Monsieur Morisot, anxiously watching his float bob up and down, was suddenly seized with rage against the belligerents and growled out: "How idiotic to kill one another like that."
Monsieur Sauvage: "It's worse than the brute beasts."
Monsieur Morisot, who had just hooked a bleak, said: "And to think that it will always be thus so long as there are such things as Governments."
Monsieur Sauvage stopped him: "The Republic would not have declared war."
Monsieur Morisot in his turn: "With Kings we have foreign wars, with the Republic we have civil wars."
Then in a friendly way they began to discuss politics with the calm common-sense of reasonable and peace-loving men, agreeing on the one point that no one would ever be free. And Mont Valerien thundered unceasingly, demolishing with its cannon-balls French houses, crushing out French lives, ruining many a dream, many a joy, many a hope deferred, wrecking much happiness, and bringing to the hearts of women, girls, and mothers in France and elsewhere, sorrow and suffering which would never have an end.
"It's life," said Monsieur Morisot.
"Say rather that it's death," said Monsieur Sauvage.
They started, scared out of their lives, as they felt that someone was walking close behind them. Turning round, they saw four men, four tall, bearded men, dressed as servants in livery, and wearing flat caps upon their heads. These men were covering the two fishermen with rifles.
