Besides, exaggerated reports were spread respecting Jauffre's fortune, in such wise that all the peasants took off their hats to him, he completing his conquest of them by his greed for gain, his wonderful skill in extracting as much profit as possible from everybody and everything. He was not troubled with any sincere belief; if he were a Republican, a good patriot, and a good Catholic, it was only so far as his interests required. Thus, although he called upon Abbé Cognasse as soon as he was appointed to Jonville, he did not immediately hand the school over to him, for he detected the anti-clerical spirit then prevalent in the village. But he gradually allowed the priest to become all-powerful by intentional relinquishment of his own privileges, and by covert resistance to the express desires of the Mayor and the parish council. Mayor Martineau, so strong and firm when he had leant on Marc, became quite lost on having to contend single-handed against the new schoolmaster, who soon became the real ruler of the parish, and ended by relinquishing his authority to Abbé Cognasse in such wise that, at the expiration of six months, Jonville was in the priest's hands. Jauffre's line of conduct interested Marc particularly, because it was a masterpiece of Jesuitry. He obtained precise information about it from the schoolmistress, Mademoiselle Mazeline, on whom he called. She was sincerely grieved at being unable to effect anything useful now that she remained alone in a parish where all was rotting. She told Marc, of the comedy played by Jauffre in the earlier days when Mayor Martineau complained of one or another encroachment on the part of the priest, which the schoolmaster himself had stealthily provoked. The latter pretended to be as indignant as the Mayor, and accused his wife, Madame Jauffre, who was very devout, of assisting Abbé Cognasse. As it happened, the husband and the wife were in full agreement, and had devised this plan in order to escape responsibility. And so Martineau was speedily vanquished, particularly as his coquettish wife became the great friend of Madame Jauffre, who, on the strength of her dower, affected the manners of a born lady. Before long Jauffre began to ring the bell for Mass, a duty which Marc had always refused to discharge. It brought in only thirty francs a year, but then, in Jauffre's opinion, thirty francs were not to be sneezed at. At Marc's instigation the money had been devoted for a time to the repair of the old church clock, and now the latter, being neglected as in former days, got out of order once more, in such wise that the peasants never again knew the correct time, for the clock went by fits and starts, being one day too fast and another too slow. As Mademoiselle Mazeline remarked, with a sad smile, that clock was the image of the parish, where nothing was now done in accordance with sense and logic.