le
Duc d'Aiguillon, have flung their privileges, even their title-deeds,
into the lap of the people! Or perhaps you deny it?"
"Oh, no. Having wantonly set fire to their house, they now try to
put it out by throwing water on it; and where they fail they put the
entire blame on the flames."
"I see that you have come here to talk politics."
"Far from it. I have come, if possible, to explain myself. To
understand is always to forgive. That is a great saying of
Montaigne's. If I could make you understand... "
"You can't. You'll never make me understand how you came to render
yourself so odiously notorious in Brittany."
"Ah, not odiously, monsieur!"
"Certainly, odiously - among those that matter. It is said even
that you were Omnes Omnibus, though that I cannot, will not believe."
"Yet it is true."
M. de Kercadiou choked. "And you confess it? You dare to confess
it?"
"What a man dares to do, he should dare to confess - unless he is
a coward."
"Oh, and to be sure you were very brave, running away each time
after you had done the mischief, turning comedian to hide yourself,
doing more mischief as a comedian, provoking a riot in Nantes, and
then running away again, to become God knows what - something
dishonest by the affluent look of you.
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