Why not? The hypothesis appealed to my sense of vanity. Oh well, we should see, we should see!
Should I have retained any misgivings if my walk had led me to the outskirts of the Gare de L'Est, where the people of Paris were beginning to set such a sublime example of steadfastness, and dignity?
MY FATHER
Seven o'clock struck. I did not forget that I was dining in the Rue des Beaux-Arts, and hurried towards the left bank of the river. On the way I wondered what had dictated this visit? Was it filial affection? Not at all. I was simply acting in accordance with a banal convention.
My father had never taken any interest in me, even when quite tiny. As my health, which was poor at that time, had prevented his thinking me fit to be made into a soldier, I had been practically non-existent in his eyes. Victor, my elder by two years, was everything to him. He had him educated at La Flêche, though it cost him a lot, in order to steep him, from his childhood, in military ideal and discipline.
It is the dream of all fathers to be continued in their sons. Colonel Dreher only wished to live over again in the hope of Revenge. I have already said that he fought like a demon in the year '70. When a young subaltern in the Guards, he had been in the charge at St. Privat, had had his horse killed under him, and had got a bullet through his arm. Captured at Metz, and taken on into Westphalia, he had found a way of escaping, of reaching Holland, and of rallying Faidherbe's army in time to get a splinter of shell in his thigh at Bapaume. The news of the armistice had found him in hospital, that of the treaty had disgusted him. He who burned to go on fighting, who felt no fatigue! The renunciation of the two Provinces had been a bitter blow, and the counter-blows more bitter still.
As a Lorrain of Lunéville, he had quite a number of near relations in the neighbourhood of Sarrebourg, many of whom had not the courage to ruin themselves by throwing their lot in with their true fatherland. These people were dead for him, needless to say. But these repeated misfortunes had done not a little to contribute to the growing gloom of his character. He had rejoined his regiment and had been quartered successively at Joigny, Moulins, and Rouen where he had married, and lastly at Tours, where most of my childhood was spent. Decorated for distinguished service in the field, a superb leader of men, he would have been made a general but for his obstinate, though discreet opposition to a government timorous enough to put up with such peace terms.