who every evening at the beer-house, after
his sixth glass of beer would show, with matches, an infallible plan
for blocking Paris and crushing the Prussian army like pepper, and was
foolish enough to insist upon it.

"Now then, you, my good fellow," said he, addressing an insignificant
corporal just about to eat his stew, as if he were questioning an old
tactician or a man skilled like Turenne or Davoust; "do you see? you hit
it in this affair of day before yesterday. Give us your opinion. Are the
positions occupied by Ducrot as strong as they pretend? Is it victory
for to-day?"

The corporal turned around suddenly; with a face the color of boxwood,
and his blue eyes shining with rage and defiance, he cried in a hoarse
voice:

"Go and see for yourselves, you stay-at-homes!"

Saddened and heart-broken at the demoralization of the soldiers, the
National Guards withdrew.

"Behold the army which the Empire has left us!" said the dressmaker's
husband, who was a fool.

Upon the road leading from Paris, pressing toward the cannon's mouth
which was commencing to grumble again in the distance, a battalion of
militia arrived, a disorderly troop. They were poor fellows from the
departments in the west, all young, wearing in their caps the Brittany
coat-of-arms, and whom suffering and privation had not yet entirely
deprived of their good country complexions. They were less worn out than
the other unfortunate fellows whose turn came too often, and did
not feel the cold under their sheepskins, and still respected their
officers, whom they knew personally, and were assured in case of
accident of absolution given by one of their priests, who marched in the
rear file of the first company, with his cassock tucked up and his
Roman hat over his eyes. These country fellows walked briskly, a little
helter-skelter, like their ancestors in the time of Stofflet and M. de
la Rochejaquelin, but with a firm step and their muskets well placed
upon their shoulders, by Ste. Anne! They looked like soldiers in
earnest.

When they passed by the National Guard, the big blond waved his cap in
the air, furiously shouting at the top of his lungs:

"Long live the Republic!"

But once more the fanatical patriot's enthusiasm fell flat. The Bretons
were marching into danger partly from desire, but more from duty and
discipline. At the very first shot these simple-minded creatures reach
the supreme wisdom of loving one's country and losing one's lif