“Do not believe him, my son:  the true glory is the bread of the soul; it is this which nourishes self-sacrifice, patience, and courage.  The Master of all has bestowed it as a tie the more between men.  When we desire to be distinguished by our brethren, do we not thus prove our esteem and our sympathy for them?  The longing for admiration is but one side of love.  No, no; the true glory can never be too dearly paid for!  That which we should deplore, child, is not the infirmities which prove a generous self-sacrifice, but those which our vices or our imprudence have called forth.  Ah! if I could speak aloud to those who, when passing, cast looks of pity upon me, I should say to the young man whose excesses have dimmed his sight before he is old, ‘What have you done with your eyes?’ To the slothful man, who with difficulty drags along his enervated mass of flesh, ‘What have you done with your feet?’ To the old man, who is punished for his intemperance by the gout, ’What have you done with your hands?’ To all, ’What have you done with the days God granted you, with the faculties you should have employed for the good of your brethren?’ If you cannot answer, bestow no more of your pity upon the old soldier maimed in his country’s cause; for he—­he at least—­can show his scars without shame.”

October 16th.—­The little engraving has made me comprehend better the merits of Father Chaufour, and I therefore esteem him all the more.

He has just now left my attic.  There no longer passes a single day without his coming to work by my fire, or my going to sit and talk by his board.

The old artilleryman has seen much, and likes to tell of it.  For twenty years he was an armed traveller throughout Europe, and he fought without hatred, for he was possessed by a single thought—­the honor of the national flag!  It might have been his superstition, if you will; but it was, at the same time, his safeguard.

The word France, which was then resounding so gloriously through the world, served as a talisman to him against all sorts of temptation.  To have to support a great name may seem a burden to vulgar minds, but it is an encouragement to vigorous ones.

“I, too, have had many moments,” said he to me the other day, “when I have been tempted to make friends with the devil.  War is not precisely the school for rural virtues.  By dint of burning, destroying, and killing, you grow a little tough as regards your feelings; ’and, when the bayonet has made you king, the notions of an autocrat come into your head a little strongly.  But at these moments I called to mind that country which the lieutenant spoke of to me, and I whispered to myself the well-known phrase, ’Toujours Francais!  It has been laughed at since.  People who would make a joke of the death of their mother have turned it into ridicule, as if the name of our country was not also a noble and a binding thing.  For my part, I shall never forget from how many follies the title of Frenchman