ith
all politeness and state by Don Luis. But, though they remained some
time, the Treaty was so far settled that Charles found that nothing
could be done for his interests through that means. Mazarin, indeed,
resenting his intrusion, and his passage through France without
leave, refused to see him, and gave orders also that Sir Henry Bennet
should not be admitted. With only general assurances of good wishes
from the Spanish minister, a present of 7000 gold pistoles for "the
expenses of his journey," and promises of farther consideration of
his case when there should be opportunity, Charles returned through
France by Paris, and was back in Brussels in December, just about the
time when Lockhart was back in Dunkirk. They had been crossing each
other's paths and were again near neighbours.--Although the late Rump
Government had taken some alarm at Charles's visit to Fontarabia, and
had made remonstrances on the subject of his passage through France,
it was now known that there was no danger of action for Charles
either by France or by Spain. The danger, indeed, was of a more
subtle and incalculable kind, and within the Commonwealth itself. We
have seen how naturally the baulked Cromwellianism of the epoch of
the dissolution of Richard's Parliament and the overthrow of his
Protectorate tended to transmute itself into Stuartism, and how much
of the strength of Sir George Booth's insurrection consisted of new
Royalism so produced. What we have now to add is that every baulked
or defeated cause in succession within the Commonwealth yielded in
the same way potential capital for Charles. The cause of Charles was
like an ultimate refuge for all the disappointed and destitute. Those
who had not already been driven into it were ruefully or gladly
looking forward to it. Even among the extreme Rumpers or pure
Republicans, now maddened by Lambert's coup _d'etat_, there were
some, Colonel Herbert Morley for one, who were feeling cautiously
for ways and means of forgiveness at Brussels. Nay, in the present
Committee of Safety and in the Wallingford-House Council associated
with it, there were some fully prepared, should this experiment also
fail, to help in a restoration of the Stuarts rather than go back
into the Republican grasp of Scott, Neville, and Hasilrig. There was
a vague common cognisance of this convergence of so many separate
currents to one final reservoir. It showed itself in mutual
accusations of that very tendency of wh