"
Philarete Chasles saw in the defeats a confirmation of the theory that
he proclaimed, day in, day out, namely: that the Latin races were on the
rapid down-grade; Spain and Portugal, Italy, Roumania, the South
American republics, were, in his opinion, in a state of moral
putrefaction, France a sheer Byzantium. It had been a piece of
foolhardiness without parallel to try to make this war a decisive racial
struggle between the nation that, as Protestant, brought free research
in its train and one which had not yet been able to get rid of the Pope
and political despotism. Now France was paying the penalty.
Out in the country at Meudon, where he was, there had--probably from
carelessness--occurred repeated explosions, the last time on August
20th. Twenty cases of cartridges had just been sent to Bazaine; a
hundred still remained, which were to start the day that they were
urgently required. They blew up, and no one in the town doubted that the
explosion was the work of Prussian spies. For things had come to such a
pass that people saw Prussian spies everywhere. (During the first month
of the war all Germans were called Prussians.) Importance was attached
to the fact that General Frossard's nephew, a young lieutenant who lay
wounded in Chasles' tower-house, from a sword-thrust in the chest, and
was usually delirious, at the crash had jumped up and come to his
senses, crying out: "It is treachery! It is Chamber No.
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