patriots, usurpers, adventurers, and political desperadoes, were

everywhere in possession of the simple apparatus for the

disengagement of atomic energy and the initiation of new centres

of destruction. The stuff exercised an irresistible fascination

upon a certain type of mind. Why should any one give in while he

can still destroy his enemies? Surrender? While there is still

a chance of blowing them to dust? The power of destruction which

had once been the ultimate privilege of government was now the

only power left in the world-and it was everywhere. There were

few thoughtful men during that phase of blazing waste who did not

pass through such moods of despair as Barnet describes, and

declare with him: 'This is the end…'

And all the while Leblanc was going to and fro with glittering

glasses and an inexhaustible persuasiveness, urging the manifest

reasonableness of his view upon ears that ceased presently to be

inattentive. Never at any time did he betray a doubt that all

this chaotic conflict would end. No nurse during a nursery

uproar was ever so certain of the inevitable ultimate peace.

From being treated as an amiable dreamer he came by insensible

degrees to be regarded as an extravagant possibility. Then he

began to seem even practicable. The people who listened to him in

1958 with a smiling impatience, were eager before 1959 was four

months old to know just exactly what he thought might be done.

He answered with the patience of a philosopher and the lucidity

of a Frenchman. He began to receive responses of a more and more

hopeful type. He came across the Atlantic to Italy, and there he

gathered in the promises for this congress. He chose those high

meadows above Brissago for the reasons we have stated. 'We must

get away,' he said, 'from old associations.' He set to work

requisitioning material for his conference with an assurance that

was justified by the replies. With a slight incredulity the

conference which was to begin a new order in the world, gathered

itself together. Leblanc summoned it without arrogance, he

controlled it by virtue of an infinite humility. Men appeared

upon those upland slopes with the apparatus for wireless

telegraphy; others followed with tents and provisions; a little

cable was flung down to a convenient point upon the Locarno road

below. Leblanc arrived, sedulously directing every detail that

would affect the tone of the assembly. He might have been a

courier in advance rather than the originator of the gathering.

And then there arrived, some by the cable, most by aeroplane, a

few in other fashions, the men who had been called together to

confer upon the state of the world. It was to be a conference

without a name. Nine monarchs, the presidents of four republics,

a number of ministers and ambassadors, powerful journalists, and

such-like prominent and influential men, took part in it. There

were even scientific men; and that world-famous old man, Holsten,

came with the others to contribute his amateur statecraft to the

desperate problem of the age. Only Leblanc would have dared so

to summon figure heads and powers and intelligence, or have had

the courage to hope for their agreement…

Section 2

And one at least of those who were called to this conference of

governments came to it on foot. This was King Egbert, the young

king of the most venerable kingdom in Europe. He was a rebel,

and had always been of deliberate choice a rebel against the

magnificence of his position. He affected long pedestrian tours

and a disposition to sleep in the open air. He came now over the

Pass of Sta Maria Maggiore and by boat up the lake to Brissago;

thence he walked up the mountain, a pleasant path set with oaks

and sweet chestnut. For provision on the walk, for he did not

want to hurry, he carried with him a pocketful of bread and

cheese. A certain small retinue that was necessary to his comfort

and dignity upon occasions of state he sent on by the cable car,

and with him walked his private secretary, Firmin, a man who had

thrown up the Professorship of World Politics in the London

School of Sociology, Economics, and Political Science, to take up

these duties. Firmin was a man of strong rather than rapid

thought, he had anticipated great influence in this new position,

and after some years he was still only beginning to apprehend how

largely his function was to listen. Originally he had been

something of a thinker upon international politics, an authority

upon tariffs and strategy, and a valued contributor to various of

the higher organs of public opinion, but the atomic bombs had

taken him by surprise, and he had still to recover completely

from his pre-atomic opinions and the silencing effect of those

sustained explosives.

The king's freedom from the trammels of etiquette was very

complete. In theory-and he abounded in theory-his manners were

purely democratic. It was by sheer habit and inadvertency that he

permitted Firmin, who had discovered a rucksack in a small shop

in the town below, to carry both bottles of beer. The king had

never, as a matter of fact, carried anything for himself in his

life, and he had never noted that he did not do so.

'We will have nobody with us,' he said, 'at all. We will be

perfectly simple.'

So Firmin carried the beer.

As they walked up-it was the king made the pace rather than

Firmin-they talked of the conference before them, and Firmin,