CAGLIOSTRO.
It had been settled that Parliament should meet on the Thursday in
Easter week, and it was known to the world at large that Cabinet
Councils were held on the Friday previous, on the Monday, and on the
Tuesday; but nobody knew what took place at those meetings. Cabinet
Councils are, of course, very secret. What kind of oath the members
take not to divulge any tittle of the proceedings at these awful
conferences, the general public does not know; but it is presumed
that oaths are taken very solemn, and it is known that they are very
binding. Nevertheless, it is not an uncommon thing to hear openly
at the clubs an account of what has been settled; and, as we all
know, not a council is held as to which the editor of The People's
Banner does not inform its readers next day exactly what took
place. But as to these three Cabinet Councils there was an increased
mystery abroad. Statements, indeed, were made, very definite and
circumstantial, but then they were various,--and directly opposed
one to another. According to The People's Banner, Mr. Daubeny
had resolved, with that enduring courage which was his peculiar
characteristic, that he would not be overcome by faction, but would
continue to exercise all the functions of Prime Minister until he had
had an opportunity of learning whether his great measure had been
opposed by the sense of the country, or only by the tactics of an
angry and greedy party. Other journals declared that the Ministry as
a whole had decided on resigning. But the clubs were in a state of
agonising doubt. At the great stronghold of conservative policy in
Pall Mall men were silent, embarrassed, and unhappy. The party was
at heart divorced from its leaders,--and a party without leaders is
powerless. To these gentlemen there could be no triumph, whether Mr.
Daubeny went out or remained in office. They had been betrayed;--but
as a body were unable even to accuse the traitor. As regarded most
of them they had accepted the treachery and bowed their heads
beneath it, by means of their votes. And as to the few who had been
staunch,--they also were cowed by a feeling that they had been
instrumental in destroying their own power by endeavouring to protect
a doomed institution. Many a thriving county member in those days
expressed a wish among his friends that he had never meddled with
the affairs of public life, and hinted at the Chiltern Hundreds. On
the other side, there was undoubtedly something of a rabid desire
for immediate triumph, which almost deserved that epithet of greedy
which was then commonly used by Conservatives in speaking of their
opponents. With the Liberal leaders,--such men as Mr. Gresham and
the two dukes,--the anxiety displayed was, no doubt, on behalf
of the country. It is right, according to our constitution, that
the Government should be entrusted to the hands of those whom the
constituencies of the country have most trusted. And, on behalf of
the country, it behoves the men in whom the country has placed its
trust to do battle in season and out of season,--to carry on war
internecine,--till the demands of the country are obeyed. A sound
political instinct had induced Mr. Gresham on this occasion to attack
his opponent simply on the ground of his being the leader only of
a minority in the House of Commons. But from among Mr. Gresham's
friends there had arisen a noise which sounded very like a clamour
for place, and this noise of course became aggravated in the ears
of those who were to be displaced. Now, during Easter week, the
clamour became very loud. Could it be possible that the archfiend of
a Minister would dare to remain in office till the end of a hurried
Session, and then again dissolve Parliament? Men talked of rows in
London,--even of revolution, and there were meetings in open places
both by day and night. Petitions were to be prepared, and the country
was to be made to express itself.
When, however, Thursday afternoon came, Mr. Daubeny "threw up the
sponge." Up to the last moment the course which he intended to pursue
was not known to the country at large. He entered the House very
slowly,--almost with a languid air, as though indifferent to its
performances, and took his seat at about half-past four. Every man
there felt that there was insolence in his demeanour,--and yet
there was nothing on which it was possible to fasten in the way of
expressed complaint. There was a faint attempt at a cheer,--for good
soldiers acknowledge the importance of supporting even an unpopular
general. But Mr. Daubeny's soldiers on this occasion were not very
good. When he had been seated about five minutes he rose, still very
languidly, and began his statement. He and his colleagues, he said,
in their attempt to legislate for the good of their country had been
beaten in regard to a very great measure by a large majority, and in
compliance with what he acknowledged to be the expressed opinion of
the House, he had considered it to be his duty--as his colleagues had
considered it to be theirs--to place their joint resignations in the
hands of Her Majesty. This statement was received with considerable
surprise, as it was not generally known that Mr. Daubeny had as
yet even seen the Queen. But the feeling most predominant in the
House was one almost of dismay at the man's quiescence. He and his
colleagues had resigned, and he had recommended Her Majesty to
send for Mr. Gresham. He spoke in so low a voice as to be hardly
audible to the House at large, and then paused,--ceasing to speak,
as though his work were done. He even made some gesture, as though
stepping back to his seat;--deceived by which Mr. Gresham, at the
other side of the table, rose to his legs. "Perhaps," said Mr.
