republique-5 5

Since Clementine has finished her speech, Pifon takes the floor:
-- We proceed to the vote. It will perhaps be a secret ballot? Who is for the secret ballot?
Well over a third of hands rise, Pifon find this voting system more comfortable. Ballot papers have been prepared in sufficient quantity for a year of deliberations, it seems. The beret, who knows the music now, makes his usual round of the table. Anquetot and Mathurin abstain but their eyes are very expressive. And small papers, conscientiously folded, land on the table:
-- Yes ... Yes ... No ... one white ...
Ah! Almost every one is surprised: from which is this side?
-- Yes ... No ... Yes ... No ... Yes ... No ... No ... Yes ... and, ah! It's too folded ... Well, that's it.
There are only six yes. May this one be the seventh:
-- No!
Ouch! Six yes, and six no. But equality in a secret ballot will lead to the rejection of the proposal. By the way, if the balloting was not secret, as Pifon certainly voted against it would have changed nothing! But it is a disaster! Has someone mistaken?

To hear this twenty-four hours after the reversal of the expert, you must have strong nerves! In the meantime, the opposition is strong ! Pifon, Mathurin and Anquetot triumph.
-- Excuse me, I hear the collector's happening. I come back right away.
The collector enters the room, followed by Pifon. He welcomes the Assembly.
-- Please, sit here.
The collector begins his presentation by the Mayor's Administrative and Budget.
The presentation ends, Pifon requests:
-- No questions? Do we proceed to the vote?
-- Excuse me sir, Christophe Potteur says. I did not notice any sum to finance the criminal proceedings. Can you tell me in what position it has been subsumed?
-- It has been withdrawn! Pifon interrupts.
Marion would never have thought to hear such a thing one day:
-- So! It's really dishonest, Lucien. You wanted us to vote thinking that we voted for the budget that you had promised to criminal procedure and you have withdrawn it without telling us. It is shocking! You are unworthy of confidence!
Pifon wants her to stop, but as for his brother Marcel, honour and him, make two! And if it could make three ...
Marion and all the team are helpless!

-- Good! Nothing else? We proceed to the vote? Pifon interviews.
The voting operations take place and the result falls: five for, five against, five abstentions.
-- What do we do? Pifon request in turning to the collector.
The latter, since his presentation is finished, is silent. Pifon continues.
This is the new secretary of the city council, introduced at the request of Clementine, which provides the solution:
-- There is no right to vote no on the budget.
Jean-Sébastien would like to have a reference to the texts but he doest not get them: we have to vote again, that's all. Mathurin, for his part, noted that even if the budget makes no provision for criminal proceedings, there is still a sum to finance expertise. And he would like this sum too to be erased! He turns to Anquetot:
-- We vote against?
Anquetot has very well understood that removing the budget for criminal proceedings was already a case of gold:
-- But no, we vote for.
-- Ah! good, good ...
The second vote gives the majority to the budget, which is therefore declared accepted.
The collector is gone.
"The meeting is over."

Not sure of what the law says, Pierre Dutoit will investigate this point. At the next meeting, he will point out that abstention is quite possible to vote on the budget. The result was therefore well: five for, five against and five abstentions and equality by secret ballot always rejects the proposal!
Clementine rushes to add:
-- And I'll drain at the door before people leave.
Then, the small casserole of potatoes for the poor at the hand, she waits until the last leaves the corridor and the hall  and then she closes the light and the door.
The meeting is over but this budget, which in reality was rejected, it is the one on which the town will live for a year! Critics of Dutoit, postponed at the bottom of the minutes, with signatures, will lead the council secretary to stop once and for all attending the counsel meeting. Life is too sad if we can not say all that crosses one’s mind!

The advisers are in the square in front of the town hall. Both groups say vaguely bye to each other, by far! It is no more the noisy "see you next time" which Christophe and his team had undergone right on the night of the election of the second Pifon as mayor! Jean-Sébastien invited his colleagues to come take something home: they need to talk! They go on foot: this is all about, where Jean-Sébastien lives and there is no great place to park next door to him. And then, it will make them good to take a little air!
The wife of Jean-Sébastien had suggested her husband to invite his colleagues after the meeting: she is interested in the affairs of Basseville and has sympathy for their action. She prepared the lounge table, there are cupcakes and drinks. Madam Billards welcomes the small cast: when Jean-Sébastien announces that the complaint is not passed and that there is no budget for criminal proceedings, she understands that the battle will be tough!
-- Sorry?
But this is not yet the time to talk about it!
Jean-Sébastien and his wife bring everyone in the room:
-- Sit as you want! There is no protocol!

