Without mourning or benediction they laid their bodies in the cemetery of the sea. From Admiral to midshipmen, all the officers are buried in this sea, at once so maternal and malevolent. The superhuman souls of these officers attempted the impossible. They wished to save the cruiser, and the cruiser went down. They wished to save the men, and it is not their fault that nearly eight hundred sailors perished. And then, according to that law of the sea which ordains that the officer shall wait until the last sailor is saved, they went down with their ship. The ignorant will criticize them, but they are wrong. If each Frenchman, in civil or military service, performs to the uttermost the task his country demands of him, his country, with a heave of her shoulders, will chase the Germans out of France. Officers of the _Gambetta_, you have your place in the paradise of “_la Revanche_.” FINIS. TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES: Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.