y since then proves to have
existed? M. de Vilmorin was a revolutionary, a man of new ideas that
should overthrow society and rebuild it more akin to the desires of such
as himself. I belonged to the order that quite as justifiably desired
society to remain as it was. Not only was it better so for me and mine,
but I also contend, and you have yet to prove me wrong, that it is
better so for all the world; that, indeed, no other conceivable society
is possible. Every human society must of necessity be composed of
several strata. You may disturb it temporarily into an amorphous whole
by a revolution such as this; but only temporarily. Soon out of the
chaos which is all that you and your kind can ever produce, order must
be restored or life will perish; and with the restoration of order comes
the restoration of the various strata necessary to organized society.
Those that were yesterday at the top may in the new order of things find
themselves dispossessed without any benefit to the whole. That change
I resisted. The spirit of it I fought with whatever weapons were
available, whenever and wherever I encountered it. M. de Vilmorin was
an incendiary of the worst type, a man of eloquence full of false ideals
that misled poor ignorant men into believing that the change proposed
could make the world a better place for them. You are an intelligent
man, and I defy you to answer me from your heart and conscience that
such a thing was true or possible. You know that it is untrue; you know
that it is a pernicious doctrine; and what made it worse on the lips
of M. de Vilmorin was that he was sincere and eloquent. His voice was
a danger that must be removed--silenced. So much was necessary in
self-defence. In self-defence I did it. I had no grudge against M. de
Vilmorin. He was a man of my own class; a gentleman of pleasant ways,
amiable, estimable, and able.

"You conceive me slaying him for the very lust of slaying, like some
beast of the jungle flinging itself upon its natural prey. That has
been your error from the first. I did what I did with the very heaviest
heart--oh, spare me your sneer!--I do not lie, I have never lied. And I
swear to you here and now, by my every hope of Heaven, that what I say
is true. I loathed the thing I did. Yet for my own sake and the sake of
my order I must do it. Ask yourself whether M. de Vilmorin would have
hesitated for a moment if by procuring my death he could have brought
the Utopia of his drea