Imaginary Conversations and Poems Part 50

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 sh.o.r.es. 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 sh.o.r.es of England, I fancy I descry the Danads 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 a.s.sert our superiority.

_Talleyrand._ We feel it. In fifty years, by abstaining from war, we may discharge our debt and replenish our a.r.s.enals. 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 t.i.tles, 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 a.s.sistance (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 sc.r.a.pe 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 G.o.d, 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 G.o.d'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 G.o.dfather 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 n.o.body 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 G.o.dson'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._ G.o.d forgive me for playing the fool before Him so presumptuously and unprofitably! n.o.body 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 a.s.s-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 G.o.dfather! be witness for me.