Part 50 (1/2)

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.