"Courtin, let me tell you something," said the young baron. "Tell away, don't be backward, Monsieur Michel." "It is that as you are a mayor you ought to respect the laws." "Laws! I wear them on my heart. Liberty! Public order! Don't you know those words are posted over the door of the mayor's office, Monsieur Michel?" "Well, so much the more reason why I should tell you that what you are doing is not legal, and threatens liberty and public order." "What!" exclaimed Courtin. "Shall the hounds of those she-wolves hunt over my land at a prohibited season, and I not be allowed to put them in the pound?" "They were not disturbing public order, Courtin; they were simply injuring private interests; you have the right to lodge a complaint against them, but not to put them in the pound." "Oh! that's too round-about a way; if hounds are to be allowed to run where they like and we can only lodge complaints against them, then it isn't men who have liberty, but dogs." "Courtin," said the youth, with, a touch of the assumption observable in men who get a smattering of the Code, "you make the mistake that a great many persons make; you confound liberty with independence; independence is the liberty of men who are not free, my friend." "Then what is liberty, Monsieur Michel?" "Liberty, my dear Courtin, is the sacrifice that each man makes of his personal independence for the good of all. It is from the general fund of independence that each man draws his liberty; we are free, Courtin, but not independent." "Oh, as for me," said Courtin, "I don't know anything about all that. I am a mayor and the holder of land; and I have captured the best hounds of the Marquis de Souday's pack, Galon-d'Or and Allégro, and I shall not give them up. Let him come after them, and when he does I shall ask him what he has been doing in certain meetings at Torfou and Montaigu." "What do you mean?" "Oh, I know what I mean." "Yes, but I don't." "There is no reason why you should know; you are not a mayor." "No, but I am an inhabitant of the place and I have an interest in knowing what happens." "As for that, it is easy to see what is happening; these people are conspiring again." "What people?" "Why, the nobles! the--but I'd better hold my tongue, though you are not exactly their style of nobility, you." Michel reddened to the whites of his eyes. "You say the nobles are conspiring, Courtin?" "If not, why do they have these secret meetings at night. If they meet in the daytime, the lazy fellows, to eat and drink, that's all well enough; the law allows it and there's nothing to be said. But when they meet at night it is for no good end, you may be sure. In any case they had better look out; I've got my eye upon them, and I'm the mayor; I may not have the right to put the dogs in the pound, but I have the right to put the men in prison; I know the Code plain enough as to that." "And you say Monsieur de Souday frequents those meetings?"