''What I envy you is your liberty," observed M. de Bellegarde, „your wide range, your freedom to come and go, your not having a lot of people, who take themselves awfully seriously, expecting something of you. I live," he added with a sigh, „beneath the eyes of my admirable mother." [...]

It would be impossible for me either to appear at or write to your Convention in the aim of furnishing a contribution to your deliberations, except in connection with my own life-work, and the deep convictions which instigated that life-work, and which have become even more and more profound as I continued in it.[...]