time for calculation or reflection. A new peace maddens England to the
same paroxysm as a new war maddens France. She hath sent over hither
her minister ... or rather her prime minister himself is come to
transact all the business ... the most ignorant and most shortsighted
man to be found in any station of any public office throughout the
whole of Europe. He must be treated as her arbiter: we must talk to
him of restoring her, of regenerating her, of preserving her, of
guiding her, which (we must protest with our hands within our frills)
he alone is capable of doing. We must enlarge on his generosity (and
generous he indeed is), and there is nothing he will not concede.
_Louis._ But if they do not come over in a week, we shall lose the
season. I ought to be eating a pheasant-poult by the middle of July.
Oh, but you were talking to me about the other matter, and perhaps the
weightier of the two; ay, certainly. If this indemnity is paid to
England, what becomes of our civil list, the dignity of my family and
household?
_Talleyrand._ I do assure your majesty, England shall never receive ...
did I say a tithe?... I say she shall never receive a fiftieth of what
she expended in the war against us. It would be out of all reason, and
out of all custom in her to expect it. Indeed it would place her in
almost as good a condition as ourselves. Even if she were beaten she
could hardly hope _that_: she never in the last three centuries has
demanded it when she was victorious. Of all the sufferers by the war,
we shall be the best off.
_Louis._ The English are calculators and traders.
_Talleyrand._ Wild speculators, gamblers in trade, who hazard more
ventures than their books can register. It will take England some
years to cast up the amount of her losses.
_Louis._ But she, in common with her allies, will insist on our ceding
those provinces which my predecessor Louis XIV annexed to his kingdom.
Be quite certain that nothing short of Alsace, Lorraine, and Franc
Comté, will satisfy the German princes. They must restore the German
language in those provinces: for languages are the only true
boundaries of nations, and there will always be dissension where there
is difference of tongue. We must likewise be prepared to surrender the
remainder of the Netherlands; not indeed to England, who refused them
in the reign of Elizabeth: she wants only Dunkirk, and Dunkirk she
will have.
_Talleyrand._ This seems reasonable: for which reason it must never
be. Diplomacy, when she yields to such simple arguments as plain
reason urges against her, loses her office, her efficacy, and her
name.
_Louis._ I would not surrender our conquests in Germany, if I could
help it.
_Talleyrand._ Nothing more easy. The Emperor Alexander may be
persuaded that Germany united and entire, as she would then become,
must be a dangerous rival to Russia.
_Louis._ It appears to me that Poland will be more so, with her free
institutions.
_Talleyrand._ There is only one statesman in the whole number of those
assembled at Paris, who believes that her institutions will continue
free; and he would rather they did not; but he stipulates for it, to
gratify and mystify the people of England.
_Louis._ I see this clearly. I have a great mind to send Blacas over
to Stowe. I can trust to him to look to the crates and coops, and to
see that the pheasants have enough of air and water, and that the
Governor of Calais finds a commodious place for them to roost in,
forbidding the drums to beat and disturb them, evening or morning. The
next night, according to my calculation, they repose at Montreuil. I
must look at them before they are let loose. I cannot well imagine why
the public men employed by England are usually, indeed constantly so
inferior in abilities to those of France, Prussia, Austria, and
Russia. What say you, M. Talleyrand? I do not mean about the
pheasants; I mean about the envoys.
_Talleyrand._ It can only be that I have considered the subject more
frequently and attentively than suited the avocations of your majesty,
that the reason comes out before me clearly and distinctly. The prime
ministers, in all these countries, are independent, and uncontrolled
in the choice of agents. A prime minister in France may perhaps be
willing to promote the interests of his own family; and hence he may
appoint from it one unworthy of the place. In regard to other
families, he cares little or nothing about them, knowing that his
power lies in the palace, and not in the club-room. Whereas in England
he must conciliate the great families, the hereditary dependants of
his faction, Whig or Tory. Hence even the highest commands have been
conferred on such ignorant and worthless men as the Duke of York and
the Earl of Chatham, although the minister was fully aware that the
honour of his nation was tarnished, and that its safety was in
jeopardy, by such appointments. Meanwhile he kept his seat however,
and fed from it his tame creatures in the cub.
