new principles for use in aërial warfare.... What more was there? The best-regulated commissariat, propaganda among the neutrals, accomplices among their adversaries.... And then the spy system. Ah, yes! the spy system! "Oh, magnificent!" muttered Guillaumin. "I beg your pardon. As they wanted war, it was only right that they should be as well prepared for it as possible. One can't help admiring them for that!" Guillaumin, still unconvinced, sneered: "Oh, charming! There's nothing to be done then! And to-morrow a German Europe!" Fortin having made a movement as if to say, "Why not?" a certain member of us protested all the same: "Oh no! Anything but that. We would fight for it! The triumph of brute force. Government by the sword (all the old catch words), we couldn't stand that...." Laraque declared that when we were beaten he should go to live in America. Ladmiraut asserted pedantically that all attempts at universal sway were foredoomed to failure. Napoleon was an example of it! Fortin retorted: "We exaggerate when we talk of tyranny.... There would be a certain amount of rearranging to be got through. What these people want, is...." "To pick our pockets," cried Guillaumin. "Yes, to pick our pockets, and also...." Fortin let himself be carried away. Was it paradox or conviction? "Would you like to know what they want? Well, simply the reign of reason, of their reason. To their physical need for conquest is added this intellectual need. I think that in the case of a crushing victory they would not be exacting, that they would content themselves with re-organising and ordering the world to their ideas. The triumph of '_Kultur_,' yes! Without doubt they would allow as many individual liberties and indeed local constitutions, as possible, to subsist. Their charter of empire is so convenient! The United States of Europe. That is their avowed dream, often expressed by the Kaiser. Peace, yes, but under the aegis of the Hohenzollern, chosen of God! An imposing task to which they bring the fervour of apostles, which to-morrow, on the battle-field will become the fanaticism of martyrs. The horror of this contest does not dismay them, they consider it unavoidable. There are two obstacles in their path; France in their eyes grown old and debased; Russia that huge inorganic body, still in a state of barbarism. Their idea was to humiliate both nations, with the object of raising them up again later on while imbuing them with the moral and intellectual virtues on which the Teuton prides himself. England impedes them equally. This conflict too was fated. They despise the English because they consider them too exclusively concerned with their well-being, with their comfort; too material, shopkeepers, in fact! They themselves pose as idealists and philosophers, but heirs to the spiritualistic traditions, and regardful of the property, of the integri----" "What about the violation of Belgium!" Guillaumin interrupted.