And they had no other military leader—not one. Among them there was not a soldier, while on the side of the people were the Berns and Dembinskys, Garibaldi, Damjanich, Klapka, and Anglo-Hungarian Guyon—a constellation of flaming swords! As statesmen and patriots they had none to compete with Kossuth, Manin, and Mazzini.
In the field of fair fight—either military or diplomatic—the despots stood no chance. They saw it, and determined upon treachery.
For this they knew themselves provided with tools a plenty; but two that promised to prove specially effective—seemingly created for the occasion. One was an English nobleman—an Irishman by birth—born on the outside edge of the aristocracy; who, by ingenious political jugglery, had succeeded in making himself not only a very noted character, but one of the most powerful diplomatists in Europe.
And this without any extraordinary genius. On the contrary, his intellect was of the humblest—never rising above that of the trickster. As a member of the British Parliament his speeches were of a thoroughly commonplace kind, usually marked by some attempted smartness that but showed the puerility and poverty of his brain. He would often amuse the House by pulling off half-a-dozen pairs of white kid gloves during the delivery of one of his long written-out orations. It gave him an air of aristocracy—no small advantage in the eyes of an English audience.
For all this, he had attained to a grand degree of popularity, partly from the pretence of being on the Liberal side, but more from paltering to that fiend of false patriotism—national prejudice.
Had his popularity been confined to his countrymen, less damage might have accrued from it.
Unfortunately it was not. By a professed leaning toward the interests of the peoples, he had gained the confidence of the revolutionary leaders all over Europe; and herein lay his power to do evil.
It was by no mere accident this confidence had been obtained. It had been brought about with a fixed design, and with heads higher than his for its contrivers. In short, he was the appointed political spy of the united despots—the decoy set by them for the destruction of their common and now dreaded enemy—the Republic.
And yet that man’s name is still honoured in England, the country where, for two hundred years, respect has been paid to the traducers of Cromwell!
The second individual on whom the frightened despots had fixed their hopeful eyes was a man of a different race, though not so different in character.