next hundred years. The genius of a Colbert
or of a Sully avails nothing, unless it is supported by the energetic
will that makes a Napoleon or a Cromwell. A great minister, gentlemen,
is a great thought written at large over all the years of a century of
prosperity and splendor for which he has prepared the way. Steadfast
perseverance is the virtue of which he stands most in need; and in all
human affairs does not steadfast perseverance indicate a power of the
very highest order? We have had for some time past too many men who
think only of the ministry instead of the nation, so that we cannot
but admire the real statesman as the vastest human Poetry. Ever to look
beyond the present moment, to foresee the ways of Destiny, to care so
little for power that he only retains it because he is conscious of his
usefulness, while he does not overestimate his strength; ever to lay
aside all personal feeling and low ambitions, so that he may always be
master of his faculties, and foresee, will, and act without ceasing; to
compel himself to be just and impartial, to keep order on a large scale,
to silence his heart that he may be guided by his intellect alone, to
be neither apprehensive nor sanguine, neither suspicious nor confiding,
neither grateful nor ungrateful, never to be unprepared for an event,
nor taken unawares by an idea; to live, in fact, with the requirements
of the masses ever in his mind, to spread the protecting wings of his
thought above them, to sway them by the thunder of his voice and the
keenness of his glance; seeing all the while not the details of affairs,
but the great issues at stake--is not that to be something more than a
mere man? Therefore the names of the great and noble fathers of nations
cannot but be household words for ever."

There was silence for a moment, during which the guests looked at one
another.

"Gentlemen, you have not said a word about the army!" cried Genestas. "A
military organization seems to me to be the real type on which all good
civil society should be modeled; the Sword is the guardian of a nation."

The justice of the peace laughed softly.

"Captain," he said, "an old lawyer once said that empires began with the
sword and ended with the desk; we have reached the desk stage by this
time."

"And now that we have settled the fate of the world, gentlemen, let
us change the subject. Come, captain, a glass of Hermitage," cried the
doctor, laughing.

"Two, rather than one,"