Try to please your cousin; she is a star in the firmament. Find out
truth; love the people; hate those who hate them; be ready to sacrifice
yourself for them. . . . Yes, one word more--listen. I know what I am
saying--become the people's friend."
"Is the people, then, better than the nobility, Patience? Come now,
honestly, since you are a wise man, tell me the truth."
"Ay, we are worth more than the nobles, because they trample us under
foot, and we let them. But we shall not always bear this, perhaps. No;
you will have to know it sooner or later, and I may as well tell you
now. You see yonder stars? They will never change. Ten thousand years
hence they will be in the same place and be giving forth as much light
as to-day; but within the next hundred years, maybe within less, there
will be many a change on this earth. Take the word of a man who has an
eye for the truth of things, and does not let himself be led astray by
the fine airs of the great. The poor have suffered enough; they will
turn upon the rich, and their castles will fail and their lands be
carved up. I shall not see it; but you will. There will be ten cottages
in the place of this park, and ten families will live on its revenue.
There will no longer be servants or masters, or villein or lord. Some
nobles will cry aloud and yield only to force, as your uncles would do
if they were alive, and as M. de la Marche will do in spite of all his
fine talk.
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