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In the next chapter the reader will find a description of my journey; it was adventurous enough in all conscience, but I have not allowed the story of it to come before the necessary resumé of the political situation and of the sentiments of Europe towards ourselves.
I cannot, however, resist a desire to describe a scene which I witnessed en route, and which moved me to tears. The reader will excuse me if I tell it here. He will not read it without emotion.
Early one morning, in the beautiful Norman countryside between Eu and Dieppe, if I am not mistaken, we met a hundred or so young recruits on the road, freshly enrolled for the terrible war. They were very lightly clad, as if for a summer excursion to the country.
The biting morning wind whistled cruelly through their cotton trousers, and I felt my teeth chatter with cold, but these brave Norman boys did not feel the cold. They marched on gaily, singing the Marseillaise, and when they passed our carriage they waved their felt hats in token of gaiety, as if they were going to a fête, and, carried away by enthusiasm, they cried, “Vive la République! Vive la France!”
A tear fell from my eye—one of those bitter tears that run silently along one’s cheek, like the overflow of a great grief. I wiped my eyes and whispered, “E pur si muove.”
Such gaiety in the face of danger, such conviction, such sublime faith in the midst of so many ruins! Is not this the fundamental strength of the French character and its great superiority, in spite of the proverbial fickleness with which it has been reproached since the time of Cæsar? Is not this the secret of the immense resilience and strength of our country?
“E pur si muove!” Yes, the cause of such a people could not be lost. It must force fortune to smile and victory to return to its banners.
Everywhere I met the same enthusiasm and the same confidence in our final success, and certainly, had it been within the bounds of human possibility to repair the disasters of the terrible campaign, France would have accomplished the miracle and would not have succumbed.