ere my father slipped. I see
where the eighteenth Louis slipped. I am a man tenacious beyond belief.
You cannot loose my grip when I take hold. But I never have taken hold,
I never will take hold--of my native country, struggling as she is to
throw off hereditary rule!"

"You are an American!" said Abbe Edgeworth contemptuously.

"If France called to me out of need, I would fight for her. A lifetime
of peaceful years I would toss away in a minute to die in one achieving
battle for her. But she neither calls me nor needs me. A king is not
simply an appearance--a continuation of hereditary rights!"

"Your position is incredible," said the priest.

"I do not belittle the prospect you open before me. I see the practical
difficulties, but I see well the magnificence beyond them."

"Then why do you hesitate?"

"I don't hesitate. A man is contemptible who stands shivering and
longing outside of what he dare not attempt. I would dare if I longed.
But I don't long."

"Monseigneur believes there will be complications?"

"I know my own obstinacy. A man who tried to work me with strings behind
a throne, would think he was struck by lightning."

"Sire," Madame de Ferrier spoke out, "this is the hour of your life.
Take your kingdom."

"I should have to take it, madame, if I got it. My uncle of Provence has
nothing to give me. He merely says--'My dear dauphin, if Europe knocks
Napoleon down, will you kindly take hold of a crank which is too heavy
for me, and turn it for the good of the Bourbons? We may thus keep the
royal machine in the family!'"

"You have given no adequate reason for declining this offer," said the
priest.

"I will give no reason. I simply decline."

"Is this the explanation that I shall make to Madame d'Angouleme? Think
of the tender sister who says--'Louis, you are recalled!"

"I do think of her. God bless her!"

"Must I tell her that Monseigneur planted his feet like one of these
wild cattle, and wheeled, and fled from the contemplation of a throne?"

"You will dress it up in your own felicitous way, monsieur."

"What do you wish me to say?"

"That I decline. I have not pressed the embarrassing question of why I
was not recalled long ago. I reserve to myself the privilege of
declining without saying why I decline."

"He must be made to change his mind, monsieur!" Madame de Ferrier
exclaimed.

"I am not a man that changes his mind every time the clock strikes."

I took the padlocked book