doubt it in order to make her triumph
greater. He knew that baby would know the fable on New Year's morn. You
Prussian beggars, you Prussian scoundrels, you bandits, and you Vandals,
you have taken everything from us; you have ruined us; you are starving
us; you are bombarding us; and we have a right to hate you with a royal
hatred. Well, perhaps one day we might have forgiven you your rapine and
your murders; our towns that you have sacked; your heavy yokes; your
infamous treasons. The French race is so light of heart, so kindly, that
we might perhaps in time have forgotten our resentments. What we never
shall forget will be this New Year's Day, which we have been forced to
pass without news from our families. You at least have had letters from
your Gretchens, astounding letters, very likely, in which the melancholy
blends with blue eyes, make a wonderful literary salad, composed of
sour-krout, Berlin wool, forget-me-nots, pillage, bombardment, pure
love, and transcendental philosophy. But you like all this just as you
like jam with your mutton. You have what pleases you. Your ugly faces
receive kisses by the post. But you kill our pigeons, you intercept our
letters, you shoot at our balloons with your absurd _fusils de rempart_,
and you burst out into a heavy German grin when you get hold of one of
our bags, which are carrying to those we love our vows, our hopes, our
remembrance, our regrets, and our hearts. It is a merry farce, is it
not? Ah, if ever we can render you half the sufferings which we are
enduring, you will see _des grises_. Perhaps you don't know what the
word means, and, like one of Gavarni's children, you will say, 'What!
_des grises?_' You will, I trust, one of these days learn what is the
signification of the term at your own cost. One of your absurd
pretensions is to be the only people in the world who understand how to
love, or who care for domestic ties. You will see, by the hatred which
we shall ever bear to you, that we too know how to love--our time will
come some day, be assured. This January 1 of the year 1871 inaugurates a
terrible era of bloody revenge. Poor philosophers of universal peace,
you see now the value of your grand phrases and of your humanitarian
dreams! Vainly you imagined that the world was entering into a period of
everlasting peace and progress. A wonderful progress, indeed, has 1870
brought us! You never calculated on the existence of these Huns. We are
back again now in the