"I fear peace will be made. What will you do in that case, Bigot?"
asked Des Meloises, not noticing Bigot's aversion to the topic.
"If the King makes it, invitus amabo! as the man said who married
the shrew." Bigot laughed mockingly. "We must make the best of it,
Des Meloises! and let me tell you privately, I mean to make a good
thing of it for ourselves whichever way it turns."
"But what will become of the Company should the war expenditure
stop?" The Chevalier was thinking of his dividend of five figures.
"Oh! you should have been here sooner, Des Meloises: you would have
heard our grand settlement of the question in every contingency of
peace or war."
"Be sure of one thing," continued Bigot, "the Grand Company will
not, like the eels of Melun, cry out before they are skinned. What
says the proverb, 'Mieux vaut engin que force' (craft beats
strength)? The Grand Company must prosper as the first condition of
life in New France. Perhaps a year or two of repose may not be
amiss, to revictual and reinforce the Colony; and by that time we
shall be ready to pick the lock of Bellona's temple again and cry
Vive la guerre! Vive la Grande Compagnie! more merrily than ever!"
Bigot's far-reaching intellect forecast the course of events, which
remained so much subject to his own direction after the peace of Aix
la Chapelle--a peace which in America was never a peace at all, but
only an armed and troubled truce between the clashing interests and
rival ambitions of the French and English in the New World.
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