CHAPTER X.

IN THE AISNE--(_continued_)

Laon--The ruins of Coucy-le-Château--A rural inn in France--The sugar crisis--The birthplace of César de Vendóme--The bell which tolls and is heard by the dying alone--The hanging of boys for killing rabbits--Game laws, French and English--The true story of Enguerrand de Coucy--A little feudal city--The finest donjon in France--An official guardian--A dinner with four councillors-general--'What France really wants is a man'--Agricultural philosophers--How a councillor-general tested chemicals--Peasantry on the highway--A land of gardens--A city set on a hill--Simple good-natured people--A raging Boulangist at Laon--What a barber saw in Tonkin--The diamond belt of King Norodom--Castelin the friend of Boulanger--A revolutionary shoemaker on government by committees--Evils of the Exposition--Foreigners steal the ideas of France--The railways, the new feudal system--They are the real 'enemy' of the people--Extravagance of the ministers--Freemasonry at Laon--How it controls the press--The rise of Deputy Doumer--How he lost his seat in 1889--The author of 'Chez Paddy' at Château Thierry--Over-zeal of the curés--The question of working men's unions--M. Doumer's report on the Law of Associations--He proves that the Republic has done absolutely nothing with this law--'Five years' spent in drawing up a report--'The Republic never existed until 1879'--And nothing done for working men until 1888--M. de Freycinet and M. Carnot only 'studied measures which might be taken;' but were not!--The first practical step taken by M. Doumer by making an enormous report in 1888, recommending things to be done hereafter--The true Republic eluding for ten years questions which the Emperor grappled with in 1867--The voters of Laon in September defeat M. Doumer--A curious little chapter of French politics--M. Doumer's coquetry with General Boulanger--After his defeat M. Doumer becomes secretary of the President of the Chamber and lets the working men's question alone--Politics as a profession in France and the United States--Intense centralisation of power in France makes it easier and more profitable than in America 226-258