His church in Brittany; God suffers in His insulted cathedrals, in his desecrated Gospels, in His violated houses of prayer; God suffers in His assassinated priests. What did we come to do, we ourselves, in this vessel which is perishing at this very moment? We came to God's assistance. If your brother had been a good servant, if he had faithfully performed the duty of a wise and useful man, the accident would not have happened to the carronade, the corvette would not have been disabled; she would not have gone out of her course; she would not have fallen into the hands of this fleet of destruction, and we should be landing on the shores of France now, of all us, brave warriors and seamen as we are, sword in hand, waving the white banner, numerous, content, joyful, and we should be aiding the brave peasants of La Vendée in saving France, in saving the king, in doing God's work. That is what we came to do, that is what we should be doing, that is what I, the only one left, set out to do. But you are against it. In this contest of the godless against the priest, in this strife of regicides against the king, in this conflict of Satan against God, you are for Satan. Your brother was the first auxiliary of the devil, you are the second. He began, you are finishing it. You are for the regicides against the throne, you are for the godless against the church. You take God's last resource away from Him. Because I shall not be there,—I who represent the king,—hamlets will go on burning, families weeping, priests bleeding, Brittany suffering, the king will remain in prison, and Jesus Christ in distress. And who will have done all this? You. Go on; it is your affair. I counted on you to bring about the contrary. I am deceived. Ah, yes,—it is true,—you are right,—I have killed your brother. Your brother was courageous, I rewarded him; he was guilty, I punished him. He failed in his duty; I have not failed in mine. What I have done, I would do again. And I swear it, by the great Saint Ann d'Auray, who sees us now, that, under similar circumstances to those in which I had your brother shot, I would shoot my own son. Now you are the master. Yes. I pity you. You have lied to your captain. You, a Christian, are faithless; you, a Breton, are without honor; I have been entrusted to your loyalty, and accepted by your treason; you give me dead to those to whom
