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No waiting for the long processes by which the forests were reclaimed; but a new world with new processes, new neighbors, new ideas, new opportunities, new victories easily gained. Not so easy, Jacobus!

Against his ponderous strength no knight could keep his seat; and this was so palpable, that after many victories, King Richard was forced to retire from the lists from want of competitors, and to take his place on the dais with the more peace-loving King of France. The gaiety of the camp was heightened by the arrival of many nobles and dames from Italy.

By his victories over the Goths, he deserved from the senate the honor of a statue, and excited the jealous apprehensions of Gallienus. It was impossible that a soldier could esteem so dissolute a sovereign, nor is it easy to conceal a just contempt. Some unguarded expressions which dropped from Claudius were officiously transmitted to the royal ear.

At the first news of the success at Lodi the national colours were donned as cockades, or waved defiance from balconies and steeples to the Austrian garrisons. All truly Italian hearts believed that the French victories heralded the dawn of political freedom not only for Lombardy, but for the whole peninsula. Bonaparte's first actions increased these hopes.

But 1757 turned out to be no better than its disconcerting predecessors. True, England's ally, Frederick the Great, won consummate victories at Rossbach and at Leuthen. But that was at the end of a very desperate campaign. True, also, that Clive won Plassey and took Chandernagore.

He forwarded also a copy of a detailed dispatch from himself to Washington entirely exonerating me; but he did not inform me that it was his own reports that had created all the trouble. On the contrary, he wrote to me, "Instead of relieving you, I wish you, as soon as your new army is in the field, to assume immediate command, and lead it to new victories."

And as your speech betrays you a man of profound wisdom, I will tell you, for it will be of great advantage to our cause, that I am about to engage one Orlando Tickler, a critic of great learning, who speaks several tongues, and has no less than seven newspapers at his bidding. And what is more, he is much given to poetry, and can get up sonnets in praise of our victories.

Certainly his own glory was thus far identified with the glory of his country. He had rescued France by a series of victories more brilliant than had been achieved for centuries. He had won a fame second to that of no conqueror in the world's history. But these astonishing successes seem to have turned his head. He is dazzled by his own greatness, and intoxicated by the plaudits of his idolaters.

Some of the heads are as sweetly and lightly painted as Gainsborough; the faces not ugly, but delicate and high-bred; the exquisite gray tones are charming to mark and study; the heads not plastered, but painted with a free, liquid brush: the result, one of the great victories won by this consummate chief, and left for the wonder and delight of succeeding ages.

He showed us, too, some Minie rifles, and whole ranges of the old-fashioned Brown Bess, which had helped to win Wellington's victories; also the halberts of sergeants now laid aside, and some swords that had been used at the battle of Sheriffmuir. These latter were very short, not reaching to the floor, when I held one of them, point downward, in my hand.