nsist; there are sinks of ignominy we must have the
courage to sound.

Cast your eyes upon that man. He was born at hazard, by misfortune, in
a hovel, in a cellar, in a cave, no one knows where, no one knows of
whom. He came out of the dust to fall into the mire. He had only so
much father and mother as was necessary for his birth, after which all
shrank from him. He has crawled on as best he could. He grew up
bare-footed, bare-headed, in rags, with no idea why he was living. He
can neither read nor write, nor does he know that there are laws above
him; he scarcely knows there is a heaven. He has no home, no family, no
creed, no book. He is a blind soul. His intellect has never opened, for
intellect opens only to light as flowers open only to the day, and he
dwells in the dark. However, he must eat. Society has made him a brute
beast, hunger makes him a wild beast. He lies in wait for travellers on
the outskirts of a wood, and robs them of their purses. He is caught,
and sent to the galleys. So far, so good.

Now look at this other man; it is no longer the red cap, it is the red
robe. He believes in God, reads Nicole, is a Jansenist, devout, goes to
confession, takes the sacrament. He is well born, as they say, wants
nothing, nor has ever wanted anything; his parents have lavished
everything on his youth--trouble, instruction, advice, Greek and Latin,
masters in every science. He is a grave and scrupulous personage;
therefore he has been made a magistrate. Seeing this man pass his days
in meditating upon all the great texts, both sacred and profane; in the
study of the law, in the practice of religion, in the contemplation of
the just and unjust, society placed in his keeping all that it holds
most august, most venerable--the book of the law. It made him a judge,
and the punisher of treason. It said to him: "A day may come, an hour
may strike, when the chief by physical force shall trample under his
foot both the law and the rights of man; then you, man of justice, you
will arise, and smite with your rod the man of power."--For that
purpose, and in expectation of that perilous and supreme day, it
lavishes wealth upon him, and clothes him in purple and ermine. That
day arrives, that hour, unique, pitiless, and solemn, that supreme hour
of duty; the man in the red gown begins to stutter the words of the
law; suddenly he perceives that it is not the cause of justice that
prevails, but that treason carries the day. Whereup