mob at Versailles, and then sent the dragoons to ride down the
survivors, the Republican movement had been broken. That had been
when Cardinal Talleyrand, who was then merely Bishop of Autun,
had came to the fore and become the power that he is today in
France; the greatest King's Minister since Richelieu.

"And, after that, Louis's death followed as surely as night after
day," Bathurst was saying. "And because the French had no experience
in self-government, their republic was foredoomed. If Bonaparte
hadn't seized power, somebody else would have; when the French
murdered their king, they delivered themselves to dictatorship.
And a dictator, unsupported by the prestige of royalty, has no
choice but to lead his people into foreign war, to keep them from
turning upon him."

It was like that all the way to Berlin. All these things seem
foolish, by daylight, but as I sat in the darkness of that
swaying coach, I was almost convinced of the reality of what he
told me. I tell you, Uncle Eugen, it was frightening, as though
he were giving me a view of Hell. _Gott im Himmel_, the things
that man talked of! Armies swarming over Europe; sack and
massacre, and cities burning; blockades, and starvation; kings
deposed, and thrones tumbling like tenpins; battles in which the
soldiers of every nation fought, and in which tens of thousands
were mowed down like ripe grain; and, over all, the Satanic
figure of a little man in a gray coat, who dictated peace to the
Austrian Emperor in Schoenbrunn, and carried the Pope away a
prisoner to Savona.

Madman, eh? Unrealistic beliefs, says Hartenstein? Well, give