“One must consider, my son, that men joined one to another in the succession of the ages by a chain of which they see but a few links, attach the notion of nobility to customs whose origin was lowly and barbarous. Their ignorance feeds their vanity. They found their glories on old, unhappy, far-off things, and the nobility of the profession of arms is due entirely to that savagery of early times of which the Bible and the poets have preserved the remembrance. And what, in fact, is this military nobility flaunted with so much pride over us, if not the debased legacy of those unfortunate hunters of the woods whom the poet Lucretius has depicted in such a way that one does not know if they be men or beasts? It is wonderful, Tournebroche, my son, that war and the chase, of which the thought alone should overwhelm us with shame and remorse when we recall the wretched needs of our nature and our inveterate wickedness, serve on the contrary, as matter for vain-glory to men, that Christian peoples should continue to honour the profession of butcher and executioner, when it is of old standing in families, and that finally one estimates among refined people the celebrity of citizens by the quantity of murders and carnage that they bear so to speak, in their veins.” “Monsieur l’Abbé,” I said to my good master, “do you not think that the profession of arms is looked upon as noble because of the danger one runs therein and the courage that it is necessary to display?” “Truly, my son,” answered my good master, “if the state of man is noble in proportion to the danger that he runs I do not fear to state that peasants and labourers are the noblest men in the kingdom for they risk death every day by fatigue or hunger. The perils to which soldiers and commanders expose themselves are less in number and in duration, they last but a few hours in a lifetime, and consist in facing cannon-balls and bullets which kill less surely than poverty. Men must needs be light and frivolous, my son, to give more honour to a soldier’s doings than to the work of a labourer and to place the destruction of war at a higher price than the arts of peace.” “Monsieur l’Abbé,” I asked again, “do you not consider that soldiers are necessary to the safety of the state and that we should honour them in recognition of their usefulness?”