Part 22 (2/2)
”Go on, my friend!” he said. ”Honest expression of thought can offend none but knaves and fools; and though there are some who say I have a smack of both, yet I flatter myself I am wholly neither of the twain!
Continue what you were saying--if you were ruler of a country, what would you do?”
Rene Ronsard considered for a moment, and his furrowed brows set in a puzzled line.
”I think,” he said slowly, at last, ”I should choose my friends and confidants among the leaders of the people.”
”And is not that precisely what we all do?” queried the King lightly; ”Surely every monarch must count his friends among the members of the Government?”
”But the Government does not represent the actual people, Sir!” said Ronsard quietly.
”No? Then what does it represent?” enquired the King, becoming amused and interested in the discussion, and holding up his hand to warn back De Launay, and the other members of his suite who were just coming towards him from their tour of inspection through the garden--”Every member of the Government is elected by the people, and returned by the popular vote. What else would you have?”
”Ministers have not always the popular vote,” said Ronsard; ”They are selected by the Premier. And if the Premier should happen to be s.h.i.+fty, treacherous or self-interested, he chooses such men as are most likely to serve his own ends. And it can hardly be said, Sir, that the People truly return the members of Government. For when the time comes for one such man to be elected, each candidate secures his own agent to bribe the people, and to work upon them as though they were so much soft dough, to be kneaded into a political loaf for his private and particular eating. Poor People! Poor hard-working millions! In the main they are all too busy earning the wherewithal to Live, to have any time left to Think--they are the easy prey of the party agent, except--except when they gather to the voice of a real leader, one who though not in Government, governs!”
”And is there such an one?” enquired the King, while as he spoke his glance fell suddenly, and with an unpleasant memory, on the flas.h.i.+ng blue of the sapphire in the Premier's signet he wore; ”Here, or anywhere?”
”Over there!” said Ronsard impressively, pointing across the landscape seawards; ”On the mainland there is not only one, but many! Women,--as well as men. Writers,--as well as speakers. These are they whom Courts neglect or ignore,--these are the consuming fire of thrones!” His old eyes flashed, and as he turned them on the statuesque beauty of the Queen, she started, for they seemed to pierce into the very recesses of her soul. ”When Court and Fas.h.i.+on played their pranks once upon a time in France, there was a pen at work on the '_Contrat Social_'--the pen of one Rousseau! Who among the idle pleasure-loving aristocrats ever thought that a mere Book would have helped to send them to the scaffold!” He clenched his hand almost unconsciously--then he spoke more quietly. ”That is what I mean, when I say that if I were ruler of a country, I should take special care to make friends with the people's chosen thinkers. Someone in authority”--and here he smiled quizzically--”should have given Rousseau an estate, and made him a marquis--_in time_! The leaders of an advancing Thought,--and not the leaders of a fixed Government are the real representatives of the People!”
Something in this last sentence appeared to strike the King very forcibly.
”You are a philosopher, Rene Ronsard,” he said rising from his chair, and laying a hand kindly on his shoulder. ”And so, in another way am I! If I understand you rightly, you would maintain that in many cases discontent and disorder are the fermentation in the mind of one man, who for some hidden personal motive works his thought through a whole kingdom; and you suggest that if that man once obtained what he wanted there would be an end of trouble--at any rate for a time till the next malcontent turned up! Is not that so?”
”It is so, Sir,” replied Ronsard; ”and I think it has always been so.
In every era of strife and revolution, we shall find one dissatisfied Soul--often a soul of genius and ambition--at the centre of the trouble.”
”Probably you are right,” said the monarch indulgently; ”But evidently the dissatisfied soul is not in _your_ body! You are no Don Quixote fighting a windmill of imaginary wrongs, are you?”
A dark red flush mounted to the old man's brow, and as it pa.s.sed away, left him pale as death.
”Sir, I have fought against wrongs in my time; but they were not imaginary. I might have still continued the combat but for Gloria!”
”Ah! She is your peace-offering to an unjust world?”
”No Sir; she is G.o.d's gift to a broken heart,” replied Ronsard gently.
”The sea cast her up like a pearl into my life; and so for her sake I resolved to live. For her only I made this little home--for her I managed to gain some control over the rough inhabitants of these Islands, and encouraged in them the spirit of peace, mirth and gladness.
I soothed their discontent, and tried to instil into them something of the Greek love of beauty and pleasure. But after all, my work sprang from a personal, I may as well say a selfish motive--merely to make the child I loved, happy!”
”Then do you not regret that she is married, and no longer yours to cherish entirely?”
”No, I regret nothing!” answered Ronsard; ”For I am old and must soon die. I shall leave her in good and safe hands.”
The King looked at him thoughtfully, and seemed about to ask another question, then suddenly changing his mind, he turned to his Consort and said a few words to her in a low tone, whereupon as if in obedience to a command, she rose, and with all the gracious charm which she could always exert if she so pleased, she enquired of Ronsard if he would permit them to see something of the interior of his house.
”Madam,” replied Ronsard, with some embarra.s.sment; ”All I have is at your service, but it is only a poor place.”
”No place is poor that has peace in it,” returned the Queen, with one of those rare smiles of hers, which so swiftly subjugated the hearts of men. ”Will you lead the way?”
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