“Ah, if M. le Maire takes the point of view of the highest morals! It is well known that the blessed apostles were but fishermen and labourers,” said the lady; “but we could not now invite a sailor smelling of the sea, or a ploughman fresh from the fields, to eat with us. There are lines of demarcation.” “Madame,” said the Maire, “I have been warned from the police of a person completely _comme il faut_, handsome, young, tall, well brought up, a hero of romance--you would be enchanted with his description,--who has done everything that a man can do of perfidious and wicked--if he should pay us a visit here----” “Ah, monsieur, what a dreadful idea! But perhaps it is evil companions, bad influences--and then, when one is young, everything may be recovered.” “With _le beau sexe_ youth is always the first of virtues,” said the Notaire. “Listen--they are not always young; madame should have seen the journals of England a little time ago--monsieur here could tell us, no doubt. A great company of merchants in London has lately made bankruptcy. Impossible to tell you what ruin they have produced. The great, the small, widows and orphans, poor officers in retreat, little functionaries, priests--what in England they call clergymen--all ruined, without a penny, without bread!” said the Maire, throwing up his hands. “_Mon Dieu!_ even to hear of it makes one suffer. And figure to yourself the chief--he who was first in this _compagnie_, a man rich as the Indies, living _en prince_, and for whom nothing was too good, has taken flight, instead of ending his life with a pistol-shot, as would have been done in France--has taken flight, with enormously of money in his pockets! You have seen it, perhaps, in the journals. Such things happen only in England. _Mon Dieu!_ he has saved himself with the money of others. And one talks of _canaille_!” the Maire concluded, wiping his forehead. He was warm with indignation, feeling the force of his own eloquence.