IMAGINARY CONVERSATION AT WARSAW.
NICHOLAS AND NESSELRODE.
BY WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR.
Nicholas.—God fights for us visibly. You look grave, Nesselrode! is it not so? Speak, and plainly.
Nesselrode.—Sire, in my humble opinion, God never fights at all.
Nicholas.—Surely he fought for Israel, when he was invoked by prayer.
Nesselrode.—Sire, I am no theologian; and I fancy I must be a bad geographer, since I never knew of a nation which was not Israel when it had a mind to shed blood and to pray. To fight is an exertion, is violence; the Deity in His omnipotence needs none. He has devils and men always in readiness for fighting; and they are the instruments of their own punishment for their past misdeeds.
Nicholas.—The chariots of God are numbered by thousands in the volumes of the Psalmist.
Nesselrode.—No psalmist, or engineer, or commissary, or arithmetician, could enumerate the beasts that are harnessed to them, or the fiends that urge them on.
Nicholas.—Nesselrode! you grow more and more serious.
Nesselrode.—Age, sire, even without wisdom, makes men serious whether they are inclined or not. I could hardly have been so long conversant in the affairs of mankind (all which in all quarters your majesty superintends and directs) without much cause for seriousness.
Nicholas.—I feel the consciousness of Supreme Power, but I also feel the necessity of subordinate help.
Nesselrode.—Your majesty is the first monarch, since the earlier Cæsars of Imperial Rome, who could control, directly or indirectly, every country in our hemisphere, and thereby in both.
Nicholas.—There are some who do not see this.
Nesselrode.—There were some, and they indeed the most acute and politic of mankind, who could not see the power of the Macedonian king until he showed his full height upon the towers of Cheronœa. There are some at this moment in England who disregard the admonitions of the most wary and experienced general of modern times, and listen in preference to babblers holding forth on economy and peace from slippery sacks of cotton and wool.
Nicholas.—Hush! hush! these are our men; what should we do without them? A single one of them in the parliament or town-hall is worth to me a regiment of cuirassiers. These are the true bullets with conical heads which carry far and sure. Hush! hush!
Nesselrode.—They do not hear us: they do not hear Wellington: they would not hear Nelson were he living.
Nicholas.—No other man that ever lived, having the same power in his hands, would have endured with the same equanimity as Wellington, the indignities he suffered in Portugal; superseded in the hour of victory by two generals, one upon another, like marsh frogs; people of no experience, no ability. He might have become king of Portugal by compromise, and have added Gallicia and Biscay.
Nesselrode.—The English, out of parliament, are delicate and fastidious. He would have thought it dishonorable to profit by the indignation of his army in the field, and of his countrymen at home. Certainty that Bonaparte would attempt to violate any engagement with him might never enter into the computation; for Bonaparte could less easily drive him again out of Portugal than he could drive the usurper out of Spain. We ourselves should have assisted him actively; so would the Americans; for every naval power would be prompt at diminishing the preponderance of the English. Practicability was here with Wellington; but, endowed with it a keener and a longer foresight than any of his contemporaries, he held in prospective the glory that awaited him, and felt conscious that to be the greatest man in England is somewhat more than to be the greatest in Portugal. He is universally called the duke; to the extinction or absorption of that dignity over all the surface of the earth: in Portugal he could only be called king of Portugal.
Nicholas.—Faith! that is little: it was not overmuch even before the last accession. I admire his judgment and moderation. The English are abstinent: they rein in their horses where the French make them fret and curvett. It displeases me to think it possible that a subject should ever become a sovran. We were angry with the Duke of Sudermania for raising a Frenchman to that dignity in Sweden, although we were willing that Gustavus, for offences and affronts to our family, should be chastized, and even expelled. Here was a bad precedent. Fortunately the boldest soldiers dismount from their chargers at some distance from the throne. What withholds them?
Nesselrode.—Spells are made of words. The word service among the military has great latent negative power. All modern nations, even the free, employ it.
