"I do not wish to go where it would carry me."
"The second is to place a barrier across the tide. It is Genius and Popularity in one dam: and it is named Mirabeau."
"The King looked Gilbert in the face as though he had misunderstood him; then turning to the portrait, he said:
"What would you have replied, Charles Stuart, if when you felt the ground quake beneath your feet, some one had suggested your leaning on Cromwell?"
"He would have refused, and rightly; for there is no likeness between Cromwell and Mirabeau." Such was Gilbert's answer.
"Sire," replied the other with profound respect but invincible firmness; "neither were traitors: Cromwell was a rebellious subject, and Mirabeau is a discontented nobleman."
"With his father, who locked him up in prison; the courts which condemned him to death; with the King who miscomprehended and still miscomprehends his genius."
"The spirit of a public man is honesty," said the King quickly.
"The reply is fine, worthy of Titus, Trajan or Marcus Aurelius, unluckily many examples arise to the contrary."
"How can you ask me to confide in a man who has a price?"
"Because he is a man of his price. If he will sell himself for a million, it is a bargain. Do you think he is worth twice a Polignac?"
"I have not that honor: but he has a friend who is of the Queen's party, too."
"Count Lamarck? We cast it up to him every day."
"On the contrary, your Majesty ought to dissuade him breaking the friendship with him, under pain of death. Mirabeau is a noble, an aristocrat, a King's-man above all. He was elected by the people because the nobles scorned him and he had sublime disdain of the means to attain an end which genius thirsted for. You may say that he will never quit the party of his constituents to join the court party? Why is there not union of the court and plebeians? Mirabeau could make them one. Take him, my lord! To-morrow, rebuffed by your despisal, he may turn against you, and then you will say, as the portrait of your Martyr King will say: All is lost!"
"I will talk this over with the Queen, sir," said the monarch, having turned pale and hesitatingly glanced at the royal portrait. "She may decide on speaking with Mirabeau: but I will not. I like to be able to shake hands with those I confer with, and I could never take the hand of a Mirabeau, though my life, my liberty, and my throne were at stake--After she shall have seen him, we will see----"