ere is one Herculean man, in internecine duel with him, there
is Monster after Monster. Emigrant Noblesse return, sword on thigh,
vaunting of their Loyalty never sullied; descending from the air, like
Harpy-swarms with ferocity, with obscene greed. Earthward there is the
Typhon of Anarchy, Political, Religious; sprawling hundred-headed, say
with Twenty-five million heads; wide as the area of France; fierce as
Frenzy; strong in very Hunger. With these shall the Serpent-queller do
battle continually, and expect no rest.

As for the King, he as usual will go wavering chameleonlike; changing
colour and purpose with the colour of his environment;--good for no
Kingly use. On one royal person, on the Queen only, can Mirabeau
perhaps place dependance. It is possible, the greatness of this man, not
unskilled too in blandishments, courtiership, and graceful adroitness,
might, with most legitimate sorcery, fascinate the volatile Queen,
and fix her to him. She has courage for all noble daring; an eye and a
heart: the soul of Theresa's Daughter. 'Faut il-donc, Is it fated then,'
she passionately writes to her Brother, 'that I with the blood I am come
of, with the sentiments I have, must live and die among such mortals?'
(Fils Adoptif, ubi supra.) Alas, poor Princess, Yes. 'She is the only
man,' as Mirabeau observes, 'whom his Majesty has about him.' Of one
other man Mirabeau is still surer: of himself. There lies his resources;
sufficient or insufficient.

Dim and great to the eye of Prophecy looks the future! A perpetual
life-and-death battle; confusion from above and from below;--mere
confused darkness for us; with here and there some streak of faint lurid
light. We see King perhaps laid aside; not tonsured, tonsuring is out
of fashion now; but say, sent away any whither, with handsome annual
allowance, and stock of smith-tools. We see a Queen and Dauphin, Regent
and Minor; a Queen 'mounted on horseback,' in the din of battles, with
Moriamur pro rege nostro! 'Such a day,' Mirabeau writes, 'may come.'

Din of battles, wars more than civil, confusion from above and from
below: in such environment the eye of Prophecy sees Comte de Mirabeau,
like some Cardinal de Retz, stormfully maintain himself; with head
all-devising, heart all-daring, if not victorious, yet unvanquished,
while life is left him. The specialties and issues of it, no eye of
Prophecy can guess at: it is clouds, we repeat, and tempestuous night;
and in the middle of