London, where was
found, as is always the case, the strongest opposition to the existing
power which it had beneath its eyes.

Monk had pacified Scotland, he had there formed for himself an army, and
found an asylum. The one watched the other. Monk knew that the day was
not yet come, the day marked by the Lord for a great change; his sword,
therefore, appeared glued to the sheath. Inexpugnable, in his wild and
mountainous Scotland, an absolute general, king of an army of eleven
thousand old soldiers, whom he had more than once led on to victory; as
well informed, nay, even better, of the affairs of London, than Lambert,
who held garrison in the city,--such was the position of Monk, when, at
a hundred leagues from London, he declared himself for the parliament.
Lambert, on the contrary, as we have said, lived in the capital. That
was the center of all his operations, and he there collected around
him all his friends, and all the people of the lower class, eternally
inclined to cherish the enemies of constituted power.

It was then in London that Lambert learnt the support that, from the
frontiers of Scotland, Monk lent to the parliament. He judged there was
no time to be lost, and that the Tweed was not so far distant from
the Thames that an army could not march from one river to the other,
particularly when it was well commanded. He knew, besides, that as fast
as the soldiers of Monk penetrated into England, they would form on
their route that ball of snow, the emblem of the globe of fortune, which
is for the ambitious nothing but a step growing unceasingly higher
to conduct him to his object. He got together, therefore, his army,
formidable at the same time for its composition and its numbers, and
hastened to meet Monk, who, on his part, like a prudent navigator
sailing amidst rocks, advanced by very short marches, listening to the
reports and scenting the air which came from London.

The two armies came in sight of each other near Newcastle, Lambert,
arriving first, encamped in the city itself. Monk, always circumspect,
stopped where he was, and placed his general quarters at Coldstream, on
the Tweed. The sight of Lambert spread joy through Monk's army, whilst,
on the contrary, the sight of Monk threw disorder into Lambert's army.
It might have been thought that these intrepid warriors, who had made
such a noise in the streets of London, had set out with the hopes of
meeting no one, and that now seeing that they had