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The Vicomte De Bragelonne 77 at Prostate Health
in.Lambert and Monk -- everything was summed up in these twomen; the first representing military despotism, the secondpure republicanism. These men were the two sole politicalrepresentatives of that revolution in which Charles I. hadfirst lost his crown, and afterwards his head. As regardedLambert, he did not dissemble his views; he sought toestablish a military government, and to be himself the headof that government.Monk, a rigid republican, some said, wished to maintain theRump Parliament, that visible though degeneratedrepresentative of the republic. Monk, artful and ambitious,said others, wished simply to make of this parliament, whichhe affected to protect, a solid step by which to mount thethrone which Cromwell had left empty, but upon which he hadnever dared to take his seat.Thus Lambert by persecuting the parliament, and Monk bydeclaring for it, had mutually proclaimed themselves enemiesof each other. Monk and Lambert, therefore, had at firstthought of creating an army each for himself: Monk inScotland, where were the Presbyterians and the royalists,that is to say, the malcontents; Lambert in London, wherewas found, as is always the case, the strongest oppositionto the existing power which it had beneath its eyes.Monk had pacified Scotland, he had there formed for himselfan army, and found an asylum. The one watched the other.Monk knew that the day was not yet come, the day marked bythe Lord for a great change; his sword, therefore, appearedglued to the sheath. Inexpugnable, in his wild andmountainous Scotland, an absolute general, king of an armyof eleven thousand old soldiers, whom he had more than onceled on to victory; as well informed, nay, even better, ofthe affairs of London, than Lambert, who held garrison inthe city, -- such was the position of Monk, when, at ahundred leagues from London, he declared himself for theparliament. Lambert, on the contrary, as we have said, livedin the capital. That was the center of all his operations,and he there collected around him all his friends, and allthe people of the lower class, eternally inclined to cherishthe enemies of constituted power.It was then in London that Lambert learnt the support that,from the frontiers of Scotland, Monk lent to the parliament.He judged there was no time to be lost, and that the Tweedwas not so far distant from the Thames that an army couldnot march from one river to the other, particularly when itwas well commanded. He knew, besides, that as fast as thesoldiers of Monk penetrated into England, they would form ontheir route that ball of snow, the emblem of the globe offortune, which is for the ambitious nothing but a stepgrowing unceasingly higher to conduct him to his object. Hegot together, therefore, his army, formidable at the sametime for its composition and its numbers, and hastened tomeet Monk, who, on his part, like a prudent navigatorsailing amidst rocks, advanced by very short marches,listening to the reports and scenting the air which camefrom London.The two armies came in sight of each other near Newcastle,Lambert, arriving first, encamped in the city itself. Monk,always circumspect, stopped where he was, and placed hisgeneral quarters at Coldstream, on the Tweed. The sight ofLambert spread joy through Monks army, whilst, on thecontrary, the sight of Monk threw disorder into Lambertsarmy. It might have been thought that these intrepidwarriors, who had made such a noise in the streets ofLondon, had set out with the hopes of meeting no one, andthat now seeing that they had met an army, and that thatarmy hoisted before them not only a standard, but stillfurther, a cause and a principle, -- it might have beenbelieved, we say, that these intrepid warriors had begun toreflect, that they were less good republicans than thesoldiers of Monk, since the latter supported the parliament;whilst Lambert supported nothing, not even himself.As to Monk, if he had had to reflect, or if he did reflect,it must have been after a sad fashion, for history relates-- and that modest dame, it is well known, never lies --history relates, that the day of his arrival at Coldstreamsearch was made in vain throughout the place for a singlesheep.If Monk had commanded an English army, that was enough tohave brought about a general desertion. But it is not withthe Scotch as it is with the English, to whom that fluidflesh
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