Michel Deval immediately takes the floor:
-- It is me who voted blank. I knew Marion was reluctant to abstain, and then, in speaking with her, just before the meeting, I understood that she would vote for. So, I abstained.
-- But why! Finally, you do what you want with your voice ...
-- Yes, I can say why. I thought if we had voted for the complaint, we put ourselves at risk. Boutel, Anquetot, Mathurin and the band are supported by the prefecture, and judges would not render a verdict which the prefecture would disagree. They may do all they want. They could kill, they would not be convicted. We, on the other hand, we denounce serious things that the prefecture has accepted and probably more or less organized.
-- Ah! yes, yes, that's for sure that the prefecture is in the coup.
Michel Deval resumes:
-- Then you can be sure that if we had voted the complaint, we would have been prosecuted: for defamation! And I know what I say! I have heard stories where it happened like that! I wanted to protect us!
Abstention by Michel takes a completely different meaning, but his colleagues do not believe a word of the risks he describes: to be sentenced for defamation when it denounces crimes real! Only in totalitarian country may things happen like this!

The following, one year and a half later, will show how Michel was sagacious this evening, but for the time being, they had the explanation they wanted. Dutoit then steers the conversation on the budget:
-- The way the secretary treated abstention for the vote on the budget is not normal at all ! She has pulled a fast one on us, this ass! Where did she read that we had not the right to abstain on the budget! She did not even open the code of local communities.
-- By the way, it should always be on the table during council meetings and it is never!
-- That's true!
-- I'm going to find out the truth : in my opinion, the first vote is valid and the budget is rejected.
-- "Flippin' eck !"!
-- And there is one other thing that bugged me during the meeting: Anquetot and Mathurin took part in the vote on the budget. But in this budget, there was a question which concerned the procedures funding. So, in my opinion, either we voted item by item and we were the majority on the procedures financing because it concerns the multipurpose room, or we voted all the budget in one time, as we did, and Anquetot and Mathurin abstained.

The explanations of Dutoit seem to convince his colleagues and Mrs. Billard.
-- But then, Basseville has no legal budget!
Christophe adds:
-- And the hall is good to demolish! Bloody mess!
The situation seems to escape them! What a havoc! But they appreciate the turn taken by events: they did nothing illegal, they are defending their city and seek the truth. So!
So they are falling back on the small cakes and their glasses.
Christophe pulls his socks up:
-- No, but we will not accept to be treated like that by criminals, although the prefecture is wet up to the neck in their shenanigans. I made duplicates of the doc which I made up my bills! So I file the prosecution. I can not go there tomorrow or the day after, but this thing here will not survive the weekend with me. That, surely not! All those who want can come with me: this is a group work we do!

Philippe answers the first:
-- Oh! Friday, surely I can not go there. I have the funeral of an uncle that day!
-- You have lost an uncle?
-- Yes, yesterday, the husband of my aunt Martine, the sister of Luc, my father. I do not know very much, but he was rather nice when he was sober! He was a fisherman.
-- And what did he die of ?
-- A booze-up!
-- Ah! You can die of this?
-- Yes, of course! My aunt found him on the floor, outside, the place where he usually slept it off. She shacked him a bit to wake him up but he gave her the brush-off, saying: "Tee mother, walk away cook your duck! "It was always what he said.
-- And it means?
-- "Mind your own business." So she left him and he seems to have made a delirium, it is not clear. He was taken to hospital but it was too late. So we leave on Friday morning and will surely be back after eleven o'clock in the evening. Otherwise, I would go with you.
-- Good! We will think of you.
Very late that night, everyone returns home, the mind occupied to think of the latest developments.



Republic-5, Chapter 6

Yesterday, Christophe typed a letter explaining the situation with the contacts of the multi-purpose hall. He dated it from March the 29th, 1996, ie today, and attaches it to the file he had already prepared. Finally, accompanied by Marion Dulac, Pierre Dutoit, Auvert Denis and Jean-Sébastien Billard he reaches the criminal court to file the case of public multi-purpose hall of Basseville-on-Earth.
Walking to the courthouse, they are considering the possibility that it is closed.
-- If it is closed, I throw this thing in the first trash that I find in the street. This one seems quite correct!
For Christophe, things are clear:
-- This crate will not come back with me. Never!
Soon, they find that the courthouse is open. They enter, follow the arrows, climb the stairs. The prosecutor is absent: he prepares the "Open House Day" of justice. They therefore leave the small corrugated cardboard box with all its contents to his secretary.
Lighter, Christophe leaves the court. The four others are relieved, too. There is no complaint but the case is not necessarily buried. The result no longer depends on them.

