“Balthazar hath well observed that a female cannot exercise the executioner’s office.”

“True, but a female may bring forth them that can.  This is a cunning question for the doctors-in-law, and it must be examined; of all damnable offences, Heaven keep me from that of a wish for change.  If change is ever to follow, why establish?  Change is the unpardonable sin in politics, Signor Grimaldi; since that which is often changed becomes valueless in time, even if it be coin.

“The mother hath something she would utter, said the Genoese, whose quick but observant eye had been watching the workings of the countenances of the repudiated family, while the bailiff was digressing in his usual prolix manner on things in general, and who detected the throes of feeling which heaved the bosom of the respectable Marguerite, in a way to announce a speedy birth to her thoughts.

“Hast thou aught to urge, good woman?” demanded Peterchen, who was well enough disposed to hear both sides in all cases of controversy, unless they happened to touch the supremacy of the great canton.  “To speak the truth, the reasons of Jacques Colis are plausible and witty, and are likely to weigh heavy against thee.”

The color slowly disappeared from the brow of the mother, and she turned such a look of fondness and protection on her child, as spoke a complete condensation of all her feelings in the engrossing, sentiment of a mother’s love.

“Have I aught to urge!” slowly repeated Marguerite, looking steadily about her at the curious and unfeeling crowd which, bent on the indulgence of its appetite for novelty, and excited by its prejudices, still pressed upon the halberds of the officers—­“Has a mother aught to say in defence of her injured and insulted child!  Why hast thou not also asked, Herr Hofmeister, if I am human?  We come of proscribed races, I know, Balthazar and I, but like thee, proud bailiff, and the privileged at thy side, we come too of God!  The judgment and power of men have crushed us from the beginning, and we are used to the world’s scorn and to the world’s injustice!”

“Say not so, good woman, for no more is required than the law sanctions.  Thou art now talking against thine own interests, and I interrupt thee in pure mercy.  ’Twould be scandalous in me to sit here and listen to one that hath bespattered the law with an evil tongue.”

“I know naught of the subtleties of thy laws, but well do I know their cruelty and wrongs, as respects me and mine!  All others come into the world with hope, but we have been crushed from the beginning.  That surely cannot be just which destroys hope.  Even the sinner need not despair, through the mercy of the Son of God! but we, that have come into the world under thy laws, have little before us in life but shame and the scorn of men!”

“Nay, thou quite mistakest the matter, dame; these privileges were first bestowed on thy families in reward for good services, I make no doubt, and it was long accounted profitable to be of this office.”