“Bah! Captain Thurot,” cried his Royal Highness impatiently, “you talk like a fool. At the heart, indeed! With all habitable England like a fat about it, rich with forts and troops and no more friendship for us than for the Mameluke! No, no, Thurot, I cry Scotland; all the chances are among the rocks, and I am glad it has been so decided on.”
“And still, with infinite deference, your Royal Highness, this same West of Scotland never brought but the most abominable luck to you and yours,” continued Thurot. “Now, Arundel Bay——”
“Oh! to the devil with Arundel Bay!” cried M. Albany; “'tis settled otherwise, and you must take it as you find it. Conflans and his men shall land upon the West—mon Dieu! I trust they may escape its fangs; and measures will be there taken with more precaution and I hope with more success than in Seventeen Forty-five. Thence they will march to England, sweeping the whole country before them, and not leaving behind them a man or boy who can carry a musket. Thus they must raise the army to fifty or sixty thousand men, strike a terror into England, and carry all with a high hand. I swear 'tis a fatted hog this England: with fewer than ten thousand Highlanders I have made her thrill at the very vitals.”
Thurot hummed. Plainly there was much in the project that failed to meet his favour.
“And Conflans?” said he.
His Royal Highness laughed.
“Ha! Captain,” said he, “I know, I know. 'Twould suit you better if a certain Tony Thurot had command.”
“At least,” said Thurot, “I am in my prime, while the Marshal is beyond his grand climacteric.”
“And still, by your leave, with the reputation of being yet the best— well, let us say among the best—of the sea officers of France. Come, come, Captain, there must be no half-hearts in this venture; would to Heaven I were permitted to enjoy a share in it! And on you, my friend, depends a good half of the emprise and the gloire.”
“Gloire!” cried Thurot. “With every deference to your Royal Highness I must consider myself abominably ill-used in this matter. That I should be sent off to Norway and hound-in wretched Swedes with a personage like Flaubert! Oh, I protest, 'tis beyond all reason! Is it for that I have been superseded by a man like Conflans that totters on the edge of the grave?”