"A profound truth, Master Marcel. Tyranny ever engenders servitude, and servitude misery. Only by freeing them from seigniorial tyranny could the insurrection of the serfs insure to these the enjoyment of the fruits of the earth which they now cultivate for their own butchers." "Yes, but all revolution is arduous and rough. It cannot overnight remedy ills that are the fatal inheritance of the past. Sometimes such ills are even temporarily aggravated by the remedial revolution, as the cauterized wound for a while smarts worse than before. These ills, these sufferings, have been carried to their extreme by the ravages of the English after the battle of Poitiers. The people have valiantly endured them, placing their confidence in the revolution of 1357. The city council, presided over by myself, the 'governors' in short, as the body is called, have been forced to exercise a temporary dictatorship, often to resort to energetic and even terrible measures in order to make front against the English at our gates, and the court party inside of our walls. The people at first accepted the dictatorship for the sake of the safety of the city, but they have since fallen away when they found that we could not instantly meet their expectations of material well-being. The people are tired of dictatorship, and now in their credulous despair they lend ear to the mischievous words of their own enemies! They are ready to withdraw from the struggle instead of finishing the work of emancipation! The people now deplore their rebellion; they are ready to curse the councilmen who have sacrificed their repose and their property, and even exposed their lives in the effort of emancipation. They imagine that by humbly submitting to the Regent, that by meekly resuming their yoke, the ills they now suffer from will vanish. Perchance to-morrow the people will be dragging me to the scaffold, me who so recently was their idol!" After a few seconds of silence the provost resumed: "To sum up, we can now barely count with the support of the masses; Charles the Wicked is a doubtful ally; the Regent a formidable adversary." "Unhappily the manifestations of the defection of the people, whom the manoeuvres of the Regent's party have done their best to promote, have struck me during the last few days. Must all hope be given up, Master Marcel?"