"What I mean is plain enough," continued the peasant. "When I have once ruined all the small concerns that competed with me I become a more powerful lord than your ancestors were before the Revolution, Monsieur Antoine! I govern over the head of the laws, and while I have a poor devil locked up for the slightest peccadillo, I take the liberty to do whatever pleases me or suits my convenience. I take everybody's property--with their daughters and wives thrown in, if they take my fancy--I control the business and supplies of a whole department. By my skill I have forced down the price of crops; but, when everything is in my hands, I raise prices to suit myself, and, as soon as I can safely do it, I obtain a monopoly and starve the people. And then it's a small matter to kill off competition; I soon get control of the money, which is the key to everything. I do a banking business on the sly, wholesale and retail. I oblige so many people, that I am everybody's creditor and everybody belongs to me. People find out that they no longer like me; but they see that I am to be feared, and the most powerful handle me carefully, while the small fry tremble and sigh all about me. However, as I have some intelligence and cunning, I play the great man from time to time. I rescue a few families, I contribute to some charitable organization. It is a method of greasing the wheel of my fortune, which rolls on the more rapidly for it; for people begin again to have a little esteem for me. I am no longer considered kind-hearted and foolish, but just and great. From the prefect of the department to the village curé and from the curé to the beggar, everyone is in the hollow of my hand; but the whole province suffers and no one detects the cause. No other fortune than mine will increase, and every modest competence will shrink, because I shall have dried up all the springs of wealth, raised the price of the necessaries of life and lowered that of the superfluities--just the reverse of what should be. The dealer will find himself in trouble and the consumer too. But I shall prosper because I shall be, by virtue of my wealth, the only resource of dealer and consumer alike. And at last people will say, 'What in heaven's name is happening? the small tradesmen are stripped and the small buyers are stripped. We have more pretty houses and more fine clothes staring us in the face than we used to have, and all those things cost less, so they say; but we haven't a sou in our pockets. We have all been frantic to make a show and now we are consumed by debts. But Monsieur Cardonnet isn't responsible for it all, for he does good and, if it weren't for him, we should all be ruined. Let us make haste and do something for Monsieur Cardonnet; let him be mayor, prefect, deputy, minister, king, if possible, and the province is saved!'