he earthquake is nearer than you think; and for
that earthquake what are the pills you quacks advertise? They prate
of an age too enlightened for war; they would mutilate the army--nay,
disband it if they could--with Prussia next door to France. Prussia,
desiring, not unreasonably, to take that place in the world which France
now holds, will never challenge France; if she did, she would be too
much in the wrong to find a second: Prussia knowing that she has to do
with the vainest, the most conceited, the rashest antagonist that ever
flourished a rapier in the face of a spadassin--Prussia will make France
challenge her.

"And how do ces messieurs deal with the French army? Do they dare to say
to the ministers, 'Reform it'? Do they dare say, 'Prefer for men
whose first duty it is to obey, discipline to equality--insist on the
distinction between the officer and the private, and never confound it;
Prussian officers are well-educated gentlemen, see that yours are'? Oh
no; they are democrats too stanch not to fraternise with an armed mob;
they content themselves with grudging an extra sou to the Commissariat,
and winking at the millions fraudulently pocketed by some 'Liberal
contractor.' Dieu des dieux! France to be beaten, not as at Waterloo
by hosts combined, but in fair duel by a single foe! Oh, the shame! the
shame! But as the French army is now organised, beaten she must be, if
she meets the march of the German."

"You appal me with your sinister predictions," said Isaura; "but,
happily, there is no sign of war. M. Duplessis, who is in the confidence
of the Emperor, told us only the other day that Napoleon, on learning
the result of the plebiscite, said: 'The foreign journalists who have
been insisting that the Empire cannot coexist with free institutions,
will no longer hint that it can be safely assailed from without.' And
more than ever I may say L'Empire c'est la paix!"

Monsieur de Mauleon shrugged his shoulders. "The old story--Troy and the
wooden horse."

"Tell me, M. de Mauleon, why do you, who so despise the Opposition, join
with it in opposing the Empire?"

"Mademoiselle, the Empire opposes me; while it lasts I cannot be even a
Depute; when it is gone, Heaven knows that I may be, perhaps Dictator;
one thing, you may rely upon, that I would, if not Dictator myself,
support any man who was better fitted for that task."

"Better fitted to destroy the liberty which he pretended to fight for."

"Not exactly