"We are both men," said Bernard de Rohan.
"Ay!" answered the brigand; "and so are the dove and falcon both birds. As well might that dove think that the life of the falcon must be miserable because it is a bird of prey, as you judge of my feelings by your own. I am a bird of prey; I am the brother of the eagle on the rock. Our joys and our pursuits are the same; and they leave no more regret with me than they do with that eagle, when he folds his wings in his eyrie after the day's chase is done."
The comparison was one which, as Bernard de Rohan very well understood, was pleasant and satisfactory to his companion's feelings, but he could not admit its justice to any great extent. He cared not to point out, however, where it failed, and merely replied, "But there is a difference between men and brutes. Man has his reason to guide him, and must be governed by laws. The eagle has no law but the instinct which God has given him."
"Is not God's law the best?" exclaimed the brigand. "God gave the eagle his law, and therefore that law is right. It is because man's law is not God's law that I stand here upon the mountain. Were laws equal and just, there would be few found to resist them. While they are unequal and unjust, the poor-hearted may submit and tremble; the powerless may yield and suffer: the bold, the free, the strong, and the determined fall back upon the law of God, and wage war against the injustice of man. If you and I, baron," he continued, growing excited with the heat of his argument, "if you and I were to stand before a court of human justice, as it is called, pleading the same cause, accused of the same acts, would our trial be the same, our sentence, our punishment? No! all would be different; and why? Because you are Bernard de Rohan, a wealthy baron of the land, and I am none. A name would make the difference. A mere name would bring the sword on my head and leave yours unwounded. If so it be, I say—if such be the world's equity, I set up a retribution for myself. I raise a kingdom in the passes of these mountains: a kingdom where all the privileges of earth are reversed. Here, under my law, the noble, and the rich, and the proud are those that must bow down and suffer; the poor, and the humble, and the good those that have protection and immunity. Go ask in the peasant's cottage: visit the good pastor's fireside: inquire of the shepherd of the mountain, or the farmer on the plains. Go ask them, I say, if under the sword of Corse de Leon they lose a sheep from their flock or a sheaf from their field. Go ask them if, when the tyrant of the castle—the lawless tyrant; or the tyrant of the city—the lawful tyrant, plunders their property, insults their lowliness, grinds the face of the poor, or wrings the heart of the meek, ask them, I say, if there is not retribution to be found in the midnight court of Corse de Leon, if there is not punishment and justice poured forth even upon the privileged heads above."
Bernard de Rohan felt that it would be useless to argue with him; for it was evident that he was not one of those who are doubtful or wavering in the course they pursue. There was some truth, too, in what the man said: truth which Bernard de Rohan ventured to admit to his own heart, even in that age, when such sentiments could only be looked upon as treasonable. He was silent, then, considering how to reply, when the brigand himself went on.
"Think not," he continued, "that I have chosen my part without deep thought. There are some—and perhaps you think me one of them—who are driven by circumstances, led by their passions, or their follies, or their vices, to a state of opposition with the rest of mankind, and who then, when cast out from society, find a thousand specious reasons for warring against it. But such is not my case. Ever since my youth have such things been dwelling in my mind. I had pondered them long. I had fully made up my mind as to what was right and what was wrong, years before injustice and iniquity—years before the insolence of privileged tyranny drove me forth to practise what I had long proposed. Here I exercise the right that is in man. I take the brown game upon the mountain, which is mine as much as that of any noble in the land. I pay no tax to king or to collector. There is no duty on the wine I drink. There is no toll upon the roads I follow. You will say that I do more than this: that I take from others what is not mine and what is theirs; but I have told you why I do so. They have taken from me what was not theirs; and I wage war against a world which first waged war against me; in which, even among themselves, the hand of every one is against his brother; in which, whether it be in camp, or court, or city, or mart, or church, injustice and iniquity are striving to snatch from one another the rod of oppression, and keep the humble beneath their own yoke."
"I cannot think," replied Bernard de Rohan, willing to answer as generally as possible, "I cannot think that the state of society is so terrible as you represent it. There may be occasional instances of corruption and oppression, and doubtless there are. I have seen some myself, and endeavoured to prevent them; but still these things are by no means general."
"Not general!" exclaimed the brigand, turning upon him almost fiercely. "Sir Baron, I say they are universal. There are one or two exceptions, it is true. You are one of those exceptions yourself. You are one of those who deserve to be convinced; and I can convince you. I can show you men who pretend to be holy, and humble, and good, oppressing most basely those who are in their power. I can show you tyranny and injustice at every step and in every station throughout the earth, from the tradesman's shop to the monarch's throne. I can show it to you in every garb, and in every profession, and in every place. I can, ay, and will show it to you, within these twelve months, in such forms of cruelty and blood that you shall say the brigand on the hillside is mild compared with the man of courts or the man of refectories; that he may be an eagle, but that these are vultures."
"I see not," replied Bernard de Rohan, with a smile, "I see not how you can show me all this. You forget that we shall most likely part here in Savoy. That, as soon as I can rescue Mademoiselle de Brienne from the situation in which she is placed, I shall hasten onward to my own country, and we shall most likely never meet again."
"Not so, not so," replied the brigand. "We shall meet again. Either with her or without her, you must, as you say, go thither soon. My steps are bound likewise towards France; for think not that I dwell always here, or appear always thus: were it so, my head would soon be over the gate of Chamberry. I will find means to show you a part of what I have said, perhaps to give you some assistance likewise, when you most need and least expect it. But remember," he added, "if misfortunes should befall me, or danger threaten me, it is a part of our compact that you do not strive to give me any aid; that you neither raise your voice nor your arm in my behalf."