‘You come too late, my friend—too late,’ said Mirabeau, sighing: ‘Royalist, Girondin, Bourbon, or the Mountain, they are all illusions now!’
‘The great principles of justice are not an illusion, sir; the idea of Right is immutable and immortal!’
‘I know of nothing that does not change and die,’ said Mirabeau gravely; then added, ‘But what would you with me?’
‘I have not courage to disturb your suffering sick-bed with cares you can no longer feel. I had not imagined I should have found you so ill as this.’
‘Sick unto death—if you can tell me what death means,’ said the other with a strange smile.
‘They who sent me,’ resumed Gerald, not heeding his last remark, ‘believed you in all the vigour of health as of intellect. They have watched with almost breathless interest the glorious conflict you have long maintained against the men of anarchy and the guillotine; they have recognised in you the one sole man, of all the nation, who can save France——’
The sick man smiled sadly, and laying his wasted fingers on Gerald’s arm, said, ‘It is not to be done!’
‘Do you mean, sir, that it is the will of the great Providence who rules us that this mighty people should sink under the tyranny of a few bloodthirsty wretches?’
‘I spoke not of France; I spoke of the Monarchy, said Mirabeau. ‘Look at those flowers there: in a few hours hence they will have lost their odour and their colour. Now, all your memory—be it ever so good—will not replace these to your senses. Go tell your master that his hour has struck. Monarchy was once a Faith; it will henceforth be but a Superstition.’
‘And is a just right like this to be abandoned?’