Excerpt: ...sceptic doubts as to the benefit which might accrue to the country by bringing a tipsy young monarch back to it, Colonel Esmond had his audience of leave and quiet. Monsieur Simon took his departure. At any rate the youth at Bar was as good as the older Pretender at Hanover; if the worst came to the worst, the Englishman could be dealt with as easy as the German.
Monsieur Simon trotted on that long journey from Nancy to Paris, and saw that famous town, stealthily and like a spy, as in truth he was; and where, sure, more magnificence and more misery is heaped together, more rags and lace, more filth and gilding, than in any city in this world. Here he was put in communication with the king's best friend, his half-brother, the famous Duke of Berwick; Esmond recognized him as the stranger who had visited Castlewood now near twenty years ago.
His grace opened to him when he found that Mr. Esmond was one of Webb's brave regiment, that had once been his grace's own. He was the sword and buckler indeed of the Stuart cause: there was no stain on his shield except the bar across it, which Marlborough's sister left him. Had Berwick been his father's heir, James the Third had assuredly sat on the English throne.
He could dare, endure, strike, speak, be silent. The fire and genius, perhaps, he had not (that were given to baser men), but except these he had some of the best qualities of a leader. His grace knew Esmond's father and history; and hinted at the latter in such a way as made the colonel to think he was aware of the particulars of that story.
But Esmond did not choose to enter on it, nor did the duke press him. Mr. Esmond said, No doubt he should come by his name if ever greater people came by theirs. What confirmed Esmond in his notion that the Duke of Berwick knew of his case was, that when the colonel went to pay his duty at St. Germains, her Majesty once addressed him by the title of Marquis.
He took the queen the dutiful remembrances of her...
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