"Think not," he continued, "that I have chosen my part without deep thought. There are some--and perhaps you think me one of them--who are driven by circumstances, led by their passions, or their follies, or their vices, to a state of opposition with the rest of mankind, and who then, when cast out from society, find a thousand specious reasons for warring against it. But such is not my case. Ever since my youth have such things been dwelling in my mind. I had pondered them long. I had fully made up my mind as to what was right and what was wrong, years before injustice and iniquity--years before the insolence of privileged tyranny drove me forth to practise what I had long proposed. Here I exercise the right that is in man. I take the brown game upon the mountain, which is mine as much as that of any noble in the land. I pay no tax to king or to collector. There is no duty on the wine I drink. There is no toll upon the roads I follow. You will say that I do more than this: that I take from others what is not mine and what is theirs; but I have told you why I do so. They have taken from me what was not theirs; and I wage war against a world which first waged war against me; in which, even among themselves, the hand of every one is against his brother; in which, whether it be in camp, or court, or city, or mart, or church, injustice and iniquity are striving to snatch from one another the rod of oppression, and keep the humble beneath their own yoke." "I cannot think," replied Bernard de Rohan, willing to answer as generally as possible, "I cannot think that the state of society is so terrible as you represent it. There may be occasional instances of corruption and oppression, and doubtless there are. I have seen some myself, and endeavoured to prevent them; but still these things are by no means general." "Not general!" exclaimed the brigand, turning upon him almost fiercely. "Sir Baron, I say they are universal. There are one or two exceptions, it is true. You are one of those exceptions yourself. You are one of those who deserve to be convinced; and I can convince you. I can show you men who pretend to be holy, and humble, and good, oppressing most basely those who are in their power. I can show you tyranny and injustice at every step and in every station throughout the earth, from the tradesman's shop to the monarch's throne. I can show it to you in every garb, and in every profession, and in every place. I can, ay, and will show it to you, within these twelve months, in such forms of cruelty and blood that you shall say the brigand on the hillside is mild compared with the man of courts or the man of refectories; that he may be an eagle, but that these are vultures."