ublic,"
said Vernet, "but I fail to understand the use of a constitutional king,
just because it implies and entails the principle of succession by
inheritance. An autocracy means one ruler over so many millions of
subjects; a constitutional monarchy means between five and six hundred
direct rulers, so many millions of indirect ones, and one subject who is
called king. Who would leave his child the inheritance of such slavery?
A la bonne heure, give me a republic such as we understand it in France,
all rulers, all natural-born kings, gods in mortals' disguise who dance
to the piping of the devil. There have been two such since I was born;
there may be another half-dozen like these within the next two
centuries, because, before you can have an ideal republic, you must have
ideal republicans, and Nature cannot afford to fritter away her most
precious gifts on a lot of down-at-heels lawyers and hobnail-booted
scum. She condescends now and then to make an ideal tyrant--she will
never make a nation of ideal republicans. You may just as well ask her
to make a nation of Raffaelles or Michael Angelos, or Shakespeares or
Molieres."

Both men, in spite of their republican opinions, were personally
attached to some members of the Orleans family; both had an almost
invincible objection to the Bourbons. Vernet had less occasion to be
outspoken in his dislike than Dumas, but he refused to receive the Duc
de Berri when the latter offered to come and see the battle-pieces
Vernet was painting for the then Duke of Orleans (Louis-Philippe).
Vernet had stipulated that his paintings should illustrate exclusively
the campaigns of the first Republic and the Empire, though subsequently
he depicted some episodes of the Algerian wars, in which the son of the
king had distinguished himself. "Tricolour cockades or no pictures," he
remarked, and Louis-Philippe good-humouredly acquiesced. Though
courteous to a degree, he never minced matters to either king or beggar.
While in Russia Nicholas took a great fancy to him. It appears that the
painter, who must have looked even smaller by the side of the Czar than
he did by that of Dumas, had accompanied the former, if not on a
perilous, at least on a very uncomfortable journey in the middle of the
winter. He and the Emperor were the only two men who had borne the
hardships and privations without grumbling, nay, with Mark Tapleyean
cheerfulness. That kind of fortitude was at all times a passport to
Nicho