"I say the same thing," Father Benôit answered, his fine face illumined with feeling. "It was nobly done. Fight for the people, M. le Vicomte, but among your fellows. Let your voice be heard there, where all you will gain for yourself will be obloquy and black looks. But if it comes, if it has come, to a struggle between your class and the commons, between the nobility and the vulgar; if the noble must side with his fellows or take the people's pay, then"--Father Benôit's voice trembled a little, and his thin white hand tapped softly on the table--"I would rather see you ranked with your kind." "Against the people?" "Yes, against the people," he answered, shrinking a little. I was astonished. "Why, great heaven," I said, "the smallest logic----" "Ah!" he answered, shaking his head sadly, and looking at me with kind eyes. "There you beat me; logic is against me. Reason, too. The cause of the people, the cause of reform, of honesty, of cheap grain, of equal justice, _must_ be a good one. And who forwards it must be in the right. That is so, M. le Vicomte. Nay, more than that. If the people are left to fight their battle alone the danger of excesses is greater. I see that. But instinct does not let me act on the knowledge." "Yet, M. de Mirabeau?" I said. "I have heard you call him a great man." "It is true," Father Benôit answered, keeping his eyes on mine, while he drummed softly on the table with his fingers. "I have heard you speak of him with admiration." "Often." "And of M. de Lafayette?" "Yes." "And the Lameths?" M. le Curé nodded. "Yet all these," I said stubbornly, "all these are nobles--nobles leading the people!" "Yes," he said. "And you do not blame them?" "No, I do not blame them." "Nay, you admire them! You admire them, Father," I persisted, glowering at him. "I know I do," he said. "I know that I am weak and a fool. Perhaps worse, M. le Vicomte, in that I have not the courage of my convictions. But, though I admire those men, though I think them great and to be admired, I have heard men speak of them who thought otherwise; and--it may be weak--but I knew you as a boy, and I would not have men speak so of you. There are things we admire at a distance," he continued, looking at me a little drolly, to hide the affection that shone in his eyes, "which we, nevertheless, do not desire to find in those we love. Odium heaped on a stranger is nothing to us; on our friends, it were worse than death." He stopped, his voice trembling; and we were both silent for a while. Still, I would not let him see how much his words had touched me; and by-and-by---- "But my father?" I said. "He was strongly on the side of reform!" "Yes, by the nobles, for the people." "But the nobles have cast me out!" I answered. "Because I have gone a yard, I have lost all. Shall I not go two, and win all back?" "Win all," he said softly--"but lose how much?" "Yet if the people win? And you say they will?"