is hardly surprising if
Clive saw in the successive chance a proof that he was not meant as yet
to perish by self-slaughter. "I must be destined for great things," he
thought, and he was right. Between that attempt at suicide and the
next lay long years of unexampled glory, lay the pomp of Oriental
courts and the glitter of Oriental warfare, lay the foundation and
establishment of that empire of India which is to-day one of the
greatest glories of the British Crown--an empire mightier, wealthier,
statelier than any which Aurungzebe swayed, and whose might and wealth
and state were mainly due to the courage and the genius of the lonely,
melancholy lad, the humble writer in the service of John Company, who
had endeavored in his solitude and his despair to end his young life at
the muzzle of his pistol.

[Sidenote: 1707--The fall of the House of Baber]

What was the condition of India at the time when Clive was making
unavailing efforts to cut short his career? The country itself was
given over to the wildest confusion. With the death of Aurungzebe, in
1707, the majestic empire of the House of Baber came to an end. The
empire of Alexander did not crumble more disastrously to pieces after
the death of the Macedonian prince than did the empire of the Moguls
fall to pieces after the death of Aurungzebe. The pitiable and
despicable successors of a great prince, worse than Sardanapalus, worse
than the degraded Caesars of the basest days of Byzantium, squandered
their unprofitable hours in shameful pleasure while the great empire
fell to pieces, trampled by the {258} conquering feet of Persian
princes, of Afghan invaders, of wild Mahratta chiefs. Between the
fierce invaders from the northern hills who ravaged, and levied
tribute, and established dominion of their own, and such still powerful
viceroys as held their own, and offered a nominal allegiance to the
Mogul line, the glory of the race of Tamerlane was dimmed indeed. It
occurred to one man, watching all the welter of the Indian world, where
Mussulman and Hindoo struggled for supremacy--it occurred to Dupleix
that in this struggle lay the opportunity for some European power--for
his European power--for France--to gain for herself, and for the daring
adventurer who should shape her Oriental policy, an influence hitherto
undreamed of by the statesmen of the West. It was not given to Dupleix
to guess that what he dreamed of and nearly accomplished was to be
carried