thereby: it does not rest with me to avoid the fight.... I am the offended, the insulted one I and, if ever retaliation be permissible, it is to him who has not sought the attack.... To such an one, vengeance is sacred and reprisals holy, he employs the right of natural and legitimate defence! "I come, then, to the _complete and true story of La Tour de Nesle._ I will base my recital on proofs _written and signed_ by the actual personages in this story, and, when proofs shall fail me, I will put before the readers' eyes the suppositions and probabilities of the case, and say to him: 'Consider and judge!' But, in a lawsuit like this, where _honour_ is everything, where the written proof of many of the general facts cannot be set forth (for that, the future would need to have been foreseen and divined as to what would happen), where each of the litigants in certain circumstances must be _believed,_ because he has always told the truth in others, where he who has once lied, on the contrary, is no more worthy of credence; in an affair, in fact, where good faith ought to prevail over lying, when both have nothing to show beyond _their word,_--I must, and I will, before all else, convince my adversary of _inaccuracy_ (I will be polite in expression), and, that _inaccuracy_ proved, I will bind it on his forehead like the inscription of a brand at the head of a standard, so that the stigma may survive and hover incessantly over the guilty one, before the eyes of the judges in this suit. "M. Dumas declares (I begin with the first sentence of his article relative to _La Tour de Nesle),_ that, having received a visit from M. Harel, the latter said to him, 'The play belongs to me; mine by fair and square contract; I have the right to have it rewritten at my own pleasure, by whomsoever I think fit....' And, further: 'You have made the young man sign a contract, you told me?' 'Yes.' 'On what conditions?' 'Why, according to the usual terms of the Porte-Saint-Martin: 2 louis per performance, 1 for himself, 1 for Janin and 12 francs' worth of tickets.' Then, in a note, M. Dumas adds: 'This treaty is still in the possession of M. Harel.' Very well, the more words the more _inaccuracies._ Here is the only treaty which ever existed between me and M. Harel; it is the one they made me sign, by what manœuvre I will tell later, when they made me accept the collaboration of M. Janin." Then followed the text of that treaty, which the reader knows.