"That is all nonsense, O'Halloran!" Lord Evelyn said, bluntly.

"I tell you," O'Halloran said, with some vehemence, "that the 14th of
January, 1858, kept Louis Napoleon in such a state of tremor, that he
would have done a good deal more than lend his army to Sardinia to sweep
the Austrians out rather than abandon himself to the fate that Cavour
plainly and distinctly indicated. But for the threat of another dose of
Orsini pills, do you think you would ever have heard of Magenta and
Solferino?"

He seemed to rouse himself a bit now.

"No," he said, "I do not approve of assassination as a political weapon.
It seldom answers. But it has always been the policy of absolute
governments, and of their allies the priests and the police, to
attribute any murders that might occur to the secret societies, and so
to terrify stupid people. It is one of the commonest slanders in
history. Why, everybody knows how Fouche humbugged the First Napoleon,
and got up vague plots to prove that he, and he alone, knew what was
going on. When Karl Sand killed Kotzebue--oh, of course, that was a fine
excuse for the German kings and princes to have another raid against
free speech, though Sand declared he had nothing in the world to do with
either the Tugendbund or any such society. Who now believes that Young
Italy killed Count Rossi? Rossi was murdered by the agents of the
clericals; it was distinctly proved. But any stick is good enough to
beat a dog with. No matter what the slander is, so long as you can get
up a charge, either for the imprisoning of a dangerous enemy or for
terrifying the public mind. You yourself, Mr. Brand--I can see that your
only notion of the innumerable secret societies now in Europe is that
they will probably assassinate people. That's what they said about the