_Louis._ Do you apprehend any danger (talking of cubs) that my
pheasants will be bruised against the wooden bars, or suffer by
sea-sickness? I would not command my bishops to offer up public
prayers against such contingencies: for people must never have
positive evidence that the prayers of the Church can possibly be
ineffectual: and we cannot pray for pheasants as we pray for fine
weather, by the barometer. We must drop it. Now go on with the others,
if you have done with England.
_Talleyrand._ A succession of intelligent men rules Prussia, Russia,
and Austria; because these three are economical, and must get their
bread by creeping, day after day, through the hedges next to them, and
by filching a sheaf or two, early and late, from cottager or small
farmer; that is to say, from free states and petty princes. Prussia,
like a mongrel, would fly at the legs of Austria and Russia, catching
them with the sack upon their shoulders, unless they untied it and
tossed a morsel to her. These great powers take especial care to
impose a protective duty on intellect; to let none enter the country,
and none leave it, without a passport. Their diplomatists are as
clever and conciliatory as those of England are ignorant and
repulsive, who, while they offer an uncounted sum of secret-service
money with the left hand, give a sounding slap on the face with the
right.
_Louis._ We, by adopting a contrary policy, gain more information,
raise more respect, inspire more awe, and exercise more authority. The
weightiest of our disbursements are smiles and flatteries, with a
ribbon and a cross at the end of them.
But, between the Duke of York and the Earl of Chatham, I must confess,
I find very little difference.
_Talleyrand._ Some, however. The one was only drunk all the evening
and all the night; the other was only asleep all the day. The
accumulated fogs of Walcheren seemed to concentrate in his brain,
puffing out at intervals just sufficient to affect with typhus and
blindness four thousand soldiers. A cake of powder rusted their
musket-pans, which they were too weak to open and wipe. Turning round
upon their scanty and mouldy straw, they beheld their bayonets piled
together against the green dripping wall of the chamber, which neither
bayonet nor soldier was ever to leave again.
_Louis._ We suffer by the presence of the allied armies in our
capital: but we shall soon be avenged: for the English minister in
another fortnight will return and remain at home.
_Talleyrand._ England was once so infatuated as to give up Malta to
us, although fifty Gibraltars would be of inferior value to her.
Napoleon laughed at her: she was angry: she began to suspect she had
been duped and befooled: and she broke her faith.
_Louis._ For the first time, M. Talleyrand, and with a man who never
had any.
_Talleyrand._ We shall now induce her to evacuate Sicily, in violation
of her promises to the people of that island. Faith, having lost her
virginity, braves public opinion, and never blushes more.
_Louis._ Sicily is the key to India, Egypt is the lock.
_Talleyrand._ What, if I induce the minister to restore to us
Pondicherry?
_Louis._ M. Talleyrand! you have done great things, and without
boasting. Whenever you do boast, let it be that you will perform only
the thing which is possible. The English know well enough what it is
to allow us a near standing-place anywhere. If they permit a Frenchman
to plant one foot in India, it will upset all Asia before the other
touches the ground. It behoves them to prohibit a single one of us
from ever landing on those shores. Improbable as it is that a man
uniting to the same degree as Hyder-Ali did political and military
genius, will appear in the world again for centuries; most of the
princes are politic, some are brave, and perhaps no few are credulous.
While England is confiding in our loyalty, we might expatiate on her
perfidy, and our tears fall copiously on the broken sceptre in the
dust of Delhi. Ignorant and stupid as the king's ministers may be, the
East India Company is well-informed on its interests, and alert in
maintaining them. I wonder that a republic so wealthy and so wise
should be supported on the bosom of royalty. Believe me, her merchants
will take alarm, and arouse the nation.
_Talleyrand._ We must do all we have to do, while the nation is
feasting and unsober. It will awaken with sore eyes and stiff limbs.
_Louis._ Profuse as the English are, they will never cut the bottom of
their purses.
_Talleyrand._ They have already done it. Whenever I look toward the
shores of England, I fancy I descry the Danaïds there, toiling at the
replenishment of their perforated vases, and all the Nereids leering
and laughing at them in the mischievous fullness of their hearts.
_Louis._ Certainly she can do me little harm at present, and for
several years to come: but we must always have an eye upon her, and be
ready to assert our superiority.