Throughout the month of April, Christophe was unable to think even only five minutes to the case of the hall: he could not bear it! But in early May, he realizes that nothing has been done so far to respond to the changing talk of Grease which, obviously, since the second meeting, spoke against his conviction, the latter being stated at the first investigation meeting: “the hall can not be repaired because the design is bad”.
So Christophe made efforts: he is indeed the head of the Commission of the hall! He had no choice, he had to take up the challenge of controlling the turn the expertise took. He first tried to think thirty seconds here and there to the different elements that he should include: there is the first report, the pre-report rather, of from the insurance expert, then there is also the final report, whoever speaks of small bracing keying problems for the framed structure, and then there is such letter of Aérotoit he saw in the secretariat of the city hall, and then another, and the notes of the expert with their contradictions. And then what everyone saw in the hall: these cataracts which pours from twelve metres high, sometimes for tiny showers. He will put everything in order and shape his work to show Mr Haro we must not drop out: the last time he had not the time, we could not speak with him as we hoped we could after the meeting.

Now, in early May, Christophe begins to mentally prepare what must be said but writes nothing : it is too hard. A week after, it is good. He starts writing and the different chapters come without any difficulty! He includes documents for the annex to his note: Mr Haro had doubtless little time to browse the file that he will send him, he uses sheets of different colours for the first report, the second, the notes' s expert.
He insists on the many attempts that were made by Aérotoit and others to stop the rain leakage that afflict the roof of the hall and all of which are still unsuccessful.
On receipt of the work of Christophe, Mr Haro requires Grease, in a note of May the 30th, 1996 to the administrative court, to review the framed structure and the structure of the hall he has so clearly pointed out before he retracted. The tone of the letter does not bear contradiction and the arguments are strong: the old Grease tilts but does not at all appreciate being spoken to like this! On the other hand, in his heart of hearts
he feels surely wrongdoing with the procedure: he would like to find a way out of this situation without overturning his talks but also without proposing these works he knows will solve nothing! Ah! why did he agree to say that the standards and DTU had been met while at the first meeting he had concluded after half an hour, without being contradicted by the architect or anyone else, that the design of the hall was bad and it was impossible to ensure the tightness of this type of work!

Grease has resumed contact with Christophe: since the frame is made of glue-laminated timber, he asked a consulting firm specializing in wooden frames to make an expertise of the hall carpentry. Christophe notes that there was no question about verifying the structure, these side cladding on wooden skeleton that swell like a sail when the wind is strong, what is common here! Grease begins with the frame, he will undoubtedly check the structure later, even if logic we would have claimed to proceed in reverse order! Let’s begin with the frame: the expert would need the DOE, the Record of the Works Executed in seven copies. "DOE" Christophe has not yet heard that expression.
He saw the Book of Special Technical Stipulations, CCTP, which is frequently discussed during the meetings, he saw a lot of other documents relating to the construction of the hall but not yet the DOE. At the city hall, he sought and found: it is a big extensible binder which closes with a cotton strap and which is full of plans and other documents inside. Before duplicating it all seven times, Christophe calls Grease back:
-- Yes, I need all seven times to communicate to the parties concerned!
A few days later, it's done.
-- The money could have been used to something else! the secretary of the council will mutter.
Christophe now focuses on the faults of the multipurpose hall and hence on expert investigation decided by the administrative court. He no longer thinks of the criminal file, which he handed to prosecutor and which he has got free of.

When he receives a phone call in early July, he reminds everything. It is a judicial policeman.
-- Ah!
Him and a colleague want to take a first contact to assess the human environment of the case.
-- Very good. And when do you want to come?
-- Wednesday, if it suits you.
-- Very good. If you agree, I would like to propose my colleagues of the Commission of the hall that are interested to join me?
-- Very well.
-- Thanks, I do so.
-- Bye, to Wednesday.
-- Yes, see you Wednesday, goodbye.
Wednesday, Marion Michel and Jean-Sébastien join at Christophe’s. The weather is fine, it is in mid-July and the great drought of 76, twenty years ago, has not repeated.
It is the holidays, everything goes well and then the prosecution file, this is not really their business. But if there is a way to jam all these schemers, we will not miss the opportunity.
A small white car enters the courtyard. Two men alight. Christophe leaves the house and goes to them. He makes them come in and invites them to sit. The conversation undertakes. Police ask questions, the councillors answer. But sometimes the questions come from the council members sometimes ask on the procedure, sometimes on other aspects that may escape to these non-lawyers! A relationship of trust has apparently established with councillors, police ask them:

