On Something (Dodo Press) (7 page)

Lest such changes should come about through the lapse of time or the
evil passions of men, the citizens of the aforesaid nation had them very
clearly engraved in a dead language and upon bronze tablets, which they
fixed upon the doors of their principal temple, where it stood upon a
hill outside the city, and it was their laudable custom to entrust the
interpretation of them not to aged judges, but to little children, for
they argued that we increase in wickedness with years, and that no one
is safe from the aged, but that children are, alone of the articulately
speaking race, truth-tellers. Therefore, upon the first day of the year
(which falls in that country at the time of sowing) they would take one
hundred boys of ten years of age chosen by lot, they would make these
hundred, who had previously for one year received instruction in their
sacred language, write each a translation of the simple code engraved
upon the bronze tablets. It was invariably discovered that these artless
compositions varied only according to the ability of the lads to construe,
and that some considerable proportion of them did accurately show forth
in the vernacular of the time the meaning of those ancestral laws. They
had further a magistrate known as the Archon. whose business it was to
administrate these customs and to punish those who broke them. And this
Archon, when or if he proposed something contrary to custom in the opinion
of not less than a hundred petitioners, was judged by a court of children.

In this fashion for thousands of years did the Nepioi proceed with their
calm and ordinary lives, enjoying themselves like so many grigs, and
utterly untroubled by those broils and imaginations of State which
disturbed their neighbours.

There was a legend among them (upon which the whole of this Constitution
was based) that a certain Hero, one Melek, being in stature twelve foot
high and no less than 93 inches round the chest, had landed in their
country 150,000 years previously, and finding them very barbarous, slaying
one another and unacquainted with the use of letters, the precious metals,
or the art of usury, had instructed them in civilization, endowed them
with letters, a coinage, police, lawyers, instruments of torture, and all
the other requisites of a great State, and had finally drawn up for them
this code of law or custom, which they carefully preserved engraved upon
the tablets of bronze, which were set upon the walls of their chief temple
on the hill outside the city.

Within the temple itself its great shrine and, so to speak, its very cause
of being was the Hero's tomb. He lay therein covered with plates of gold,
and it was confidently asserted and strictly and unquestionably believed
that at some unknown time in the future he would come out to rule them for
ever in a millennial fashion—though heaven knows they were happy enough
as it was.

Among their customs was this: that certain appointed officers
would at every change in the moon proclaim the former existence and virtue
of Melek, his residence in the tomb, and his claims to authority. To enter
the tomb, indeed, was death, but there was proof of the whole story in
documents which were carefully preserved in the temple, and which were
from time to time consulted and verified. The whole structure of Nepioian
society reposed upon the sanctity of this story, upon the presence of the
Hero in his tomb, and of his continued authority, for with this was
intertwined, or rather upon this was based, the further sanctity of their
customs.

Things so proceeded without hurt or cloud until upon one most unfortunate
day a certain man, bearing the vulgar name of Megalocrates, which
signifies a person whose health requires the use of a wide head-gear,
discovered that a certain herb which grew in great abundance in their
territory and had hitherto been thought useless would serve almost every
purpose of the table, sufficing, according to its preparation, for meat,
bread, vegetables, and salt, and, if properly distilled, for a liquor that
would make the Nepioi even more drunk than did their native spirits.

From this discovery ensued a great plenty throughout the land, the
population very rapidly increased, the fortunes of the wealthy grew to
double, treble, and four times those which had formerly been known, the
middle classes adopted a novel accent in speech and a gait hitherto
unusual, while great numbers of the poor acquired the power of living upon
so small a proportion of foul air, dull light, stagnant water, and mangy
crusts as would have astonished their nicer forefathers. Meanwhile this
great period of progress could not but lead to further discoveries, and
the Nepioi had soon produced whole colleges in which were studied the arts
useful to mankind and constantly discovered a larger and a larger number
of surprising and useful things. At last the Nepioi (though this, perhaps,
will hardly be credited) were capable of travelling underground, flying
through the air, conversing with men a thousand miles away in a moment of
time, and committing suicide painlessly whenever there arose occasion for
that exercise.

