"I ran to your side," continued Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines, "to tell you that the sins of our fathers cannot stain their children. Réginard, few have traversed the revolutions of our age without that a spot of mud or blood have soiled their uniform of a soldier or the robe of a judge. You have, then, no just quarrel with me, and should you throttle me from behind (an old game of the tobacco smugglers of Morgoule), your conscience would condemn it as a crime. But what you can no longer force from me, I offer you freely. These proofs, do you wish that they disappear? Trust my word of honour; this horrible secret shall never pass my lips." With that, he handed the papers to Réginard.
"O noble heart!" cried Réginard. "Thy connoisseurship of tobacco is far from the greatest of your virtues!"
Pierre-Jacques-Philippe-Michel Boyen-Xènes-Baguines looked shocked and a little pained; but Réginard paid no heed, and with trembling hands he went to the candle always lit for cigars and consumed the accursed documents to the last fragment, as if they were one of the poorer sketches of the Livre Rouge de l'Ouestmarcheillaise, like the one with Bingueau and the teacup.
