e-done at the
wheel of Labour, like haltered gin-horses, if blind so much the quieter?
Or they that in the Bicetre Hospital, 'eight to a bed,' lie waiting
their manumission? Dim are those heads of theirs, dull stagnant those
hearts: to them the great Sovereign is known mainly as the great
Regrater of Bread. If they hear of his sickness, they will answer with a
dull Tant pis pour lui; or with the question, Will he die?

Yes, will he die? that is now, for all France, the grand question, and
hope; whereby alone the King's sickness has still some interest.

Chapter 1.1.II.

Realised Ideals.

Such a changed France have we; and a changed Louis. Changed, truly; and
further than thou yet seest!--To the eye of History many things, in
that sick-room of Louis, are now visible, which to the Courtiers there
present were invisible. For indeed it is well said, 'in every object
there is inexhaustible meaning; the eye sees in it what the eye
brings means of seeing.' To Newton and to Newton's Dog Diamond, what a
different pair of Universes; while the painting on the optical retina of
both was, most likely, the same! Let the Reader here, in this sick-room
of Louis, endeavour to look with the mind too.

Time was when men could (so to speak) of a given man, by nourishing and
decorating him with fit appliances, to the due pitch, make themselves
a King, almost as the Bees do; and what was still more to the purpose,
loyally obey him when made. The man so nourished and decorated,
thenceforth named royal, does verily bear rule; and is said, and even
thought, to be, for example, 'prosecuting conquests in Flanders,' when
he lets himself like luggage be carried thither: and no light luggage;
covering miles of road. For he has his unblushing Chateauroux, with her
band-boxes and rouge-pots, at his side; so that, at every new station,
a wooden gallery must be run up between their lodgings. He has not only
his Maison-Bouche, and Valetaille without end, but his very Troop
of Players, with their pasteboard coulisses, thunder-barrels, their
kettles, fiddles, stage-wardrobes, portable larders (and chaffering
and quarrelling enough); all mounted in wagons, tumbrils, second-hand
chaises,--sufficient not to conquer Flanders, but the patience of the
world. With such a flood of loud jingling appurtenances does he lumber
along, prosecuting his conquests in Flanders; wonderful to behold. So
nevertheless it was and had been: to some solitary thinker it mi