_Talleyrand._ We feel it. In fifty years, by abstaining from war, we
may discharge our debt and replenish our arsenals. England will never
shake off the heavy old man from her shoulders. Overladen and morose,
she will be palsied in the hand she unremittingly holds up against
Ireland. Proud and perverse, she runs into domestic warfare as blindly
as France runs into foreign: and she refuses to her subject what she
surrenders to her enemy.
_Louis._ Her whole policy tends to my security.
_Talleyrand._ We must now consider how your majesty may enjoy it at
home, all the remainder of your reign.
_Louis._ Indeed you must, M. Talleyrand! Between you and me be it
spoken, I trust but little my loyal people; their loyalty being so
ebullient, that it often overflows the vessel which should contain it,
and is a perquisite of scouts and scullions. I do not wish to offend
you.
_Talleyrand._ Really I can see no other sure method of containing and
controlling them, than by bastions and redoubts, the whole circuit of
the city.
_Louis._ M. Talleyrand! I will not doubt your sincerity: I am
confident you have reserved the whole of it for my service; and there
are large arrears. But M. Talleyrand! such an attempt would be
resisted by any people which had ever heard of liberty, and much more
by a people which had ever dreamt of enjoying it.
_Talleyrand._ Forts are built in all directions above Genoa.
_Louis._ Yes; by her conqueror, not by her king.
_Talleyrand._ Your majesty comes with both titles, and rules, like
your great progenitor,
Et par droit de conquête et par droit de naissance.
_Louis._ True; my arms have subdued the rebellious; but not without
great firmness and great valour on my part, and some assistance
(however tardy) on the part of my allies. Conquerors must conciliate:
fatherly kings must offer digestible spoon-meat to their
ill-conditioned children. There would be sad screaming and kicking
were I to swaddle mine in stone-work. No, M. Talleyrand; if ever Paris
is surrounded by fortifications to coerce the populace, it must be the
work of some democrat, some aspirant to supreme power, who resolves to
maintain it, exercising a domination too hazardous for legitimacy. I
will only scrape from the chambers the effervescence of superficial
letters and corrosive law.
_Talleyrand._ Sire! under all their governments the good people of
Paris have submitted to the _octroi_. Now, all complaints, physical or
political, arise from the stomach. Were it decorous in a subject to
ask a question (however humbly) of his king, I would beg permission to
inquire of your majesty, in your wisdom, whether a bar across the
shoulders is less endurable than a bar across the palate. Sire! the
French can bear anything now they have the honour of bowing before
your majesty.
_Louis._ The compliment is in a slight degree (a _very_ slight degree)
ambiguous, and (accept in good part my criticism, M. Talleyrand) not
turned with your usual grace.
Announce it as my will and pleasure that the Duc de Blacas do
superintend the debarkation of the pheasants; and I pray God, M. de
Talleyrand, to have you in His holy keeping.
OLIVER CROMWELL AND SIR OLIVER CROMWELL
_Sir Oliver._ How many saints and Sions dost carry under thy cloak,
lad? Ay, what dost groan at? What art about to be delivered of? Troth,
it must be a vast and oddly-shapen piece of roguery which findeth no
issue at such capacious quarters. I never thought to see thy face
again. Prithee what, in God's name, hath brought thee to Ramsey, fair
Master Oliver?
_Oliver._ In His name verily I come, and upon His errand; and the love
and duty I bear unto my godfather and uncle have added wings, in a
sort, unto my zeal.
_Sir Oliver._ Take 'em off thy zeal and dust thy conscience with 'em.
I have heard an account of a saint, one Phil Neri, who in the midst of
his devotions was lifted up several yards from the ground. Now I do
suspect, Nol, thou wilt finish by being a saint of his order; and
nobody will promise or wish thee the luck to come down on thy feet
again, as he did. So! because a rabble of fanatics at Huntingdon have
equipped thee as their representative in Parliament, thou art free of
all men's houses, forsooth! I would have thee to understand, sirrah,
that thou art fitter for the House they have chaired thee unto than
for mine. Yet I do not question but thou wilt be as troublesome and
unruly there as here. Did I not turn thee out of Hinchinbrook when
thou wert scarcely half the rogue thou art latterly grown up to? And
yet wert thou immeasurably too big a one for it to hold.
