Part 28

_Louis._ There is grace in that expression of yours, M. Talleyrand! there is really no inconsiderable grace in it. Seal my letter: direct it to the Marquis of Buckingham at Stowe. Wait: open it again: no, no: write another in your own name: instruct him how sure you are it will be agreeable to me, if he sends at the same time fifty or a hundred brace of the birds as well as the eggs. At present I am desolate. My heart is torn, M. Talleyrand! it is almost plucked out of my bosom. I have no other care, no other thought, day or night, but the happiness of my people. The allies, who have most shamefully overlooked the destitution of my kitchen, seem resolved to turn a deaf ear to its cries evermore; nay, even to render them shriller and shriller. The allies, I suspect, are resolved to execute the design of the mischievous Pitt.

_Talleyrand._ May it please your majesty to inform me _which_ of them; for he formed a thousand, all mischievous, but greatly more mischievous to England than to France. Resolved to seize the sword, in his drunkenness, he seized it by the edge, and struck at us with the hilt, until he broke it off and until he himself was exhausted by loss of breath and of blood. We owe alike to him the energy of our armies, the bloody scaffolds of public safety, the Reign of Terror, the empire of usurpation, and finally, as the calm is successor to the tempest, and sweet fruit to bitter kernel, the blessing of your majesty's restoration. Excepting in this one event, he was mischievous to our country; but in all events, and in all undertakings, he was pernicious to his own. No man ever brought into the world such enduring evil; few men such extensive.

_Louis._ His king ordered it. George III loved battles and blood.

_Talleyrand._ But he was prudent in his appetite for them.

_Louis._ He talked of peppering his people as I would talk of peppering a capon.

_Talleyrand._ Having split it. His subjects cut up by his subjects were only capers to his leg of mutton. From none of his palaces and parks was there any view so rural, so composing to his spirits, as the shambles. When these were not fresh, the gibbet would do.

I wish better luck to the pheasants' eggs than befell Mr. Pitt's designs. Not one brought forth anything.

_Louis._ No: but he declared in the face of his Parliament, and of Europe, that he would insist on indemnity for the past and security for the future. These were his words. Now, all the money and other wealth the French armies levied in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and everywhere else, would scarcely be sufficient for this indemnity.

_Talleyrand._ England shall never receive from us a tithe of that amount.

_Louis._ A tithe of it! She may demand a quarter or a third, and leave us wondering at her moderation and forbearance.

_Talleyrand._ The matter must be arranged immediately, before she has 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 Comte, 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 Danaids 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 conquete 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.