The huge howitzers like the one Lannes and he had blown up might
soon be throwing shells a ton or more in weight from a range of a dozen
miles into the very heart of the French capital. An acute depression
seized him. He had strengthened the heart of Lannes, and now his own
heart needed strengthening. How was it possible to stop the German army
which had come so far and so fast that its Uhlans could already see
Paris? The unprepared French had been defeated already, and the slow
English, arriving to find France under the iron heel, must go back and
defend their own island.
"The Germans are there. I have not a doubt of it, and I thank you,
Monsieur Scott, for the use of these," said Bougainville, handing the
glasses back to him.
"Well, Geronimo," he said, "having seen, what do you say?"
"The sight is unpleasant, but it is not hopeless. They call us decadent.
I read, Monsieur Scott, more than you think! Ah, it has been the
bitterness of death for Frenchmen to hear all the world say we are a
dying race, and it has been said so often that some of us ourselves had
begun to believe it! But it is not so! I tell you it is not so, and
we'll soon prove to the Germans who come that it isn't! I have looked
for a sign. I sought for it in all the skies through your glasses, but I
did not find it there. Yet I have found it."
"Where?"
"In my heart. Every beat tells me that this Paris of ours is not for the
Germans. We will yet turn them back!"
He reminded John of Lannes in his dramatic intensity, real and not
affected, a true part of his nature.
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