to outside circumstances. The principle and the quality of the act are
the same. We stand on the same plane, one step higher than the other
combatants. While the others are the soldiers of necessity, we are the
volunteers of honour; and, without detracting from their merits, this
title adds to ours all that a pure and disinterested idea adds to the
noblest acts of courage. There is not a doubt but that in our place
you would have done precisely what we did. You would have done it with
the same simplicity, the same calm and confident ardour, the same good
faith. You would have thrown yourselves into the breach as
whole-heartedly, with the same scorn of useless phrases and the same
stubborn conscientiousness. And the reason why I do not shrink from
singing in your presence the praises of what we have done is that
these praises also affect yourselves, who would not have hesitated to
do the selfsame things.


3

In short, we have both the same conception of honour; and a like idea
must needs bear like fruits. In your eyes as in ours, a formal
promise, a word once given is the most sacred thing that can pass
between man and man. Now far more than the valour of a man--because it
rises to much greater heights and extends to much greater
distances--the valour of a people depends upon the conception of its
honour which that people holds and, above all, upon the sacrifices
which it is capable of making for the sake of that honour. We may
differ upon all the other ideas that guide the actions of mankind,
notably upon the religious idea; but those who do not agree on this
one point are unworthy of the name of man. It represents the purest
flame, the ever more ardent focus of all human dignity and virtue.