'Really,' he answered, with an air of doubt. The honest fellow was as interested in it as his wife, and he only appeared to doubt it in order to make her triumph greater. He knew that baby would know the fable on New Year's morn. You Prussian beggars, you Prussian scoundrels, you bandits, and you Vandals, you have taken everything from us; you have ruined us; you are starving us; you are bombarding us; and we have a right to hate you with a royal hatred. Well, perhaps one day we might have forgiven you your rapine and your murders; our towns that you have sacked; your heavy yokes; your infamous treasons. The French race is so light of heart, so kindly, that we might perhaps in time have forgotten our resentments. What we never shall forget will be this New Year's Day, which we have been forced to pass without news from our families. You at least have had letters from your Gretchens, astounding letters, very likely, in which the melancholy blends with blue eyes, make a wonderful literary salad, composed of sour-krout, Berlin wool, forget-me-nots, pillage, bombardment, pure love, and transcendental philosophy. But you like all this just as you like jam with your mutton. You have what pleases you. Your ugly faces receive kisses by the post. But you kill our pigeons, you intercept our letters, you shoot at our balloons with your absurd _fusils de rempart_, and you burst out into a heavy German grin when you get hold of one of our bags, which are carrying to those we love our vows, our hopes, our remembrance, our regrets, and our hearts. It is a merry farce, is it not? Ah, if ever we can render you half the sufferings which we are enduring, you will see _des grises_. Perhaps you don't know what the word means, and, like one of Gavarni's children, you will say, 'What! _des grises?_' You will, I trust, one of these days learn what is the signification of the term at your own cost. One of your absurd pretensions is to be the only people in the world who understand how to love, or who care for domestic ties. You will see, by the hatred which we shall ever bear to you, that we too know how to love--our time will come some day, be assured. This January 1 of the year 1871 inaugurates a terrible era of bloody revenge. Poor philosophers of universal peace, you see now the value of your grand phrases and of your humanitarian dreams! Vainly you imagined that the world was entering into a period of everlasting peace and progress. A wonderful progress, indeed, has 1870 brought us! You never calculated on the existence of these Huns. We are back again now in the midst of all the miseries of the 13th and 14th centuries. The memory of to-day will be written on the hearts of our children. 'It was the year,' they will say, 'when we received no presents, when we did not kiss our father, because of the Prussians. They shall pay for it!' Let us hope that the payment will commence this very day. But if we are still to be vanquished, we will leave to our