opinion, and always will be; he made _me_ sit down at his side.

He now talked largely of continental interest, and continually reverted
to the advantages of a closer alliance of England with France. "The two
countries," said he, "are made for combination; combined, they could
conquer the globe; France for the empire of the land, England for the
empire of the sea. Nature has divided between them the sceptre of the
world."

I observed that, when the conquest was achieved, the victors, like
Augustus and Antony, might quarrel at last.

"Well, then, even if they did, the combat would finish in a day what it
would have taken centuries of the tardy wars of old times to decide. Six
hours at Pharsalia settled the civil wars of Rome, and pacified the
world for five hundred years."

"But which side would be content to be the beaten one?" I asked.

"Neither," replied a restless, but remarkably broad-foreheaded and
deep-browed personage at the opposite side of the table. "The combat
would be eternal, or must end in mutual ruin. An universal empire would
be beyond the government of man by law, or his control by the sword. I
prefer enlightening the people until they shall want no control."

"But will they buy your lamp?" said Carnot, with a smile.

"At least they have done so pretty extensively, if I am to believe the
public. It was but this day, that I received a notice that there had
been sent forth the hundred thousandth copy of my 'Qu'est ce que le
Tiers Etat.'"

"That was not a lamp, but a firebrand," said a hollow voice at a
distance down the table; which reminded me of the extraordinary orator
whom I had heard in the Jacobin Club. Carnot looked round to discover
this strange accuser, and added, in a loud and stern tone--

"Whether lamp or firebrand, I pronounce to all good Frenchmen that it
was a great gift to France. It was the grammar of a new language, the
language of liberty! It was the sound of a trumpet, the trumpet of
revolution! Still M. de Sieyes," said he, turning to the author of this
celebrated performance, "all things have their time, and yours is not
yet come. I cannot give up the soldier. I am for no tardy movement, when
the country is in peril; the field must be cleared before it can be
cultivated. You must sweep war from your gates, and faction from your
streets, before you can sit down to teach a people. Even then the task
is not easy. To know nothing, or to know something badly, are two kinds
of i