topped the fishing-smacks and asked if
their community had joined the Rebellion. When the answer was in the
negative, they sank the vessel and confiscated the tackle, often
accompanying the robbery of property with violence on the persons of
the owners and abuse of their sovereign. To the wretched fishermen's
protests, the French commanders replied: "If you want to be left alone,
you have only to drive out your King." [6]

These speeches confirmed the general suspicion that the ultimate object
of the blockade was to propagate rebellion. Other things spoke even
more eloquently. The few cargoes of flour that arrived in Greece now
and then were sequestered by the Allies and sent to the Salonica
Government, which used them as a bait, inviting the King's subjects
through its agents to sell their allegiance for a loaf of bread.
Generally the reply was: "We prefer to die." [7] Of this stubborn
endurance, the women of modern Greece gave instances that recall the
days of ancient Sparta. In a village near Eleusis, on the Sunday
preceding Lent, the matrons and maidens set up a dance, and while
dancing they improvised songs in praise of Hunger. At the end, {175}
the men who stood round listening with tears in their eyes, burst into
frenetic cheers for the King.[8]

Never, indeed, in the hour of his triumphs had King Constantine been so
near the hearts of his people as he was in this period of their common
affliction. Although the operation-wounds in his ribs were still open,
he met the emergency with dauntless fortitude, and never for a moment
forgot his part, either as a prince or as a man. "The King is
wonderful," wrote the correspondent already quoted. "He never
complains, and gives us all courage." Many a time, as the weary months
dragged on, he went over his past course, asking himself: "Could he
have been mistaken, after all?" No; the more he pondered, the more
convinced he felt that what he had done was the best for Greece. Now,
if the worst came to the worst, his sincerity at least could not be
questioned. When his friends ventured to express their admiration of
his stoicism, he answered simply: "I know that I am doing right." The
great source whence he derived consolation amidst all his calamities
was undoubtedly this consciousness of rectitude: a sense which in him
seems to have been as free from arrogance as it was from rancour.

The people who had formerly admired their sovereign as a hero, now
revered