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The tyrant Harry the Eighth of England, as he was not better enlightened than the Roman Mariuses and Syllas, and had not studied in your new schools, did not know what an effectual instrument of despotism was to be found in that grand magazine of offensive weapons, the rights of men.
Of the fortune, since it was now in Mark Anthony's hands, you could predict nothing too surely but its vanishment; as to the duty, it might also imply a labor for which the Mariuses and Sullas, the Caesars and Pompeys, albeit with strong parties at their backs, had been too small men. And Octavius had no party, and he was no soldier, and he had no friends except that Vipsanius back in Apollonia.
"If I were you, I should keep three or four Mariuses," said Gazonal. "Ah! monsieur, I see, is a feuilletonist," said Marius. "Alas! in dressing heads which expose us to notice it is impossible. Excuse me!" He left Gazonal to overlook Regulus, who was "preparing" a newly arrived head.
"Take him," he said at length, "since you will have it so but I would have you know that the youth for whom you are so earnest will one day overthrow the aristocracy, for whom you and I have fought so hardly; in this young Caesar there are many Mariuses." Caesar, not trusting too much to Sylla's forbearance, at once left Italy, and joined the army in Asia.
"In this young Caesar," said he, "there are many Mariuses;" but he did not kill him, owing to the intercession of powerful friends.
Cæsar, who was a nephew of Marius and had married the daughter of Cinna, boldly refused. He was then a youth of nineteen. His boldness would have brought him death had not powerful friends asked for his life. "You know not what you ask," said Sulla; "that profligate boy will be more dangerous than many Mariuses."
They wished Sylla to pardon him, saying that he was a mere boy and could do him no harm. Sylla shook his head, saying that, young as he was, he saw in him indications of a future power which he thought was more to be dreaded than that of many Mariuses.
For some time his life was in danger; but Sulla was induced to spare it, remarking, however, to friends who interceded for him, on the ground that he was still but a boy, "You have not a grain of sense, if you do not see that in this boy there is the material for many Mariuses." The young Caesar found it safer to leave Italy for a time.
Sulla said he was over-persuaded in sparing me; 'In me were many Mariuses. But did I regret the loss, the danger, the check for the time being to my career? Quintus Drusus, I counted them as of little importance, not to be weighed beside the pure love that mastered me. And as the faithful husband of my Cornelia I remained, until cruel death closed her dear eyes forever.
Hugo, to whom the human heart was as a printed page, has given us an admirable portrait of "the way of a man with a maid" in the courtship of Marius and Cosette. Youth and ardor and opportunity, yet no thought of evil all the dross in human nature transformed into the spirituelle by the pure white light of love. True, all men are not Mariuses or Romeos.
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