It was obvious to his friend, who now knew him so well, that he was moved by some tremendous emotion.
John rode up by the side of Lannes and said: "What have you seen, Philip?
You can tell a little at least, can't you ?" "More than a little! A lot! The _Arrow_ and I have looked over a great area, John! Miles and miles and yet more miles! and wherever we went we gazed down upon armies locked in battle, and beyond that were other armies locked in battle, too! The nations meet in wrath! You can't see it here, nor from anywhere on the earth! It's only in the air high overhead that one can get even a partial view of its immensity! The English army is off there on the flank, a full thirty miles away, and you're not likely to see it today!" He would have said more, but General Vaugirard beckoned to him, gave him a note which he had written hastily, and in a few more minutes Lannes was flitting like a swallow through the heavens.

Then General Vaugirard's car moved forward and brigade after brigade of the French army resumed its advance also.
John felt that the great German machine had been met by a French machine as great.

Perhaps the master mind that thrills through an organism of steel no less than one of human flesh was on the French side.

He did not know.

The invisible hand thrusting forward the French armies was still invisible to him.