Jacques Pierre Brissot de Warville

“ The sanguinary characters and tenets of the leading jacobins had already made him say that no one was sure of six months of life, and he considered the decree of arrest synonymous to a sentence of death. He escaped pursuit, and concealed himself. A generous woman, before unknown to him, and who has never revealed her name to the world, gave him refuge in her house. Denounced on the 3d of October, as Brissot's accomplice, there was no doubt that had he been taken he had shared the fate of the deputies who were guillotined in the month of November ”

“ Warwick, though richly and even gorgeously attired,—nay, with all the care which in that age was considered the imperative duty a man of station and birth owed to himself,—held in lofty disdain whatever vagary of custom tended to cripple the movements or womanize the man. ”

“ Brissot only smiled, but did not answer.
‘For, after all,’ continued Gerald, ‘I am here in the camp of the enemy! I was a Royalist; I am so still.’
‘But there are none left, mon cher; the King himself is not one.’
‘Ready to die for the throne———’
‘There is no throne; there is an old arm-chair, with the gilding rubbed away!’
‘At all events there was a right to defend———’
‘The right to live has an earlier date than the right to rule,’ said Brissot gravely ”

“ Old Jaggs was the outward and visible sign of Jack Glover's unwarranted authority, and slowly there was creeping into her mind a suspicion that Jean Briggerland might not have been mistaken when she spoke of Jack's penchant for "ordering people about."
Life was growing bigger for her. ”

“ On receiving news of the convocation of the French States General, Brissot, who felt that this was the beginning of immense changes, hastened back to France and published an account of his journey. He stated in his preface, written in 1790, why he had undertaken it, and what lessons [238] we might learn from our neighbors of over the sea:
"The object of this journey has not been to study antique statues, or to find unknown plants, but to observe men who had just conquered their liberty: to Frenchmen free men can no longer be strangers. ”

“ I shall die when nature pleases, and my last sigh will be a breathing of joy and hope for the generations to come." The tumults, however, that succeeded seemed to crush these hopes. Brissot fell into disrepute: there was an endeavour to crush the republican party, which, in the moment of danger, had been willing to ally itself to the most violent jacobins. In the midst of this agitation and tumult the mission of Roland came to a close, and he prepared to leave Paris. The elections were about to commence, and he was candidate for Lyons, but was not elected. ”

“ Republican at heart, Brissot was no advocate for the Republic in the early days of the Revolution; for he believed in a gradual transition from the old order to the new, and wished that on its completion the Constitution should be given a fair trial by the nation.
Madame Roland, who first made his personal acquaintance in the winter of 1791, hits off his character in these telling lines: "He knew man but not men: was meant to live with sages and to be the dupe of rogues." ”

“ Queen's had the west and Warwick the east stand, and during the preliminaries hurled defiance at each other across the brown gridiron. Warwick, with a greater body of supporters, kept up a steady yell, varied now and then by a song. ”

“ Besides being the most patriotic, Warwick had the good fortune to be the richest, of England's patricians; and his immense revenues were expended in such a way that his praise as the people's friend was ever on the tongues of the poor and needy. His hospitality knew no bounds. The gate of his mansion in London stood open to all comers; six oxen were usually consumed at a breakfast; no human being was sent hungry away; and every fighting man had the privilege of walking into the kitchen and helping himself to as much meat as could be carried away on the point of a dagger. ”

“ It is uncertain whether Warwick was satisfied with this apology, or suspected a double infidelity in Vaucler; but he feigned to be entirely convinced by him; and having seized some Flemish vessels which he found lying off Calais, he immediately made sail towards France. ”

“ The king ordered up these fresh troops, and led them to the assault. Warwick fronted this new peril with haughty disdain; and, in accents of encouragement, appealed to his remaining adherents to persevere. "This," said he, "is their last resource. If we withstand this one charge the field will yet be ours." But the earl's men, jaded and fatigued, could not encounter such fearful odds with success; and Warwick had the mortification of finding that his call was no longer answered by his friends, and that his battle-cry no longer sounded terrible to his foes. ”

