And in order that this reverence for the office of the executioner which it is in keeping with his plan to inculcate, and which it entertains him to astound with, may make a proper impression on the reader, De Maistre takes up the subject again in one of the later conversations. He asks what a reasoning being coming from another world to investigate into the conditions prevailing in ours would think of the executioner, and himself gives the answer: "He is an august being, the corner-stone of society. Since crime has undoubtedly taken up its abode upon earth, and since it can only be kept in check by punishment, it is plain that, if the executioner disappeared, all order would disappear with him. And what greatness of soul, what noble disinterestedness must we presume that man to be possessed of who takes upon himself the execution of a task which, though certainly a very honourable one, is most painful and repugnant to human nature, &c." In these utterances we have at one and the same time the delight in consistency which is to be observed in the earliest nineteenth-century devotees of the principle of authority, the delight in a disconcerting idea which is one of De Maistre's own chief mental characteristics, and the delight in describing suffering which he has in common with Görres and so many of the other champions of the gloomy doctrine of the necessary subjection of humanity to kings and priests. De Maistre resents hearing men so often talk as if crime went unpunished. What do they mean by this? "For whom are the gallows, the knout, the wheel, and the stake and fagot provided? Surely for the criminal." Justice may sometimes miscarry, but such exceptions do not alter the rule. It is folly to believe in all the judicial murders one hears talked about. Take the frequently quoted case of Calas. Nothing is more doubtful than his innocence. The very fact that Voltaire defended him speaks against it. But given the worst--that an innocent man is deprived of his life--why, it is simply a misfortune like any other. When a guilty man escapes we have another exception and misfortune of the same kind. The events which lead to the discovery of a crime are, however, often so unexpected and improbable that we cannot but believe that human justice is supported by higher aid. And all the time that we are foolishly blaming human justice for having punished an innocent man, nothing is more probable than that he really is guilty, though of some other, unknown crime. Many such cases are on record, the truth coming to light through the confession of the criminals. De Maistre, we observe, understands how to extricate himself from a difficulty.