-- And Mr. Dutoit, it is surprising that a man like him denounced nothing, he is at home in the prefecture! In the investigation against his dairy enterprise, we have already charged him for abuse of power but this is nothing. We know that there is abuse of corporate assets and we must charge him for that!
In the end, the police have one last question:
-- But what are your motivations for the criminal act on irregularities in public procurement?
So, like a choir, the four meet:
-- We want that Boutel, Mathurin, Anquetot and their band get ineligible! We no longer accept to see them drag the council or deal with communal affairs!
The police obviously did not expect something like this, they launch gales of laughter:
-- But you can not say that!
Ah! good. And what can we say, then? But the councillors keep their question for them ...

July ends, August too, September is half: as all facilities that may endanger public safety, and God knows if it is the case, the "work of solidarity with the people suffering in Africa" should undergo its annual technical inspection. The events turn sour with that investigation looming on the irregularities in the government contract, the council has more than ever wished to renew its confidence in the Cabinet "Mathurin Security Consultants' and, for the third consecutive year, entrusted them with the technical control mission. The artist is not City Councillor of Basseville-on-Earth, everyone can vote, said Pifon: we will not let that fuss of interference bore us, and the majority on this subject is Majority!
Today, September the 15th, 1996, an employee sent to carry out a technical survey notes that the revision of the opening mechanism has been made, as requested in the previous report: the relevant parts have been greased, the mechanism works smoothly, without the slightest noise. Mr Mathurin delivers a new report without any particular request because on the side of electronics, everything works, including the lawnmower on-board electronics. If the road-mender fell into the work, but there is still no precedent for this type of accident in France, the second Pifon should not have trouble.

The day after the technical inspection of the work, another meeting of expertise must be held: many things work out , in comparison with the end of March.
Stress has changed sides and Anquetot, Boutel, Mathurin and a few others have adopted a low profile, it seems. The police will begin its investigation into irregularities in the public contract and the expert checked the framed structure and then without doubt he will do the same with the structure.
Since they were elected, Christophe and his colleagues of the Commission of the hall have held numerous meetings. There were also meetings of all members of the opposition. After having met phases of discouragement, they say their efforts have not been useless!
Grease announced for today at fourteen o’clock the meeting during which the results of the audit of the frame must be disclosed but ha gave no information on these results! So Christophe began to worry:
-- And if the structure were good? And if I had all this work done for nothing? The secretary will not fail to note this, nor the others!

The holidays are over, everyone has resumed work. The ritual they had just forgotten takes place one more time: those members of the Commission of the hall who were able to free themselves arrive as they can ..
Sitting in his car, the old Grease reads. He is always the first, he waits until the correct time to enter. The lawyer for the town has not been replaced by his partner as he thought he might be obliged to do and small groups arrive, company by company, as delegations to the Olympics Games on the opening day. The next is the architect and his lawyer, and then Pifon, which fears to be dumped.
Everyone is seated. After participants sign on the attendance sheet, and after some preliminary thoughts, Grease gives the floor to the engineer expert in wooden frames. He describes his work, says that everything has been done on documents but that, as he did not come on the spot before today, he add in principle a few reservations about his conclusions. And in saying this, he looks up to this frame on which he previously had a relatively abstract idea. And he shakes his head. Then he reviews all the points he has studied, starting with the most insignificant: everything is fine. Except for Christophe, who was apprehensive to hear that! Then, the engineer addresses the case of slightly larger pieces: here, there are some problems, relatively simple to adjust or without major consequences. Christophe said that it would be enough for him and it would have been a shame not to do this audit. But when he goes to large trusses, these arch beams that span the room lengthwise : it is edifying because instead of making ninety centimetres on sixty, they do less than seventy on fifty.
The expert comments then:

-- The company that made the framed structure was known to work too tight and what should happen has happened: after several problems of this kind on different sites, it has closed!
Christophe wonders if heard correctly: the expert was ready to repair the cover on the same principle, replacing the plates and putting the waterproof gaskets and now the roof structure is insufficient! The engineer also specifies that, even after reinforcement, it will not bear any overload ... The expert explains that this prohibited, for example, using bitumen to replace steel plates ...
Who dares to say that the expertise had no other purpose than to settle accounts between current and former councils?


