It was believed--was there one foreigner in the three cities here who thought otherwise at the very start of the outbreak?--that the Revolution would break out, that the Imperial Army would come down in great force and massacre every manjack in the Revolutionary Army, and that that would be the end of it all. At the start there were so many thousands, not only in this centre but throughout the Empire, who were merely neutral, who were sitting on the fence, prepared to dive down either side at the moment it paid them to take the dive. But the men of the Revolutionary Army were confident. The units of the army knew that they had Li at the head, they knew that Li had always had the name of being the best man in the Hupeh Model Army, although he was not in supreme command, and they were content to fight under him. There was in all circles, however, except the military circle, a good deal of scepticism. Every one was on the look-out for sensations. No one knew what would happen, and no one cared to guess. But behind it all stood Li, looking on and seeing all. He had sworn allegiance to his party, and he expected his party to stand by him. He was the man who believed in the scheme he was prepared to pull through, and he believed in the men who were pulling with him. Yuan Shih K'ai doubted him, his ability, his political party, and thought them a set of upstarts. {118} Therefore was it that he would not listen to their talk, and took their pleading with him to join their party as a sign of weakness. But Yuan, though he had made few political mistakes himself, never committed a bigger blunder than this. For the time he was prepared to hold aloof, and to fight on still, rather than take the cue of his adversary in battle and give up fighting for a lost cause. The situation as it concerned foreigners in the Concessions was now most acute. Everybody was abusing the Consuls. Around the Concessions, mad with rage and neither side entertaining any bewildering affection for foreigners, were sixty thousand troops. The French community, tired of talking, so it seemed, took the bull by the horns and wired to the French Government over the head of their Consul, and that the same spirit actuated the greater part of the international population here will be judged from what comes hereafter. The French residents telegraphed from Hankow to Paris as follows:--