The bourgeois and the working man worship different gods, and have hardly two ideas in common.

The bourgeois believes in the Army of the Loire; believes that in sacrificing the trade profits of a few months, and in catching a cold by keeping guard occasionally for a night on the ramparts, he has done his duty towards his country, and deserves the admiration of all future ages.

As for burying himself, beneath, the ruins of his shop, it is his shop as much as his country that he is defending.

He is gradually wearying of the siege; the pleasure of strutting about in a uniform and marching behind a drum hardly compensates for the pecuniary losses which he is incurring.

He feels that he is already a hero, and he longs to repose upon his laurels.