ited, if not, one risked death.
This was not difficult either. Sole proprietor and nearly absolute
sovereign, with neither equals or peers on his domain, here he was
unique being, superior and incomparable to every one else.[2208] On that
subject revolved his long monologue during his hours of gloomy solitude,
which soliloquy has lasted for nine centuries.[2209] Thus in his own
eyes, his person and all that depends on him are inviolable; rather than
tolerate the slightest infringement on his prerogatives he will dare all
and sacrifice all.[2210] A sensitive pride (orgueil exalte) is the best
of sentinels to protect a right; for, not only does it mount guard
over the right to preserve it, but, again, and especially, for its own
satisfaction; the imagination has conceived a personality appropriate
for his rank, and this character the man imposes on himself as his role.
Henceforth, he not only forces the respect of others, but he respects
himself; he possesses the sentiment of honor, a generous self-esteem
which makes him regard himself as noble and incapable of doing anything
mean. In discriminating between his actions, he may err; fashion or
vanity may sometimes lead him too far, or lead him astray, either on the
path of recklessness or on that of puerility; his point of honor may be
fixed in the wrong direction. But, in sum, and thanks to this being
a fixed point, he will maintain himself erect even under an absolute
monarchy, under a Philip II. in Spain, under a Louis XIV. in France,
under a Frederick II. in Prussia. From the feudal baron or gentleman of
the court to the modern gentleman, this tradition persists and descends
from story to story down to lowest social substratum: to-day, every man
of spirit, the bourgeois, the peasant, the workman, has his point of
honor like the noble. He likewise, in spite of the social encroachments
that gain on him, reserves to himself his private nook, a sort of
moral stronghold wherein he preserves his faiths, his opinions, his
affections, his obligations as son, husband and father; it is the sacred
treasury of his innermost being. This stronghold belongs to him alone;
no one, even in the name of the public, has a right to enter it; to
surrender it would be cowardice, rather than give up its keys he would
die in the breach;[2211] when this militant sentiment of honor is
enlisted on the side of conscience it becomes virtue itself.[2212]--Such
are, in these days, (1870) the two central