"I have left thee that mark of thy good services: to efface that imperceptible curve which made thy edge uneven, thou wouldst have had to be submitted to the action of fire; but who knows but that thou mightst have lost thy virtue? Who, then, would have given me back the secret of that blade, strong and obedient to that which the breastplate did not always withstand, when the blow was dealt with a valiant arm? "Was it in the blood of a newly killed bull that thy point was buried on first coming out of the fire? Was it in the cold air of a narrow gorge of mountains? Was it in the syrup prepared from certain herbs or, perhaps, in holy oil? None of our best craftsmen, not Bromstein himself, could tell. "Tell me whom thou hast comforted and whom punished? Hast thou avenged the outlaw for the judicial murder of his father? Hast thou, during the night, engraved on some granite columns the sentence of those who passed sentence? Thou canst only have obeyed powerful and just passions; the intrepid man who wanted to carry thee away with him to his last resting-place had baptized thee in the blood of a feudal oppressor. "Thou art pure steel; thy shape is bold, but without studied grace; thou wast not, indeed, frivolously wrought to adorn the girdle of a foppish carpet-knight of the court of Francis I., or of Charles-Quint; thou art not of sufficient beauty to have been thus commonplace; the filigree-work which ornaments thy hilt is only of red copper, that brilliant shade of red which colours the summit of the Mont de la Victoire on long May evenings. "What does this broad furrow mean which, a quarter of the length down thy blade to the hilt, is pierced with a score of tiny holes like so many loop-holes? Doubtless they were made so that the blood could drip through, which shoots and gushes along the blade in smoking bubbles when the blow has gone home. Oh! if I shed some evil blood I too should wish it to drain off and not to soil my hands.... If it were the blood of a powerful enemy to one's country, little would it matter if it was left all blood smeared; I should have settled my accounts with this wretched world beforehand, and then thou wouldst not fail me at need; thou wouldst do me the same service as thou renderest formerly to him whose bones the tomb received along with thee. "In storms of public misfortunes, or in crises of personal adversity, the tomb is often the only refuge for noble hearts; it, at any rate, is impregnable and quiet: there one can brave accusers and the instruments of despotism, who are as vile as the accusers themselves!