THE REVISION OF THE ECHINI 111 



of which I hope we may never have any idea, and a 

 want of patriotism which must make the few who 

 want to save France boil with rage. Imagine a country 

 of forty millions of inhabitants and you cannot raise 

 more than 250,000 men for the defense of Paris! It is 

 something incomprehensible. A large city like Lyon rais- 

 ing 1500 francs ! ! ! ! for the defense of the city. Every- 

 body who had the means running away, as we can see 

 here. Switzerland is flooded with French refugees in 

 good circumstances abiding their time ; it is really sicken- 

 ing and a disgrace to France. . . . 



" The French need this terrible lesson to waken them 

 up, and if there is anything left in the French, they 

 will come out a great nation ; but I am afraid it is all 

 over with them and they are not to be hereafter any- 

 thing greater than a third-rate power. It is to me per- 

 fectly astonishing that a man like Napoleon, who cer- 

 tainly was no fool, could have been such an idiot as 

 to measure himself with the Germans. Why, the first 

 Colonel in the German army knows more about France, 

 their organizations, their armies, than their greatest 

 Marshals. I should feel safer behind an ordinary German 

 General than behind the lot of thieving Marshals like 

 Bazaine, Failly, Vaillant, who have made their fortunes, 

 like Palikao, plundering either in China, Algeria or 

 Mexico, and whose notions of international rights and 

 usages seem to have been borrowed from these very 

 highly civilized people to judge from their actions, who 

 all deserted the sinking ship of the Emperor at the first 

 signal and have behaved like cowards, only caring to 

 save themselves, and ready, as Bazaine now is, to betray 

 for a round sum, which he has named (two millions 

 francs), Metz. . . . 



