"Give me your trust, O People!" he cried, carried beyond himself with
the excitement and fervour of the scene--"Give me yourselves!"
Another roar replied to this adjuration. He stood triumphant;--the
people pressing up around him,--some weeping--some kneeling at his
feet--some climbing to kiss his hand. A few angry voices in the
distance cried out--'The King!'--and he turned at once on the word.
"Who needs the King?" he demanded; "Who calls for him? What is he to
us? What has he ever been? Look back on his career!--see him as Heir-
Apparent to the Throne, wasting his time with dishonest associates,--
dealing with speculators and turf gamblers--involving himself in debt--
and pandering to vile women, who still hold him in their grasp, and who
in their turn rule the country by their caprice, and drain the Royal
coffers by their licentious extravagance! Now look on him as the King,
--a tool in the hands of financiers--a speculator among speculators--
steeped to the very eyes in the love of money, and despising all men
who do not bear the open blazon of wealth upon them,--what has he done
for the people? Nothing! What will he ever do for the People? Nothing!
Flattered by self-seekers--stuffed with eulogy by a paid Press--his
name made a byword and a mockery by the very women with whom he
consorts, what should we do with him in Our work! Let him alone!--let
him be! Let him eat and drink as suits his nature--and die of the
poison his own vices breed in his blood!--we want naught of him, or his
heirs! When the time ripens to its full fruition, we, the People, can
do without a Throne!"
At this, thousands of hats and handkerchiefs were tossed in the air,--
thousands of voices cheered to the very echo, and to relieve their
feelings still more completely the vast crowd once more took up 'The
Song of Freedom' and began singing it in unison steadily and grandly,
with all that resistless force and passion which springs from deep-
seated emotion in the soul.
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