Fortunately for the neighbourhood these four stocks threw out suckers
instead of depending only on their tap-roots; they scattered cuttings
by the expatriation of sons who sought their fortune elsewhere; for
instance, there are Minorets who are cutlers at Melun; Levraults at
Montargis; Massins at Orleans; and Cremieres of some importance in
Paris. Divers are the destinies of these bees from the parent hive.
Rich Massins employ, of course, the poor working Massins--just as
Austria and Prussia take the German princes into their service. It may
happen that a public office is managed by a Minoret millionaire and
guarded by a Minoret sentinel. Full of the same blood and called by
the same name (for sole likeness), these four roots had ceaselessly
woven a human network of which each thread was delicate or strong,
fine or coarse, as the case might be. The same blood was in the head
and in the feet and in the heart, in the working hands, in the weakly
lungs, in the forehead big with genius.
The chiefs of the clan were faithful to the little town, where the
ties of family were relaxed or tightened according to the events which
happened under this curious cognomenism.
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