ar?
Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind,
Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordinance in the field,
And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in the pitched battle heard
Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"

SHAKESPEARE.

I found the Jew in his den as usual, and communicated my object, like a
man of business, in as few words as possible, and in that tone which
showed that I had made up my mind. To my surprise, and, I must own, a
little to the chagrin of my vanity, he made no opposition to it whatever.
I afterwards ascertained that, on the day before, he had received a
proposal of marriage for his daughter from a German _millionaire_ of his
own line; and that, as there could be no comparison between a penniless
son-in-law, if he came of the blood of all the Paleologi, and one of the
tribe of Issachar with his panniers loaded with guineas, the sooner I took
my flight the better.

"You are perfectly right," said he, "in desiring to see the Continent; and
in Paris you will find the Continent all gathered into a glance, as a
French cook gives you a dozen sauces in compounding one fricassee. It
happens, curiously enough, that I can just now furnish you with some
opportunities for seeing it in the most convenient manner. A person with
whom I have had occasional business in Downing Street, has applied to me
to name an individual in my confidence, as an _attache_ to our embassy in
France, though, be it understood, without an actual appointment."

I started at this dubious diplomacy.

"This," said he, "only shows that you have still to learn the trade. Let
me then tell you, that it is by such persons that all the real work of
diplomacy is carried on. Can you suppose that the perfumed and polished
young gentlemen who, under the name of secretaries and sub secretaries,
superior and inferior _attaches_, and so forth, haunt the hotels of the
embassy, are the real instruments? It is true, they are necessary to the
dinners and balls of the embassy. They are useful to drive out the
ambassador's horses to air, escort his wife, and dance with his daughters.
But the business is uniformly done by somebody of whom nobody knows any
thing, but that he is never seen loitering about the ambassador's
drawing-room though he has the _entree_ of his closet; and that he never
makes charades, though he corresponds from day to day with the government
at hom