"Come, now, Citizen Gilbert, am I a brigand because I voted for the king's death?"
The man in black raised his head, shook his melancholy brow, and said, holding out his hand to his companion:
"No, Billet, you are no more a brigand for that than I am an aristocrat for voting the other way. You voted according to your conscience, and I to mine. It is a terrible thing to take away from man that which you can not restore."
"So it is your opinion that despotism is inviolable," returned Billet, "liberty is revolt, and there is no justice on earth except such as kings, that is, tyrants, dispense? Then what remains for the people, the right to serve and obey? Do you, Gilbert, the pupil of Rousseau, say that?"
"No, Billet, for that would be an impiety against the people."
"Come," said the farmer, "I am going to talk to you with the roughness of my plain good sense, to which I do not mind your answering with all the sharpness of your fine wit. Do you admit that a nation, believing itself oppressed, should have the right to disestablish its church, lower or even demolish the throne, fight and make itself free?"
"Not a doubt of it."
"Then it has the right to gather in the spoils of the victory?"
"Yes, Billet; but not to compass such things with murder and violence. Remember that it is written, 'Thou shalt not kill thy neighbor.'"
"But the king was no neighbor of mine," returned Billet; "he was my enemy. I remember what my poor mother read me in the Bible of what Samuel said to the Israelites who asked him to appoint a king."