"I will not argue with you, Herval," he said, "nor will I attempt to persuade you that what the council is doing now, and may do against us poor Protestants, is right, feeling it as I do to be wrong. But, nevertheless, I think--nay, I am sure--that such proceedings, as those of the band we speak of, are perfectly incompatible with our duty to the King and our fellow-subjects, and likely to produce infinitely greater evil to the reformed religion than good. The existence of such bands will give an excuse for sending a large military force into the province, for persecuting the Protestants still farther, and for taking such precautions that even, if a crisis were to come, in which the resistance to oppression which you speak of were necessary, it would be rendered hopeless by the prepared state of the enemy. In the mean time it is wrong, because, at the best, it is carrying on what you call hostilities without a declaration of war; it is dangerous to the peaceful even of our own friends, as has been shown in my case, and in that of two ladies of the governor's family, who is most warmly interested in our behalf; and it is degrading a powerful and just cause in the eyes of all men, by giving its supporters the air of night plunderers." "As for a declaration of war," replied Herval, "they have made that themselves by their own acts, and as to the rest of what you say, sir, there are objections certainly. Did I but see our noblemen like yourself, and our ministers preparing a good resistance to tyranny and injustice, I would be as quiet as a lamb. But I see nothing of the kind; you are all sitting still in your houses, and waiting till they come to cut your throats. So as there must and shall be resistance of some kind, and it must begin by the lower instead of the higher, we must even take the lesser of two evils, and go on as we have done." Armand Herval spoke, as was common with him when at all heated, with very little reverence or respect in his tone; but Albert of Morseiul was not of a character to suffer himself to be irritated in the slightest degree by any want of formal respect. No man knew better how to preserve his own dignity without making any exaction, and he accordingly replied, with perfect calmness,--