ave descended upon the French. And there were Murat, Lannes and
Lefebvre, and Berthier and the others. Think of that wonderful crowd of
boys leading the republican armies to victories over all the kings! It
seems to me the most marvelous thing in the history of war, since the
Greeks turned back the Persians."

Weber refilled his coffee cup, drank a portion of it, and said:

"I have thought of it, Mr. Scott, I have thought of it more than once.
It may be that the Gallic fury has been aroused. It has seemed so to me
since the German armies were turned back from Paris. The French have
burned more gunpowder than any other nation in Europe, and they're a
fighting race. It would appear now that the Terrible Year, 1870, was
merely an aggregation of mistakes, and did not represent either the
wisdom or natural genius of the nation."

"That is, the French were then far below normal, as we would say, but
have now returned to their best, and that the two Kaisers made the
mistake of thinking the French in their lowest form were the French in
their usual form?"

"It may be so," said Weber, thoughtfully. "Nations reckon their strength
in peace, but only war itself discloses the fact. Evidently tremendous
miscalculations have been made by somebody."

"By somebody? By whom? That's why I'm against the Kaisers and all the
secret business of the military monarchies. War made over night by a
dozen men! a third of the world's population plunged into battle! and
the rest drawn into the suffering some way or other! I don't like a lot
of your European ways."

Weber shook his head.

"We've inherited kings," he said. "But how did you find this place?"

"Accident. Stumbled on it, and mighty grateful I was, too. It kept me
warm and dry after standing so long in the Marne I thought I was bound
to turn into a fish. Isolated little place, but the Germans have been
passing near. Before sleeping last night, I went out scouting and as I
stood behind a hedge I saw a lot of them. I recognized in a motor the
Very High Born, his High Mightiness, the owner of the earth, the Prince
of Auersperg."

Weber took another drink of coffee.

"An able man and one of our most bitter enemies," he said. "A foe of
democracy everywhere. I think he was to have been made governor of
Paris, and then Paris would have known that it had a governor. I've seen
him in Alsace, and I've heard a lot about him."

"But all that's off now. I fancy that the next governor of Pa