Collected works > Edinburgh edition, 1894-98 - Works of Robert Louis Stevenson > Volume 5, 1895 - Miscellanies, Volume II

MEN AND BOOKS
began to be shrewdly aware that he was no King
Arthur. In 1442, at Limoges, he made himself the
spokesman of the malcontent nobility. The King
showed himself humiliatingly indifferent to his
counsels, and humiliatingly generous towards his
necessities. And there, with some blushes, he may
be said to have taken farewell of the political stage.
A feeble attempt on the county of Asti is scarce
worth the name of exception. Thenceforward let
Ambition wile whom she may into the turmoil of
events, our duke will walk cannily in his well-
ordered garden, or sit by the fire to touch the
slender reed.^
IV
If it were given each of us to transplant his life
wherever he pleased in time or space, with all the
ages and all the countries of the world to choose
from, there would be quite an instructive diversity
of taste. A certain sedentary majority would prefer
to remain where they were. Many would choose
the Renaissance ; many some stately and simple
period of Grecian hfe ; and still more elect to pass
a few years wandering among the villages of
Palestine with an inspired conductor. For some
of our quaintly vicious contemporaries, we have the
decline of the Roman Empire and the reign of
Henry iii. of France. But there are others, not
quite so vicious, who yet cannot look upon the
^ D'He'ricault's Memoir, xl. xli.; Vallet^ Charles VII., ii. 485.
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