Mauprat
plead your own cause. If the court thinks right to prosecute you for contempt you can see to your own defence; but there is no question of that now."
"I beg your pardon. The question is for me to let the court see whether I am an honest man or a false witness. It would seem that this has something to do with the case; the prisoner's life depends on it; the court cannot consider that a matter of indifference."
"Proceed," said the King's advocate, "and try to remember the respect you owe to the court."
"I have no wish to offend the court," replied Patience. "I would merely observe that a man may refuse to submit to the orders of the court from conscientious motives which the court can legally condemn, but which each judge, personally, can understand and excuse. I say, then, that I could not persuade myself of Bernard de Mauprat's guilt; my ears alone knew of it; this was not enough for me. Pardon me, gentlemen. I, too, am a judge. Make inquiries about me; in my village they call me 'the great judge.' When my fellow-villagers ask me to decide some tavern dispute or the boundary of some field, I do not so much listen to their opinions as my own. In judging a man one must take account of more than a single little act. Many previous ones will help to show the truth or falsity of the last that is imputed to him. Thus, being unable to believe that Bernard was a murderer, and having heard more than a dozen people, whom I consider incapable of giving false evidence, testify to the fact that a monk 'bearing a resemblance to the Mauprats' had been prowling about the country, and having myself seen this monk's back and habit as he was passing through Pouligny on the morning of the event, I wished to discover if he was in Va-
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