Soldiers bearing dispatches constantly entered the room, trod heavily, with clatter of spurs, to within a few paces of the table, drew up, brought their heels together, and stood at salute until given permission to approach. Officers of lower rank paused, on seeing the august and radiant gathering, saluted, and continued to bow and salute while passing the table to find a smaller one in another part of the room. Judging by their servility and that of the soldiers, the two in general’s attire at the dinner must have been of high rank, but their identities were not known in the hotel. To my eyes each looked as important as the other, puffed up with pride, betraying, in every glance and movement, confident conviction that the present satisfaction was but a fore-runner of greater triumphs. Again and again when a dispatch was read, evidently containing satisfactory news from the front, the joyous cry, “_Hoch! Hoch! Hoch!_” rang out to that pathetically wistful audience, who knew it was in celebration of a fresh wound dealt to the country they loved. And yet in their pale, troubled faces no sign of hatred or rage could be detected, only the same childlike curiosity expressed on the first day, and a sort of puzzled wonder, as though they found it difficult to believe that atrocities such as were committed in their land had been ordered by men of such good appearance, and apparently so civilized. Even to us it seemed incredible, while watching that gathering of smart-looking, intelligent beings, who might have won the respect, possibly even the admiration, of a people accustomed throughout their history to the wrongdoings of mightier nations; who, as a whole, would have appreciated a generous recognition of their noble and courageous stand for honour. But those men, whose close-cropped, sabre-scarred heads were held so high above a uniform they gradually made odious to the entire world, were blinded by vanity, delirious with success. The long-awaited hour of opportunity had arrived, as pregnant with great promise as those that bred the first Roman and the first French empires; an hour when Europe, lulled by the harmony of peace, might be shocked to submission before Germany’s secretly-created Frankenstein!