“Why, no; not exactly. There was some talk of it, I believe. But jealousy—jealousy, you know—” “Ah, yes,—I comprehend! _Ce vilain Palmerston, n’est-ce pas?_ But that is always the way; ministers are always the same. You will hardly credit it, my dear friend, but I—I with my ancient title—and the most popular author of France, am not even a member of the Chamber of Deputies!” “You amaze me!” “Yes—after all, you manage better in England. There is that little D’Israeli—very clever man—Monceton Milles, Bourring, _bien mauvais poètes_, and Wakeley, all in the legislature; while here the literary interest is altogether unrepresented.” “Surely, my dear Marquis, you forget—there’s Lamartine.” “Lamartine! a mere sentimentalist—a nobody! No, my dear friend; France must be regenerated. The daughter of glory, she cannot live without progression.” “How, Marquis? I thought that you and Montpensier”— “Were friends! True enough. It was I who settled the Spanish marriages. There, I rather flatter myself, I had your perfidious Albion on the hip. But, to say the truth, I am tired of family alliances. We want something more to keep us alive—something startling, in short—something like the Pyramids and Moscow, to give us an impulse forward into the dark gulf of futurity. The limits of Algeria are too contracted for the fluttering of our national banner. We want freedom, less taxation, and a more extended frontier.” “And cannot all these,” said I, unwilling to lose the opportunity of converting so remarkable man as the Count of Monte-Christo to the grand principles of Manchester—“Cannot these be attained by more peaceful methods than the subversion of general tranquillity? What is freedom, my dear Marquis, but an unlimited exportation of cotton abroad, with double task hours of wholesome labour at home? How will you diminish your taxation better, than by reducing all duties on imports, until the deficit is laid directly upon the shoulders of a single uncomplaining class? Why seek to extend your frontier, whilst we in England, out of sheer love to the world at large, are rapidly demolishing our colonies? Did you ever happen,” continued I, pulling from my pocket a bundle of the Manchester manifestos, “to peruse any of these glorious epitomes of reason and of political science? Are you familiar with the soul-stirring tracts of Thompson and of Bright? Did you ever read the Socialist’s scheme for universal philanthropy, which Cobden”—