There were two free places.
"Why! it's you my poor Falcoz," said the traveller who was coming from the Geneva side to the one who was getting in at the same time as Julien.
"I thought you were settled in the outskirts of Lyons," said Falcoz, "in a delicious valley near the Rhone."
"Nicely settled!
I am running away."
"What! you are running away? you Saint Giraud!
Have you, who look so virtuous, committed some crime?" said Falcoz with a smile.
"On my faith it comes to the same thing.
I am running away from the abominable life which one leads in the provinces.
I like the freshness of the woods and the country tranquillity, as you know.
You have often accused me of being romantic.
I don't want to hear politics talked as long as I live, and politics are hounding me out."
"But what party do you belong to?"
"To none and that's what ruins me.
That's all there is to be said about my political life—I like music and painting.
A good book is an event for me.
I am going to be forty-four.
How much longer have I got to live?
Fifteen—twenty—thirty years at the outside.
Well, I want the ministers in thirty years' time to be a little cleverer than those of to-day but quite as honest.
The history of England serves as a mirror for our own future.
There will always be a king who will try to increase his prerogative. The ambition of becoming a deputy, the fame of Mirabeau and the hundreds of thousand francs which he won for himself will always prevent the rich people in the province from going to sleep: they will call that being Liberal and loving the people.
The desire of becoming a peer or a gentleman of the chamber will always win over the ultras.
On the ship of state every one is anxious to take over the steering because it is well paid.
Will there be never a poor little place for the simple passenger?"
"Is it the last elections which are forcing you out of the province?"
"My misfortune goes further back.
Four years ago I was forty and possessed 500,000 francs. I am four years older to-day and probably 50,000 francs to the bad, as I shall lose that sum on the sale of my chateau of Monfleury in a superb position near the Rhone.
"At Paris I was tired of that perpetual comedy which is rendered obligatory by what you call nineteenth-century civilisation.
I thirsted for good nature and simplicity.
I bought an estate in the mountains near the Rhine, there was no more beautiful place under the heavens.
"The village clergyman and the gentry of the locality pay me court for six months; I invite them to dinner; I have left Paris, I tell them, so as to avoid talking politics or hearing politics talked for the rest of my life.
As you know I do not subscribe to any paper, the less letters the postman brought me the happier I was.
"That did not suit the vicar's book. I was soon the victim of a thousand unreasonable requests, annoyances, etc.
I wished to give two or three hundred francs a year to the poor, I was asked to give it to the Paris associations, that of Saint Joseph, that of the Virgin, etc.
I refused. I was then insulted in a hundred ways.
I was foolish enough to be upset by it.
I could not go out in the morning to enjoy the beauty of our mountain without finding some annoyance which distracted me from my reveries and recalled unpleasantly both men and their wickedness.
On the Rogation processions, for instance whose chanting I enjoy (it is probably a Greek melody) they will not bless my fields because, says the clergyman, they belong to an infidel.
A cow dies belonging to a devout old peasant woman.
She says the reason is the neighbourhood of a pond which belongs to my infidel self, a philosopher coming from Paris, and eight days afterwards I find my fish in agonies poisoned by lime. Intrigue in all its forms envelops me.
The justice of the peace, who is an honest man, but frightened of losing his place, always decides against me.
The peace of the country proved a hell for me.
Once they saw that I was abandoned by the vicar, the head of the village congregation, and that I was not supported by the retired captain who was the head of the Liberals they all fell upon me, down to the mason whom I had supported for a year, down to the very wheel-wright who wanted to cheat me with impunity over the repairing of my ploughs.
"In order to find some support, and to win at any rate some of my law suits I became a Liberal, but, as you say, those damned elections come along. They asked me for my vote."
"For an unknown man?"
"Not at all, for a man whom I knew only too well.
I refused. It was terribly imprudent.
From that moment I had the Liberals on my hands as well, and my position became intolerable.
I believe that if the vicar had got it into his head to accuse me of assassinating my servant, there would be twenty witnesses of the two parties who would swear that they had seen me committing the crime."