man and more than one patriot in every commune; but I am fully
persuaded that not every canton can produce a man who to these

valuable qualifications unites the unflagging will and pertinacity
with which a blacksmith hammers out iron.

"The Destroyer and the Builder are two manifestations of Will; the one
prepares the way, and the other accomplishes the work; the first

appears in the guise of a spirit of evil, and the second seems like
the spirit of good. Glory falls to the Destroyer, while the Builder is

forgotten; for evil makes a noise in the world that rouses little
souls to admiration, while good deeds are slow to make themselves

heard. Self-love leads us to prefer the more conspicuous part. If it
should happen that any public work is undertaken without an interested

motive, it will only be by accident, until the day when education has
changed our ways of regarding things in France.

"Yet suppose that this change had come to pass, and that all of us
were public-spirited citizens; in spite of our comfortable lives among

trivialities, should we not be in a fair way to become the most
wearied, wearisome, and unfortunate race of philistines under the sun?

"I am not at the helm of State, the decision of great questions of
this kind is not within my province; but, setting these considerations

aside, there are other difficulties in the way of laying down hard and
fast rules as to government. In the matter of civilization, everything

is relative. Ideas that suit one country admirably are fatal in
another--men's minds are as various as the soils of the globe. If we

have so often been ill governed, it is because a faculty for
government, like taste, is the outcome of a very rare and lofty

attitude of mind. The qualifications for the work are found in a
natural bent of the soul rather than in the possession of scientific

formulae. No one need fear, however, to call himself a statesman, for
his actions and motives cannot be justly estimated; his real judges

are far away, and the results of his deeds are even more remote. We
have a great respect here in France for men of ideas--a keen intellect

exerts a great attraction for us; but ideas are of little value where
a resolute will is the one thing needful. Administration, as a matter

of fact, does not consist in forcing more or less wise methods and
ideas upon the great mass of the nation, but in giving to the ideas,

good or bad, that they already possess a practical turn which will
make them conduce to the general welfare of the State. If old-

established prejudices and customs bring a country into a bad way, the
people will renounce their errors of their own accord. Are not losses

the result of economical errors of every kind? And is it not,
therefore, to every one's interest to rectify them in the long run?

"Luckily I found a tabula rasa in this district. They have followed my
advice, and the land is well cultivated; but there had been no

previous errors in agriculture, and the soil was good to begin with,
so that it has been easy to introduce the five-ply shift, artificial

grasses, and potatoes. My methods did not clash with people's
prejudices. The faultily constructed plowshares in use in some parts

of France were unknown here, the hoe sufficed for the little field
work that they did. Our wheelwright extolled my wheeled plows because

he wished to increase his own business, so I secured an ally in him;
but in this matter, as in all others, I sought to make the good of one

conduce to the good of all.
"Then I turned my attention to another kind of production, that should

increase the welfare rather than the wealth of these poor folk. I have
brought nothing from without into this district; I have simply

encouraged the people to seek beyond its limits for a market for their
produce, a measure that could not but increase their prosperity in a

way that they felt immediately. They had no idea of the fact, but they
themselves were my apostles, and their works preached my doctrines.

Something else must also be borne in mind. We are barely five leagues
from Grenoble. There is plenty of demand in a large city for produce

of all kinds, but not every commune is situated at the gates of a
city. In every similar undertaking the nature, situation, and

resources of the country must be taken into consideration, and a
careful study must be made of the soil, of the people themselves, and

of many other things; and no one should expect to have vines grow in
Normandy. So no tasks can be more various than those of government,

and its general principles must be few in number. The law is uniform,
but not so the land and the minds and customs of those who dwell in

it; and the administration of the law is the art of carrying it out in
such a manner that no injury is done to people's interests. Every

place must be considered separately.
"On the other side of the mountain at the foot of which our deserted

village lies, they find it impossible to use wheeled plows, because
the soil is not deep enough. Now if the mayor of the commune were to

take it into his head to follow in our footsteps, he would be the ruin
of his neighborhood. I advised him to plant vineyards; they had a

capital vintage last year in the little district, and their wine is
exchanged for our corn.

"Then, lastly, it must be remembered that my words carried a certain
weight with the people to whom I preached, and that we were

continually brought into close contact. I cured my peasants'
complaints; an easy task, for a nourishing diet is, as a rule, all

that is needed to restore them to health and strength. Either through
thrift, or through sheer poverty, the country people starve

themselves; any illness among them is caused in this way, and as a
rule they enjoy very fair health.

"When I first decided to devote myself to this life of obscure
renunciation, I was in doubt for a long while whether to become a

cure, a country doctor, or a justice of the peace. It is not without
reason that people speak collectively of the priest, the lawyer, and

the doctor as 'men of the black robe'--so the saying goes. They
represent the three principal elements necessary to the existence of

society--conscience, property, and health. At one time the first, and
at a later period the second, was all-important in the State. Our

predecessors on this earth thought, perhaps not without reason, that
the priest, who prescribed what men should think, ought to be

paramount; so the priest was king, pontiff, and judge in one, for in
those days belief and faith were everything. All this has been changed

in our day; and we must even take our epoch as we find it. But I, for
one, believe that the progress of civilization and the welfare of the

people depend on these three men. They are the three powers who bring
home to the people's minds the ways in which facts, interests, and

principles affect them. They themselves are three great results
produced in the midst of the nation by the operation of events, by the

ownership of property, and by the growth of ideas. Time goes on and
brings changes to pass, property increases or diminishes in men's

hands, all the various readjustments have to be duly regulated, and in
this way principles of social order are established. If civilization

is to spread itself, and production is to be increased, the people
must be made to understand the way in which the interests of the

individual harmonize with national interests which resolve themselves
into facts, interests, and principles. As these three professions are

bound to deal with these issues of human life, it seemed to me that
they must be the most powerful civilizing agencies of our time. They

alone afford to a man of wealth the opportunity of mitigating the fate
of the poor, with whom they daily bring him in contact.

"The peasant is always more willing to listen to the man who lays down
rules for saving him from bodily ills than to the priest who exhorts

him to save his soul. The first speaker can talk of this earth, the
scene of the peasant's labors, while the priest is bound to talk to

him of heaven, with which, unfortunately, the peasant nowadays
concerns himself very little indeed; I say unfortunately, because the

doctrine of a future life is not only a consolation, but a means by
which men may be governed. Is not religion the one power that

sanctions social laws? We have but lately vindicated the existence of
God. In the absence of a religion, the Government was driven to invent

the Terror, in order to carry its laws into effect; but the terror was
the fear of man, and it has passed away.

"When a peasant is ill, when he is forced to lie on his pallet, and
while he is recovering, he cannot help himself, he is forced to listen