Page:Man Who Laughs (Estes and Lauriat 1869) v1.djvu/232

200 To keep his place is the duty of a good citizen. Learn to sacrifice your secret preferences. Appointments must be filled, and some one must sacrifice himself. To yield prompt obedience to the powers that be is truly laudable. The retirement of public officials would paralyze the State. What, banish yourself? How weak! Set yourself up as an example? What vanity! Defy established authority? What audacity! What do you set yourself up to be, I wonder? Learn that we are just as good as you. If we chose, we also could be intractable and untamable, and do worse things than you; but we prefer to be sensible people. Because I am a Trimalcion, do you think that I could not be a Cato? What nonsense!

was a situation more clearly defined or more decisive than that of 1660. Never had a course of conduct been more plainly indicated to a well-ordered mind. England was out of Cromwell's grasp. Under the republic many irregularities had been committed. British preponderance had been created. With the aid of the Thirty-Years' war, Germany had been overcome; with the aid of the Fronde, France had been humiliated; with the aid of the Duke of Braganza, the power of Spain had been lessened. Cromwell had tamed Mazarin; in signing treaties the Protector of England wrote his name above that of the King of France. The United Provinces had been forced to pay a fine of eight millions; Algiers and Tunis had been attacked, Jamaica conquered, Lisbon humbled; French rivalry had been encouraged in Barcelona, and Masaniello in Naples; Portugal had been made fast to England; the seas had been cleared of Barbary pirates from Gibraltar to Crete; maritime