Can a country be more utterly prostrated
than France is at this moment?"
"To get Lafayette and Mirabeau together is her only chance of safety, I
think," said Calvert, in reply. "The leader of the people and the leader
of the Assembly, working together, might do much."
"Impossible," objected Mr. Morris, decidedly, "and I do not blame
Lafayette for refusing to ally himself with so profligate a creature as
Mirabeau, great and undeniable as are his talents. Why, boy, all Paris
knows that while he leads the Assembly, he is in the pay of the King and
Queen."
"And yet I heard you yourself declare," returned Calvert, with a smile,
"that men do not go into the administration as the direct road to
Heaven. I think it were well for this country to avail itself of the
great abilities of Mirabeau and make it to his interest to be true to
it." And in the long argument which ensued over the advisability of
taking Monsieur de Mirabeau into the administration, Calvert had all the
best of it, and judged Mirabeau's talents and usefulness more accurately
than Mr. Morris, keen and practical as that gentleman usually was.
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