Just twenty-four hours after the new expertise meeting, the council is meeting, among other things, to hear the result of verifying the frame : even if not on the agenda, it is still made account in the council meetings of important information concerning the judicial expertise. Today, September the 17th, 1996 the public is scare, perhaps because of the smallness of the area reserved for them, unless supporters of Boutel, Mathurin and Anquetot have found that there would be tactlessness to come and listen!
-- Well, all councillors are present, I declare the meeting open.
Clementine Fachaud asked for the floor:
-- But yes, Clementine.
-- And that’s it… As it has been voted, I have brought food to cook for the poor, this time it's chick-peas. I will bring it to a family in need after the meeting.
Clementine stands up, approaches the sink, near the door, takes the casserole out of his perennial supermarket bag. she takes a little salt, probably not enough, throws it in the casserole that she fills with water in which she plunges the chick-peas. She then places the casserole on the round, she ignites, causing a "bang" that makes her two steps back. The work completed under the eyes of a public limited in number but nonetheless amazed by so much goodness, she regains her place. Jean-Sébastien jumps up. He fulminate against the ridicule of the situation.
Clementine ignores him with arrogance and concludes:
-- That's it, Lucien, I thank you, it's up to you.

-- Good! The quorum is reached. Who's secretary of the meeting? You, Archibald? Ok.
Pifon is decided to begin with a subject it is better to liquidate quickly: the development of a portion of road that local residents expose as dangerous. For years, the issue is brought to the fore. How to get rid of this! On the road which crosses Basseville-on-Earth, several houses have their outing to a shift that cars take at high speed. To get out of his garage or his court, there comes a time when it is necessary to advance with nothing to see. One day there will be an accident. Of the four persons constituting the public, two came for this question. Pifon explains that he went on the spot last week, with the security commission. Almost all bitched after these slowdowns that you find all the time on the road and prevent you from using the engine of your car at over thirty percent of its capacity! Then Pifon tries to remind the briefing he heard from someone of the Public Works he knows well:

-- We should increase the portion of town by placing signs of entry and exit in Basseville further.
-- But no! Lucien, it is not this. We were advised to tar the berms so that vi-su-al-ly, motorists become aware that they are in a urban area, and thus they begin the psychological process that will perhaps lead them to slow down!
Mathurin attended the security meeting and he understood the meaning of the proposals that were made. Pifon then tries his luck with the next point, but clearly he would have needed to rehearse before the council meeting.
Those in the public who came for that matter realize that the meeting tonight will not bring any solution: they tell Pifon their disapproval and blame him with his incompetence. They prefer to leave the meeting.

Two hours later, the first questions on the agenda are exhausted and before other matters, we will discuss the verification of the frame. The public has reduced unrelentingly. It has still restricted since the beginning of the meeting: clearly, the subject is not popular.
The speaker is Christophe: he incorporates elements of the structure in the order in which the expert engineer checked them with the consequences of what he found in terms of work to consider. When he has finished, Anquetot comments:
-- Yes, this is not much. We shall overlap with bitumen!
Christophe Potteur finds so many bad faith disgusting:
-- But did you hear yesterday, you took part in the reunion with the expert! Even after strengthening, the structure will not bear any overload! And the asphalt is much heavier than the two skins steel plates, even with the insulation between them! To make the structure airtight, it should be packaged in a concrete sarcophagus, as Chernobyl. It is true that your room is a pretty big garbage for it to be buried like that!
He goes to miscellaneous: there are no miscellaneous.
-- The meeting is over!
Clementine rushes and adds:
-- And I'll drain at the door before people leave.
Then, the small casserole of chick-peas for the poors by hand, it she waits until the last to has left the corridor outside and then to close the light and the door locked.

A little more than two and a half months passed since their visit to Christophe’s, and the same police arrive at the town hall. They call for papers, always more papers. The second Pifon and secretary of City Hall need persuading. Ignoring Grease’s urban manners, a police gets hot under the collar:
-- It will go faster than that!
While they will come back a great number of times, the result will be insufficient. It is a rare opportunity to come back to the prefecture.
Pifon informs Christophe of what happens, he knows that he owes him and the others small bothers that take him so much time! Pifon clearly seeks to improve relations with his former team and Christophe does not hesitate to ask him to put on the agenda issues relating to the multi-purpose hall question that must be discussed. Today we address the choice of a lawyer who will follow criminal procedure, which was initiated by prosecutors and who would never have emerged if the courthouse had been inadvertently closed a certain March the 29th. Yes, Pifon put this issue on the agenda. The next meeting should take place in early December.

