continued Bordin, showing me a paper from which he read the total,--'Seventeen thousand francs in coin; a sum with which a house could be bought that would bring in two thousand francs a year.' After replacing the list in the case, Bordin gave me a note for a sum equivalent to a hundred louis in gold, with a letter in which Mongenod admitted having received my hundred louis, on which he owed interest.
'So now I am all right,' I said to Bordin.'He cannot deny the debt,'
replied my old master; 'but where there are no funds, even the king--Ishould say the Directory--can't enforce rights.' I went home.
Believing that I had been robbed in a way intentionally screened from the law, I withdrew my esteem from Mongenod, and resigned myself philosophically.
"If I have dwelt on these details, which are so commonplace and seem so slight," said the worthy man, looking at Godefroid, "it is not without good reason.I want to explain to you how I was led to act, as most men act, in defiance of the rules which savages observe in the smallest matters.Many persons would justify themselves by the opinion of so excellent a man as Bordin; but to-day I know myself to have been inexcusable.When it comes to condemning one of our fellows, and withdrawing our esteem from him, we should act from our own convictions only.But have we any right to make our heart a tribunal before which we arraign our neighbor? Where is the law? what is our standard of judgment? That which in us is weakness may be strength in our neighbor.So many beings, so many different circumstances for every act; and there are no two beings exactly alike in all humanity.