Hereupon Bouverot replied, "That is exactly my sentiment, too." Albano made answer, and very visibly only to his father, because he profoundly despised the German gentleman, and held him utterly unworthy of enjoying high works of art, for which he had brought with him an eminent _taste_, although no sense, and said: "Dear father, the twelve thousand Jews did not design the Colosseum which they built, but the idea was, after all, at some time or other, entirely in _one_ man, in Vespasian; and so universally must there preside over the concentric directions of little forces some great one, and though it were God himself." "To that source," said Gaspard, "to which everything godlike is referred, thou mayst transfer it if thou wilt." Bouverot smiled. "The Gallic intoxication," replied Albano, warmly, "is surely and verily no accidental one, but an enthusiasm grounded at once in humanity and in time, for whence otherwise the universal interest in it? They may perhaps sink, but only to soar higher. Through a red sea of blood and war humanity wades toward the promised land, and the wilderness is _long_; with gashed hands, gluing themselves in their own blood, they, like the chamois-hunters, climb upward." "The chamois-hunters themselves," said the Knight, "do the same still more, when they undertake to come _down from the Alps_; meanwhile such hopes are charming, and we will gladly wish their fulfilment." "_Signor Conte_," added Bouverot, "was very happy in naming the outbreak a fit of intoxication. One sleeps it out; but in the morning there is a great deal broken and to pay." "Intoxication?" said Albano; "what best thing has not occurred in a state of enthusiasm, and what worst thing has not been done in cold blood? Say, Herr von Bouverot? Yes, there is a grim, dreadful frost of the soul, as well as a similar physical frost, which, like the greatest heat, makes one black and blind and sore;[84] something like French tragedy, _cold_, and yet _barbarous_." "Thou approachest the tragic, son," said Gaspard, interrupting him, and reinforcing the German gentleman; "we may expect of the French very much political sagacity, especially in distress; that is their forte. Therein they match women. They are, too, like women, either uncommonly tender, moral, and humane, when they are good, or, like them, quite as cruel and rough, when they are beside themselves. It may be predicted, that, in a liberation-war, if one should break out, they will, in valor, take precedence of all parties. That will dazzle exceedingly, since, after all, nothing is rarer than a cowardly people. One learns to estimate military courage very moderately, when one sees that the Roman Legions, precisely when they were mercenary, bad, slavish, and half freedmen, namely, under the Triumvirate, fought more courageously than ever. The citizens fought and died to the very last man for that insignificant incendiary, Catiline, and only slaves were made prisoners."