Nicholas.—An excellent word indeed! It shows the superiority of modern languages over ancient; Christian ideas over pagan; living similitudes of God over bronze and marble. What an escape had England from her folly, perversity, and injustice! Her admirals had the same wrongs to avenge: her fleets would have anchored in Ferrol and Coruna; thousands of volunteers from every part of both islands would have assembled round the same standard; and both Indies would have bowed before the conqueror. Who knows but that Spain herself might have turned to the same quarter, from the idiocy of Ferdinand, the immorality of Joseph, and the perfidy of Napoleon?
Nesselrode.—England seems to invite and incite, not only her colonies, but her commanders, to insurrection. Nelson was treated even more ignominiously than Wellington. A man equal in abilities and in energy to either met with every affront from the East India Company. After two such victories in succession as the Duke himself declared before the Lords that he had never known or read of, he was removed from the command of his army, and a general by whose rashness it was decimated was raised to the peerage. If Wellington could with safety have seized the supreme power in Portugal, Napier could with greater have accomplished it in India. The distance from home was farther; the army more confident; the allies more numerous, more unanimous. One avenger of their wrongs would have found a million avengers of his. Affghanistan, Cabul, and Scinde, would have united their acclamations on the Ganges: songs of triumph, succeeded by songs of peace, would have been chanted at Delhi, and have re-echoed at Samarcand.
Nicholas.—I am desirous that Persia and India should pour their treasures into my dominions. The English are so credulous as to believe that I intend, or could accomplish, the conquest of Hindostan. I want only the commerce; and I hope to share it with the Americans; not I indeed, but my successors. The possession of California has opened the Pacific and the Indian seas to the Americans, who must, within the life-time of some now born, predominate in both. Supposing that emigrants to the amount of only a quarter of a million settle in the United States every year, within a century from the present day, their population must exceed three hundred millions. It will not extend from pole to pole, only because there will be room enough without it.
Nesselrode.—Religious wars, the most sanguinary of any, are stifled in the fields of agriculture; creeds are thrown overboard by commerce.
Nicholas.—Theological questions come at last to be decided by the broadsword; and the best artillery brings forward the best arguments. Montecuculi and Wallenstein were irrefragable doctors. Saint Peter was commanded to put up his sword; but the ear was cut off first.
Nesselrode.—The blessed saint's escape from capital punishment, after this violence, is among the greatest of miracles. Perhaps there may be a perplexity in the text. Had he committed so great a crime against a person so highly protected as one in the high-priest's household, he never would have lived long enough to be crucified at Rome, but would have carried his cross up to Calvary three days after the offence. The laws of no country would tolerate it.
Nicholas.—How did he ever get to Rome at all? He must have been conveyed by an angel, or have slipt on a sudden into a railroad train, purposely and for the nonce provided. There is a controversy at the present hour about his delegated authority, and it appears to be next to certain that he never was in the capital of the west. It is my interest to find it decided in the negative. Successors to the emperors of the east, who sanctioned and appointed the earliest popes, as the bishops of Rome are denominated, I may again at my own good time claim the privilege and prerogative. The cardinals and their subordinates are extending their claws in all directions: we must throw these crabs upon their backs again.
Nesselrode.—Some among the Italians, and chiefly among the Romans, are venturing to express an opinion that there would be less of false religion, and more of true, if no priest of any description were left upon earth.
Nicholas.—Horrible! unless are exempted those of the venerable Greek church. All others worship graven images: we stick to pictures.
Nesselrode.—One scholar mentioned, not without an air of derision, that a picture had descended from heaven recently on the coast of Italy.
Nicholas.—Framed? varnisht? under glass? on panel? on canvas? What like?
Nesselrode.—The Virgin Mary, whatever made of.
Nicholas.—She must be ours then. She missed her road: she never would have taken her place among stocks and stones and blind worshipers. Easterly winds must have blown her toward a pestilential city, where at every street-corner is very significantly inscribed its true name at full length, Immondezzaio. But I hope I am guilty of no profaneness or infidelity when I express a doubt if every picture of the Blessed Virgin is sentient; most are; perhaps not every one. If they want her in England, as they seem to do, let them have her ... unless it is the one that rolls the eyes: in that case I must claim her: she is too precious by half for papist or tractarian. I must order immediately these matters. No reasonable doubt can be entertained that I am the visible head of Christ's church. Theologians may be consulted in regard to St. Peter, and may discover a manuscript at Novgorod, stating his martyrdom there, and proving his will and signature.
