doom that would have
spared the life to brand it with disgrace. Is this a crime? I give
you my life in exchange for my son's disgrace. Does my country need a
victim? I have lived for my country's glory, and I can die contented to
satisfy its laws, sure that, if you blame me, you will not despise; sure
that the hands that give me to the headsman will scatter flowers over my
grave. Thus I confess all. I, a soldier, look round amongst a nation of
soldiers; and in the name of the star which glitters on my breast I dare
the fathers of France to condemn me!'

"They acquitted the soldier,--at least they gave a verdict answering to
what in our courts is called 'justifiable homicide.' A shout rose in the
court which no ceremonial voice could still; the crowd would have borne
him in triumph to his house, but his look repelled such vanities. To his
house he returned indeed; and the day afterwards they found him dead,
beside the cradle in which his first prayer had been breathed over his
sinless child. Now, father and son, I ask you, do you condemn that man?"

CHAPTER VIII.

My father took three strides up and down the room, and then, halting on
his hearth, and facing his brother, he thus spoke: "I condemn his deed,
Roland! At best he was but a haughty egotist. I understand why Brutus
should slay his sons. By that sacrifice he saved his country! What did
this poor dupe of an exaggeration save? Nothing but his own name. He
could not lift the crime from his son's soul, nor the dishonor from his
son's memory. He could but gratify his own vain pride; and insensibly to
himself, his act was whispered to him by the fiend that ever whispers
to the heart of man, 'Dread men's opinions more than God's law!' Oh, my
dear brother! what minds like yours should guard against the most is
not the meanness of evil,--it is the evil that takes false nobility, by
garbing itself in the royal magnificence of good." My uncle walked to
the window, opened it, looked out a moment, as if to draw in fresh air,
closed it gently, and came back again to his seat; but during the short
time the window had been left open, a moth flew in.

"Tales like these," renewed my father, pityingly,--"whether told by some
great tragedian, or in thy simple style, my brother,--tales like these
have their uses: they penetrate the heart to make it wiser; but all
wisdom is meek, my Roland. They invite us to put the question to
ourselves that thou hast asked, 'Can we condemn