It may be imagined with what reverence the authors of all these boons, the
members of the learned colleges, were regarded; and how their opinions had
in the eyes and ears of the Nepioi an unanswerable character.

Now it so happened that in one of these colleges a professor of more than
ordinary position emitted one day the opinion that Melek had lived only
half as long ago as was commonly supposed. In proof of this he put forward
the undoubted truth that if Melek had lived at the time he was supposed
to have lived, then he would have lived twice as long ago as he, the
professor, said that he had lived. The more old-fashioned and stupid
of the Nepioi murmured against such opinions, and though they humbly
confessed themselves unable to discover any flaw in the professor's logic,
they were sure he was wrong somewhere and they were greatly disturbed.
But the opinion gained ground, and, what is more, this fruitful and
intelligent surmise upon the part of the professor bred a whole series of
further theories upon Melek, each of which contradicted the last but one,
and the latest of which was always of so limpid and so self-evident a
truth as to be accepted by whatever was intelligent and energetic in the
population, and especially by the young unmarried women of the wealthier
classes. In this manner the epoch of Melek was reduced to five, to three,
to two, to one thousand years. Then to five hundred, and at last to one
hundred and fifty. But here was a trouble. The records of the State, which
had been carefully kept for many centuries, showed no trace of Melek's
coming during any part of the time, but always referred to him as a
long-distant forerunner. There was not even any mention of a man twelve
foot high, nor even of one a little over 93 inches round the chest. At last
it was proposed by an individual of great courage that he might be allowed
to open the tomb of Melek and afterwards, if they so pleased, suffer death.
This privilege was readily granted to him by the Archon. The worthy
reformer, therefore, prised open the sacred shrine and found within it
absolutely nothing whatsoever.

Upon this there arose among the Nepioi all manner of schools and
discussions, some saying this and some that, but none with the certitude
of old. Their customs fell into disrepute, and even the very professors
themselves were occasionally doubted when they laid down the law upon
matters in which they alone were competent—as, for instance, when they
asserted that the moon was made of a peculiarly delicious edible substance
which increased in savour when it was preserved in the store-rooms of the
housewives; or when they affirmed with every appearance of truth that no
man did evil, and that wilful murder, arson, cruelty to the innocent and
the weak, and deliberate fraud were of no more disadvantage to the general
state, or to men single, than the drinking of a cup of cold water.

So things proceeded until one day, when all custom and authority had
fallen into this really lamentable deliquescence, fleets were observed
upon the sea, manned by men-at-arms, the admiral of which sent a short
message to the Archon proposing that the people of the country should send
to him and his one-half of their yearly wealth for ever, "or," so the
message proceeded, "take the consequences." Upon the Archon communicating
this to the people there arose at once an infinity of babble, some saying
one thing and some another, some proposing to pay neighbouring savages
to come in and fight the invaders, others saying it would be cheaper to
compromise with a large sum, but the most part agreeing that the wisest
thing would be for the Archon and his great-aunt to go out to the fleet
in a little boat and persuade the enemy's admiral (as they could surely
easily do) that while most human acts were of doubtful responsibility and
not really wicked, yet the invasion, and, above all, the impoverishment
of the Nepioi was so foul a wrong as would certainly call down upon its
fiendish perpetrator the fires of heaven.

While the Archon and his great-aunt were rowing out in the little boat
a few doddering old men and superstitious females slunk off to consult
the bronze tablets, and there found under Schedule XII these words: "If
an enemy threaten the State, you shall arm and repel him." In their
superstition the poor old chaps, with their half-daft female devotees
accompanying them, tottered back to the crowds to persuade them to some
ridiculous fanaticism or other, based on no better authority than the
non-existent Melek and his absurd and exploded authority.