Nesselrode.—Theologians may find perhaps in the Revelations some Beast foreshadowing your Majesty.
Nicholas.—How? sir! how?
Nesselrode.—Emperors and kings, we are taught, are designated as great beasts in the Holy Scriptures ... (Aside) ... and elsewhere.
SECOND CONVERSATION.
Nicholas.—We have disposed of our brother, his Prussian Majesty, who appeared to be imprest by the apprehension that a portion of his dominions was in jeopardy.
Nesselrode.—Possibly the scales of Europe are yet to be adjusted.
Nicholas.—When the winds blow high they must waver. Against the danger of contingencies, and in readiness to place my finger on the edge of one or other, it is my intention to spend in future a good part of my time at Warsaw, that city being so nearly central in my dominions. Good Nesselrode! there should have been a poet near you to celebrate the arching of your eyebrows. They suddenly dropt down again under the horizontal line of your Emperor's. Nobody ever stared in my presence; but I really do think you were upon the verge of it when I inadvertently said dominions instead of dependencies. Well, well: dependencies are dominions; and of all dominions they require the least trouble.
Nesselrode.—Your Majesty has found no difficulty with any, excepting the Circassians.
Nicholas.—The Circassians are the Normans of Asia; equally brave, more generous, more chivalrous. I am no admirer of military trinkets; but I have been surprised at the beauty of their chain-armor, the temper of their swords, the richness of hilt, and the gracefulness of baldric.
Nesselrode.—It is a pity they are not Christians and subjects of your Majesty.
Nicholas.—If they would become my subjects, I would let them, as I have let other Mahometans, become Christians at their leisure. We must brigade them before baptism.
Nesselrode.—It is singular that this necessity never struck those religious men who are holding peace conferences in various parts of Europe.
Nicholas.—One of them, I remember, tried to persuade the people of England that if the bankers of London would negotiate no loan with me I could carry on no war.
Nesselrode.—Wonderful! how ignorant are monied men of money matters. Your Majesty was graciously pleased to listen to my advice when hostilities seemed inevitable. I was desirous of raising the largest loan possible, that none should be forthcoming to the urgency of others. At that very moment your Majesty had in your coffers more than sufficient for the additional expenditure of three campaigns. Well may your Majesty smile at this computation, and at the blindness that suggested it. For never will your Majesty send an army into any part of Europe which shall not maintain itself there by its own prowess. Your cavalry will seize all the provisions that are not stored up within the fortresses; and in every army those are to be found who for a few thousand roubles are ready to blow up their ammunition-wagons. We know by name almost every discontented man in Europe.
Nicholas.—To obtain this information, my yearly expenses do not exceed the revenues of half a dozen English bishops. Every table-d'hôte on the continent, you tell me, has one daily guest sent by me. Ladies in the higher circles have taken my presents and compliments, part in diamonds and part in smiles. An emperor's smiles are as valuable to them as theirs are to a cornet of dragoons. Spare nothing in the boudoir and you spare much in the field.
Nesselrode.—Such appears to have been the invariable policy of the Empress Catharine, now with God.
Nicholas.—My father of glorious memory was less observant of it. He had prejudices and dislikes; he expected to find every body a gentleman, even kings and ministers. If they were so, how could he have hoped to sway them? and how to turn them from the strait road into his?
Nesselrode.—Your Majesty is far above the influence of antipathies; but I have often heard your Majesty express your hatred, and sometimes your contempt, of Bonaparte.
Nicholas.—I hated him for his insolence, and I despised him alike for his cowardice and falsehood. Shame is the surest criterion of humanity. When one is wanting, the other is. The beasts never indicate shame in a state of nature; in society some of them acquire it; Bonaparte not. He neither blushed at repudiating a modest woman, nor at supplanting her by an immodest one. Holding a pistol to the father's ear, he ordered him to dismount from his carriage; to deliver up his ring, his watch, his chain, his seal, his knee-buckle; stripping off galloon from trouser, and presently trouser too: caught, pinioned, sentenced, he fell on both knees in the mud, and implored this poor creature's intercession to save him from the hangman. He neither blushed at the robbery of a crown nor at the fabrication of twenty. He was equally ungrateful in public life and in private. He banished Barras, who promoted and protected him: he calumniated the French admiral, whose fleet for his own safety he detained on the shores of Egypt, and the English admiral who defeated him in Syria with a tenth of his force. Baffled as he often was, and at last fatally, and admirably as in many circumstances he knew how to be a general, never in any did he know how to be a gentleman. He was fond of displaying the picklock keys whereby he found entrance into our cabinets, and of twitching the ears of his accomplices.
