the spirit of revenge by systematising it. Modern sentiment, in spite of the influences of Christianity, recoils a little from Jimena marrying the Cid, whose hands are red with her father's blood. Corneille justifies the action by duty to the King and a secret passion for Rodrigo. The old story, however, is entirely consistent with the spirit of primitive times. Rodrigo shows that Jimena has no cause for complaint, as he killed her father in fair fight and to satisfy the blood-feud, and because he is willing to make the injury done good. "I killed a man, and I give you a man."[1] As, however, such compositions were not often possible, the State found it desirable to interpose habitually, and has gradually adopted the rule that vengeance belongs only to the State; that the individual must never use force except in strict self-defence; and that he may not even omit his revenge that is, accept atonement or composition in any but trifling cases, as every offence is committed primarily against the body politic.
The right of the father over the lives of his children, and the right of the husband over the life of his wife, are now practically obsolete. The first is so repugnant to modern feeling that even a novelist scarcely dares to conceive a situation in which it occurs. In Serge Panin a mother-in-law kills the son-in-law who has made her daughter miserable, brought dishonour upon his name, and is too cowardly to die by his own hand; but it may be doubted if modern sentiment would have tolerated this lawless justice upon a nearer relative. The case of the wife is a little different. There is a survival of old custom, atrophied or nearly so by disuse, in the doctrine of our law-books, which justifies the
- ↑ "Maté á tu padre, Jimena … Para vengar cierto agravio. Maté hombre, y hombre doy."—Romancero del Cid, xi. p. 7.