Judge of their horror when, as they neared the city, they saw from the
height whereon the temple stood that the invaders had landed, and, having
put to the sword all the inhabitants without exception, were proceeding to
make an inventory of the goods and to settle the place as conquerors. The
admiral summoned this remnant of the nation, and hearing what they had to
say treated them with the greatest courtesy and kindness and pensioned
them off for their remaining years, during which period they so instructed
him and his fighting men in the mysteries of their religion as quite to
convert them, and in a sense to found the Nepioian State over again; but
it should be mentioned that the admiral, by way of precaution, changed
that part of the religion which related to the tomb of Melek and situated
the shrine in the very centre of the crater of an active volcano in the
neighbourhood, which by night and day, at every season of the year,
belched forth molten rock so that none could approach it within fifteen
miles.

Among the delights of historical study which makes it so curiously
similar to travel, and therefore so fatally attractive to men who cannot
afford it, is the element of discovery and surprise: notably in little
details.

When in travel one goes along a way one has never been before one often
comes upon something odd, which one could not dream was there: for
instance, once I was in a room in a little house in the south and thought
there must be machinery somewhere from the noise I heard, until a man in
the house quietly lifted up a trapdoor in the floor, and there, running
under and through the house a long way below, was a river: the River
Garonne.

It is the same way in historical study. You come upon the most
extraordinary things: little things, but things whose unexpectedness is
enormous. I had an example of this the other day, as I was looking up some
last details to make certain of the affair of Valmy.

Most people have heard of the French Revolution, and many people have
heard of the battle of Valmy, which decided the first fate of that
movement, when it was first threatened by war. But very few people have
read about Valmy, so it is necessary to give some idea of the action to
understand the astonishing little thing attaching to it which I am about
to describe.

The cannonade of Valmy was exchanged between a French Army with its back
to a range of hills and a Prussian Army about a mile away over against
them. It was as though the French Army had stretched from Leatherhead
to Epsom and had engaged in a cannonade with a Prussian Army lying over
against them in a position astraddle of the road to Kingston.

Through this range of hills at the back of the French Army lay a gap, just
as there is a gap through the hills behind Leatherhead. Not only was that
gap easily passable by an army—easily, at least, compared with the hill
country on either side—but it had running through it the great road from
Metz to Paris, so that advance along it was rapid and practicable.

It so happened that another force of the enemy besides that which was
cannonading the French in front was advancing through this gap from
behind, and it is evident that if this second force of the enemy had been
able to get through the gap it would have been all up with the French.
Dumouriez, who commanded the French, saw this well enough; he had ordered
the gap to be strongly fortified and well gunned and a camp to be formed
there, largely made up of Volunteers and Irregulars. On the proper conduct
of that post depended everything: and here comes the fun. The commander
of the post was not what you might expect, a Frenchman of any one of the
French types with which the Revolution has made us familiar: contrariwise,
he was an elderly private gentleman from the county of Norfolk.

His name was Money. The little that is known about him is entertaining to
a degree. His own words prove him to be like the person in the song, "a
very honest man," and luckily for us he has left in a book a record of the
day (and subsequent actions) stamped vividly with his own character. John
Money: called by his neighbours General John Money, not, as you might
expect. General Money: a man devoted to the noble profession of arms and
also eaten up with a passion for ballooning.

I find it difficult to believe that he was first in action at the age of
nine years or that he held King George's commission as a Cornet at the
age of ten. He does not tell us so himself nor do any of his friends. The
surmise is that of our Universities, and it is worthy of them. Clap on ten
years and you are nearer the mark. At any rate he was under fire in 1761,
and he was a Cornet in 1762; a Cornet in the Inniskilling Dragoons with a
commission dated on the 11th of March of that year. Then he transformed
himself into a Linesman, got his company in the 9th Foot eight years
later, and eight years later again, at the outbreak of the American War,
he was a major. He was quarter-master-general under Burgoyne, he was taken
prisoner—I think at Saratoga, but anyhow during that disastrous advance
upon the Hudson Valley. He got his lieutenant-colonelcy towards the end of
the war. He retired from the Army and never saw active service again. When
the Low Countries revolted against Austria he offered his services to the
insurgents and was accepted, but the truly entertaining chapter of his
adventures begins when he suggested himself to the French Government as
a very proper and likely man to command a brigade on the outbreak of the
great war with the Empire and with Prussia.