“Were friends? True enough. It was I who settled the Spanish marriages. There, I rather flatter myself, I had your perfidious Albion on the hip. But, to say the truth, I am tired of family alliances. We want something more to keep us alive—something startling, in short—something like the Pyramids and Moscow, to give us an impulse forward into the dark gulf of futurity. The limits of Algeria are too contracted for the fluttering of our national banner. We want freedom, less taxation, and a more extended frontier.”
“And cannot all these,” said I, unwilling to lose the opportunity of converting so remarkable a man as the Count of Monte-Christo to the grand principles of Manchester—“cannot these be attained by more peaceful methods than the subversion of general tranquillity? What is freedom, my dear Marquis, but an unlimited exportation of cotton abroad, with double task hours of wholesome labour at home? How will you diminish your taxation better, than by reducing all duties on imports, until the deficit is laid directly upon the shoulders of a single uncomplaining class? Why seek to extend your frontier, whilst we in England, out of sheer love to the world at large, are rapidly demolishing our colonies? Did you ever happen,” continued I, pulling from my pocket a bundle of the Manchester manifestos, “to peruse any of these glorious epitomes of reason and of political science? Are you familiar with the soul-stirring tracts of Thompson and of Bright? Did you ever read the Socialist’s scheme for universal philanthropy, which Cobden—”
“Peste!” replied the illustrious nobleman, “what the deuce do we care for the opinions of Monsieur Tonson, or any of your low manufacturers? By my honour, Dunshunner, I am afraid you are losing your head. Don’t you know, my dear fellow, that all great revolutions spring from us, the men of genius? It is we who are the true rousers of the people; we, the poets and romancers, who are the source of all legitimate power. Witness Voltaire, Rousseau, De Beranger, and—I may say it without any imputation of vanity—the Marquis Davy de la Pailleterie!”
“Yours is a new theory!” said I, musingly.
“New! Pray pardon me—it is as old as literature itself! No revolution can be effectual unless it has the fine arts for its basis. Simple as I stand here, I demand no more time than a month to wrap Europe in universal war.”
“You don’t say so seriously?”
“On my honour.”
“Give me leave to doubt it.”
“Should you like a proof?”
“Not on so great a scale, certainly. I am afraid the results would be too serious to justify the experiment.”