"You know then that your son as well as the young Edmond has gone over
to the rebels?" said the Intendant sharply with his icy coldness: "and
who will assure us that this did not happen by your counsel and
suggestions?"

"No man will be security for me," answered, the father with quiet
composure, "and of myself, of my many years of probity and an
assurance, by my honour, I will not even speak, for that appears to
myself absurd. No, my highly honoured lords, my counsel would never
have been able to produce so strange a metamorphosis in a vagabond, who
has hitherto only interested himself in plants and antiquities, or to
make of a catholic enthusiast a fanatic and a rebel; but if I may be
permitted to speak for a moment as a father, it rather appears to me,
that you, my most worthy judges, are the authors of it, without its
being exactly your intention it is true, and may be the cause why so
many other fanatics will run to the mountains."

"Well, this impudence," exclaimed the Marshal.

"Suffer the unhappy man to speak," interrupted the Intendant, "he is
doting in his sorrow, and it is not unreasonable to hear all that he
may bring forward for his defence." "I only say," continued Vila,
"that, with the very best intentions to put down this rebellion, you
add strength to it, for it is precisely the peculiarity and perversity
of the human mind, (and in this I only say what has been of very old
standing) that prohibitions and obstructions irritate and place the
punishable case in a seductive, enchanting light. That, which at first
appeared indifferent and often unimportant, now presents itself with a
kind of glory, danger entices; if only a few victims deriding it, have
fallen, passions master the heart, and the same, who a short time
previously preserved his faith in silent doubt, feels now in each
emotion of caprice, and of anger, the immediate voice of his persecuted
God. He now refutes his adversary with murder and massacre, as if he
would correct the erroneous reading of his mind in his mangled body.
The true believer cannot naturally bear such a turning over the leaf,
he waits with stump and stalk to root out of the breast the perverted
and corrupted text. On both sides the commentators excite one another,
each becomes fiercer and more violent, reconciliation is no longer to
be thought of, instruction profits not, and whoever wishes to step in
coolly and moderately between them is a horror to both parties. You se