_Oliver._ It repenteth me, O mine uncle! that in my boyhood and youth
the Lord had not touched me.
_Sir Oliver._ Touch thee! thou wast too dirty a dog by half.
_Oliver._ Yes, sorely doth it vex and harrow me that I was then of ill
conditions, and that my name ... even your godson's ... stank in your
nostrils.
_Sir Oliver._ Ha! polecat! it was not thy name, although bad enough,
that stank first; in my house, at least. But perhaps there are worse
maggots in stauncher mummeries.
_Oliver._ Whereas in the bowels of your charity you then vouchsafed me
forgiveness, so the more confidently may I crave it now in this my
urgency.
_Sir Oliver._ More confidently! What! hast got more confidence? Where
didst find it? I never thought the wide circle of the world had within
it another jot for thee. Well, Nol, I see no reason why shouldst stand
before me with thy hat off, in the courtyard and in the sun, counting
the stones in the pavement. Thou hast some knavery in thy head, I
warrant thee. Come, put on thy beaver.
_Oliver._ Uncle Sir Oliver! I know my duty too well to stand covered
in the presence of so worshipful a kinsman, who, moreover, hath
answered at baptism for my good behaviour.
_Sir Oliver._ God forgive me for playing the fool before Him so
presumptuously and unprofitably! Nobody shall ever take me in again to
do such an absurd and wicked thing. But thou hast some left-handed
business in the neighbourhood, no doubt, or thou wouldst never more
have come under my archway.
_Oliver._ These are hard times for them that seek peace. We are clay
in the hands of the potter.
_Sir Oliver._ I wish your potters sought nothing costlier, and dug in
their own grounds for it. Most of us, as thou sayest, have been upon
the wheel of these artificers; and little was left but rags when we
got off. Sanctified folks are the cleverest skinners in all
Christendom, and their Jordan tans and constringes us to the
avoirdupois of mummies.
_Oliver._ The Lord hath chosen His own vessels.
_Sir Oliver._ I wish heartily He would pack them off, and send them
anywhere on ass-back or cart (cart preferably), to rid our country of
'em. But now again to the point: for if we fall among the potsherds we
shall hobble on but lamely. Since thou art raised unto a high command
in the army, and hast a dragoon to hold thy solid and stately piece of
horse-flesh, I cannot but take it into my fancy that thou hast some
commission of array or disarray to execute hereabout.
_Oliver._ With a sad sinking of spirit, to the pitch well-nigh of
swounding, and with a sight of bitter tears, which will not be put
back nor stayed in any wise, as you bear testimony unto me, Uncle
Oliver!
_Sir Oliver._ No tears, Master Nol, I beseech thee! Wet days, among
those of thy kidney, portend the letting of blood. What dost whimper
at?
_Oliver._ That I, that I, of all men living, should be put upon this
work!
_Sir Oliver._ What work, prithee?
_Oliver._ I am sent hither by them who (the Lord in His loving
kindness having pity, and mercy upon these poor realms) do, under His
right hand, administer unto our necessities, and righteously command
us, _by the aforesaid as aforesaid_ (thus runs the commission), hither
am I deputed (woe is me!) to levy certain fines in this county, or
shire, on such as the Parliament in its wisdom doth style malignants.
_Sir Oliver._ If there is anything left about the house, never be
over-nice: dismiss thy modesty and lay hands upon it. In this county
or shire, we let go the civet-bag to save the weazon.
_Oliver._ O mine uncle and godfather! be witness for me.
_Sir Oliver._ Witness for thee! not I indeed. But I would rather be
witness than surety, lad, where thou art docketed.
_Oliver._ From the most despised doth the Lord ever choose His
servants.
_Sir Oliver._ Then, faith! thou art His first butler.
_Oliver._ Serving Him with humility, I may peradventure be found
worthy of advancement.
_Sir Oliver._ Ha! now if any devil speaks from within thee, it is thy
own: he does not snuffle: to my ears he speaks plain English. Worthy
or unworthy of advancement, thou wilt attain it. Come in; at least for
an hour's rest. Formerly thou knewest the means of setting the
heaviest heart afloat, let it be sticking in what mud-bank it might:
and my wet dock at Ramsey is pretty near as commodious as that over
yonder at Hinchinbrook was erewhile. Times are changed, and places
too! yet the cellar holds good.