“ Goodall, a servant in the Bagnio, and his wife were called. They spoke to Warwick coming in with his sword drawn in his hand and bloody; his hand was wounded. There was blood on the hilt of his sword, which was a close one. French may have come in with Warwick; James and Dockwra came in half an hour afterwards. Warwick gave orders that nobody was to be admitted; but he opened the door for James and Dockwra when they knocked and he saw who they were. Warwick, James, and Dockwra went away in a little time, Warwick ordering that particular care should be taken of French, who was his friend. ”

“ Warwick knew that Nahara had just been cheated out of her kill and someone in the jungle would pay for it.
The gaudy birds that looked down from the tree-branches could scarcely recognize this prematurely gray man as a hunter. He walked rather quietly, yet with no conscious effort toward stealth. The rifle rested easily in his arms, his gray eyes were quiet and thoughtful as always. Singularly, his splendid features were quite in repose. The Burman, however, had more of the outer signs of alertness; and yet there was none of the blind terror upon him that marked the beaters. ”

“ Warwick said now, glancing at Silvia.
“It is, indeed, John,” the girl replied.
“True to all the forms of life—and all that sort of thing,” he went on. “I always did admire a man or woman in the autumn of their existence—mellow with age, rich in experience, wise to the ways of the wicked world, and all that sort of silly rot! Live and learn—what? Quite so! A man gets really fit to live about the time he has to die. My word!”
“John Warwick, you are speaking like an old man, and you certainly are not one!” ”

“ In the campaign in Scotland, and especially at the battle of Pinkie, Warwick had appeared the real achiever of victory, and now he was suffered to reap the easily-won distinction of suppressing the rebels. He returned from Norfolk like a victor, and his reputation rose remarkably from that moment. He was looked up to as the able and successful man, and his ambitious views were warmly seconded by the wily old ex-chancellor, Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, who hated Somerset for having dismissed him from office, and for a time banished him from the Council. ”

“ JOHN. The boy's sound enough at bottom. Give him time to come round. It's not the thing nowadays to get married as young as it was in our day. And Charlie's in love with his work.
JABEZ. I know he is, the young fool.
JOHN. Come, steady on, Jabez.
JABEZ. Oh, well—Yes, all right, John. But what sort of work is it? Laboratory experiments!
JOHN. Yes, and jolly useful they are, too. You're bound to have a chemist. Give the devil his due, Jabez, Charlie's discoveries have been the making of the business. ”

“ Chapter VII FOR a young man of the temper and disposition of Orlando, there could not be a more dangerous companion than Captain Warwick. Indulged from his infancy, by his uncle, in every thing that did not interfere with his own pleasures, and having no parents to restrain him, Warwick never dreamed of checking himself in whatever gratified his passions or flattered his imagination. His spirit and vivacity recommended him to societies of men, where he learned to be an agreeable debauché, to drink without losing his reason, but not always to play without losing his money. ”

“ Warwick’s men give way, his brother is slain, and there is only safety for the great earl in flight. He leaps on horseback and gallops to a neighbouring wood, from which there is no egress. He is followed and surrounded, and though he plies his great battle-axe fiercely he is overborne by superior numbers and slain. The king-maker will never make or unmake kings again. ”

“ Brissot, whose adventurous life, and unwearied contentions were allied to the youth of Mirabeau, had already acquired a name in journalism and the clubs. Madame Roland awaited him with respect; she was curious to judge if his features resembled the physiognomy of his mind. She believed that nature revealed herself by all forms, and that the understanding and virtue modelled the [Pg 292] external senses of men just as the statuary impresses on the clay the outward forms of his conception. The first appearance undeceived, without discouraging her in her admiration of Brissot. ”

