He had read it in the writings of gentlemen who knew quite as much as his captain; besides, he had thought a great deal about this matter in his solitary pacing on the bridge.
"I am where I ought to be.

I am with France...." He expressed this thought sluggishly, with stutterings and half-formed words.

France was the country of the great Revolution, and for that reason he considered it as something to which he belonged, uniting its faith with that of his own person.
"And I do not need to say more.

As to England...." Here he made a pause like one who rests and gathers all his forces together for a difficult leap.
"There always has to be one nation on top," he continued.

"We hardly amount to anything at present and, according to what I have read, Spain was once mistress of the entire world for a century and a half.