CHAPTER 23

In which the Author, very unwillingly, is forced to write a Little History



While kings and men were thus occupied with England, which
governed itself quite alone, and which, it must be said in
its praise, had never been so badly governed, a man upon
whom God had fixed his eye, and placed his finger, a man
predestined to write his name in brilliant letters upon the
page of history, was pursuing in the face of the world a
work full of mystery and audacity. He went on, and no one
knew whither he meant to go, although not only England, but
France, and Europe, watched him marching with a firm step
and head held high. All that was known of this man we are
about to tell.

Monk had just declared himself in favor of the liberty of
the Rump Parliament, a parliament which General Lambert,
imitating Cromwell, whose lieutenant he had been, had just
blocked up so closely, in order to bring it to his will,
that no member, during all the blockade, was able to go out,
and only one, Peter Wentworth, had been able to get in.

Lambert and Monk -- everything was summed up in these two
men; the first representing military despotism, the second
pure republicanism. These men were the two sole political