. 'One fool makes many others,'
and thus we might say also, 'One martyr makes many others.' Suppose you
have this M. Lange shot to-day, because he is a faithful adherent of the
queen, and has written in accordance with her views--to-morrow
pamphleteers will spring up like mushrooms--there will be more libels
against your majesty, written by those having a vain desire of dying for
their beautiful queen, and in the hope that she would shed tears for
them, as she did for M. Lange."

"Ah," exclaimed Napoleon, scornfully, "you are strangely inclined to
mercy and reconciliation to-day. It seems a sickly fever of leniency has
seized you. Then you think I ought to pardon this miserable pamphleteer
instead of punishing him?"

"Sire, I believe this fellow will be much more severely punished if we
do not make him a martyr, but only use him as a tool as long as it suits
us. As this Professor Lange is so well versed in writing pamphlets, and
sending libellous articles into the world, let him continue his trade;
only let him be ordered to point his weapons against the queen, instead
of your majesty, and to revile her as zealously as he reviled you."

"And do you believe he will stoop so low as to eat his own words, and to
convict himself of lying? I was told he had hitherto glorified Louisa of
Prussia, and abused me, with an almost frantic enthusiasm."

"Sire, let us threaten him with death--let us offer him money. He will
succumb to fear and avarice. I know these journalists. They are
cowardly, and always in pecuniary trouble. Lange will turn his poisoned
arrows against the queen, and the admirer will become her accuser."

Napoleon, frowning, looked musingly at the floor. "What a miserable race
these men are!" he muttered. "One must devour them in order not be
devoured by them. Well, then," he added, in a loud voice, "you may try
it. Let us turn the weapons which the fanatical queen has sharpened
against us, against herself. But the accusations must be grave and
well-founded. The eyes of this foolish nation must be opened. We must
show to it that this woman, whom it worships as a chaste Lucretia, as a
beautiful saint, is nothing but a very pretty lady with a well-developed
form, endowed with little mind, but much coquetry, and who, so far from
being a saint, has a very human heart, and has had many an adventure. If
M. Lange is willing to write in this strain, I will pardon him.[20]
Tragedy must be sometimes transformed into a fa