No contrast can be greater than that which exists between the Parisian Bobadils and the Provincial Mobiles.
The latter are quiet and orderly, eager to drill and without a vestige of bluster--these poor peasants are of a very different stuff from the emasculated, conceited scum which has palmed itself off on Europe as representative Frenchmen.

The families with whom they lodge speak with wonder of their sobriety, their decency, and their simple ways, and in their hearts almost despise them because they do not ravish their daughters or pillage their cellars; and neither swear every half-hour to die for their country, nor yell the "Marseillaise." If Paris be saved, it will be thanks to them and to the working men of the capital.

But it will be the old _sic vos non vobis_ story; their brave deeds and undemonstrative heroism will be forgotten, and Jules and Alphonse, the dandies and braggarts of the Boulevard, will swear to their own heroism.
I trust that the Prussians will fail to take Paris, because I think that the French are right to fight on rather than submit to the dismemberment of their country; and because I prefer a Republic to a Monarchy where a King reigns by right divine.

But when I read the bombastic articles in the newspapers--when I see the insane conceit and the utter ignorance of those with whom I am thrown--when I find them really believing that they are heroes because they are going, they say, to win battles, it is difficult to entertain any great sympathy for them.

How utterly must poor old Badinguet, before whom they cringed for years--who used them, bought them, and made his market out of their vanity, their ignorance, and their love of theatrical claptrap, despise them, as he dreams again through life's dream in the gardens of his German prison.