The Hero of the People. Alexandre Dumas

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СКАЧАТЬ will not succeed; I, to make emperors, kings and princes democratic, and I am coming on.”

      “Are you really?” queried Gilbert with an air of doubt.

      “Decidedly. It must be allowed that they were prepared for me by Voltaire, Alembert and Diderot, admirable Mecaenases, sublime contemners of the gods, and also by the example of Frederick the Great, whom we have the misfortune to lose. But you know we are all mortal, except the Count of St. Germain and myself.

      “So long as the Queen is fair, my dear Gilbert, and she can recruit soldiers to fight among themselves, kings who fret to push over thrones have never thought of hurling over the altar. But we have her brother, Kaiser Joseph II. who suppresses three-fourths of the monasteries, seizes ecclesiastical property, drives even the Camelite nuns out of their cells, and sends his sister prince of nuns trying on the latest fashions in hats and monks having their hair curled. We have the King of Denmark, who began by killing his doctor Struensee, and who, at seventeen, the precocious philosopher, said: ‘Voltaire made a man of me for he taught me to think.’ We have the Empress Catherine, who made such giant strides in philosophy that—while she dismembered Poland, Voltaire wrote to her: ‘Diderot, Alembert and myself are raising altars to you. We have the Queen of Sweden and many princes in the Empire and throughout Germany.'”

      “You have nothing left you but to convert the Pope, my dear master, and I hope you will, as nothing is beyond you.”

      “That will be a hard task. I have just slipped out of his claws. I was locked up in Castle Sanangelo as you were in the Bastile.”

      “You don’t say so? did the Romans upset the castle as the people of St. Antoine Ward overthrew the Bastile?”

      “No, my dear doctor, the Romans are a century behind that point. But, be easy: it will come in its day: the Papacy will have its revolutionary days, and Versailles and the Vatican can shake hands in equality at that era.”

      “I thought that nobody came alive out of Castle Sanangelo?”

      “Pooh! what about Benvenuto Cellini, the sculptor?”

      “You had not wings such as he made, had you, and did you flit over the Tiber like a new Icarus?”

      “It would be the more difficult as I was lodged for the farther security in the blackest dungeon of the keep. But I did get out, as you see.”

      “Bribed the jailor with gold?”

      “I was out of luck, for my turnkey was incorruptible. But, fortunately, he was not immortal. Chance—the believers say, Providence—well, the Architect of the Universe granted that he should die on the morrow of his refusing to open the prison doors. He died very suddenly! and he had to be replaced.”

      “The new hand was not unbribable?”

      “The day of his taking up his office, as he brought me the soup, he said: ‘Eat heartily and get your strength, for we have to do some stiff traveling this night.’ By George, the good fellow told no lie. That same night we rode three horses out dead, and covered a hundred miles.”

      “What did the government say when your disappearance was known?”

      “Nothing. The dead and still-warm other jailer was clad in the clothes I left behind; and a pistol was fired in his face; it was laid by his side and the statement was given out that in despair at having no escape and with the useless weapon which I had procured none could tell how, I had blown out my brains. It follows that I am officially pronounced dead and buried; the jailer being interred in my name. It will be useless, my dear Gilbert, my saying that I am alive, for the certificate of my death and burial will be produced to prove that I am no more. But they will not have to do anything of the sort as it suits me to be thought passed away at this date. I have made a dive into the sombre river, as the poets say, but I have come up under another name. I am now Baron Zanone, a Genoese banker. I discount the paper of princes—good paper in the sort of Cardinal Prince Rohan’s, you know. But I am not lending money merely for the interest. By the way, if you need cash, my dear Gilbert, say so? You know that my purse, like my heart, is always at your call.”

      “I thank you.”

      “Ah, you think to incommode me, because you met me in my dress as a workman? do not trouble about that; it is merely one of my disguises; you know my ideas about life being one long masquerade where all are more or less masked. In any case, my dear boy, if ever you want money, out of my private cash box here—for the grand cash box of the Invisibles is in St. Claude Street—come to me at any hour, whether I am at home or not—I showed you the little, side door; push this spring so—“ he showed him the trick—“and you will find about a million ready.”

      The round top of the desk opened of itself on the spring being pressed, and displayed a heap of gold coin and bundles of banknotes.

      “You are in truth a wonderful man!” exclaimed Gilbert; “but you ought to know that with twenty thousand a-year, I am richer than the King. But do you not fear being disquieted in Paris?”

      “On account of the matter of the Queen’s Necklace for which I was forbid the realm? Go to! they dare not. In the present ferment of minds I have only to speak one word to evoke a riot: you forget that I am friendly with all the popular leaders—Lafayette, Necker, Mirabeau and yourself.”

      “What have you come to do at Paris?”

      “Who knows? perhaps what you went over to the United States to do—found a republic.”

      “France has not a republican turn of mind,” said the other, shaking his head.

      “We shall teach her that way, that is all. It has taken fifteen hundred years to rule with a monarchy; in one hundred the Republic will be founded to endure—why not as long?”

      “The King will resist; the nobility fly to arms; and then what will you do?”

      “We will make a revolution before we have the Republic.”

      “It will be awful to do that, Joseph,” said Gilbert, hanging his head.

      “Awful indeed, if we meet many such as you on the road.”

      “I am not strong, but honest,” said the doctor.

      “That is worse: so I want to bring you over.”

      “I am convinced—not that I shall prevent you in your work, but will stay you.”

      “You are mad, Gilbert; you do not understand the mission of France in Europe. It is the brain of the Old World, and must think freely so that the world will be the happier for its thought. Do you know what overthrew the Bastile?”

      “The people.”

      “No: public opinion. You are taking the effect for the cause.”

      “For five hundred years they have been imprisoning nobles in the Bastile and it stood. But the mad idea struck an insane monarch one day to lock up thought—the spirit which must be free, and requires space unto immensity, and crack! it burst the walls and the mob surged in at the breach.”

      “True enough,” mused the younger man.

      “Twenty-six years ago, Voltaire СКАЧАТЬ