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_ PART SECOND. ACT FIRST. SCENE I.
[FOX, the Foreign Secretary in the new Ministry of All-the-Talents, sits at a table writing. He is a stout, swarthy man, with shaggy eyebrows, and his breathing is somewhat obstructed. His clothes look as though they had been slept in. TROTTER, his private secretary, is writing at another table near. A servant enters.]
SERVANT
Another stranger presses to see you, sir.
FOX (without raising his eyes)
Oh, another. What's he like?
SERVANT
A foreigner, sir; though not so out-at-elbows as might be thought from the denomination. He says he's from Gravesend, having lately left Paris, and that you sent him a passport. He comes with a police-officer.
FOX
Ah, to be sure. I remember. Bring him in, and tell the officer to wait outside. (Servant goes out.) Trotter, will you leave us for a few minutes? But be within hail.
[The secretary retires, and the servant shows in a man who calls himself GUILLET DE GEVRILLIERE--a tall, thin figure of thirty, with restless eyes. The door being shut behind him, he is left alone with the minister. FOX points to a seat, leans back, and surveys his visitor.]
GEVRILLIERE
Thanks to you, sir, for this high privilege
Of hailing England, and of entering here.
Without a fore-extended confidence
Like this of yours, my plans would not have sped. (A Pause.)
Europe, alas! sir, has her waiting foot
Upon the sill of further slaughter-scenes!
FOX
I fear it is so!--In your lines you wrote,
I think, that you are a true Frenchman born?
GEVRILLIERE
I did, sir.
FOX
How contrived you, then, to cross?
GEVRILLIERE
It was from Embden that I shipped for Gravesend,
In a small sailer called the "Toby," sir,
Masked under Prussian colours. Embden I reached
On foot, on horseback, and by sundry shifts,
From Paris over Holland, secretly.
FOX
And you are stored with tidings of much pith,
Whose tenour would be priceless to the state?
GEVRILLIERE
I am. It is, in brief, no more nor less
Than means to mitigate and even end
These welfare-wasting wars; ay, usher in
A painless spell of peace.
FOX
Prithee speak on.
No statesman can desire it more than I.
GEVRILLIERE (looking to see that the door is shut)
No nation, sir, can live its natural life,
Or think its thoughts in these days unassailed,
No crown-capt head enjoy tranquillity.
The fount of such high spring-tide of disorder,
Fevered disquietude, and forceful death,
Is One,--a single man. He--need I name?--
The ruler is of France.
FOX
Well, in the past
I fear that it has liked so. But we see
Good reason still to hope that broadening views,
Politer wisdom now is helping him
To saner guidance of his arrogant car.
GEVRILLIERE
The generous hope will never be fulfilled!
Ceasing to bluff, then ceases he to be.
None sees that written largelier than himself.
FOX
Then what may be the valued revelation
That you can unlock in such circumstance?
Sir, I incline to spell you as a spy,
And not the honest help for honest men
You gave you out to be!
GEVRILLIERE
I beg, sir,
To spare me that suspicion. Never a thought
Could be more groundless. Solemnly I vow
That notwithstanding what his signals show
The Emperor of France is as I say.--
Yet bring I good assurance, and declare
A medicine for all bruised Europe's sores!
FOX (impatiently)
Well, parley to the point, for I confess
No new negotiation do I note
That you can open up to work such cure.
GEVRILLIERE
The sovereign remedy for an ill effect
Is the extinction of its evil cause.
Safely and surely how to compass this
I have the weighty honour to disclose,
Certain immunities being guaranteed
By those your power can influence, and yourself.
FOX (astonished)
Assassination?
GEVRILLIERE
I care not for names!
A deed's true name is as its purpose is.
The lexicon of Liberty and Peace
Defines not this deed as assassination;
Though maybe it is writ so in the tongue
Of courts and universal tyranny.
FOX
Why brought you this proposal here to me?
GEVRILLIERE
My knowledge of your love of things humane,
Things free, things fair, of truth, of tolerance,
Right, justice, national felicity,
Prompted belief and hope in such a man!--
The matter is by now well forwarded,
A house at Plassy hired as pivot-point
From which the sanct intention can be worked,
And soon made certain. To our good allies
No risk attaches; merely to ourselves.
FOX (touching a private bell)
Sir, your unconscienced hardihood confounds me.
And your mind's measure of my character
Insults it sorely. By your late-sent lines
Of specious import, by your bland address,
I have been led to prattle hopefully
With a cut-throat confessed!
[The head constable and the secretary enter at the same moment.]
Ere worse befall,
Sir, up and get you gone most dexterously!
Conduct this man: lose never sight of him (to the officer)
Till haled aboard some anchor-weighing craft
Bound to remotest coasts from us and France.
GEVRILLIERE (unmoved)
How you may handle me concerns me little.
The project will as roundly ripe itself
Without as with me. Trusty souls remain,
Though my far bones bleach white on austral shores!--
I thank you for the audience. Long ere this
I might have reft your life! Ay, notice here--
(He produces a dagger; which is snatched from him.)
They need not have done that! Even had you risen
To wrestle with, insult, strike, pinion me,
It would have lain unused. In hands like mine
And my allies', the man of peace is safe,
Treat as he may our corporal tenement
In his misreading of a moral code.
[Exeunt GEVRILLIERE and the constable.]
FOX
Trotter, indeed you well may stare at me!
I look warm, eh?--and I am windless, too;
I have sufficient reason to be so.
That dignified and pensive gentleman
Was a bold bravo, waiting for his chance.
He sketched a scheme for murdering Bonaparte,
Either--as in my haste I understood--
By shooting from a window as he passed,
Or by some other wry and stealthy means
That haunt sad brains which brood on despotism,
But lack the tools to justly cope therewith! . . .
On later thoughts I feel not fully sure
If, in my ferment, I did right in this.
No; hail at once the man in charge of him,
And give the word that he is to be detained.
[The secretary goes out. FOX walks to the window in deep reflection till the secretary returns.]
SECRETARY
I was in time, sir. He has been detained.
FOX
Now what does strict state-honour ask of me?--
No less than that I bare this poppling plot
To the French ruler and our fiercest foe!--
Maybe 'twas but a hoax to pocket pay;
And yet it can mean more . . .
The man's indifference to his own vague doom
Beamed out as one exalted trait in him,
And showed the altitude of his rash dream!--
Well, now I'll get me on to Downing Street,
There to draw up a note to Talleyrand
Retailing him the facts.--What signature
Subscribed this desperate fellow when he wrote?
SECRETARY
"Guillet de la Gevrilliere." Here it stands.
FOX
Doubtless it was a false one. Come along. (Looking out the window.)
Ah--here's Sir Francis Vincent: he'll go with us.
Ugh, what a twinge! Time signals that he draws
Towards the twelfth stroke of my working-day!
I fear old England soon must voice her speech
With Europe through another mouth than mine!
SECRETARY
I trust not, sir. Though you should rest awhile.
The very servants half are invalid
From the unceasing labours of your post,
And these cloaked visitors of every clime
That market on your magnanimity
To gain an audience morning, night, and noon,
Leaving you no respite.
FOX
'Tis true; 'tis true.--
How I shall love my summer holiday
At pleasant Saint-Ann's Hill!
[He leans on the secretary's arm, and they go out.] _
Read next: Part 2: Act 1: Scene 2. The Route Between London And Paris
Read previous: Part 2: Characters: Phantom Intelligences. Persons
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