Delcassé shook his head.
"I do not exaggerate. This thing is so terrible that it cannot be exaggerated. Even at this moment, Germany is preparing the blow. For the past week, she has been extraordinarily active. Her fleets have coaled hurriedly and put out to sea—for manœuvres, it is said; but this is not the season for manœuvres. Her shipyards have been cleared of all civilians, and a cordon of troops posted about each one. The garrison of every fortress along the frontier has been at least doubled, and the most rigid patrol established. The police regulations are being enforced with the greatest severity. Every city of the frontier swarms with spies; even here in Paris we are not safe from them—my desk was rifled two nights ago. I live in dread that any day, any hour, may bring the news of some fresh disaster!"
"And do our men learn nothing?"
"Nothing! Nothing! All they can tell me is that something is preparing, some blow, some surprise. Whatever the secret, it is well kept; so well that it can be known only to the Emperor and one or two of his ministers. We have tried every means, we have exhausted every resource, all in vain. We know, in part, what is being done; of the purpose back of it we know nothing. But we can guess—the purpose is war; it can be nothing else!"
Lépine sat silent and contemplated the rugged face opposite him—the face which told by its lined forehead, its worried eyes, its savage mouth, of the struggles, rebuffs, and disappointments of thirty years. Always, out of disaster, this man had risen unconquered. Upon his shoulders now was placed the whole of this terrific burden. He alone, of the whole cabinet, was fit to bear it; beside him, the others were mere pigmies: Premier Caillaux, an amiable financier; Foreign Minister de Selves, a charming amateur of the fine arts; War Minister Messimy, an obscure army officer with a love for uniforms; Minister of Commerce Couyba, a minor poet, tainted with decadence—above all these, Delcassé loomed as a Gulliver among Lilliputians. But greatness has its penalties. While the Minister of Foreign Affairs spent his days in collecting plaques, and the Minister of War his in strutting about the boulevards, and the Minister of Commerce his in composing verses, Delcassé laboured to save his country—laboured as a colossus labours, sweating, panting, throwing every fibre of his being into the struggle—which was all the more trying, all the more terrific, because he felt that it must go against him!
"What would you suggest, Lépine?" Delcassé asked, at last. "Is there any source of information which you can try?"
Lépine shook his head doubtfully.
"It is not a question of expense," Delcassé went on, rapidly. "A million francs would not be too much to pay for definite information. We have spent that already! We have had a Prince babbling in his cups; we have had I know not how many admirals and generals and diplomats confiding in their suddenly complaisant mistresses; we have searched their hearts, shaken them inside out—but they know nothing. Such and such orders have been issued; they obey the orders, but they do not know their purpose. They all talk war, shout war—Germany seems mad for war—and the government encourages them. Their inspired journals assert over and over that Germany cannot recede—that its position is final—that hereafter it must be paramount in Morocco. And to-day—or to-morrow at the latest—France must send her ultimatum."
"What will it be?"
"God knows!" and Delcassé tugged at his ragged moustache. "If it were not for one thing, Lépine, I should not hesitate, I should not fear war. France is ready, and England is at least sympathetic. But there is La Liberté. What if Germany can treat our other battleships as she treated that one? Yes, and England's, too! And if our battleships, why not our forts, our arsenals ... Lépine," and Delcassé's lips were twitching, "I say to you frankly that, for the first time in my life, I have fear!" He fell a moment silent, playing nervously with a paper-knife he had snatched up from his desk. "What would you suggest?" he asked again.