"Count of Plouernel, your judges and not I will grant you grace, if you merit it," answered John, controlling himself under the goading flings of the Emigrant. "If it were for me to say, you would remain in France unmolested, like so many other ex-nobles. I would leave you in peace, I swear it before God! in spite of all the wrong your family has heaped upon mine. I would have pardoned you, Count of Plouernel, and I shall tell you why I would have shown myself thus clement: A century or more ago, one of my forefathers, Nominoe, said to Bertha of Plouernel, who loved him with a love as passionate as his own, 'I experience I know not what emotions at once sad and tender, in loving in you a descendant of that race which, from infancy, I have been taught to execrate. You are in my eyes, Bertha, an angel of pardon and concord. In you, I absolve your ancestors; instead of making you party to their iniquities, I transfer to them your virtues. You ransom the evil ones of your race, as Christ, they say, ransomed the world by his divine grace.' "It is in memory of these words of my ancestor Nominoe," proceeded Lebrenn, "that I would have pardoned you, Count of Plouernel, in making you share, not in the crimes of your stock, but in the virtues of that young girl and in the qualities of another of your blood, a Protestant and republican in his time, Colonel Plouernel, the friend of the great Coligny and of my ancestor Odelin, the armorer of La Rochelle." "You lie," cried the Count of Plouernel, furiously. "Never did woman or maid of the house of Plouernel dishonor herself with love for a vassal! As to Colonel Plouernel, a turn-coat and a Protestant, he is the shame of our family; as such, he may, indeed, have played the part of friend to a base plebeian." "Accordingly, I would have pardoned, Count, the evil done by your family to mine," John Lebrenn continued unperturbed. "But though I have the right to show myself generous to my personal enemy, my duty as a citizen forbids me to furnish asylum to an enemy of the nation and the Republic, to a monarchist conspirator." "O, the hypocrite!" exclaimed the Count. "All the while pretending a generosity which would be an insult to me, the clown wants to gratify his hatred by sending me to the scaffold!" "I have told you that duty prevents my affording asylum to an enemy of the Republic; but I am not an informer, I would not deliver up even my personal enemy when he has sought shelter under my roof. Leave this place. Go down the stairs softly, and you may gain the street. The gate is not locked. If you were not under the shadow of a capital accusation, I would chastise you as you deserve for your insults. So, out of here! my ex-gentleman." "Ah, miserable vassal," replied Plouernel, pale with rage. "You dare to threaten me!" And suddenly throwing himself upon Lebrenn, he dealt him a blow that crimsoned the side of his face.