The Fortunes Of Glencore Part 61

"Stepping in between me and an object I have in view! And in my own Duchy, too! And you have the hardihood to tell me that you knew of and permitted this negotiation to go on?"

"There is nothing in the law to prevent it, sir."

"The law! What impertinence to tell me of the law I Why, sir, it is I am the law,--I am the head and fountain of all law here; without my sanction, what can presume to be legal?"

"I opine that the Act which admits foreigners to possess property in the state was pa.s.sed in the life of your Highness's father."

"I repeal it, then! It saps the nationality of a people; it is a blow aimed at the very heart of independent sovereignty. I may stand alone in all Europe on this point, but I will maintain it. And as to this stranger, let his pa.s.sport be sent to him on the spot."

"He may possibly be an Englishman, your Highness: and remember that we have already a troublesome affair on our hands with that other youth, who in some way claims Upton's protection. Had we not better go more cautiously to work? I can see and speak with him."

"What a tyranny is this English interference! There is not a land, from Sweden to Sicily, where, on some a.s.sumed ground of humanity, your Government have not dared to impose their opinions! You presume to a.s.sert that all men must feel precisely like your dogged and hard-headed countrymen, and that what are deemed grievances in your land should be thought so elsewhere. You write up a code for the whole world, built out of the materials of all your national prejudices, your insular conceit,--ay, and out of the very exigencies of your bad climate; and then you say to us, blessed in the enjoyment of light hearts and G.o.d's suns.h.i.+ne, that we must think and feel as you do! I am not astonished that my n.o.bles are discontented with the share you possess of my confidence; they must long have seen how little suited the maxims of your national policy are to the habits of a happier population!"

"The people are far better than their n.o.bles,--that I 'm sure of," said Stubber, stoutly.

"You want to preach socialism to me, and hope to convert me to that splendid doctrine of communism we hear so much of. You are a dangerous fellow,--a very dangerous fellow. It was precisely men of your stamp sapped the monarchy in France, and with it all monarchy in Europe."

"If your Highness intends Proserpine to run at Bologna, she ought to be put in training at once," said Stubber, gravely; "and we might send up some of the weeds at the same time, and sell them off."

"Well thought of, Stubber; and there was something else in my head,--what was it?"

"The suppression of the San Lorenzo convent, perhaps; it is all completed, and only waits your Highness to sign the deed."

"What sum does it give us, Stubber, eh?"

"About one hundred and eighty thousand scudi, sir, of which some twenty thousand go to the National Mortgage Fund."

"Not one crown of it,--not a single bajocco, as I am a Christian knight and a true gentleman. I need it all, if it were twice as much. If we incur the anger of the Pope and the Sacred College,--if we risk the thunders of the Vatican,--let us have the worldly consolation of a full purse."

"I advised the measure on wiser grounds, sir. It was not fair and just that a set of lazy friars should be leading lives of indolence and abundance in the midst of a hard-worked and ill-fed peasantry."

"Quite true; and on these wise grounds, as you call them, we have rooted them out. We only wish that the game were more plenty, for the sport amuses us vastly." And he clapped Stubber familiarly on the shoulder, and laughed heartily at his jest.

It was in this happy frame of mind that Stubber always liked to leave his master; and so, promising to attend to the different subjects discussed between them, he bowed and withdrew.

CHAPTER XLIX. SOCIAL DIPLOMACIES

"What an insufferable bore, dear Princess!" sighed Sir Horace, as he opened the square-shaped envelope that contained his Royal Highnesses invitation to dinner.

"I mean to be seriously indisposed," said Madame de Sabloukoff; "one gets nothing but chagrin in intercourse with petty Courts."

"Like provincial journals, they only reproduce what has appeared in the metropolitan papers, and give you old gossip for fresh intelligence."

"Or, worse again, ask you to take an interest in their miserable 'localisms,'--the microscopic contentions of insect life."

"They have given us a sentry at the door, I perceive," said Sir Horace, with a.s.sumed indifference.

"A very proper attention!" remarked the lady, in a tone that more than half implied the compliment was one intended for herself.

