"Frenchmen,çoisRené your education is finished with mine. My first ancestor, Robert the Strong[50], died for you, and my father asked for mercy for the man who took his life. My sires raised and formed France through barbarism; now the march of events, the progress of civilization compel you to dispense with a protector. I am descending the throne; I confirm all the benefits of my fathers, while releasing you from your oaths to the Monarchy."
Say if that end would not have surpassed all that is most wonderful in that dynasty! Say if ever a magnificent enough temple could have been raised to its memory! Compare that end with that which the decrepit sons of Henry IV. would make, stubbornly pinning themselves to a throne swamped by democracy, trying to preserve their power with the aid of measures of police, measures of violence, methods of corruption, and dragging on for a few short moments a degraded existence!
"Let them make my brother King," said the child Louis XIII., after the death of Henry IV., "I do not want to be King."
Henry V. has no other brother than his people: let him make it King.
To arrive at this resolution, chimerical though it may seem, one would have to feel the greatness of one's race, not because one was descended from an old stock, but because one was the heir of men through whom France became powerful, enlightened and civilized.
Now, as I have just said, the way to be called upon to set to work on that plan would have been to wheedle the weaknesses of Prague, to raise magpies with the child of the throne like Luynes[51], to flatter Concini[52] like Richelieu. I had begun well at Carlsbad; a little note of submission and gossip would have forwarded my business. To bury myself alive in Prague was no easy matter, it is true; for not only should I have had to overcome the repugnance of the Royal Family, but the hatred of the foreigners as well. My ideas are odious to the Cabinets; they know that I detest the Treaties of Vienna, that I would make war at any price to give France the necessary frontiers and to restore the balance of power in Europe.
However, by giving signs of repentance, by weeping, by expiating my sins of national honour, by beating my breast, by admiring for my penance the genius of the blockheads who govern the world, I might perhaps have been able to crawl into the Baron de Damas' place; then, suddenly standing erect, I should have flung away my crutches.