"'Nothing is more praiseworthy, sir, than the sentiment of compassion that touches you for these unfortunate people. Suppress the testament and succour them--good; but on condition of restoring to the rightful legatee the exact sum of which you deprive him, neither more nor less. Who authorised you to give a sanction to documents, or to take it away? Who authorised you to interpret the intentions of the dead?' 'But then, father Bouin, the old box?' 'Who authorised you to decide whether the will was thrown away on purpose, or mislaid by accident? Has it never happened to you to do such a thing, and to find at the bottom of a chest some valuable paper that you had tossed there inadvertently?' 'But, father Bouin, the far-off date of the paper, and its injustice?' 'Who authorised you to pronounce on the justice or injustice of the document, and to regard the bequest as an unlawful gift, rather than as a restitution or any other lawful act which you may choose to imagine?' 'But, these poor kinsfolk here on the spot, and that mere collateral, distant and wealthy?' 'Who authorised you to weigh in your balance what the dead man owed to his distant relations, whom you don't know?' 'But, father Bouin, that pile of letters from the legatee, which the departed never even took the trouble to open?' 'There is neither old box, nor date, nor letters, nor father Bouin, nor if, nor but, in the case. No one has any right to infringe the laws, to enter into the intention of the dead, or to dispose of other people's property. If providence has resolved to chastise either the heir or the legatee or the testator--we cannot tell which--by the accidental preservation of the will, the will must remain.'"[1] [1] _Oeuv._, v. 289.