be reckoned with was France, incapable of resisting the enervating moral
influences, the sufferings, the strain and the privations of war;--a
nation physically debilitated and so poisoned by revolutionary spirit
that it had laid aside the use of arms through an exaggerated love of
comfort.

"Our generals," he announced, "are going to leave her in such a state
that she will never again cross our path."

There was Russia, too, to consider, but her amorphous masses were slow
to assemble and unwieldy to move. The Executive Staff of Berlin had
timed everything by measure for crushing France in four weeks, and would
then lead its enormous forces against the Russian empire before it could
begin action.

"We shall finish with the bear after killing the cock," affirmed the
professor triumphantly.

But guessing at some objection from his cousin, he hastened on--"I know
what you are going to tell me. There remains another enemy, one that has
not yet leaped into the lists but which all the Germans are waiting for.
That one inspires more hatred than all the others put together, because
it is of our blood, because it is a traitor to the race. . . . Ah, how
we loathe it!"

And in the tone in which these words were uttered throbbed an expression
of hatred and a thirst for vengeance which astonished both listeners.

"Even though England attack us," continued Hartrott, "we shall conquer,
notwithstanding. This adversary is not more terrible than the others.