We drew near the squadron, the heavy ironclads standing out in single file, like battle towers built in the sea. They were the _Colbert,_ the _Dévastation,_ the _Amiral-Duperré,_ the _Courbet,_ the _Indomptable,_ and the _Richelieu;_ two despatch boats, the _Hirondelle_ and the _Milan;_ and four torpedo boats going through evolutions in the gulf. I wanted to visit the _Courbet,_ as it passes for the most perfect type in the French navy. [Illustration 020] Nothing can give a better idea of human labour, of the intricate and formidable labour done by the ingeniously clever hands of the puny human animal, than the enormous iron citadels which float and sail about bearing an army of soldiers, an arsenal of monstrous arms, the enormous masses of which are made of tiny pieces fitted, soldered, forged, bolted together, a toil of ants and giants, which shows at the same time all the genius, all the weakness, and all the irretrievable barbarousness of the race, so active and so feeble, directing all its efforts towards creating instruments for its own self-destruction. Those who in former days raised up cathedrals in stone, carved as finely as any lacework, fairy-like palaces to shelter childish and pious fancies, were they worth less than those who now-a-days launch forth on the sea these iron houses, real temples of Death? At the same moment that I leave the ship to get on board my cockleshell, I hear the sound of firing on shore. It is the regiment at Antibes practising rifle shooting on the sands and amongst the pine-woods. The smoke rises in white flakes, like evaporating clouds of cotton, and I can see the red trousers of the soldiers as they run along the beach. The naval officers suddenly become interested, point their glasses landwards, and their hearts beat faster at this spectacle of mimic warfare. At the mere mention of the word war, I am seized with a sense of bewilderment, as though I heard of witchcraft, of the inquisition, of some far distant thing, ended long ago, abominable and monstrous, against all natural law. When we talk of cannibals, we proudly smile and proclaim our superiority over these savages. Which are the savages, the true savages? Those who fight to eat the vanquished, or those who fight to kill, only to kill?