"Counsel for the prisoner, you have the floor!" said the major, and Burguet rose. Now, Fritz, if I had an idea that I could repeat to you what Burguet said, for a whole hour, to save the life of a poor conscript; if I should try to depict his face, the sweetness of his voice, and then his heart-rending cries, and then his silent pauses and his appeals--if I had such an idea, I should consider myself a being full of pride and vanity! No; nothing finer was ever heard. It was not a man speaking; it was a mother, trying to snatch her babe from death! Ah! what a great thing it is to have this power of moving to tears those who hear us! But we ought not to call it talent, it is heart. "Who is there without faults? Who does not need pity?" This is what he said, as he asked the council if they could find a perfectly blameless man; if evil thoughts never came to the bravest; if they had never, for even a day or a moment, had the thought of running away to their native village, when they were young, when they were eighteen, when father and mother and the friends of their childhood were living, and they had not another in the world. A poor child without instruction, without knowledge of the world, brought up at hap-hazard, thrown into the army--what could you expect of him? What fault of his could not be pardoned? What does he know of country, the honor of his flag, the glory of his Majesty? Is it not later in life that these great ideas come to him? And then he asked those old men if they had not a son, if they were sure that, even at that moment, that son were not committing an offence which was liable to the punishment of death. He said to them: "Plead for him! What would you say? You would say, 'I am an old soldier. For thirty years I have shed my blood for France. I have grown gray upon the battle-fields, I am riddled with wounds, I have gained every rank at the point of the sword. Ah, well! take my epaulettes, take my decorations, take everything; but save my child! Let my blood be the ransom for his offence! He does not know the greatness of his crime; he is too young; he is a conscript; he loved us; he longed to embrace us, and then go back again--he loved a maiden. Ah! you, too, have been young! Pardon him. Do not disgrace an old soldier in his son.' "Perhaps you could say, too, 'I had other sons. They died for their country. Let their blood answer for his, and give me back this one--the last that I have left!' "This is what you would say, and far better than I, because you would be the father, the old soldier speaking of his own services! Well, the father of this youth could speak like you! He is an old soldier of the Republic! He went with you, perhaps, when the Prussians entered Champagne! He was wounded at Fleurus! He is an old comrade in arms! His oldest son was left behind in Russia!"