His regard then fell full on Loup Bergund, and the terrible severity of its expression made the unworthy tyrant shrink beneath his glance of fire.
"_You_ my father!"-- exclaimed he, at length, in a terrible voice--"do _you_ open your arms to me as to your son?
Hence!--back! there is nothing in common between us--we can be nothing to each other! I know you not.

Go--say to your captive of yonder dungeon that her son is dead; that the _routiers_ have stolen him: you my father! no; you have no son--it is a falsehood--you are a great lord, and I a wretched foundling--a being without a name--one disdained by wolves and robbers.
No; you are not my father.

I have no other but he who stands beside me; I am the son of no other than the poor Cagot." As he spoke, Raymond dashed the chain of gold on the ground, and trampled it under his feet--he seized his mother's letter from the hands of the Knight of Lescun, and thrusting it into the flame of a torch hard by, burnt it to ashes; then, throwing himself into the arms of Guilhem, he burst into a passion of tears.

Recovering himself, however, in a few moments--while all looked on silent and aghast--he cried aloud-- "'And now I am, indeed, a Cagot--irrevocably so--and it is my glory and my joy! But hear me all! while I proclaim what you are worth, and those whom you dare to despise, and for whom the Redeemer died, as well as for us all: You are decked in gold and gorgeous raiment, and they are in rags; but they have hearts which beat beneath, and you have souls of ice: you are their executioners, and they are martyrs.

You cast your wives and children into the dungeons of your castles, from whence the poor Cagots save them: you are great upon the earth, but they will be great in Heaven!" These last words fell, like thunder, upon the ears of all, but most on those of Gaston Phoebus--who thought of his murdered son--and writhed with agony.