is true, sire; you must confess that. Still
further. Suppose I admit, for a moment, the possibility of breaking your
word, and evading the treaty--such a thing sometimes happens, but that
is when some great interest is to be promoted by it, or when the treaty
is found to be too troublesome--well, you will authorize the engagement
asked of you: France--her banner, which is the same thing--will cross
the Straits and will fight; France will be conquered."

"Why so?"

"Ma foi! we have a pretty general to fight under this Charles II.!
Worcester gave us good proofs of that."

"But he will no longer have to deal with Cromwell, monsieur."

"But he will have to deal with Monk, who is quite as dangerous. The
brave brewer of whom we are speaking was a visionary; he had moments of
exaltation, of inflation, during which he ran over like an over-filled
cask; and from the chinks there always escaped some drops of his
thoughts, and by the sample the whole of his thought was to be made out.
Cromwell has thus allowed us more than ten times to penetrate into his
very soul, when one would have conceived that soul to be enveloped in
triple brass, as Horace has it. But Monk! Oh, sire, God defend you from
ever having anything to transact politically with Monk. It is he who has
given me, in one year, all the gray hairs I have. Monk is no fanatic;
unfortunately he is a politician; he does not overflow, he keeps close
together. For ten years he has had his eyes fixed upon one object, and
nobody has yet been able to ascertain what. Every morning, as Louis XI.
advised, he burns his nightcap. Therefore, on the day when this
plan slowly and solitarily ripened, shall break forth, it will break
forthwith all the conditions of success which always accompany an
unforeseen event. That is Monk, sire, of whom perhaps, you have never
heard--of whom, perhaps, you did not even know the name before your
brother Charles II., who knows what he is, pronounced it before you.
He is a marvel of depth and tenacity, the two only things against which
intelligence and ardor are blunted. Sire, I had ardor when I was
young, I always was intelligent. I may safely boast of it, because I
am reproached with it. I have done very well with these two qualities,
since, from the son of a fisherman of Piscina, I have become prime
minister to the king of France; and in that position your majesty will
perhaps acknowledge I have rendered some service to the throne of
your majesty.