These evidences of the antiquity of the cité are deposited in a small museum which also contains sculptures taken from the abbey and the castle. If you go to La Roche-Pont, ascend the ruins of the donjon. From this elevated point the view on a clear spring morning is very fine; towards the south it extends as far as the Saône, showing the little river Abonne, winding along the vale through meadows and orchards. On the north spreads the plateau covered with clumps of trees, and bounded only by the blue outlines of the hills of the Haute-Marne. At your feet the town with its ramparts looks like a vessel moored at the extremity of a promontory. We are reminded then of all the events which this little nook of ground has witnessed, of the ruins that have been accumulated by human passion, and the blood that has been so lavishly shed. We fancy we hear the shouts with which these walls have so often echoed. Nature however remains the same; the meadows continue to be enamelled with flowers, and clothe with a mantle of beauty the ruins that have been heaped up by the fury of men. A feeling of deep sadness comes over us, and we say to ourselves: "What use is it all?" "What use!" replies at once a voice in the depth of our our soul. "What is the use of independence? What good is the love of our country? What use is the memory of self-sacrifice?" Do not blaspheme, Egoistic Philosophy; be silent before centuries of struggle--before that layer upon layer of the bones of the dead, and those heaps of successive ruins which have formed our country's soil. Though often ravaged, this hill has never been abandoned by its inhabitants; the more affronts it has had to sustain, the more its children have become attached to its side, the more they hold to the soil that has been impregnated with the blood of their ancestors, and the more hatred they feel towards those who would attempt to detach them from this ancestral tomb. This is patriotism; and it is the only human passion that can be dignified with the title of holy. War makes nations, and war raises them again when they sink down under the influence of material interests. War is struggle, and we find struggle everywhere in nature; it secures greatness and duration to the best educated, the most capable, the noblest, the most worthy to survive. And in the present day more than ever, success in war is the result of intelligence and of that which develops intelligence--Work. Whenever what is called fraternity between nations shall become a reality, the reign of senile barbarism and of shameful decay will not be far distant. Before this rock on which so many generations have fought to defend their independence, to resist aggression and to keep the rapacious foreigner at a distance, it is not an expression of regret that is called for--it is rather of homage to the dead which hearts full of gratitude cannot withhold. They do not ask for tears but for imitation. FOOTNOTES: