"'See thou shake the bags
Of hoarding abbots; angels imprisoned
Set thou at liberty.'
"This last, though, in a sense different from the poets; in Lisbon alone, turning thousands of nuns into the streets, that their convents might be converted into barracks. In obedience to the imperial decree, all the gold and silver of the churches, chapels, and fraternities of the city were carried off to the mint; and, in this day of sweeping confiscation, individuals did not forget themselves. Indeed, throughout the country, the French soldier proved that he had the eye of a lynx, the scent of a hound, and the litheness of a ferret after booty, trained to it by the system which makes the war support the war. But Evora has been particularly unlucky. It not only bore its full share of the first burden imposed on the country, but the year after, when the Portuguese, rising too late in armed resistance, lost a battle before the town, the French, entering with the fugitives, massacred nearly a thousand persons, many of them women and children, including some forty priests, a class they made the especial objects of their vengeance; and they plundered the town so thoroughly, that the very cracks in the walls did not escape their search. The best excuse that can be made for their plunderings is, that in the confusion of their own revolution they so completely lost the idea of property, that though they have recovered the thing, they have not yet remastered the idea of it."
A number of friars now coming out of the church attracted Mrs. Shortridge's attention. But Lady Mabel had an English woman's ear for French atrocities, and continued the conversation:
"I can understand that a needy and ignorant soldiery may perpetrate such robberies amidst scenes of violence, and under the temptations of want; but we expect better things from the men who lead them."
"That supposes these men to be of a different class, with different education and habits from the common soldier. The revolution and conscription has leveled all those distinctions. Many a youth of good birth and education is made to bear his musket in the ranks, and does not elevate his comrades to his standard, but is soon degraded to the level of their sentiments and habits. Many a French general, for instance Junot, has been raised from the ranks. Military merit or accident has elevated them to command without a corresponding elevation of sentiment or principles. It is not easy to make a gentleman in one generation: somebody says, it takes three."
"What a moderate man that somebody was!" said Lady Mabel; "I thought that the gentry of a country were like its timber, the slow growth of centuries, and that the beginning of nobility must be lost in the dark ages, unless you can find some great statesman, warrior, or freebooter of later date to start from."
"But," said L'Isle, laughing, "we find men whose pedigree fulfills your requisitions, who are not gentlemen in their own persons. The son of a gentleman is too often one only in name."
"I think," said Lady Mabel, reflecting, "I have myself met with more than one gentleman rogue."
"That is impossible," said L'Isle, "for a gentleman is a superstructure which can be built on only one foundation—an honest man."
"We had better stop defining the gentleman," said Lady Mabel, "lest between us we narrow down the class, until there are not enough left to officer a regiment, or for any other useful purpose."