"He gave a full pardon to the poor girl, deeming, as the letters of remission said, that she had suffered tortures which equalled, nay even surpassed, the penalty of her sentence.
"Hélène Gillet, restored to life, withdrew into a convent at Brest where she practised up to the time of her death, the strictest piety. Such," said the little official, "is the true history of Hélène Gillet, as every one in Dijon knows. Do you not find it entertaining, Monsieur l'Abbé?"
XX
JUSTICE (continued)
las!" said my good master, "I cannot stomach my food. My heart is as sick at this horrible scene, which you have described so cold-bloodedly, sir, as at the sight of this servant of Madame Josse's whom they are taking to be hanged, when something better might be made of her."
"But, Monsieur," retorted the beadle, "have I not told you that this girl has stolen from her mistress; and do you not wish thieves to be hanged?"
"Certainly," said my good master, "it is customary; and as the force of custom is irresistible, I pay no attention to it in my ordinary course of life. In the same way Seneca, the philosopher, who nevertheless inclined to mildness, put together treatises of consummate elegance, even while near to him, at Rome, slaves were crucified for the smallest fault, as we see in the case of the slave Mithridates, who died, his hands nailed to the cross; merely guilty of having blasphemed the divinity of his master, the infamous Trimalchio. We are so made that nothing usual or customary either troubles or wounds us. And habit wears away, if I may say so, our indignation as well as our astonishment. I wake up every morning without thinking, I own, of the unhappy beings who are to be hanged or broken upon the wheel during the day. But when the thought of torture becomes more perceptible to me my heart is troubled, and the sight of this handsome girl led to her death contracts my throat to the point of refusing passage to this little fish."
"What is a handsome girl?" said the beadle. "There is not a street in Paris where they don't make them by the dozen every night. Why did this one steal from her mistress, Madame Josse?"
"I know nothing of that, Monsieur," gravely answered my good master, "you know nothing, and the judges who condemned her knew no more, for the reasons of our actions are obscure, and their springs remain deeply hidden. I hold man free as regards his deeds, as my religion teaches me to believe, but beyond the doctrine of the Church, which is sure, there is so little ground for believing in the freedom of mankind, that I tremble when I think of decrees of justice punishing actions whose mainspring, sequence, and causes, all equally escape us, where the will plays often but a small part, and which are sometimes accomplished without consciousness. If, finally, we are responsible for our acts, since the system of our holy religion is founded on the mysterious accord between human free-will and divine grace, it is an error to deduce from this obscure and delicate liberty all the troubles, all the tortures, and all the suffering of which our laws are prodigal."
"I perceive with sorrow, Monsieur," said the dingy little man, "that you are on the side of the rogues."