“Brother,” said the member with the conciliating speech, “allow me thus to call you, for we are all brothers apart from all combinations of human minds—do not yield to a movement of spite—sacrifice a little of your proper pride. Do for us what may be repugnant to you. Your counsel, ideas and presence are the Light. Do not plunge us into the double darkness of your refusal and your absence.”
“Nay, I take away nothing,” said the author; “if you wish the name and the spiritual essence of Jean Jacques Rousseau, put my books on your chairman’s table, and when my turn to speak comes round, open one and read as far as you like. That will be my advice—my opinion.”
“Stop a moment,” said Surgeon Marat as the last speaker took a step to go out. “Free will is all very well and the illustrious philosopher’s should be respected like the rest; but it strikes me as far from regular to let an outsider into the sanctuary who—being bound by no clause, even tacit—may, without being a dishonest man, reveal our proceedings.”
Rousseau returned him his pitying smile.
“I am ready for the oath, if one of discretion,” he said.
But the unnamed member who had watched the debate with authority which nobody questioned, though he stood in the crowd, approached the chairman and whispered in his ear.
“Quite so,” replied the Venerable, and he added: “You are a man, not a brother, but one whose honor places you on our level. We here lay aside our position to ask your simple promise to forget what has passed between us.”
“Like a dream in the morning: I swear on my honor,” replied Rousseau with feeling.
He went out upon these words, and many members at his heels.