"You are being paradoxical, I think. What
of the King?"
"The King? All the world knows there has been no king in France
since Louis XIV. There is an obese gentleman at Versailles who
wears the crown, but the very news you bring shows for how little
he really counts. It is the nobles and clergy who sit in the high
places, with the people of France harnessed under their feet, who
are the real rulers. That is why I say that France is a republic;
she is a republic built on the best pattern - the Roman pattern.
Then, as now, there were great patrician families in luxury,
preserving for themselves power and wealth, and what else is
accounted worth possessing; and there was the populace crushed and
groaning, sweating, bleeding, starving, and perishing in the Roman
kennels. That was a republic; the mightiest we have seen."
Philippe strove with his impatience. "At least you will admit - you
have, in fact, admitted it - that we could not be worse governed
than we are?"
"That is not the point. The point is should we be better governed
if we replaced the present ruling class by another? Without some
guarantee of that I should be the last to lift a finger to effect a
change.
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