Page:The Royal Family of France (Henry).djvu/68

 its weapons and its courage against the Royal child, supported by England, who sought to derive advantage from these civic struggles. Later on, we find Stephen Marcel leagued with a Prince of the Royal Blood who coveted the Throne, unscrupulously stirring up the inhabitants of Paris against their legitimate King in the name of Demagogism, that infernal cry of furious factionists who ever and everywhere pander to the vicious tastes of the vile multitude and to popular prejudices. He reigned for a short time, upheld by violence, till terror gave place to the curses of the people whom he had deceived and seduced.

This reminds one of Mirabeau's reflections upon the "people " as he then, speaking from his seat in Parliament, was turned round and rebuked the demagogues in a language which was worthy of his name as the French Demosthenes: "It is strange that men united together in pursuit of the same aim, animated by the same indestructible longing, and who should be drawn more tightly together by the most determined opposition, should, misled by a singular mania, a deplorable blindness, fall foul of each other. Men, who thus replace their devotion to their country by the susceptibility of self-love^ are ever ready to betray each other to popular prejudice! A few days ago men sought to carry me in triumph, and now they hawk through the streets with loud cries: The great Treason of Mirabeau!

"I did not need this lesson to feel convinced that there was but a step from the Capitol to the Tarpeian Rock, Yet, the man who fights for right reason, for his country, does not readily acknowledge himself defeated. He who is conscious of having deserved well of his country and knows that he can still serve it; he who is not sated by an ephemeral celebrity and who despises the fame of a day for the sake of true glory; he who wishes to speak the truth and to work for the welfare of the State, irrespective of fickle public opinion; such a man bears within himself the reward of his deeds, the charm of his sufferings, the price of his dangers. He must leave his harvest, his future destiny, which is that of his reputation, to the care of time, the incorruptible judge who renders justice to all men."

In 1426 all seemed lost: a woman, Joan of Arc, defeats the English, takes the lawful heir, Charles VII., by the hand, leads