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Updated: May 14, 2025
That made one mouth less at home; but poor Angele was dying of hunger, and her husband was at last compelled to seek a situation. He secured one at the Sub-Prefecture. He remained there nearly ten years, and only attained a salary of eighteen hundred francs per annum.
To the inhabitants of Sairmeuse and its environs, "the city" meant the country town of the arrondissement, Montaignac, a charming sub-prefecture of eight thousand souls, about four leagues distant. "And was it at Montaignac that you bought the horse you were riding just now?" "I did not buy it; it was loaned to me." This was such a strange assertion that his listeners could not repress a smile.
He recalled their walks, the three of them together, along the banks of the Seine, their luncheon on the grass on Sundays, for Sandres was employed at the sub-prefecture. And all at once the distinct recollection came to him of an afternoon spent with her in a little wood on the banks of the river. They had set out in the morning, carrying their provisions in baskets.
He wanted a little piece, only one piece! A sub-prefecture of the third class! He had already been informed at the Élysée that Granet was to be his successor. Parbleu! he expected it! But the realization of his fears annoyed him. And who would Granet keep for his Secretary of State? Warcolier, yes Warcolier, with the promise of giving him the first vacant portfolio.
However, the conservative householders of the new town got wind of the little ceremony, and all came down to the square before the Sub-Prefecture in order to see how the tree of Liberty would fall. The frequenters of the yellow drawing-room stationed themselves at the windows there.
Aristide was in the habit of listening at the doors of the Sub-Prefecture, in order to get precise information, for he felt that he was groping in the dark, and clung to the intelligence which he gleaned from the officials. The sub-prefect's opinion struck him forcibly; but he remained perplexed.
Only a fraction of the people a thousand workmen at most, out of the ten thousand souls in the town still saluted the tree of liberty planted in the middle of the square in front of the Sub-Prefecture. The shrewdest politicians of Plassans, those who led the reactionary movement, did not scent the approach of the Empire until very much later.
The last enthusiastic bourgeois saw the Republic tottering, and hastened to rally round the Conservatives. Thus the Rougons' hour had arrived; the new town almost gave them an ovation on the day when the tree of Liberty, planted on the square before the Sub-Prefecture, was sawed down.
This "Monsieur Eugène" had already petitioned for a prefecture, or a sub-prefecture, or it mattered little whatever place the minister might choose to give him. His claims? None: he was an office-seeker. The minister was already overwhelmed by this vulgar procession of petitioners and intermediaries, when an usher brought him a card bearing this name: Lucien Granet.
It is as difficult for towns and cities as it is for commercial houses to recover from ruin. Nothing is left to us of the old Provins but the fragrance of our historical glory and that of our roses, and a sub-prefecture!" "Ah! what mightn't France be if she had only preserved her feudal capitals!" said Desfondrilles.
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