GEVRILLIÈRE
The generous hope will never be fulfilled!
Ceasing to bluff, then ceases he to be.
None sees that written largelier than himself.
FOX
Then what may be the valued revelation
That you can unlock in such circumstance?
Sir, I incline to spell you as a spy,
And not the honest help for honest men
You gave you out to be!
GEVRILLIÈRE
I beg, sir,
To spare me that suspicion. Never a thought
Could be more groundless. Solemnly I vow
That notwithstanding what his signals show
The Emperor of France is as I say.—
Yet bring I good assurance, and declare
A medicine for all bruised Europe’s sores!
FOX [impatiently]
Well, parley to the point, for I confess
No new negotiation do I note
That you can open up to work such cure.
GEVRILLIÈRE
The sovereign remedy for an ill effect
Is the extinction of its evil cause.
Safely and surely how to compass this
I have the weighty honour to disclose,
Certain immunities being guaranteed
By those your power can influence, and yourself.
FOX [astonished]
Assassination?
GEVRILLIÈRE
I care not for names!
A deed’s true name is as its purpose is.
The lexicon of Liberty and Peace
Defines not this deed as assassination;
Though maybe it is writ so in the tongue
Of courts and universal tyranny.
FOX
Why brought you this proposal here to me?
GEVRILLIÈRE
My knowledge of your love of things humane,
Things free, things fair, of truth, of tolerance,
Right, justice, national felicity,
Prompted belief and hope in such a man!—
The matter is by now well forwarded,
A house at Plassy hired as pivot-point
From which the sanct intention can be worked,
And soon made certain. To our good allies
No risk attaches; merely to ourselves.
FOX [touching a private bell]
Sir, your unconscienced hardihood confounds me.
And your mind’s measure of my character
Insults it sorely. By your late-sent lines
Of specious import, by your bland address,
I have been led to prattle hopefully
With a cut-throat confessed!
[The head constable and the secretary enter at the same moment.]
Ere worse befall,
Sir, up and get you gone most dexterously!
Conduct this man: lose never sight of him [to the officer]
Till haled aboard some anchor-weighing craft
Bound to remotest coasts from us and France.
GEVRILLIÈRE [unmoved]
How you may handle me concerns me little.
The project will as roundly ripe itself
Without as with me. Trusty souls remain,
Though my far bones bleach white on austral shores!—
I thank you for the audience. Long ere this
I might have reft your life! Ay, notice here—
[He produces a dagger; which is snatched from him.]
They need not have done that! Even had you risen
To wrestle with, insult, strike, pinion me,
It would have lain unused. In hands like mine
And my allies’, the man of peace is safe,
Treat as he may our corporal tenement
In his misreading of a moral code.
[Exeunt GEVRILLIÈRE and the constable.]
FOX
Trotter, indeed you well may stare at me!
I look warm, eh?—and I am windless, too;
I have sufficient reason to be so.
That dignified and pensive gentleman
Was a bold bravo, waiting for his chance.
He sketched a scheme for murdering Bonaparte,
Either—as in my haste I understood—
By shooting from a window as he passed,
Or by some other wry and stealthy means
That haunt sad brains which brood on despotism,
But lack the tools to justly cope therewith!...
On later thoughts I feel not fully sure
If, in my ferment, I did right in this.
No; hail at once the man in charge of him,
And give the word that he is to be detained.
[The secretary goes out. FOX walks to the window in deep
reflection till the secretary returns.]