," drawled Pamphile, with a yawn.