CHAPTER V

OF CONSCIENCE

The Sieur de la Brousse, my brother, and I, travelling one day together
during the time of our civil wars, met a gentleman of good sort. He was
of the contrary party, though I did not know so much, for he pretended
otherwise: and the mischief on't is, that in this sort of war the cards
are so shuffled, your enemy not being distinguished from yourself by any
apparent mark either of language or habit, and being nourished under the
same law, air, and manners, it is very hard to avoid disorder and
confusion. This made me afraid myself of meeting any of our troops in a
place where I was not known, that I might not be in fear to tell my name,
and peradventure of something worse; as it had befallen me before, where,
by such a mistake, I lost both men and horses, and amongst others an
Italian gentleman my page, whom I bred with the greatest care and
affection, was miserably slain, in whom a youth of great promise and
expectation was extinguished. But the gentleman my brother and I met
had so desperate, half-dead a fear upon him at meeting with any horse,
or passing by any of the towns that held for the King, that I at last
discovered it to be alarms of conscience. It seemed to the poor man as
if through his visor and the crosses upon his cassock, one would have
penetrated into his bosom and read the most secret intentions of his
heart; so wonderful is the power of conscience. It makes us betray,
accuse, and fight against ourselves, and for want of other witnesses, to
give evidence against ourselves:

"Occultum quatiens animo tortore flagellum."

["The torturer of the soul brandishing a sharp scourge within."