Under his impulse the "Independant" waged merciless warfare against the reactionaries.

But the current gradually carried him further than he wished to go; he ended by writing inflammatory articles, which made him shudder when he re-perused them.

It was remarked at Plassans that he directed a series of attacks against all whom his father was in the habit of receiving of an evening in his famous yellow drawing-room.

The fact is that the wealth of Roudier and Granoux exasperated Aristide to such a degree as to make him forget all prudence.

Urged on by his jealous, insatiate bitterness, he had already made the middle classes his irreconcilable enemy, when Eugene's arrival and demeanour at Plassans caused him great consternation.