From time to time, allured by the certainty of good pay in his army, many needy adventurers came to him from the Isle of France, who were entertained at once, and assumed, if they did not possess it, a knowledge of military affairs. These kept up a constant correspondence with their parent country; and willing to humour the Sultaun, while indulging their own spleen, they poured into his ready ear the most virulent abuse of the English, and constant false statements of their losses by sea and land; while the accounts of French superiority and French victory were related in tones of exaggerated triumph.
Ripaud, an adventurer with more pretension and address than others, having arrived at Mangalore, and discerning the bent of the court from Tippoo’s authorities there, represented himself to be an envoy from the French republic, and was invited at once to the capital. It may well be supposed that he did not underrate his own assumed influence, nor the immense advantages of an embassy in return; and one was sent by Tippoo, which, meeting with various adventures by the way, returned at last, not with the mighty force he had been led to expect, but with a few needy officers, the chief of whom was Chapuis, men who determined to raise for themselves at his court a power equal to that of Perron at the court of Sindia, and of Raymond at that of the Nizam.
This was a feverish period for India, when those two mighty nations, England and France, were striving for supremacy. True, the power of the English was immeasurably more concentrated and effective, and their resolute and steady valour more highly appreciated than the brilliant but eccentric character of the French. Still, however, the latter power had increased extraordinarily since the last war with Tippoo; and 45,000 men at Sindia’s court, over whom Perron held absolute sway, and 14,000 under Raymond at Hyderabad, were pledged by their leaders to aggrandize the power of their nation, and to disseminate the principles of the revolution.
Chapuis had laboured hard to effect his object; a man of talent and quick-witted, he had at once assumed a mental superiority over the Sultaun, which he maintained. He had flattered, cajoled, and threatened by turns; he had written to the French Government in his behalf—he had promised unlimited supplies of men and ammunition—he had bewildered the Sultaun’s mind with the sophistries of the revolution, with vague notions of liberty, equality, and the happiness which was to follow upon the earth from the adoption of these principles by all ranks—he had told him of the rapid rise of Buonaparte, of his magnificent victories, and inflamed him with visions of conquest even more vast than those of the French general.
The French expedition to Egypt became known, their successes and their subjugation of the country. That seemed but the stepping-stone to greater achievements. Alexander with a few Greeks had penetrated into India and had subdued all in his path. Buonaparte, with his victorious armies, far outnumbering the Greeks, was at a point from whence he could make an immediate descent upon Bombay; then would Perron lead Sindia into his alliance—Raymond, the Nizam. The Mahrattas, a wavering power, would side with the strongest. Zeman Shah and his hardy Afghans had already promised co-operation, so had the Rajpoots, and the men of Delhi and those of Nipal; last of all Tippoo himself, who had single-handed already met and defeated the English in the field. All were to join in one crusade against the infidel, the detested English, and expel them for ever from India. It is no wonder that the wild and restless ambition of the Sultaun was excited, his intrigues more and more frequent, and, as success seemingly lay within his grasp, that he himself was more open and unguarded.
‘Join but our society,’ Chapuis would say to him, ‘you league yourself with us,—you identify yourself with the French republic,—its interests become yours,—your welfare its most anxious care. You become the friend, the brother of Buonaparte, and at once attach him to you by a bond which no vicissitudes can dissever.’
And he yielded, though with dread, for he knew not the meaning of the wild ceremony they proposed, of destroying the symbols of royalty, and reducing himself to a level with the meanest of his subjects; it was a thing abhorrent to his nature, one which he dared not disclose even to his intimates, but to which he yielded, drawn on by the blindest ambition that ever urged a human being to destruction.
The Frenchmen had long waited; at length there arose a shout, and the kettle-drums and loud nagaras from the palace proclaimed that the Sultaun was advancing. He approached slowly, dressed in the plainest clothes; no jewel was in his turban, only his rosary around his neck, a string of pearls without a price, for each bead had been exchanged for another when one more valuable could be purchased. A lane was formed through the crowd, and his slaves, headed by Jaffar, his confidential officer, preceded him, forcing the people back by rude blows of their sheathed sabres, and shouting his titles in extravagant terms.
All hailed the spectacle as one to exult in, though they could not understand it; but to the Sultaun it was one of bitter humiliation, his feelings at which he could hardly repress. He passed on, the crowd making reverence to him as he moved; he did not return their salutation, his eyes were downcast, and he bit his lips almost till the blood came. Before him was the place where he was going to a moral death—to abjure his power over men—to allow himself to be on equality with the meanest, to hold authority over them, not of inherent right, but by their sufferance. Had any one known his intention, and spoken one word to him in remonstrance, he would have turned; but the men were before him to whom he had sworn obedience, and he proceeded. Chapuis advanced, he saw his agitation, and in a few hurried words implored him to be firm, reminding him of the issue at stake, and this rallied him.
He led him to the tree; there was an altar beneath, as if for sacrifice; a small fire burned on it, and its thin blue smoke rose among the branches, and melted away into air; a perfume was thrown from time to time into the flame, which spread itself abroad as the smoke was dissipated.