“No! Bertollon, what I lament is, that you are good and virtuous, without wishing to appear so; you call virtue fanaticism and narrowness of ideas, and yet you constantly practise its precepts.”
“Well, then, Alamontade, rest satisfied with that. Why do you for ever weary yourself with my conversion? When you are older I shall see you treading in my footsteps; be, at least, tolerant for the present; the same child has, perhaps, a twofold name.”
“I doubt it. Could you, Bertollon, voluntarily plunge yourself into misery in order to support a righteous cause?”
“What do you call a righteous cause? Your ideas are not clear.”
“If you could save Montpellier from destruction by sacrificing yourself, would you be capable of suffering poverty or death?”
“M. Colas, you rave again. Only fanatics can demand and make such sacrifices, and it is good for the world that there are such. But now come for once to your senses; I am sorry that you are always indulging such whims, for in this way you will never be happy. Run over the whole world and collect the fools who would meet death for your notions: you will not find one in a hundred million. Every thing is true, good, useful, just, and noble, only under certain circumstances. The ideas of men vary everywhere; many have fancied that they could save the world by their death. They died, but for their own caprice, not for the world, and were afterwards laughed at as fools.”
“For these words I could despise you, Bertollon.”
“Then you would not be over virtuous, according to your own notions.”
“If you could increase your wealth by plunging me into misery, would you do so!”
“For such a question I ought to despise you, Colas?”