_They go out, accompanied by Brignac._ COL [_to Lucie and Madame Chevillot_] I’m afraid we’ve bored you, ladies, with our discussion. LUCIE. Not at all. COL. I notice that women are usually a little impatient if we talk of these questions. SOUS-IN. As impatient as we should be if they discussed the recruiting laws without consulting us. MME. CHEV. Precisely. COL [_to Lucie_] Perhaps, too, you don’t agree with us. LUCIE. You’ll never make women understand why children must be created to be killed in your battles. COL [_to the sous-intendant_] There, that’s how the military ruin of a country is brought about. SOUS-IN. You’re right, colonel, if it be true that power is a function of number. COL. Well, isn’t it? SOUS-IN. Those who believe the contrary say ‘There is no evidence in history that supremacy, even military supremacy, has ever belonged to the most numerous peoples.’ I quote M. de Varigny. General von der Gotz shares this opinion, and our own General Serval says, ’All great military operations have been performed by small armies.’ _Brignac comes in._ COL. Oh, ho, Mr. Bachelor, you’ve got all the arguments on your side at your finger-ends. BRIGNAC. We shall make laws against you and your like, M. le sous-intendant. We shall make it impossible for you to receive money by will, as the Romans did. We shall make you pay fines, as the Greeks did. And we’ll invent something new, if necessary. SOUS-IN. Compulsory paternity! COL. One may fairly ask whether people have the right to shirk these obligations. SOUS-IN. Some people think it is their duty. BRIGNAC. Their duty! SOUS-IN. Are you sure that all men who don’t marry are bachelors from pure selfishness? COL. Of course, we’re not speaking of you personally. SOUS-IN. Do so, by all means. It was not out of mere lightness of heart that I deprived myself of the tenderness of a wife and the caresses of a child. When I was young I was poor and sickly. I did not choose to bring children into the world when I had nothing to leave them but my bad constitution. I said, in the words of a great poet: Remain In the elusive realm of might-have-been, O son more loved than any ever born! I thought it better to be lonely than let the stock go from bad to worse. I believe it is a crime to bring a child into the world if one cannot give it health and bring it up well. We saw one hundred conscripts this morning, colonel, and we passed sixty. Would it not have been better if there had only been eighty and we could have passed them all? COL. Perhaps you are right. I said what I said because I’ve heard it so constantly repeated. SOUS-IN. When there are healthy houses and food and clothing for everyone it will be time to think of adding to the number. LUCIE. That is very true. CHEV. You evidently don’t share M. Brignac’s ideas, madame.