ories; but
the question whether France is to remain a monarchy or not, is one of the
most pressing importance to your highness's operations. It is only in this
practical sense that I should think of the topic at all. You have taken
the frontier towns, and have beaten the frontier army. Thus, so far as the
regular force of France is concerned, the war is at an end. But then comes
the grand point. A country of thirty millions of people cannot be
conquered, if they can but be roused to resist. All the troops of
Europe--nay, perhaps all the princes of the earth--might perish before
they fully conquered a country so large as France, with so powerful a
population. This seems even to be one of the provisions of Providence
against ambition, that an invasion of a populous country is the most
difficult operation in the world, unless the people welcome the invader.
It gives every ditch the character of a fortress, and every man the spirit
of a soldier. I recollect no instance in European history, where an
established kingdom was conquered by invasion. They all stand at this hour,
as they stood a thousand years ago. In France, we found the people without
leaders, without troops, and without experience in war; of course they
have not resisted our hussars and guns. But they have not joined us. In
any other country of Europe, we should have recruits crowding to ask for
service. But the French farmer shuts up his house; the peasant flies; the
citizen barricades his gates, and gives a cannon-shot for an answer. The
whole land rejects us, if it dares not repel; and, if we conquer, we shall
have to colonize."

"Well, we must fight them into it," said Varnhorst.

"Or leave them to fight themselves out of it," I observed--"my national
prejudices not being favourable to reasoning at the point of the bayonet."

"Or take the chances of the world, and float on wherever the surge carries
us," laughed the duke.

But Guiscard was still inflexible. His deep eye flashed with a light which
I never could have looked for under those projecting brows. His cheek was
visited by a tinge which argued a passionate interest in the subject; and,
as he spoke, his tongue uttered a nervous and powerful eloquence, which
showed that Guiscard was thrown among camps, while he might have figured
in senates and councils. Of course, at this distance of time, I can offer
but a faint memory of his bold and spontaneous wisdom.

"I can see no result for France but democ