Page:The Works of Honoré de Balzac Volume 29.djvu/45

Rh that makes a citadel of every field. There are neither roads nor canals, and the temper of an ignorant population must be taken into account, a population given over to prejudices that cause dangers to which this story will bear witness, a population that will none of our modern methods of agriculture.

The picturesque nature of the country and the superstitions of its inhabitants both preclude the aggregation of individuals and the consequent benefits that might be gained from a comparison and exchange of ideas. There are no villages. Frail structures, cabins, as they call them, are scattered abroad over the countryside, and every family there lives as if in a desert. At the only times when the people are brought together, the meeting is a brief one, and takes place on Sundays, or on one of the religious festivals observed by the parish. These unsociable gatherings only last for a few hours, and are always presided over by the recteur, the only master that their dull minds recognize. The peasant hears the awe-inspiring voice of the priest, and returns to his unwholesome dwelling for the week; he goes out to work and goes home again to sleep. If any one goes near him, it is that same rector, who is the soul of the countryside. It was at the bidding of the priest, too, that so many thousands of men flung themselves upon the Republic, when these very Breton districts furnished large bodies of men for the first Chouan organization, five years before this story begins.

In those days several brothers, daring smugglers, named Cottereau, who gave their name to the war, had plied their dangerous trade between Laval and Fougères. But there was nothing noble about these rural outbreaks; for if La Vendée had elevated brigandage into warfare, Brittany had degraded war into brigandage. The proscription of the princes and the overthrow of religion were, to the Chouans, simply pretexts for plundering excursions, and all the events of that internecine warfare were colored by something of the savage ferocity peculiar to the disposition of the race. When