CHAPTER XIII
AT THE FOREIGN OFFICE
I began by telling him of the situation in France, comparing its actual condition with that of the days before the 4th of September. I tried to show him what had been done since the disaster of Sedan, from the fall of the Empire and the coming of the Republic till the present moment.
I pointed out—and he agreed—that after Sedan France was face to face with despair. She was in chaos, in the void; nothing remained; everything had to be recreated.
Paris was without arms and soldiers. The provinces were discouraged and denuded of everything that might allow of a single day’s resistance. The enemy’s armies were advancing without obstacle, invading France town by town, province by province, devastating the country and trampling it underfoot....
After this distressing but truthful picture, this miasma of exhaustion and desolation, I drew for him a picture of the awakening of the great nation on the day after the 4th of September. I described its hope when there was no more hope, its courage when courage was madness, its resistance when all means of resistance were at an end.
I described the whole nation erect, from Paris down to the smallest hamlet lost in the mountains, unconquered and unconquerable, strong and proud and with arms in its hands. A force had been created out of nothing, and arms out of the Void.
Lord Granville listened.
He listened long, without making the slightest movement.
My words became more and more animated. He followed them, if I may describe it so, with his eyes....
“You see, M. le Comte,” I said at last, “you see what we have done, and from that you can judge what we are still capable of doing and what we will certainly do. Paris is determined to undergo the greatest rigours of war rather than surrender.