"When the lilies replaced the tricolor, and the amiable people of Paris cast themselves before the troops of the white-horse of Monsieur, with the same enthusiasm they had a few years before manifested at the appearance of the proud charger of the conqueror of Wagram and Jena, I remained here and never changed my colors: I never cried 'down with the Corsican Ogre.' Smoking my pipe in peace, I watched my furnace, smiled on my children and my harvests, in the sunlight of Sweden, which would be so delightful if it were a little less rare. This was another and a terrible derogation. "Gradually, however, dear Ireneus, I built up a faith to suit myself, found, I think, in the works of no philosopher (I read but little), but which yet seems to me a very good rule of conduct, inasmuch as it leaves the conscience at ease and makes me as happy as any one can be in this valley of tears. I therefore think, dear Ireneus, that in our benevolence we make monsters of certain ideas which we imbibe when we are children, and to which, without examination, we always submit ourselves. I think that without violating any true principle of morality, without ceasing to be, in any respect, a moral man, we may break some links of that network of traditions spun for us by our teachers at so much an hour, and which throws a hood over us as it is thrown over a falcon, to keep it from flying in the infinitude of space. I respect every sincere belief, even hat which I look on as a prejudice, and I insist that my own be respected. As a conclusion of my profession of faith, I am willing to admit that even a republican convinced of the justness of his opinions appears as reasonable to me as a monarchist, and that a quaker or Calvinist is as near heaven as the devout Catholic. "When my mind lifts itself up toward God, I imagine him the representative and originater of all good, and I am convinced that the surest way to approach him, to merit his favor and win his blessing, is, in the circle in which we are, whether large or small, to do as much good as possible. I say, that the workingman, who toils for a short time to assist his invalid neighbor, acquires more merit than the rich man, who with an icy hand casts his coin into the lap of the indigent. I have the audacity to think that a king, who in the splendor of his court is forgetful of the suffering of his people; that a noble, who abandons himself to all the enjoyments of his fortune, forgetful of misery languishing at his castle gate, are great criminals; and that God will punish their misdeeds, either on them, or, as the Bible says, 'on their children even until the fourth and fifth generation.'"