Book 2, Chapter 8 : “ Monseigneur in the Country”

1. Book 2, Chapter 8: “Monseigneurin the Country” Title meaning:The Monseigneur’s carriage travels through the countryside.

2. Plot Summary: • Monseigneur, whose full name is Monsieur the Marquis, is riding through the countryside in his traveling carriage. The village he is passing through is obviously poor; there are few children, no dogs, and very little food. • As he approaches the gate of a house, he sees many miserable-looking peasants gathered around, staring at him. Another peasant, a mender of roads, joins the group, and Monsieur beckons to the man to approach. • He asks if he passed the man on the road, and the man replies that he did. Monsieur asks the man why he stared at him so intently, and the man replies that he was staring at "the man." • Monsieur asks him what man, and the man says that there was a man who was hanging on to the bottom of Monsieur's carriage, as if he were trying to rob it. Monsieur calls the man an idiot and demands to know exactly what he is talking about. The man says he does not know who the man was, but that he was tall and extremely pale and was hanging off the side of the carriage. • Monsieur chastises the man for not telling him then that he saw a thief trying to rob his carriage. He asks the man if the thief ran away, and the man replies that the thief threw himself head-first over the hillside. • carriage continues on, eventually stopping at a large chateau. When he arrives in the house, he asks someone there if Monsieur Charles, who he is expecting from England, has arrived. The person replies that he has not.

3. Literary Devices: Anaphora: A word or phrase is repeated to express an idea, in this case, the extreme poverty of the countryside: “The village had its one poor street, with its poor brewery, poor tannery, poor tavern, poor stable-yard for relays of post-horses, poor fountain, all usual poor appointments. It had its poor people too” (114). Allusion: The Furies are avenging goddesses in Classical mythology, usually represented with “snakes twined in their hair, sent from Tartarus to avenge wrong and punish crime”:“Heralded... by the cracking of his postilions’ whips, which twined snake-like about their heads in the evening air, as if he came attended by the Furies, Monsieur the Marquis drew up in his travelling carriage” (115). Imagery: Creates a scene using all five senses :“The sweet scents of the summer night rose all around him, and rose, as the rain falls, impartially, on the dusty, ragged, and toil-worn group at the fountain not far away; to whom the mender of roads, with the aid of the blue cap without which he was nothing, still enlarged upon his man like a spectre, as long as they could bear it. By degrees, as they could bear no more, they dropped off one by one, and lights twinkled in little casements; which lights, as the casements darkened, and more stars came out, seemed to have shot up into the sky instead of having been extinguished” (118).

4. Essential Quote “Expressive sips of what made them poor, were not wanting; the tax for the state, the tax for the church, the tax for the lord, tax local and tax general, were to be paid here and to be paid there, according to solemn inscription in the little village, until the wonder was, that there was any village left unswallowed” (114). Hear this chapter read aloud.