“No!” said he, “nothing could be more servile or more vile than the course Parliament has pursued in all this affair. We can scarcely believe that these men, not one of whom in his heart approves of the divorce and the silly and impious pretensions of the king, have never dared to utter a single word in favor of justice and equity! No, each one has watched his neighbor to see what _he_ would do; and when there has been question for debate, they have found no other arguments than simply to pass all that was asked of them. The only thing they have dared to suggest has been to insert in this shameful bill that those who should speak against the new queen and against the supremacy of the king would be punished only so far as they had done so _maliciously_. Beautiful and grand restriction! They think to have gained a great deal by inserting that, so closely are they pursued by their fears. “When they have instituted proceedings against those unfortunates who shall have offended them, do you believe that Master Audley, and Cromwell, and all the knaves of that class will be at great pains to have entered a well-proven maliciousness? No; it is a halter that will fit all necks――their own as well as those of all others. I have often told them this, but they will believe nothing. Later they will repent it; we shall then be in the net, and there will be no way to get out of it. Yes, I say, and I see it with despair, there is no more courage in the English nation, and very soon we shall let ourselves be seized one by one, like unfledged birds trembling on the edge of their devastated nest.” “It is very certain,” replied William Rastal, “that I predict nothing good from all these innovations; there is nothing more immoral and more dangerous to society than to let it become permeated, under any form whatever, with the idea of divorce――at least, unless we wish it to become transformed into a vast hospital of orphans abandoned to the chance of public commiseration, into a camp of furious ravishers, excited to revenge and mutual destruction. Take away the indissolubility of marriage, and you destroy at the same blow the only chances of happiness and peace in the interior and domestic life of man, in order to replace them by suspicions, jealousies, crimes, revenge, and corruption.” “Or rather,” said John Clement, “it will be necessary to reduce women to a condition of slavery, as in the ancient republics, and place them in the ranks of domestic animals.” “And, as a natural consequence, be ourselves degraded with them,” cried John Story, “since we are their brothers and their sons.” “With this base cowardice in Parliament, all is possible,” interrupted Harpesfield, “and I do not see how we are to arrest it. When they no longer regard an oath as an inviolable and sacred thing, what guarantee is left among men? You know, I suppose, what the Archbishop of Canterbury has done with the king’s approval, in Westminster even, at the moment of being consecrated?”