the unready,
but the present swoop of the imperial eagle seemed far more vast and
terrible than the earlier rush could have been.

A month and the legions were already before the City of Light. Men with
glasses could see from the top of the Eiffel Tower the gray ranks that
were to hem in devoted Paris once more, and the government had fled
already to Bordeaux. It seemed that everything was lost before the war
was fairly begun. The coming of the English army, far too small in
numbers, had availed nothing. It had been swept up with the others,
escaping from capture or destruction only by a hair, and was now driven
back with the French on the capital.

John had witnessed two battles, and in neither had the Germans stopped
long. Disregarding their own losses they drove forward, immense,
overwhelming, triumphant. He felt yet their very physical weight,
pressing upon him, crushing him, giving him no time to breathe. The
German war machine was magnificent, invincible, and for the fourth time
in a century the Germans, the exulting Kaiser at their head, might enter
Paris.

The Emperor himself might be nothing, mere sound and glitter, but back
of him was the greatest army that ever trod the planet, taught for half
a century to believe in the divine right of kings, and assured now that
might and right were the same.

Every instinct in him revolted at the thought that Paris should be
trodden under foot once more by the conqueror. The great capital had
truly deserved its claim to be the city of light and leading, and if
Paris and France were lost the whole world would lose. He could never
forget the unpaid debt that his own America owed to France, and he felt
how closely interwoven the two republics were in their beliefs and
aspirations.

"Why are you so silent?" asked Lannes, half angrily, although John knew
that the anger was not for him.

"I've said as much as you have," he replied with an attempt at humor.

"You notice the sunlight falling on it?" said Lannes, pointing to the
Arc de Triomphe, rising before them.

"Yes, and I believe I know what you are thinking."

"You are right. I wish he was here now."

John gazed at the great arch which the sun was gilding with glory and he
shared with Lannes his wish that the mighty man who had built it to
commemorate his triumphs was back with France--for a while at least. He
was never able to make up his mind whether Napoleon was good or evil.
Perhaps he was a mixture of both