Beauchamp
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Albert de Morcerf
Quote 1
"I hastened round to see you," Beauchamp continued, "to say this to you: Albert, the sins of our fathers, in these times of action and reaction, cannot be visited on their children. Albert, few men have gone through the revolutions in which we were born, without some spot of mire or of blood staining their soldier's uniform or their judge's robe." (84.54)
Beauchamp suggests that the turbulent nature of recent history is something of a mitigating factor; when all men have been corrupted, he seems to think, no one man should be singled out.