
addressed were civil. They listened to him, sometimes with smiles and sometimes
with laughter, but approvingly, liking the lad's quick spirit. They were
accustomed to the machinery employed to give our land a shudder and to soothe
it, and generally remarked that it meant nothing. His uncle Everard, and his
uncle's friend Stukely Culbrett, expounded the nature of Frenchmen to him,
saying that they were uneasy when not periodically thrashed; it would be cruel
to deny them their crow beforehand; and so the pair of gentlemen pooh-poohed the
affair; agreeing with him, however, that we had no great reason to be proud of
our appearance, and the grounds they assigned for this were the activity and the
prevalence of the ignoble doctrines of Manchester - a power whose very existence
was unknown to Mr. Beauchamp. He would by no means allow the burden of our
national disgrace to be cast on one part of the nation. We were insulted, and
all in a poultry-flutter, yet no one seemed to feel it but himself! Outside the
Press and Parliament, which must necessarily be the face we show to the
foreigner, absolute indifference reigned. Navy men and red-coats were willing to
join him or anybody in sneers at a clipping and paring miserly Government, but
they were insensible to the insult, the panic, the startled-poultry show, the
shame of our exhibition of ourselves in Europe. It looked as if the blustering
French Guard were to have it all their own way. And what would they, what could
they but, think of us! He sat down to write them a challenge.
    He is not the only Englishman who has been impelled by a youthful chivalry
to do that. He is perhaps the youngest who ever did it, and consequently there
were various difficulties to be overcome. As regards his qualifications for
addressing Frenchmen, a year of his præ-neptunal time had been spent in their
capital city for the purpose of acquiring French of Paris, its latest
refinements of pronunciation and polish, and the art of conversing. He had read
the French tragic poets and Molière; he could even relish the Gallic-classic -
»Qu'il mourut!« and he spoke French passably, being quite beyond the Bullish
treatment of the tongue. Writing a letter in French was a different undertaking.
The one he projected bore no resemblance to an ordinary letter. The briefer the
better, of course; but a tone of dignity was imperative, and the tone must be
individual, distinctive, Nevil Beauchamp's, though not in his native language.