At its last meeting, in which Pifon did not want to participate, the Commission of the hall attempted to review the police investigation. It spins out, it seems not conducted vigorouslr, anyhow. According to Pifon, police speak of "reenact" the contracts proceedings. What does this fuss mean?
The police should fine the public contract file in the city hall, at the tax collector (if not the collector would not have had the right to pay the companies, although he paid them) and at the prefecture. So at the town hall, the file could burn or fly leaf to leaf through the window, at the perception there might be another problem, but at the prefecture! It would be a nonsense.
-- I suggest that we do like on March the 29th, Philippe suggests. And this time, I'll be there: promised!
Christophe calls the Prefecture:
-- Oh! he is not available!

The fact is that this morning of November the 20th, 1996, Christophe joined his colleagues on the parking of the prefecture. The weather is quite cold. He first meets with Jean-Sébastien then with Marion, Philippe and Pierre. Them five enter the prefecture. They climb the stairs, follow the signs, takes galleries, turning right, left, take an elevator, leave it and take a new very long and broad gallery, with walls cover up in red, with gold in abundance. Very quickly, however, they find the prefect office:
-- Well, that’s it.
While the other three are discussing between them about what they will say, what not to say ... Marion observes Jean-Sébastien which paces the gallery to inspect the republic gildings. Oh, someone addresses him:
-- So! Jean-Sébastien had hidden he had connections here! And they speak! They have much to say each other!
And time goes by.
Jean-Sébastien approaches his colleagues.
Christophe knocks at the door of the Aposs’ office:
-- Yes!
He opens the door and enters… No, not him, another will enter before him! He sees Jean-Sébastien, not far:
-- Hey! You, enter since there is no chief!

On these words of introduction the secretary-general, since Aposs is absent, attends the entrance of Jean-Sébastien Billard. The others follow his steps. The secretary-general welcomes kindly, as he learned to do, and asks them the purpose of their visit. Christophe has resumed his role as a leader. He explained that they have the impression that the police did not have all the pieces they need for the investigation into the public contract of the multipurpose hall of Basseville-on-Earth. The gentleman would be all-kind if he would deign to hand in a duplicate of the copy that the municipality followed to the prefecture in October 1992. The secretary-general has understood:
-- No!
Christophe does not give up like that and renews its request:
-- No!

His colleagues have a hacking cough and begin turning their heels and walking away. This time, Christophe renounces and follows his colleagues. Aposs office door is hardly closed, they fly into a rage:
-- Ah! to hush-up touchy files, to burry them, they shape up! The way they handled the matter was foolish.
-- Yes! A useful gift for them would be a shovel, without the handle so it can be forwarded by the Post Office.
-- Yes! This would invite the office of legality Control to handle more properly the public contracts cases!
-- And we could write on it that the administration has objections only to the crimes it does not manage!
-- It is simply the truth: "Head of State, Head of bandits!
They decide to go back without further action. What would be the use of insisting?
They follow the same route in reverse, but faster because now they know, and also the way goes down ... Marion asks with a laugh to Jean-Sébastien:
-- I say! You have interesting connections!
Jean-Sébastien understands to what Marion alludes:
-- Ah, no! I am sure that I had never met him while he clearly recognized me! I do not know how he did!
-- And what was the purpose, if not too curious? In connection with the purpose of our visit?
-- Oh, I can absolutely tell you!

Jean-Sébastien speaks to the group this time.
-- Someone who knew that I was from Basseville. Clearly, Boutel awaits something from him but he does not know what it is and this has the knack of getting on his nerves. He put out the feelers by asking me what we think of Boutel, even if he knows that I've never to the council at his time. I told him my opinion on the individual. He felt relieved to see that we were on the same wavelength. Then, he told me something incredible: last week, Boutel came to see him in his office and, when he left, there was a crate of champagne next to the door!
Then he wondered what the hell he could do of it. Especially since this crate prevented him from closing his door!
And all five:
-- Ah! Ah! Ah!
Returning home, Christophe depicts to his family their morning visit to the prefecture through many fascinating details. The idea of sending to the state representatives the substance of their thoughts written on a shovel to "bury the issue of Basseville-on-Earth multi-purpose hall" seems to be an idea of genius. For two years, the idea will make its way, and shortly before Christmas 1998, the prefecture will receive, with acknowledgement of receipt, a relatively bulky package containing what history will remember in the name of the shovel of December the 18th…