I was at Levéville, staying at the château of my dear and excellent friend, Auguste Barthélemy, one of those inheritors of an income of thirty thousand francs, who would have created a revolution in society in 1852, if society had not in 1851 been miraculously saved by the _coup d'état_ of 2 December 1851, when news was brought to us that the village of Lèves was in a state of open revolution. This village stands like an outpost on the road from Chartres to Paris and to Dreux; so much for its topography. Now, it had the reputation of being one of the most peaceful villages in the whole of the Chartrian countryside, so much for its morality. What unforeseen event could therefore have upset the village of Lèves? This was what had happened-- Lèves possessed that rare article, a curé it adored! He was a fine and estimable priest of about forty years of age, a _bon vivant_, giving men handshakes that made them yell with pain; chucking maidens under their chins till they blushed again; on Sundays being present at the dances with his cassock tucked up into his girdle; which permitted of the display, like Mademoiselle Duchesnois in Alzire, of a well-turned sturdy leg; urging his parishioners to shake off the cares of the week, to the sound of the violin and clarionet; pledging a health with the deepest of the drinkers, and playing piquet with great proficiency. He was called Abbé Ledru, a fine name which, like those of the first kings of France, seemed to be derived both from his physical and mental qualities. All these qualities (to which should be added the absence of the orthodox niece) were extremely congenial to the natives of Lèves, but were not so fortunate as to be properly appreciated by the Bishop of Chartres, M. Clausel de Montais. True, the absence of a niece, which the Abbé Ledru viewed in the light of an advantage, could prove absolutely nothing, or, rather, it proved this--that the Abbé Ledru had never regarded the tithes as seriously abolished, and, consequently, exacted toll with all the goodwill in the world from his parishioners, or, to speak more accurately, from his female parishioners. M. Clausel de Montais was then, as he is still, one of the strictest prelates among the French clergy; only, now he is twenty years older than he was then, which fact has not tended to soften his rigidness. When Monseigneur de Montais heard rumours, whether true or false, he immediately recalled the Abbé Ledru without asking the opinion of the inhabitants of Lèves, or warning a soul. If a thunderbolt had fallen upon the village of Lèves out of a cloudless sky it could not have produced a more unlooked-for sensation. The husbands cried at the top of their voices that they would keep their curé, the wives cried out even louder than their husbands and the daughters exclaimed loudest of all. The inhabitants of Lèves rose up together and gathered in front of their bereft church; they counted up their numbers, men, women and