Nesselrode.—Certainly he was less as an emperor than as a soldier.
Nicholas.—Great generals may commit grievous and disastrous mistakes, but never utterly ruinous. Charles V., Gustavus Adolphus, Peter the Great, Frederic of Prussia, Prince Eugene, Marlborough, William, Wellington, kept their winnings, and never hazarded the last crown-piece. Bonaparte, when he had swept the tables, cried double or quits.
Nesselrode.—The wheel of Fortune is apt to make men giddier, the higher it rises and the quicklier it turns: sometimes it drops them on a barren rock, and sometimes on a treadmill. The nephew is more prudent than the uncle.
Nicholas.—You were extremely wise, my dear Nesselrode, in suggesting our idea to the French President, and in persuading him to acknowledge in the face of the world that he had been justly imprisoned by Louis Philippe for attempting to subvert the existing powers. Frenchmen are taught by this declaration what they may expect for a similar crime against his own pretensions. We will show our impartiality by an equal countenance and favor toward all parties. In different directions all are working out the design of God, and producing unity of empire "on earth as it is in heaven." Until this consummation there can never be universal or indeed any lasting peace.
Nesselrode.—This, lying far remote, I await your Majesty's commands for what is now before us. Your Majesty was graciously pleased to express your satisfaction at the manner in which I executed them in regard to the President of the French Republic.
Nicholas.—Republic indeed! I have ordered it to be a crime in France to utter this odious name. President forsooth! we have directed him hitherto; let him now keep his way. Our object was to stifle the spirit of freedom: we tossed the handkerchief to him, and he found the chloroform. Every thing is going on in Europe exactly as I desire; we must throw nothing in the way to shake the machine off the rail. It is running at full speed where no whistle can stop it. Every prince is exasperating his subjects, and exhausting his treasury in order to keep them under due control. What nation on the continent, mine excepted, can maintain for two years longer its present war establishment? And without this engine of coercion what prince can be the master of his people? England is tranquil at home; can she continue so when a foreigner would place a tiara over her crown, telling her who shall teach and what shall be taught. Principally, that where masses are not said for departed souls, better it would be that there were no souls at all, since they certainly must be damned. The school which doubts it is denounced as godless.
Nesselrode.—England, sire, is indeed tranquil at home; but that home is a narrow one, and extends not across the Irish channel. Every colony is dissatisfied and disturbed. No faith has been kept with any of them by the secretary now in office. At the Cape of Good Hope, innumerable nations, warlike and well-armed, have risen up simultaneously against her; and, to say nothing of the massacres in Ceylon, your Majesty well knows what atrocities her Commissioner has long exercised in the Seven Isles. England looks on and applauds, taking a hearty draught of Lethe at every sound of the scourge.
Nicholas.—Nesselrode! You seem indignant. I see only the cheerful sparks of a fire at which our dinner is to be dressed; we shall soon sit down to it; Greece must not call me away until I rise from the dessert; I will then take my coffee at Constantinople. The crescent ere long will become the full harvest-moon. Our reapers have already the sickles in their hands.
Nesselrode.—England may grumble.
Nicholas.—So she will. She is as ready now to grumble as she formerly was to fight. She grumbles too early; she fights too late. Extraordinary men are the English. They raise the hustings higher than the throne; and, to make amends, being resolved to build a new palace, they push it under an old bridge. The Cardinal, in his way to the Abbey, may in part disrobe at it. Noble vestry-room! where many habiliments are changed. Capacious dovecote! where carrier-pigeons and fantails and croppers, intermingled with the more ordinary, bill and coo, ruffle and smoothen their feathers, and bend their versicolor necks to the same corn.