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