King has evidence he cannot show openly----"

"And so a pretext will be enough? God in heaven! is that justice?"

"No, there must be something more than a pretext, something more than a
lie; but Saxe will be enough."

"It will be enough if Saxe's lies cannot be disproved?"

"If Saxe cannot be disproved," corrected Commines. "I cannot admit
that Saxe lies."

"And what then?"

Again Commines turned away. Humanity's Iron Age was as stern, as
selfish, as callous, as cruel as in the days of Attila the Hun.
Christianity, after its almost fifteen centuries, had no more than, as
it were, warmed it through with its gentle fires. There was as yet no
softening. It was true that some increasing flowers of civilization
obscured the brutality, some decorations of art glorified it, but
underneath the beauty and the art the native ruthlessness remained
unchanged. Might founded a throne upon the ruin of weaker nations,
cemented its strength with the blood of innocence, set the crown upon
its own head, and reigned in arrogant defiance of right or justice.

From the barbarous Muscovite in the north to the polished Spaniard in
the south the conditions scarcely varied. Everywhere there was the
same spirit. A Louis pushed wide the borders of France by theft and
the law of the stronger arm, a Ferdinand offered up his holocaust to
the greater glory of God, a Philip yet to come would steep the
Netherlands in blood to the very dikes that the same God might be
worshipped in violation of the worshipper's conscience, in England a
Crookback Richard had neither pity nor scruple when a crown was the
reward of ruthlessness and murder.

Nor in the high places of religion was there a nobler law. A Sixtus,
at that very moment, was letting loose the horrors of an unjust war
upon Florence and Ferrara in the name of the Prince of Peace, while the
sinister figure of Alexander Borgia sat upon the steps of the Papal
throne biding its time. If the meek inherited the earth, it was
commonly a territory six feet long and two in breadth. Everywhere the
ancient rule was still the modern plan: those took who had the power,
and those kept who could. There were exceptions, but exceptions were
rare. Even at the Round Table there was only one Galahad.

Commines did not differ greatly from his age, or he would have been no
fit minister for Louis. A tool is no longer a tool if it is not
obedient to the hand which guides it. Let it fail in the work s