“Do you believe in such a possibility?  Do you think the Roman pontiff can ever again sway the destinies of Europe?”

“I can hardly say I believe it; yet I see the possibility of such an opening if the right man were to arise.  But I fear he will not arise; or if he should, the Conclave will stifle him.  Yet there is but one alternative:  either Europe must once more join in a crusade with a pope at the head, or it must hoist the red flag.  There is no other issue.”

“Heaven preserve us from both!  And I think we shall be preserved from the Pope by the rottenness of the Church; from the drapeau rouge by the indignation and horror of all honest men.  You see how the Provisional Government has resisted the insane attempt of the fanatics to make the red flag accepted as the national banner?”

“Yes; and it is the one thing which dashes my pleasure in the new revolution.  It is the one act of weakness which the Government has exhibited; a concession which will be fatal unless it be happily set aside by the energetic party of action.”

“An act of weakness? say rather an act of strength.  A concession? say rather the repudiation of anarchy, the assertion of law and justice.”

“Not a bit.  It was concession to the fears of the timid, and to the vanity of the French people.  The tricolor is a French flag—­ not the banner of humanity.  It is because the tricolor has been identified with the victories of France that it appeals to the vanity of the vainest of people.  They forget that it is the flag of a revolution which failed, and of an empire which was one perpetual outrage to humanity.  Whereas the red is new; it is the symbol of an energetic, thorough-going creed.  If it carries terror with it, so much the better.  The tyrants and the timid should be made to tremble.”

“I had no idea you were so bloodthirsty,” said I, laughing at his vehemence.

“I am not bloodthirsty at all; I am only logical and consistent.  There is a mass of sophistry current in the world which sickens me.  People talk of Robespierre and St. Just, two of the most virtuous men that ever lived—­and of Dominic and Torquemada, two of the most single-minded—­as if they were cruel and bloodthirsty, whereas they were only convinced.”

“Is it from love of paradox that you defend these tigers?”

“Tigers, again—­how those beasts are calumniated!”

He said this with a seriousness which was irresistibly comic.  I shouted with laughter; but he continued gravely: 

“You think I am joking.  But let me ask you why you consider the tiger more bloodthirsty than yourself?  He springs upon his food—­ you buy yours from the butcher.  He cannot live without animal food:  it is a primal necessity, and he obeys the ordained instinct.  You can live on vegetables; yet you slaughter beasts of the field and birds of the air (or buy them when slaughtered), and consider yourself a model of virtue.  The tiger only kills his food or his enemies; you not only kill both, but you kill one animal to make gravy for another!  The tiger is less bloodthirsty than the Christian!”