"Have you seen the Chevalier Stubber yet?" asked Upton.

"No; he has been twice here, but I was dressing, or writing notes. And you?"

"I told him to come about two o'clock," sighed Sir Horace. "I rather like Stubber."

This was said in a tone of such condescension that it sounded as though the utterer was confessing to an amicable weakness in his nature,--"I rather like Stubber."

Though there was something meant to invite agreement in the tone, the Princess only accepted the speech with a slight motion of her eyebrows, and a look of half unwilling a.s.sent.

"I know he's not of _your_ world, dear Princess, but he belongs to that Anglo-Saxon stock we are so p.r.o.ne to a.s.sociate with all the ideas of rugged, unadorned virtue."

"Rugged and unadorned indeed!" echoed the lady.

"And yet never vulgar," rejoined Upton,--"never affecting to be other than he is; and, stranger still, not self-opinionated and conceited."

"I own to you," said she, haughtily, "that the whole Court here puts me in mind of Hayti, with its Marquis of Orgeat and its Count Marmalade.

These people, elevated from menial station to a mock n.o.bility, only serve to throw ridicule upon themselves and the order that they counterfeit. No socialist in Europe has done such service to the cause of democracy as the Prince of Ma.s.sa!"

"Honesty is such a very rare quality in this world that I am not surprised at his Highness prizing it under any garb. Now, Stubber is honest."

"He says so himself, I am told."

"Yes, he says so, and I believe him. He has been employed in situations of considerable trust, and always acquitted himself well. Such a man cannot have escaped temptations, and yet even his enemies do not accuse him of venality."

"Good Heavens! what more would he have than his legitimate spoils? He is a Minister of the Household, with an ample salary; a Master of the Horse; an inspector of Woods and Forests; a something over Church lands; and a Red Cross of Ma.s.sa besides. I am quite 'made up' in his dignities, for they are all set forth on his visiting-card with what purports to be a coat of arms at top." And, as she spoke, she held out the card in derision.

"That's silly, I must say," said Upton, smiling; "and yet, I suppose that here in Ma.s.sa it was requisite he should a.s.sert all his pretensions thus openly."

"Perhaps so," said she, dryly.

"And, after all," said Upton, who seemed rather bent on a system of mild tormenting,--"after all, there is something amiable in the weakness of this display,--it smacks of grat.i.tude! It is like saying to the world, 'See what the munificence of my master has made me!'"

"What a delicate compliment, too, to his n.o.bles, which proclaims that for a station of trust and probity the Prince must recruit from the kitchen and the stables. To _my_ thinking, there is no such impertinent delusion as that popular one which a.s.serts that we must seek for everything in its least likely place,--take ministers out of counting-houses, and military commanders from shop-boards. For the treatment of weighty questions in peace or war, the gentleman element is the first essential."

"Just as long as the world thinks so, dear Princess; not an hour longer."

The Princess arose, and walked the room in evident displeasure. She half suspected that his objections were only devices to irritate, and she determined not to prolong the discussion. The temptation to reply proved, however, too strong for her resolution, and she said,--

"The world has thought so for some centuries; and when a pa.s.sing shade of doubt has shaken the conviction, have not the people rushed from revolution into actual bondage, as though any despotism were better than the tyranny of their own pa.s.sions?"

"I opine," said Upton, calmly, "that the 'prestige' of the gentleman consists in his belonging to an 'order.' Now, that is a privilege that cannot be enjoyed by a mere popular leader. It is like the contrast between a club and a public meeting."

"It is something that you confess these people have no 'prestige,'" said she, triumphantly. "Indeed, their presence in the world of politics, to my thinking, is a mere symbol of change,--an evidence that we are in some stage of transition."

"So we are, madame; there is nothing more true. Every people of Europe have outgrown their governments, like young heirs risen to manhood, ordering household affairs to their will. The popular voice now swells above the whisper of cabinets. So long as each country limits itself to home questions, this spirit will attract but slight notice. Let the issue, however, become a great international one, and you will see the popular will declaring wars, cementing alliances, and signing peaces in a fas.h.i.+on to make statecraft tremble!"