Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/358

348 You have but to watch the course of events, and you will see that there is not a man in Europe of sounder understanding than my Czar. Of what he has already accomplished I need not remind you; and I had rather not, considering whom he has overcome. If his religious principles expose him to reproach, it is only 'the reproach of the foolish.' They are not new to him, though of late they have deepened and strengthened. All those stories you allude to about his intercourse with Madame de Krudener are fabrications. The grain of truth they contain is the fact that God has been pleased to send him a message by the lips of a woman;—and why should he not?"

To this there was no answer, and the little party broke up. But Ivan drew Emile aside. "I want a word with you," he said. "Do you know in what temper the minds of men are now?"

"Do you mean the minds of Royalists?" asked Emile bitterly. "That I do. I believe that if they had the power they would put every Imperialist of us all to the sword; or if not, it would only be to reserve us for the dungeon and the scaffold. The Bourbons gnash their teeth upon us. The Duchess of Angoulême says openly, 'Mercy cannot be distinguished from weakness.'"

"Ah, my friend, can you wonder? When that stern, sorrow-stricken woman had a girl's tender heart, it was turned to stone by the cruel murder of both her parents and of her young innocent brother. But others who have not the same wrongs to avenge are quite as eager for vengeance."

"They are a bad set, those Bourbons," said Emile.

"Certainly I shall not plead for them. They have not used us or our Emperor well. But consider that in the eyes of a German every Frenchman is as odious as a Buonapartist can be in those of a Royalist. The Prussians talk openly of dismembering France; and, Emile, who is to hinder them? Not Louis—he is powerless; not Austria—she will share the spoils; not England—she is just, and even generous, but do you expect her to go to war single-handed in the cause of her enemies?"