"Why!" objected I, "he died from falling a cropper in the back passage, not on the field of glory." "Monsieur! all Orléans is a field of glory. Under S. Aignan did we not repel Attila and his Huns in 451? Under Jeanne d'Arc did we not repulse the English--monsieur will excuse the allusion--in 1429. Did we not recapture Orléans from the Germans in November, 1870?" "That is all very true," I broke in. "But Jean Bouchon neither fought against Attila nor with la Pucelle, nor against the Prussians. Then '_Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori_' is rather strong, considering the facts." "How? Does not monsieur see that the sentiment is patriotic and magnificent?" "I admit that, but dispute the application." "Then why apply it? The sentiment is all right." "But by implication it refers to Jean Bouchon, who died, not for his country, but in a sordid coffee-house brawl. Then, again, the date is wrong. Jean Bouchon died in 1869, not in 1870." "That is only out by a year." "Yes, but with this mistake of a year, and with the quotation from Horace, and with the attitude given to the figure, anyone would suppose that Jean Bouchon had fallen in the retaking of Orléans from the Prussians." "Ah! monsieur, who looks on a monument and expects to find thereon the literal truth relative to the deceased?" "This is something of a sacrifice to truth," I demurred. "Sacrifice is superb!" said the waiter. "There is nothing more noble, more heroic than sacrifice." "But not the sacrifice of truth." "Sacrifice is always sacrifice." "Well," said I, unwilling further to dispute, "this is certainly a great creation out of nothing." "Not out of nothing; out of the coppers that Jean Bouchon had filched from us, and which choked up his coffin." "Jean Bouchon has been seen no more?"