"Yes."

"And this whole southern half is really in nobody's hands at all--as our
King confesses by meditating desertion and flight to a foreign land.
England has armies here; opposition is dead; she can assume full
possession whenever she may choose. In very truth, all France is gone,
France is already lost, France has ceased to exist. What was France is
now but a British province. Is this true?"

Her voice was low, and just touched with emotion, but distinct:

"Yes, it is true."

"Very well. Now add this clinching fact, and surely the sum is complete:
When have French soldiers won a victory? Scotch soldiers, under the
French flag, have won a barren fight or two a few years back, but I am
speaking of French ones. Since eight thousand Englishmen nearly
annihilated sixty thousand Frenchmen a dozen years ago at Agincourt,
French courage has been paralyzed. And so it is a common saying to-day
that if you confront fifty French soldiers with five English ones, the
French will run."

"It is a pity, but even these things are true."

"Then certainly the day for hoping is past."

I believed the case would be clear to her now. I thought it could not
fail to be clear to her, and that she would say, herself, that there was
no longer any ground for hope. But I was mistaken; and disappointed also.