Daubeny,--"Perhaps the right honourable gentleman would pardon him,
and the House would pardon him, if still, for a moment, he interposed
between the House and the right honourable gentleman. He could well
understand the impatience of the right honourable gentleman,--who
no doubt was anxious to reassume that authority among them, the
temporary loss of which he had not perhaps borne with all the
equanimity which might have been expected from him. He would promise
the House and the right honourable gentleman that he would not detain
them long." Mr. Gresham threw himself back into his seat, evidently
not without annoyance, and his enemy stood for a moment looking at
him. Unless they were angels these two men must at that moment have
hated each other;--and it is supposed that they were no more than
human. It was afterwards said that the little ruse of pretending to
resume his seat had been deliberately planned by Mr. Daubeny with the
view of seducing Mr. Gresham into an act of seeming impatience, and
that these words about his opponent's failing equanimity had been
carefully prepared.
Mr. Daubeny stood for a minute silent, and then began to pour forth
that which was really his speech on the occasion. Those flaccid
half-pronounced syllables in which he had declared that he had
resigned,--had been studiously careless, purposely flaccid. It
was his duty to let the House know the fact, and he did his duty.
But now he had a word to say in which he himself could take some
little interest. Mr. Daubeny could be fiery or flaccid as it suited
himself;--and now it suited him to be fiery. He had a prophecy
to make, and prophets have ever been energetic men. Mr. Daubeny
conceived it to be his duty to inform the House, and through the
House the country, that now, at last, had the day of ruin come upon
the British Empire, because it had bowed itself to the dominion of an
unscrupulous and greedy faction. It cannot be said that the language
which he used was unmeasured, because no word that he uttered would
have warranted the Speaker in calling him to order; but, within the
very wide bounds of parliamentary etiquette, there was no limit to
the reproach and reprobation which he heaped on the House of Commons
for its late vote. And his audacity equalled his insolence. In
announcing his resignation, he had condescended to speak of himself
and his colleagues; but now he dropped his colleagues as though they
were unworthy of his notice, and spoke only of his own doings,--of
his own efforts to save the country, which was indeed willing to be
saved, but unable to select fitting instruments of salvation. "He
had been twitted," he said, "with inconsistency to his principles
by men who were simply unable to understand the meaning of the word
Conservatism. These gentlemen seemed to think that any man who did
not set himself up as an apostle of constant change must therefore
be bound always to stand still and see his country perish from
stagnation. It might be that there were gentlemen in that House whose
timid natures could not face the dangers of any movement; but for
himself he would say that no word had ever fallen from his lips which
justified either his friends or his adversaries in classing him among
the number. If a man be anxious to keep his fire alight, does he
refuse to touch the sacred coals as in the course of nature they are
consumed? Or does he move them with the salutary poker and add fresh
fuel from the basket? They all knew that enemy to the comfort of the
domestic hearth, who could not keep his hands for a moment from the
fire-irons. Perhaps he might be justified if he said that they had
been very much troubled of late in that House by gentlemen who could
not keep their fingers from poker and tongs. But there had now fallen
upon them a trouble of a nature much more serious in its effects than
any that had come or could come from would-be reformers. A spirit of
personal ambition, a wretched thirst for office, a hankering after
the power and privileges of ruling, had not only actuated men,--as,
alas, had been the case since first the need for men to govern others
had arisen in the world,--but had been openly avowed and put forward
as an adequate and sufficient reason for opposing a measure in
disapprobation of which no single argument had been used! The right
honourable gentleman's proposition to the House had been simply
this;--'I shall oppose this measure, be it good or bad, because I
desire, myself, to be Prime Minister, and I call upon those whom I
lead in politics to assist me in doing so, in order that they may
share the good things on which we may thus be enabled to lay our
hands!'"