“ Warwick, with his father, his cousin the young Edward of York, and only three followers, made his way to Barnstaple. There they hired a little fishing vessel. The master pleaded that he did not know the Channel, but Warwick resourcefully took command and himself steered a successful course to Calais. He arrived just in time to anticipate the duke of Somerset, whom the Lancastrians had sent to supersede him. During the winter Warwick held Calais against Somerset, and sent out a fleet which seized Sandwich and captured Lord Rivers. ”

“ Warwick was known to be an adherent of the old faith, and it was feared that both his ambition and his religious zeal might lead him to seek the execution of Somerset, and with that the restoration of Papacy. But Warwick was too unprincipled a man to sacrifice any interest for religion, and he was aware that not only the king, but a strong body of the nobility, were zealous for the Reformed Church. He soon learned that the young king looked with aversion to the shedding of the blood of another uncle, and he acted accordingly. ”

“ Jack groaned.
"Aren't you feeling well?" asked the chief unpleasantly.
"I'm all right, sir," said Jack, "only I'm so tired of hearing about Jean Briggerland's beauty. It doesn't seem a very good argument to oppose to the facts——"
"Facts!" said the other scornfully. "What facts have you given us?"
"The fact of the Briggerlands' history," said Jack desperately. "Briggerland was broke when he married Miss Meredith under the impression that he would get a fortune with his wife. He has lived by his wits all his life, and until this girl was about fifteen, they were existing in a state of poverty. ”

“ This was the visit, ordered by the king, of the earl of Warwick to St. Paul's Cathedral; thus to contradict to the eyes of all men the pretender in Ireland. Warwick had spent a year in the Tower, in almost solitary imprisonment. Hopeless of freedom, worn in health, dejected from the overthrow of all the wild schemes he had nourished at Sheriff Hutton, linked with the love he bore his cousin, the Lady Elizabeth, now queen of England, he could hardly be recognized as the same youth who had been her companion during her residence there. ”

“ In his touching answer to the Protector's letter of condolence, Warwick ended by congratulating Cromwell on his ‘prudent, heroic, and honourable management’ of public affairs. ‘Others goodness is their own; yours is a whole country's, yea three kingdoms, for which you justly possess interest and renown: with wise and good men virtue is a thousand escutcheons. ”

“ JABEZ. Oh, you're not quite up to date, John. We move fast nowadays, don't we, Charlie?
CHARLIE. I wish to God we did. (Sitting on armchair l. of fire.)
JABEZ. The latest is that some fools amongst the men want to strike. Lord knows what they think they'll get by striking, but let me introduce you. John, to the strike leader.
JOHN. Charlie, you couldn't——
JABEZ. Oh, he believes in variety, John, that's what it is. Last night Rosie, this morning no Rosie. The men are the latest love. It's off with the old and on with the new. ”

“ The ruin of the Percies, whose lands and Earldom of Northumberland were granted to Warwick's brother, Lord Montagu, raised the Nevilles to unrivalled greatness in the land. Warwick, who on his father's death added the Earldom of Salisbury to his earlier titles, had like his father warmly espoused the cause of Richard of York, and it was to his counsels that men ascribed the decisive step by which his cousin Edward of March assumed the crown. ”

“ On their arrival at Calais the captives were bitterly ‘rated’ by the Yorkist leaders for having joined in stigmatising them as traitors. Warwick reminded him that his father was but a squire brought up with Henry V, and that he himself had been ‘made by marriage and also made lord,’ and ‘that it was not his part to have such language of lords, being of the King's blood’ (Paston Letters, i. 506) . ”

“ Once more Brown winked at Green. Oh, Brown understood! This clever John Warwick would play with them, expect to catch them off guard in an hour or so, and then——”
Warwick placed his own glass at the end of the table, bent his head, picked up the siphon, and pressed the lever.
“Nothing like a good drink to brace a man when he has had a shock,” he said. “You chaps want to be careful and not drink too much—might get intoxicated, and then I'd have you.” ”

“ Tom Emmet, ex-professional baseball player and streetcar conductor, out of a job, no longer mayor, but always a Catholic, married to the richest woman in Warwick, and that woman his daughter, the daughter of Bishop Wycliffe! ”