Dreaming of his martial career, the young soldier gazed long and silently into the golden picture it held up before him. Victoria observed him closely. An inscrutable smile overspread her lips, when suddenly, recalled from his revery by the recollections of love, Oliver blushed and added: "If I am made an officer, perhaps you will at last think me worthy of you, Victoria! Oh! what happiness! To merit the supreme gifts of your tenderness, or to die before your eyes!" "You yield yourself too readily to the intoxication of glory," said Victoria, gravely reproaching him. "Is not the glory of arms the most sublime of all?" "Oliver, woe to those who, loving arms merely as arms, glory as glory, give way to such enticements. Their reason becomes clouded, their spirit becomes unsteeled, their patriotism falters. They grow ready to sacrifice right, liberty, dignity for that glory whose brilliancy oft conceals so much of mere low ambition, of abject servility, of shameful appetites, and vain and childish selfishness. Military chiefs are nearly all contemptible men, even under the republican regime." "Victoria, how severe you are!" replied Oliver, sorrowfully. "Have I really merited this reproach?" "When St. Just and Lebas came here to hold council with the Generals over to-morrow's battle, I noticed your hesitancy in giving, as customary, the military salute." "Yes, I felt extreme repugnance toward saluting a commissioner of the Convention to the armies, because these people are in no way military. If some day I become a general, I shall never consent to submit my plans of campaign to a Representative of the people. No authority should precede that of a general in his army. That authority should be single, absolute, obeyed without discussion; he should be responsible to none for his acts. His soldiers should hear but one voice: his; know but one power: his." "That is the language held by Dumouriez the eve of the day on which he betrayed the Republic," answered Victoria bitterly. Just then John Lebrenn and Duchemin entered, bringing in their prisoners.