"I love her as well as you do, father," cried Philippe, passionately, "and better, perhaps! It is a love that sometimes moves me to tears, when I think of what she has been, of what she is, so beautiful, so intelligent, so great, so adorable for her charm and her good faith! I love her because she is the mother of every lofty idea. I love her because her language is the clearest and noblest of all languages. I love her because she is always marching on, regardless of consequences, and because she sings as she marches and because she is gay and active and alive, always full of hopes and of illusions, and because she is the smile on the face of the world.... But I cannot see that she would be any the less great or admirable for admitting that one of her officials was captured twenty yards to the right of the frontier." "Why should she admit it, if it is not true?" said Morestal. "Why should she not admit it, if peace should be the outcome?" retorted Philippe. "Peace! There's the great word at last!" sneered Morestal. "Peace! You too have allowed yourself to be poisoned by the theories of the day! Peace at the price of disgrace: that's it, is it not?" "Peace at the price of an infinitesimal sacrifice of self-esteem." "That means dishonour." "No, no," Philippe answered, in an outburst of enthusiasm. "It is the beauty of a nation to raise itself above those miserable questions. And France is worthy of it. You do not know it, father, but since the last forty years, since that execrable date, since that accursed war the memory of which obsesses your mind and closes your eyes to every reality of life, a new France has come into existence, a France whose gaze is fixed upon other truths, a France that longs to shake off the evil past, to repudiate all that remains to us of the ancient barbarism and to rid herself of the laws of blood and war. She cannot do so yet, but she is making for it with all her young ardour and all her growing conviction. And twice already, in ten years--in the heart of Africa, face to face with England; on the shores of Morocco, face to face with Germany--twice she has overcome her old barbarous instinct." "Shameful memories, for which every Frenchman blushes!" "Glorious memories, of which we should be proud! One day, those will be the fairest pages of our time; and those two dates will wipe out the execrable date. That is the true revenge! That a nation which has never known fear, which has always, at the tragic hours of its history, settled its quarrels in the old barbarous fashion, sword in hand, that such a nation should have raised itself to so magnificent a conception of beauty and civilization, that, I say, is its finest claim to glory!" "Words! Words! It's the theory of peace at any price; and it is a lie that you are advising me to tell." "No, it is the possible truth that I ask you to admit, cruel though it may be for you to do so."