No, no, Either he leaves Bellecour this very night, and you swear that he shall, or else we carry him back to the Chateau." "But how can I swear this ?" cried Duhamel impatiently.
"Why, easily enough," put in the stranger.

"Let me take him in my berline.

I can leave him at Amiens or at Beauvais, or any one of the convenient places that I pass.

Or I can even carry him on to Paris with me." "You are very good, Maximilien," answered the old man, to which the other returned a gesture of deprecation.
In this fashion, then, was the matter settled to the satisfaction of the Seigneur's retainers, and upon having received Duhamel's solemn promise that Caron should be carried out of Bellecour, and, for that matter, out of Picardy, before the night was spent, they withdrew.
Within the schoolmaster's study he whom Duhamel called Maximilien strode to and fro, his hands clasped behind his back, his head bent, his chin thrust forward, denouncing the seigneurial system, of whose atrocity he had received that evening instances enough--for he had heard the whole story of La Boulaye's rebellion against the power of Bellecour and the causes that had led to it.
"We will mend all this, I promise you, Duhamel," he was repeating.

"But not until we have united to shield the weak from oppression, to restrain the arrogant and to secure to each the possession of what belongs to him; not until all men are free and started upon equal terms in the race of life; not until we shall have set up rules of justice and of peace, to which all--rich and poor, noble and simple alike--shall be obliged to conform.