Beauchamps Career | Page 7

time I may keep my characters at
blood-heat. I shoot my arrows at a mark that is pretty certain to return
them to me. And as to perfect success, I should be like the
panic-stricken shopkeepers in my alarm at it; for I should believe that
genii of the air fly above our tree-tops between us and the incognizable
spheres, catching those ambitious shafts they deem it a promise of fun
to play pranks with.
Young Mr. Beauchamp at that period of the panic had not the slightest
feeling for the taxpayer. He was therefore unable to penetrate the
mystery of our roundabout way of enlivening him. He pored over the
journals in perplexity, and talked of his indignation nightly to his pretty
partners at balls, who knew not they were lesser Andromedas of his
dear Andromeda country, but danced and chatted and were gay, and
said they were sure he would defend them. The men he 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 prae-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 Moliere;
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. First he tried his letter in French, and lost sight of
himself completely. 'Messieurs de la Garde Francaise,' was a good
beginning; the remainder gave him a false air of a masquerader, most
uncomfortable to see; it was Nevil Beauchamp in moustache and
imperial, and bagbreeches badly fitting. He tried English, which was
really himself, and all that heart could desire, supposing he addressed a
body of midshipmen just a little loftily. But the English, when
translated, was bald and blunt to the verge of offensiveness.
'GENTLEMEN OF THE FRENCH GUARD,
'I take up the glove you have tossed us. I am an Englishman. That will
do for a reason.'
This might possibly pass with the gentlemen of the English Guard. But
read:
'MESSIEURS DE LA GARDE FRANCAISE,

'J'accepte votre gant. Je suis Anglais. La raison est suffisante.'
And imagine French Guardsmen reading it!
Mr. Beauchamp knew the virtue of punctiliousness in epithets and
phrases of courtesy toward a formal people, and as the officers of the
French Guard were gentlemen of birth, he would have them to perceive
in him their equal at a glance. On the other hand, a bare excess of
phrasing distorted him to a likeness of Mascarille playing Marquis.
How to be English and think French! The business was as laborious as
if he had started on the rough sea of