He appeared then to feel sensible that he had committed an indiscretion, for he laid down the paper, and, as if forcibly diverting himself from its contents, addressed Aveline.
"What you have said respecting your father's condition of mind," he observed, "by no means convinces me that it is so unsound as to render him irresponsible for his actions.

It were to put a charitable construction upon his conduct to say that no one but a madman could be capable of it; but there was too much consistency in what he has said and done to admit of such an inference.

But for the interposition of another person he owned that he would have killed the King; and the disappointment he exhibited, and the language he used, prove such to have been his fixed intention.

His mind may have been disturbed; but what of that?
All who meditate great crimes, it is to be hoped, are not entirely masters of themselves.

Yet for that reason they are not to be exempt from punishment.