His figures are as a rule set in fitting urban landscapes, every whit as truthful as the personages they frame. Look at the drawing among those classed _Les Officiels_, entitled _Midday Mass is far the most aristocratic_--wherein a procession of regular church-goers debouches out of a picturesque, half-hearted, somnolent High Street into the blazing sunlight of the “Grande Place.” The local member and his wife, the lawyer, and all the other pious scandalmongers of the town are going to make their daily penitence. We can see these good folk, we can feel the sunshine, and we can even hear the clangour of the bells in the church tower. Then look in another sketch at the two editors of _The Revenge_. Were ever such _chauvinistes_, such firebrands? Getting on in years--true; but as dangerous as not yet extinct volcanoes, they reek of pistols for two and coffee for one. A drawing labelled _The Express conveying the President will pass at five o’clock_, is most amusing. There, on the little railway platform, is gathered all the official rank and society of Tilliere-Sur-Ruron. Inflated, yet nervous, they fidget about, awaiting impatiently the proudest moment of their lives. We know them all; the mayor with his address is there, surrounded by his satellites of the Municipal Council, all arrayed in heirloom dress suits, members of the Gymnastic Society are there--some lithe, some burly--then there are _ces braves pompiers_, and the stern gendarmes; and behind them, dressed in their best, but shut out from view and from seeing, are the townspeople in their thousands. No matter, they are about to receive a main topic of conversation for many a weary year to come. Then there are the poor, dear, terrible old ladies, to whom Huard introduces us under the heading “Les Vieilles Dames,”--thin-lipped, moustachioed, bigoted, deadly-dull personages are they, most of them; but they do not think so. They are contented, and are even conceited, as to the figure they cut, despite their shocking clothes; for is not each of them so much more Parisian in appearance and manners than “Madame Chose”--round the corner, and just out of hearing. Here and there, however, we are presented to some real dignity, the dignity which pertains to old parchment. For example there are the portraits of _the Mlles. Petanville de Grandcourt, in whom will expire the most purple blood of the country_. Under _Soirs de Province_ we are shown with quaint humour the nocturnal dissipations of a provincial town. Two troopers, one as drunk as the other, are zig-zagging an erratic coursee home to barracks. One says to the other: “Vidalène--you hurt me to the quick ... you won’t wait for me because you think I’m drunk ... you are ashamed of me!” Again, the musical genius of the place has brought his violin to an at-home, and says: “What I prefer in music is imitations. Listen, I’ll give you first ‘Mother-in-Law in hysterics,’ and then ‘The Nightingale.’”