"The King stands for us all. To die for the King is to die for
oneself, for one's family, which, like the kingdom, cannot die. All
animals have certain instincts; the instinct of man is for family
life. A country is strong which consists of wealthy families, every
member of whom is interested in defending a common treasure; it is
weak when composed of scattered individuals, to whom it matters little
whether they obey seven or one, a Russian or a Corsican, so long as
each keeps his own plot of land, blind, in their wretched egotism, to
the fact that the day is coming when this too will be torn from them.
"Terrible calamities are in store for us, in case our party fails.
Nothing will be left but penal or fiscal laws--your money or your
life. The most generous nation on the earth will have ceased to obey
the call of noble instincts. Wounds past curing will have been
fostered and aggravated, an all pervading jealousy being the first.
Then the upper classes will be submerged; equality of desire will be
taken for equality of strength; true distinction, even when proved and
recognized, will be threatened by the advancing tide of middle-class
prejudice.
It was possible to choose one man out of a thousand, but,
amongst three millions, discrimination becomes impossible, when all
are moved by the same ambitions and attired in the same livery of
mediocrity. No foresight will warn this victorious horde of that other
terrible horde, soon to be arrayed against them in the peasant
proprietors; in other words, twenty million acres of land, alive,
stirring, arguing, deaf to reason, insatiable of appetite, obstructing
progress, masters in their brute force----"
"But," said I, interrupting my father, "what can I do to help the
State. I feel no vocation for playing Joan of Arc in the interests of
the family, or for finding a martyr's block in the convent."
"You are a little hussy," cried my father. "If I speak sensibly to
you, you are full of jokes; when I jest, you talk like an
ambassadress." "Love lives on contrasts," was my reply.
And he laughed till the tears stood in his eyes.
"You will reflect on what I have told you; you will do justice to the
large and confiding spirit in which I have broached the matter, and
possibly events may assist my plans. I know that, so far as you are
concerned, they are injurious and unfair, and this is the reason why I
appeal for your sanction of them less to your heart and your
imagination than to your reason. I have found more judgment and
commonsense in you than in any one I know----"