The Toys of Peace | Page 5

Versailles was so much
admired that it was copied all over Europe."
"Do you know anything about Madame Du Barry?" asked Eric; "didn't
she have her head chopped off?"
"She was another great lover of gardening," said Harvey, evasively; "in
fact, I believe the well known rose Du Barry was named after her, and
now I think you had better play for a little and leave your lessons till
later."
Harvey retreated to the library and spent some thirty or forty minutes in
wondering whether it would be possible to compile a history, for use in
elementary schools, in which there should be no prominent mention of
battles, massacres, murderous intrigues, and violent deaths. The York
and Lancaster period and the Napoleonic era would, he admitted to
himself, present considerable difficulties, and the Thirty Years' War
would entail something of a gap if you left it out altogether. Still, it
would be something gained if, at a highly impressionable age, children
could be got to fix their attention on the invention of calico printing
instead of the Spanish Armada or the Battle of Waterloo.
It was time, he thought, to go back to the boys' room, and see how they
were getting on with their peace toys. As he stood outside the door he

could hear Eric's voice raised in command; Bertie chimed in now and
again with a helpful suggestion.
"That is Louis the Fourteenth," Eric was saying, "that one in knee-
breeches, that Uncle said invented Sunday schools. It isn't a bit like him,
but it'll have to do."
"We'll give him a purple coat from my paintbox by and by," said
Bertie.
"Yes, an' red heels. That is Madame de Maintenon, that one he called
Mrs. Hemans. She begs Louis not to go on this expedition, but he turns
a deaf ear. He takes Marshal Saxe with him, and we must pretend that
they have thousands of men with them. The watchword is Qui vive?
and the answer is L'etat c'est moi--that was one of his favourite remarks,
you know. They land at Manchester in the dead of the night, and a
Jacobite conspirator gives them the keys of the fortress."
Peeping in through the doorway Harvey observed that the municipal
dustbin had been pierced with holes to accommodate the muzzles of
imaginary cannon, and now represented the principal fortified position
in Manchester; John Stuart Mill had been dipped in red ink, and
apparently stood for Marshal Saxe.
"Louis orders his troops to surround the Young Women's Christian
Association and seize the lot of them. 'Once back at the Louvre and the
girls are mine,' he exclaims. We must use Mrs. Hemans again for one
of the girls; she says 'Never,' and stabs Marshal Saxe to the heart."
"He bleeds dreadfully," exclaimed Bertie, splashing red ink liberally
over the facade of the Association building.
"The soldiers rush in and avenge his death with the utmost savagery. A
hundred girls are killed"--here Bertie emptied the remainder of the red
ink over the devoted building--"and the surviving five hundred are
dragged off to the French ships. 'I have lost a Marshal,' says Louis, 'but
I do not go back empty-handed.'"
Harvey stole away from the room, and sought out his sister.
"Eleanor," he said, "the experiment--"
"Yes?"
"Has failed. We have begun too late."

LOUISE

"The tea will be quite cold, you'd better ring for some more," said the
Dowager Lady Beanford.
Susan Lady Beanford was a vigorous old woman who had coquetted
with imaginary ill-health for the greater part of a lifetime; Clovis
Sangrail irreverently declared that she had caught a chill at the
Coronation of Queen Victoria and had never let it go again. Her sister,
Jane Thropplestance, who was some years her junior, was chiefly
remarkable for being the most absent-minded woman in Middlesex.
"I've really been unusually clever this afternoon," she remarked gaily,
as she rang for the tea. "I've called on all the people I meant to call on;
and I've done all the shopping that I set out to do. I even remembered to
try and match that silk for you at Harrod's, but I'd forgotten to bring the
pattern with me, so it was no use. I really think that was the only
important thing I forgot during the whole afternoon. Quite wonderful
for me, isn't it?"
"What have you done with Louise?" asked her sister. "Didn't you take
her out with you? You said you were going to."
"Good gracious," exclaimed Jane, "what have I done with Louise? I
must have left her somewhere."
"But where?"
"That's just it. Where have I left her? I can't remember if the
Carrywoods were at home or if I just left cards. If there were at home I
may have left Louise there to play