“Yes,” was the sage’s answer; “but to be no more than the disturber.  Her power is the whirlwind; for purposes which man may never be able fully to define, suffered, or sent forth, to sweep the Continent; perhaps, like the tempest, to punish, nay, perhaps in the end to purify; but the tempest is scarcely more transitory, or more different from the dew that invisibly descends and silently refreshes the land.”

“But Napoleon,” said I, “with an army of a million recruited from thirty millions, opposed to the worn-down force and exhausted treasures of the Continent!  What an iron wedge driven in among their dilapidated combinations!  What a mountain of granite, with the cloud and the thunder for its crown, domineering over the plain!”

“True—­perfectly true,” he replied, throwing back the long locks from a broad forehead which reminded me of a bust of Plato.  “True.  Man may be as little able to decide on the means by which the power of France will fall, as on the purposes for which that tremendous fabric of splendid iniquity first rose.  But, look into that street.”

It happened that a French regiment of cuirassiers, with the fine clangour of its drums and trumpets, was passing under the window at the moment.

“You see there,” said he, “the kind of feeling which that really striking show produces; not a window is open but our own.  The blinds of every window have been let down, not an eye looks at these troops.  Yet the public of Vienna are extravagantly fond of display in all its shapes; and punchinello, or a dance of dogs, would bring a head to every pane of glass, from the roof to the ground.  The French are individually shrunk from, hated, abhorred.

“Naturally enough, as conquerors,” I observed; chiefly from a desire to hear more of the sentiments of the celebrated German.

“No—­no!” said he, almost in a tone of vexation.  “The Germans are as much alive to the merits of their enemies in the field, as any other nation in the world.  They acknowledge the soldiership of the French.  I even believe that the talents of their extraordinary emperor are more sincerely acknowledged in Vienna than in Paris.  But it is the intolerable insolence of the national character, that makes its bravery, its gaiety, and even its genius detested.  Trust me; this feeling will not be unfruitful.  Out of the hut of the peasant will come the avengers, whom the cabinet has never been able to find in the camp.  Out of the swamp and the thicket will rise the tree that will at once overshadow the fallen fortunes of Germany, and bring down the lightning on her aggressors.  In this hope alone I live.”

I once more asked him, “From what quarter is the restoration to come?”

“I know not—­I care not—­I ask not,” said he, starting from his chair, and traversing the room with huge strides.  “The topic feels to me as if a sword was now griding its way through my frame.  But France will never keep Austria, nor Prussia, nor the Rhenish Provinces, nor Holland, nor any spot on earth beyond the land inhabited by Frenchmen.  It is true,” said he, with a stern smile, “that she may keep her West India islands, if your ships will let her.  The negroes are her natural subjects.  They have backs accustomed to the lash, and black cheeks that will not redden at her insolence.”