“Speak frankly. We will leave our work for awhile, and learn if you are as well skilled in state craft as in this other, of which you, indeed, seem to be master. Half an hour ago this lock was chaotic fragments of iron, which puzzled my poor brain sadly. Now it is almost compact, its bolts slide with a touch of the key—all its parts are in harmony. Tell, if you have the knowledge, can my kingdom be so arranged?” “Not with its present workmen,” answered the smith, resuming all his powers of mind; “never while the nobility hedge their king in from the common people as with a wall of granite. Sire, sire, old traditions are melting away, the people are losing their reverence for the greatness which has for generations set its heel upon them. They begin to understand that labor has its privileges, and should not forever be taxed that arrogance and idleness may become more powerful, and only use that power for oppression. They want the King of France to be the monarch of all the people of France, not of a privileged class.” “That is, they desire the king to commence a revolution, and begin it by despoiling himself of power, and his court of rights hereditary since the foundations of the monarchy. By what excuse can he wrest privileges from one class and distribute them to another?” “By the right of humanity he should do it, and human progress will give him the power. Those vast privileges were secured to the nobility in the ignorance of the many and grasping ambition of the few. Then physical might ruled supreme, and the people were in fact serfs; now mind, thought, energy, are at work through the masses. They begin to feel the great strength that lies in numbers; they clamor for a share of God’s blessings. Yes, sire, a spirit of revolution is abroad among the people who love their king, and ask him to be at the head of a grand reform.” Louis listened gravely, while troubled shadows settled upon his face. He felt dimly all the truth that lay in his strange visitor’s words, but still more clearly the formidable powers opposed against them. Nobility clinging to the rights which, in fact, upheld his throne; the clergy, which in no country ever loosened its grasp on wealth or power without a death-struggle—all were to be braved and despoiled in behalf of a people of whom he, personally, knew nothing, and for whom his sympathies had never been thoroughly enlisted. The people, had, in fact, never approached their king, save in clamorous multitudes, or in committees, that sometimes appealed to his reason, seldom to his sympathies. The most difficult man to deal with in the world is one of just mind and kind heart, who, holding power, has not the mental force and stern will necessary to its vigorous execution. To such men half-measures are sure to present themselves, and as certain to prove inadequate to the occasion when great difficulties are to be overcome. Indeed, it is seldom that they thoroughly understand the danger until it is upon them.