"Old man, from time immemorial there have been slaves, and there ever will be slaves. What would it avail to be of the conquering race if not to keep the fruits of conquest? By the King of the Heavens! Do you take me for a barbarian? Have I not promulgated laws, founded schools, encouraged letters, arts and sciences? Is there in the whole world a city comparable with Aix-la-Chapelle?"
"Your gorgeous capital of Aix-la-Chapelle, the capital of your Germanic possessions, is not Gaul. Gaul has remained to you a strange country. You love forests that lend themselves to your autumn hunting parties, and the rich domains, whence every year the revenues are carted to your residences on the other side of the Rhine. But you do not love Gaul, seeing that you exhaust her resources in men and money in order to carry on your wars. Frightful misery desolates our provinces. Millions of God's creatures, deprived almost of bread, shelter and clothes, toil from dawn to dusk, and die in slavery—all in order to sustain the opulence of their masters. If you cause instruction to be given to some pupils in your Palatine school, you allow, on the other hand, millions of God's creatures to live like brutes! Such is the condition of Gaul under your reign, Charles the Great!"
"Old man," rejoined the Emperor, with a somber face and rising anger, "after treating you as a friend this whole day, I looked for different language. You are more than severe, you are unjust."
"I have been sincere towards you, the same as I was towards your grandfather."
"Mindful of the service that you rendered my grandfather at the battle of Poitiers, I meant to be generous towards you. I meant to do the right thing by myself, by your people, and by you. I hoped to see you, after this day spent in close intimacy with me, drop your prejudices, and to be able to say to you: I have vanquished the Bretons by force of arms; I desire to affirm my conquest by persuasion. Return to your country; report to your countrymen the day that you spent with Charles; they will trust your words, seeing that they place implicit confidence in you. You were the soul of the last two wars that they sustained against me. Be now the soul of our pacification. A conquest founded on force is often ephemeral; a conquest cemented in mutual affection and esteem is imperishable. I trust in your loyalty to gain the hearts of the Bretons to me. Such was my hope. The bitter injustice of your words dashes it. Let us think of it no more. You shall remain here as a hostage. I shall treat you as a brave soldier, who saved my grandfather's life. Perhaps in time you will judge me more justly. When that day shall have come, you will be allowed to return to your own country, and I feel sure you will then tell them what is right, as to-day you would only tell them what is wrong. All things will come in due season."
"Although your hopes can not realize the object that you proposed, they, nevertheless, are an evidence of a generous soul."
"By the cap of St. Martin! You Bretons are a strange people. What! If you should believe that I deserve esteem and affection, and if your countrymen should share your opinion, would neither you nor they accept with joy the authority that you now submit to by force?"
"With us it is no question of having a more or less worthy master. We want no master."
"And yet I am your master, ye pagans!"
"Until the day when we shall have reconquered our independence by a successful insurrection."