I gave him my name in return.
"You wear the tricolour," he said; "yet you think me extreme? I answer, that that is all very well for you; but we are different people. You are doubtless a family man, M. le Vicomte, with a wife----"
"On the contrary, M. le Baron."
"Then a mother, a sister?"
"No," I said, smiling. "I have neither. I am quite alone."
"At least with a home," he persisted, "means, friends, employment, or the chance of employment?"
"Yes," I said, "that is so."
"Whereas I--I," he answered, growing guttural in his excitement, "have none of these things. I cannot enter the army--I am a Protestant! I am shut off from the service of the State--I am a Protestant! I cannot be a lawyer or a judge--I am a Protestant! The King's schools are closed to me--I am a Protestant! I cannot appear at Court--I am a Protestant! I--in the eyes of the law I do not exist! I--I, Monsieur," he continued more slowly, and with an air not devoid of dignity, "whose ancestors stood before Kings, and whose grandfather's great-grandfather saved the fourth Henry's life at Coutras--I do not exist!"
"But now?" I said, startled by his tone of passion.
"Ay, now," he answered grimly, "it is going to be different. Now, it is going to be otherwise, unless these black crows of priests put the clock back again. That is why I am on the road."