order which contemporary manuscripts have transmitted to us, and which
might well be imitated by the diplomatists of our day, who are, it seems,
more desirous to maintain themselves in perfect balance between two ideas
than to seek those combinations which decide the destinies of the world,
regarding the clear and obvious dictates of true genius as beneath their
profound subtlety.

"M. le Marechal, do not risk anything, and reflect before you
attack. When you are thus told that the King desires you not to
risk anything, you are not to understand that his Majesty forbids
you to fight at all; but his intention is that you do not engage in
a general battle unless it be with a notable hope of gain from the
advantage which a favorable situation may present, the
responsibility of the battle naturally falling upon you."

These orders given, the old minister, still seated upon the gun-carriage,
his arms resting upon the touch-hole, and his chin upon his arms, in the
attitude of one who adjusts and points a cannon, continued in silence to
watch the battle, like an old wolf, which, sated with victims and torpid
with age, contemplates in the plain the ravages of a lion among a herd of
cattle, which he himself dares not attack. From time to time his eye
brightens; the smell of blood rejoices him, and he laps his burning
tongue over his toothless jaw.

On that day, it was remarked by his servants--or, in other words, by all
surrounding him--that from the time of his rising until night he took no
nourishment, and so fixed all the application of his soul on the events
which he had to conduct that he triumphed over his physical pains,
seeming, by forgetting, to have destroyed them. It was this power of
attention, this continual presence of mind, that raised him almost to