Anatole France

:

I once knew an austere judge. His name was Thomas de Maulan. He
was a country gentleman. During the seven years ministry of Marshal
MacMahon he had become a magistrate in the hope that one day he
would administer justice in the king's name. He had principles which he
believed to be unalterable, having never attempted to examine them. As
soon as one examines a principle one discovers something beneath it
and perceives that it was not a principle at all. Both his religious and
his social principles Thomas de Maulan kept outside the range of his
curiosity.

He was judge in the court of first instance in the little town of X--------,
where I was then living. His appearance inspired esteem and even a
certain sympathy. His figure was tall, thin, and bony, his face was
sallow. His extreme simplicity gave him a somewhat distinguished air.
He liked to be called Monsieur Thomas, not that he despised his
social position, but because he considered himself too poor to support
it. I knew enough of him to recognize that his appearance was not de-
ceptive and that though weak in character and narrow in intelligence
he had a noble soul. I discovered that he possessed high moral qualities.
But, having had occasion to observe him in the fulfilment of his func-
tions as examining magistrate and judge, I perceived that his very up-
rightness and his conception of duty rendered him cruel and sometimes
completely deprived him of insight. His extreme piety caused him to be
unconsciously obsessed by the ideas of sin and expiation, of crime and

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