On the other hand, that such arguments that I have advanced to you would be acceptable to the Government I do not doubt.

But whilst they would approve of this that you call brigandage, I also do not doubt that they would claim that the prizes I have seized are by right the property of the Convention, and they might compel me to surrender them.
Thus they would pass from my hands into those of some statesman-brigand, who, under the plea of seizing these treasures for the coffers of the nation, would transfer them to his own.

Would you rather help such an one to profit than me, Caron?
Have you so far forgotten how we suffered together--almost in the self-same cause--at Bellecour, in the old days?
Have you forgotten the friendship that linked us later, in Paris, when the Revolution was in its dawn?
Have you forgotten what I have endured at the hands of this infernal class that you can feel no sympathy for me?
Caron, it is a measure of revenge, and as there is a Heaven, a very mild one.

Me they robbed of more than life; them I deprive but of their jewels and their plate, turning them destitute upon the world.

Bethink you of my girl-wife, Caron," he added, furiously, "and of how she died of grief and shame a short three months after our hideous nuptials.
God in Heaven! When the memory of it returns to me I marvel at my own forbearance.