Abbé Cognasse now reigned at Jonville, which schoolmaster Jauffre had gradually handed over to him. Jauffre's guiding principle was a very simple one. As Clericalism was sweeping through the region, why should he not allow it to waft him to the headmastership of some important school at Beaumont? Thus, after prompting his wife to make advances to the parish priest, he himself had openly gone over to the Church, ringing the bell, chanting at the offices, taking his pupils to Mass every Sunday. Mayor Martineau, who, following Marc, had been an anti-clerical in former times, was at first upset by the new schoolmaster's doings. But what could he say to a man who was so well off and who explained so plausibly that it was wrong to be against the priests? Thus Martineau was shaken in his ideas and allowed the other to follow his course, till, at last, prompted thereto by the beautiful Madame Martineau, he himself declared to the parish council that it was best to live in agreement with the curé. After that, a year sufficed for Abbé Cognasse to become the absolute master of the parish, his influence no longer being counterbalanced by that of the schoolmaster, who, indeed, willingly walked behind him, confident that he would derive a handsome profit from his submissiveness. Nevertheless, when the idea of consecrating Jonville to the Sacred Heart was propounded, some dismay and resistance arose. Nobody knew whence that idea had come, nobody could have said by whom it had been first mooted. However, Abbé Cognasse, with his eager militant nature, immediately made it his business in the hope of gaining great personal glory should he be the first priest of the region to win an entire parish over to God. He made such a stir, indeed, that Monseigneur Bergerot, in despair at the threat of a new superstition, and grieved by its base idolatry, summoned him to Beaumont, where, however, after a scene which proved, it was rumoured, both terrible and pathetic, the Bishop once again was compelled to give way. But, on two occasions, the parish council of Jonville held tumultuous meetings, several members angrily desiring to know what profit they would all derive from the consecration of the parish to the Sacred Heart. For a moment it seemed as if the affair were condemned and buried. But Jauffre also made a trip to Beaumont, and, though nobody guessed exactly what personage he saw there, he no sooner came back than, in a gentle, insidious manner, he resumed the negotiations with the parish council.