ys sat speechless at this terrible assurance.

"Surely it cannot be as bad as that," Mrs. Barclay said. "Frenchmen
cannot have lost all their old qualities; and all France will rise,
like one man, to march to the defense of Paris."

"Raw levies will be of no use, whatever, against the Prussian
troops, flushed with victory," Captain Barclay said; "even if they
were armed--and where are the arms, for a levy en masse, to come
from? If Bazaine be beaten, the only hope of France is for all the
troops who remain to fall back under the guns of the forts of
Paris; and for France to enter upon an immense guerrilla war. For
hosts of skirmishers to hang upon their flanks and rear; cutting
every road, destroying every bridge, checking the movements of
every detached body, and so actually starving them out, on the
ground which they occupy.

"This, however, will demand an immense amount of pluck, of
endurance, of perseverance, of sacrifice, and of patriotism. The
question is, does France possess these qualities?"

"Surely, Richard, you cannot doubt the patriotism of the French,"
Mrs. Barclay said, a little reproachfully.

"My dear Melanie," her husband said, "I am sorry to say that I very
greatly doubt the patriotism of the French. They are--more than any
people, more even than the English, whom they laugh at as a nation
of shopkeepers--a money-making race. The bourgeoise class, the
shopkeepers, the small proprietors, are selfish in the extreme.
They think only of their money, their business, and their comforts.
The lower class are perhaps better, but their first thoughts will
be how the war will affect themselves and, unless there is some
chance of the enemy approaching their homes, driving off their
cattle, and plundering their cottages, they will look on with a
very calm eye at the general ruin.

"I believe, remember, that those who will be called out will go
and, if affairs go as I fear that they will do, every man under
fifty years old in France will have to go out; but it is not enough
to go out. For a war like this, it will require desperate courage
and endurance, and an absolute disregard of life; to counterbalance
the disadvantages of want of discipline, want of arms, want of
artillery, and want of organization I may be wrong--I hope that I
am so--but time will show."

"And do you think that there is any chance of their coming down
here, as well as of going to Paris, papa?" Percy asked.

"That would depend upon th