They are very worthy and intelligent people, whom I undoubtedly should wish to resemble, had I the honor to know them.

That of which I complain, and that which has made me a conspirator, is that, instead of enlightening us, these gentlemen command us, impose upon us articles of faith, and that without demonstration or verification.

When, for example, I ask why these fortifications of Paris, which, in former times, under the influence of certain prejudices, and by means of a concurrence of extraordinary circumstances supposed for the sake of the argument to have existed, may perhaps have served to protect us, but which it is doubtful whether our descendants will ever use,--when I ask, I say, on what grounds they assimilate the future to a hypothetical past, they reply that M.
Thiers, who has a great mind, has written upon this subject a report of admirable elegance and marvellous clearness.

At this I become angry, and reply that M.Thiers does not know what he is talking about.

Why, having wanted no detached forts seven years ago, do we want them to-day?
"Oh! damn it," they say, "the difference is great; the first forts were too near to us; with these we cannot be bombarded." You cannot be bombarded; but you can be blockaded, and will be, if you stir.