Page:Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869) v2.djvu/46

26 Let us respect the sceptre, which is the chief of staves. Respect is prudence, and mediocrity is safety. To insult the king is to put one's self in the same danger as a girl who rashly attempts to pare the nails of a lion. They tell me that you have been prattling about the farthing, which is the same thing as the liard, and that you have found fault with the august medallion for which they sell us at market the eighth part of a salt herring. Take care! let us be serious. Consider the existence of pains and penalties. Suck in these legislative truths. You are in a country in which the man who cuts down a tree three years old is quietly taken off to the gallows. As to swearers, their feet are put into the stocks. The drunkard is shut up in a barrel, with the bottom out so that he can walk, with a hole in the top through which his head is passed, and with two in the sides for his hands, so that he cannot lie down. He who strikes another man in Westminster Hall is imprisoned for life and has his goods confiscated. Whoever strikes any one in the king's palace has his hand cut off. A fillip on the nose chances to bleed, and, behold! you are maimed for life. He who is convicted of heresy in the bishop's court is burnt alive. It was for no great crime that Cuthbert Simpson was quartered on a turnstile. Three years since, in 1702, not so very long ago you see, they placed in the pillory a scoundrel called Daniel Defoe, who had the audacity to print the names of the Members of Parliament who had spoken on the previous evening. He who commits high treason is disembowelled alive, and they tear out his heart and buffet his cheeks with it. Impress these notions of right and justice on your mind. Never allow yourself to speak a rash word, and at the first cause of anxiety run for it. Such is the bravery which I counsel and which I practise. In the way of temerity, imitate the