individual is not obliged to be more particular than the nation. A man
whose services to France have been of the very slightest is a fetich
looked on with superstitious awe because he has always seen everything
in red; but he is good, at the most, to be put into the Museum of Arts
and Crafts, among the automatic machines, and labeled La Fayette;
while the prince at whom everybody flings a stone, the man who
despises humanity so much that he spits as many oaths as he is asked
for in the face of humanity, saved France from being torn in pieces at
the Congress of Vienna; and they who should have given him laurels
fling mud at him. Oh! I know something of affairs, I can tell you; I
have the secrets of many men! Enough. When I find three minds in
agreement as to the application of a principle, I shall have a fixed
and immovable opinion--I shall have to wait a long while first. In the
Tribunals you will not find three judges of the same opinion on a
single point of law. To return to the man I was telling you of. He
would crucify Jesus Christ again, if I bade him. At a word from his
old chum Vautrin he will pick a quarrel with a scamp that will not
send so much as five francs to his sister, poor girl, and" (here
Vautrin rose to his feet and stood like a fencing-master about to
lunge)--"turn him off into the dark!" he added.

"How frightful!" said Eugene. "You do not really mean it? M. Vautrin,
you are joking!"

"There! there! Keep cool!" said the other. "Don't behave like a baby.
But if you find any amusement in it, be indignant, flare up! Say that
I am a scoundrel, a rascal, a rogue, a bandit; but do not call me a
blackleg nor a spy! There, out with it, fire away! I forgive you; it
is quite natural at your age. I was like that myself once. Only
remember this, you will do worse things yourself some day. You will