"_Ma foi!_ we have a pretty general to fight under - this Charles
II.! Worcester gave us proofs of that."

"But he will no longer have to deal with Cromwell, monsieur."

"But he will have to deal with Monk, who is quite as dangerous. The
brave brewer of whom we are speaking, was a visionary; he had moments of
exaltation, of inflation, during which he ran over like an over-filled
cask; and from the chinks there always escaped some drops of his
thoughts, and by the sample the whole of his thought was to be made out.
Cromwell has thus allowed us more than ten times to penetrate into his
very soul, when one would have conceived that soul to be enveloped in
triple brass, as Horace had it. But Monk! Oh, sire, God defend you from
ever having anything to transact politically with Monk. It is he who has
given me, in one year, all the gray hairs I have. Monk is no fanatic;
unfortunately he is a politician; he does not overflow, he keeps close
together. For ten years he has had his eyes fixed upon one object, and
nobody has yet been able to ascertain what. Every morning, as Louis XI.
advised, he burns his nightcap. Therefore, on the day when this plan,
slowly and solitarily ripened, shall break forth, it will break forth
with all the conditions of success which always accompany an unforeseen
event. That is Monk, sire, of whom, perhaps, you have never even heard -
of whom, perhaps, you did not even know the name, before your brother,
Charles II., who knows what he is, pronounced it before you. He is a
marvel of depth and tenacity, the two only things against which
intelligence and ardor are blunted. Sire, I had ardor when I was young;
I always was intelligent. I may safely boast of it, because I am
reproached with it. I have done very well with these two qualities,
since, from the son of a fisherman of Piscina, I have become prime
minister to the king of France; and in that position your majesty will