_Oliver._ Many and great thanks! But there are certain men on the
other side of the gate, who might take it ill if I turn away and
neglect them.
_Sir Oliver._ Let them enter also, or eat their victuals where they
are.
_Oliver._ They have proud stomachs: they are recusants.
_Sir Oliver._ Recusants of what? of beef and ale? We have claret, I
trust, for the squeamish, if they are above the condition of
tradespeople. But of course you leave no person of higher quality in
the outer court.
_Oliver._ Vain are they and worldly, although such wickedness is the
most abominable in their cases. Idle folks are fond of sitting in the
sun: I would not forbid them this indulgence.
_Sir Oliver._ But who are they?
_Oliver._ The Lord knows. Maybe priests, deacons, and such-like.
_Sir Oliver._ Then, sir, they are gentlemen. And the commission you
bear from the parliamentary thieves, to sack and pillage my
mansion-house, is far less vexatious and insulting to me, than your
behaviour in keeping them so long at my stable-door. With your
permission, or without it, I shall take the liberty to invite them to
partake of my poor hospitality.
_Oliver._ But, Uncle Sir Oliver! there are rules and ordinances
whereby it must be manifested that they lie under displeasure ... not
mine ... not mine ... but my milk must not flow for them.
_Sir Oliver._ You may enter the house or remain where you are, at your
option; I make my visit to these gentlemen immediately, for I am tired
of standing. If thou ever reachest my age,[12] Oliver! (but God will
not surely let this be) thou wilt know that the legs become at last of
doubtful fidelity in the service of the body.
_Oliver._ Uncle Sir Oliver! now that, as it seemeth, you have been
taking a survey of the courtyard and its contents, am I indiscreet in
asking your worship whether I acted not prudently in keeping the
_men-at-belly_ under the custody of the _men-at-arms_? This
pestilence, like unto one I remember to have read about in some poetry
of Master Chapman's,[13] began with the dogs and mules, and afterwards
crope up into the breasts of men.
_Sir Oliver._ I call such treatment barbarous; their troopers will not
let the gentlemen come with me into the house, but insist on sitting
down to dinner with them. And yet, having brought them out of their
colleges, these brutal half-soldiers must know that they are fellows.
_Oliver._ Yea, of a truth are they, and fellows well met. Out of their
superfluities they give nothing to the Lord or His saints; no, not
even stirrup or girth, wherewith we may mount our horses and go forth
against those who thirst for our blood. Their eyes are fat, and they
raise not up their voices to cry for our deliverance.
_Sir Oliver._ Art mad? What stirrups and girths are hung up in
college halls and libraries? For what are these gentlemen brought
hither?
_Oliver._ They have elected me, with somewhat short of unanimity, not
indeed to be one of themselves, for of that distinction I acknowledge
and deplore my unworthiness, nor indeed to be a poor scholar, to
which, unless it be a very poor one, I have almost as small
pretension, but simply to undertake a while the heavier office of
bursar for them; to cast up their accounts; to overlook the scouring
of their plate; and to lay a list thereof, with a few specimens,
before those who fight the fight of the Lord, that His saints, seeing
the abasement of the proud and the chastisement of worldly-mindedness,
may rejoice.
_Sir Oliver._ I am grown accustomed to such saints and such
rejoicings. But, little could I have thought, threescore years ago,
that the hearty and jovial people of England would ever join in so
filching and stabbing a jocularity. Even the petticoated torchbearers
from rotten Rome, who lighted the faggots in Smithfield some years
before, if more blustering and cocksy, were less bitter and vulturine.
They were all intolerant, but they were not all hypocritical; they had
not always '_the Lord_' in their mouth.
_Oliver._ According to their own notions, they might have had, at an
outlay of a farthing.
_Sir Oliver._ Art facetious, Nol? for it is as hard to find that out
as anything else in thee, only it makes thee look, at times, a little
the grimmer and sourer.
But, regarding these gentlemen from Cambridge. Not being such as, by
their habits and professions, could have opposed you in the field, I
hold it unmilitary and unmanly to put them under any restraint, and to
lead them away from their peaceful and useful occupations.