The record read like the record of the Patriarchs, and one might notice how the wives were always French, as indeed he who looks below the surface has always noticed, that the Dutch are more French than Dutch, Huguenots all. There are more Delareys, and Fouchées, and Terblanches, and Duplooys, and Duplessis, and Duprés, and Oliviers, and Villiers, and Dutoits, and Mathias, and Krugers, and Cronjes, and Bothas than ever there be Vandermerwes, or Forsters, or Rensbergs, or Vanzyls; which folk forget, or that they who strive most to preserve the _Taal_ stamped out the French with a bitter fury. It is further to be remembered by those who care for such varieties that when the Emperor Napoleon would restore the old nobility, he found that Madame Guillotine had left the heirdom of the _Ducs_ de Richelieu, the family of du Plessis and the great cardinal, in the Boer Huguenot family of Duplessis, and further that the heir, a placid, contented farmer, settled on the land a hundred years and more, and married to Helena Duplooy, refused the offer of land and estates in France. And so the rightful heir remained where he was, to trek later to the Krapzak Rivier in the Free State and speak the _Taal_ for all time. Little there remains of the old France, save in those natural manners and courtesy and more that surprise those who really know the old Cape Dutch. Some of the old legends remain in some of the old families, cherished by the women more than the men, as such things are the world over. Thinking nothing of such things, old Schwartz had grown as the other Dutch, and his own _veldt_ was all the world to him, so that as he came back from Bessie’s Dam to talk of the outer world, his own solitary farm, with the poplars of Lombardy growing on the dam where Julie had planted them, her first communion after they married, peace for a while came over his vexed mind. At ninety-two perhaps even the thought of khaki hardly vexes for long. But it was true; not only had the Dutch quelled their rebellions alongside the English, and had taken the German State, but they were actually fitting out troops to help the English overseas. Now the English are a curious folk. The world understands them not, which is not to be marvelled at, since they certainly do not understand themselves—but as the lamented Price Collier wrote, they—the folks of a tiny island, own and rule a sixth of the world. The writers tell you that they are antiquated and unbusinesslike, _but they govern a sixth of the world_! Their navy is known to be bad and their army absurd, ‘_but they govern a sixth of the world!_’ Their finance, folk say, is archaic, and their politics a folly, ‘but,’ reiterates Price Collier, ‘_they govern a sixth of the world_.’