I feel the utmost contempt for them, and I’m sure that the foreign invaders, whom fate will bring here, will feel the same towards them. A people which denies, or tolerates that others should deny in its name, its past, tramples on its own honour. For days the government has been announcing the arrival of French troops. The town is being prepared for their reception, and we have to sit down quietly under this hideous farce and suffer it. One of Károlyi’s papers writes to-day: “The first French soldiers will probably arrive to-morrow in Budapest, and the youngest republic greets with love the champions of Liberty, Fraternity and Equality. Instead of stiff, haughty German swashbucklers, charming, good-humoured French officers; instead of the clumsy German soldiers with their heavy boots, our streets will be filled with the petted _poilus_.... Beside the Hungarian inscriptions we ought to put up French inscriptions everywhere on our public institutions ... tradespeople should put on their shops: ‘_Ici on parle français._’ German translations on the bills of fare should be omitted....” A government which prints such shame in its newspapers, a press which can find a single compositor to set it, a public which will stand it, must surely have reached the lowest depths of humiliation. Flags of the national colours float festively overhead. And the government calls in the French troops of occupation, and offers their commander the most beautiful spot in the country, the royal castle, as a residence, because, it says: “They are not enemies, but gladly welcomed guests....” Every drop of blood in me is boiling with shame and helpless rage, and my mind goes back to a long past page of memory—1871. An early morning in Paris. In close formation, headed by its flags, the victorious German army enters Paris. Along its route the windows are closed, flags of mourning float from the houses, and the still-burning street-lamps are shrouded in crepe; the people, conscious of its dignity even in the moment of its humiliation, observes a gloomy silence in the streets. No order has been given, no instructions have been issued, yet, men, women and children, all turn their heads aside, and the eyes of the victors fail to meet the tear-dimmed eyes, burning with hate, of the vanquished.... * * * * * _November 22nd._ The sky has descended to the very roofs. Snow falls continually and deepens in the streets. But the Office of Public Health appeals in vain for workmen at twenty crowns a day to remove the snow from the streets. They roar with laughter as they read it, and go on to draw their unemployment dole, while still the snow falls and falls, obstructing the doors of houses, lying knee-deep in the quiet side-streets.