It was not yet evening when I came to Lisle, a rather large village near
the Dronne. Here I fell in with a plasterer, and he being a good-tempered
man, with some spare time on his hands, he offered to show me before dinner
the picturesque ruin of an old bridge, known in the district as the Pont
d'Ambon. On our way to the river he talked much, and especially about his
village, in which he took a very lively interest. It had not changed its
principles, he said, for a hundred years.
'And what are its principles?'
'Republican. We don't go to church here, although there is no ill-will
towards the cure.'
'And is all the country about here Republican?'
'Oh no, not at all. There is a village close by that is full of religion.
We are often called savages. When the cure asked the commune to give him
200 francs a year for saying an extra mass on Sundays, the majority of the
inhabitants signed their names to a paper offering him 300 francs a year if
he would say no mass at all.'
I said to myself that the cure of Lisle was not to be envied the piece of
vineyard that he had been sent to look after. I had often heard stories
such as this. Faction fighting provides the chief intellectual stimulus in
many a village and small town of France.
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