two of their body may possibly recover by casting blame on their
confreres,--you never could. But it is not for you to oppose that
Government with an enemy on its march to Paris. You are not a soldier;
military command is not in your rode. The issue of events is uncertain;
but whatever it be, the men in power cannot conduct a prosperous war nor
obtain an honourable peace. Hereafter you may be the _Deus ex machina_.
No personage of that rank and with that mission appears till the end of
the play: we are only in the first act. Leave Paris at once, and abstain
from all action."

INCOGNITO (dejectedly).--"I cannot deny the soundness of your advice,
though in accepting it I feel unutterably saddened. Still you, the
calmest and shrewdest observer among my friends, think there is cause for
hope, not despair. Victor, I have more than most men to make life
pleasant, but I would lay down life at this moment with you. You know me
well enough to be sure that I utter no melodramatic fiction when I say
that I love my country as a young man loves the ideal of his dreams--with
my whole mind and heart and soul! and the thought that I cannot now aid
her in the hour of her mortal trial is--is--"

The man's voice broke down, and he turned aside, veiling his face with a
hand that trembled.

DE MAULEON--"Courage--patience! All Frenchmen have the first; set them
an example they much need in the second. I, too, love my country, though
I owe to it little enough, heaven knows. I suppose love of country is
inherent in all who are not Internationalists. They profess only to love
humanity, by which, if they mean anything practical, they mean a rise in
wages."