Then there arose a great row in the House, and there seemed to be a
doubt whether the still existing Minister of the day would be allowed
to continue his statement. Mr. Gresham rose to his feet, but sat down
again instantly, without having spoken a word that was audible. Two
or three voices were heard calling upon the Speaker for protection.
It was, however, asserted afterwards that nothing had been said
which demanded the Speaker's interference. But all moderate voices
were soon lost in the enraged clamour of members on each side. The
insolence showered upon those who generally supported Mr. Daubeny had
equalled that with which he had exasperated those opposed to him;
and as the words had fallen from his lips, there had been no purpose
of cheering him from the conservative benches. But noise creates
noise, and shouting is a ready and easy mode of contest. For a while
it seemed as though the right side of the Speaker's chair was only
beaten by the majority of lungs on the left side;--and in the midst
of it all Mr. Daubeny still stood, firm on his feet, till gentlemen
had shouted themselves silent,--and then he resumed his speech.
The remainder of what he said was profound, prophetic, and
unintelligible. The gist of it, so far as it could be understood
when the bran was bolted from it, consisted in an assurance that the
country had now reached that period of its life in which rapid decay
was inevitable, and that, as the mortal disease had already shown
itself in its worst form, national decrepitude was imminent, and
natural death could not long be postponed. They who attempted to
read the prophecy with accuracy were of opinion that the prophet had
intimated that had the nation, even in this its crisis, consented
to take him, the prophet, as its sole physician and to obey his
prescription with childlike docility, health might not only have been
re-established, but a new juvenescence absolutely created. The nature
of the medicine that should have been taken was even supposed to
have been indicated in some very vague terms. Had he been allowed to
operate he would have cut the tap-roots of the national cancer, have
introduced fresh blood into the national veins, and resuscitated
the national digestion, and he seemed to think that the nation,
as a nation, was willing enough to undergo the operation, and be
treated as he should choose to treat it;--but that the incubus of Mr.
Gresham, backed by an unworthy House of Commons, had prevented, and
was preventing, the nation from having its own way. Therefore the
nation must be destroyed. Mr. Daubeny as soon as he had completed his
speech took up his hat and stalked out of the House.
It was supposed at the time that the retiring Prime Minister had
intended, when he rose to his legs, not only to denounce his
opponents, but also to separate himself from his own unworthy
associates. Men said that he had become disgusted with politics,
disappointed, and altogether demoralized by defeat, and great
curiosity existed as to the steps which might be taken at the time by
the party of which he had hitherto been the leader. On that evening,
at any rate, nothing was done. When Mr. Daubeny was gone, Mr. Gresham
rose and said that in the present temper of the House he thought
it best to postpone any statement from himself. He had received
Her Majesty's commands only as he had entered that House, and in
obedience to those commands, he should wait upon Her Majesty early
to-morrow. He hoped to be able to inform the House at the afternoon
sitting, what was the nature of the commands with which Her Majesty
might honour him.
"What do you think of that?" Phineas asked Mr. Monk as they left the
House together.
"I think that our Chatham of to-day is but a very poor copy of him
who misbehaved a century ago."
"Does not the whole thing distress you?"
"Not particularly. I have always felt that there has been a mistake
about Mr. Daubeny. By many he has been accounted as a statesman,
whereas to me he has always been a political Cagliostro. Now a
conjuror is I think a very pleasant fellow to have among us, if we
know that he is a conjuror;--but a conjuror who is believed to do his
tricks without sleight of hand is a dangerous man. It is essential
that such a one should be found out and known to be a conjuror,--and
I hope that such knowledge may have been communicated to some men
this afternoon."
"He was very great," said Ratler to Bonteen. "Did you not think so?"
"Yes, I did,--very powerful indeed. But the party is broken up to
atoms."
"Atoms soon come together again in politics," said Ratler. "They
can't do without him. They haven't got anybody else. I wonder what he
did when he got home."
"Had some gruel and went to bed," said Bonteen. "They say these
scenes in the House never disturb him at home." From which
conversations it may be inferred that Mr. Monk and Messrs. Ratler and
Bonteen did not agree in their ideas respecting political conjurors.