"But, then," said George, "must we surrender?"
"No," replied Desjardins. "Although we are sure of being vanquished, we must show that we are still the old race: that its roots are not dead, and that the tree will sprout again. If we had reeled and fallen under the blow of Sedan, the contempt of Europe and of the whole world would have covered us forever. The nation has risen since. It seems incredible. Without armies, or guns, or muskets, or victuals, or military stores, betrayed, surprised, overrun in all directions, this nation has risen again! It defends itself! One brave man has been found sufficient to raise its courage. What other nation would have done as much? I am, therefore, of opinion that the struggle must be maintained to the end, that the Germans may be made, as it were, ashamed of their victory. They have been fifty years preparing; they have hidden themselves from us, to spy upon us in time of peace; they have dissembled their hatred; they have brought their whole power to bear upon us; they have studied the question under every aspect; they threw against us, at the opening of the campaign, 600,000 men against 220,000; they are going to attack our raw conscripts with their best troops; they will be five and six against one; they will call Russia to their help if they want it; and then they will proclaim, 'We are the conquerors!' They will not be ashamed to say, 'We have vanquished France. Now it is we who are La Grande Nation!'"
"All that," said George, "is possible. But in the meantime, we may win a battle; and, if we gain a victory, things will be different. We shall gain fresh courage, and the Landwehr who are sent against us—almost all fathers of families—will ask no better than to return home."
"The Landwehr have not a word to say," replied Desjardins: "they are not consulted; those fellows march where they are ordered; they have long been subject to military discipline. It is a machine: nothing but a machine; but a machine of crushing weight."
Then Cousin Desjardins told us that, having travelled long in Germany before and after 1848, on business, he had seen how these people detested us: that they envied us; that we were an offence to them; that hatred of the French was taught in their schools; that they thought themselves our superiors, on account of their religion, which is simple and natural; while ours, with all its ceremonies, its Latin chants, its tapers and its tinsel, induced them to look upon us as an inferior race, like the negroes, who are only fond of red, and hang rings in their noses; that, especially, they deemed their women more virtuous and more worthy of respect than ours: this they attribute also to their superior religion, which keeps them at home, while ours pass their time in all sorts of ceremonies, and neglect their first duties.
Desjardins had even had a serious dispute upon this subject with a school-master, being unable to hear an open avowal of such an opinion of Frenchwomen; amongst whom we number Jeanne d'Arc and other heroines, whose grandeur of character German women are unable to comprehend.
He told us that, from this point of view, the Germans, and especially the Prussians, considered us Alsacians and Lorrainers as exiles from fatherland, and unfortunate in being under the dominion of a debased race kept in ignorance by the priests.
George, on hearing this, became furious, and cried that we had more intelligence and more sense than all the Germans put together.
"Yes, I believe so, too," replied Cousin Desjardins; "only we ought to use it; we ought to set up schools everywhere; the lowest Frenchman should be able to read and write our own language; and this is exactly what the lovers of good places don't wish for. If the people had been educated, we should have known what was going on upon the other side of the Rhine; we should have had national armies, able generals, a watchful commissariat, a sound organization, enlightened and conscientious deputies; we should have had all that we are now wanting; we should not have placed the power of making war or peace in the hands of an imbecile; we should not have stupidly attacked the Germans, and the Germans, seeing us ready to receive them, would have been careful not to attack us. All our defeats, all our divisions, our internal troubles, our revolutions, our battles and massacres in the streets; the transportations, the hatred between classes—all this comes of ignorance; and this abominable ignorance is the doing of the selfish statesmen who have governed us for seventy years. Good sense, justice, and patriotism would lead them to inform the people; they preferred an alliance with the Jesuits to degrade the people; can any treason be worse?"
George, who had long entertained the same view, had nothing to add; but he still argued that we might gain a victory, and that then we should be saved.