[68] The death of the culinary martyr is described by Madame de Sévigné with the accustomed coldness and brilliancy of her fashionable pen (Lettres L. and LI., Tom. I. pp. 164, 165). It was attributed, she says, _to the high sense of honor he had after his own way_. Tributes multiply. A French vaudeville associates his name with that of this brilliant writer, saying, "Madame de Sévigné and Vatel are the people who _honored_ the age of Louis XIV." The _Almanach des Gourmands_, in the Epistle Dedicatory of its concluding volume, addresses the venerable shade of the heroic cook: "You have proved that the _fanaticism of honor_ can exist in the kitchen as well as the camp." Berchoux commemorates the dying exclamation in _La Gastronomie_, Chant III.:-- "_Je suis perdu d'honneur_, deux rôtis ont manqué." [69] Esprit des Lois, Liv. III. ch. 3-7. The rule of honor is founded in the imagined necessity of resenting by force a supposed injury, whether of word or act.[70] Admit the injury received, seeming to sully the character; is it wiped away by any force, and descent to the brutal level of its author? "Could I wipe your blood from my conscience as easily as this insult from my face," said a Marshal of France, greater on this occasion than on any field of fame, "I would lay you dead at my feet." Plato, reporting the angelic wisdom of Socrates, declares, in one of those beautiful dialogues shining with stellar light across the ages, that _to do a wrong is more shameful than to receive a wrong_.[71] And this benign sentiment commends itself alike to the Christian, who is bid to render good for evil, and to the enlightened soul of man. But who confessing its truth will resort to force on any point of _honor_? [70] This is well exposed in a comedy of Molière. "_Don Pedre._ Souhaitez-vous quelque chose de moi? "_Hali._ Oui, un conseil sur _un fait d'honneur_. Je sais qu'en ces matières il est mal-aisé de trouver un cavalier plus consommé que vous.... "Seigneur, _j'ai reçu un soufflet_. Vous savez ce qu'est un soufflet, lorsqu'il se donne à main ouverte sur le beau milieu de la joue. _J'ai ce soufflet fort sur le coeur; et je suis dans l'incertitude, si, pour me venger de l'affront, je dois me battre avec mon homme, ou bien le faire assassiner._ "_Don Pedre._ Assassiner, c'est le plus sûr et le plus court chemin." _Le Sicilien_, Sc. XIII. [71] This proposition is enforced by Socrates, with unanswerable reasoning and illustration, throughout the _Gorgias_, which Cicero read diligently while studying at Athens (De Oratore, I. 11). In ancient Athens, as in unchristianized Christian lands, there were sophists who urged that _to suffer_ was unbecoming a man, and would draw down incalculable evil. The following passage, which I translate with scrupulous literalness, will show the manner in which the moral cowardice of these persons of little faith was rebuked by him whom the gods of Greece pronounced Wisest of Men.