The inconvenience of the reign of public opinion is that though, of course, it secures liberty, it meddles with what it has nothing to do with—private life, for example. Hence the gloominess of America and England. In order to avoid infringing on private life, the author has invented a little town—Verrières, and when he had need of a bishop, a jury, an assize court, he placed all this in Besançon, where he has never been.