It will be a bad day
for Europe when the French start travelling again, for they are
slow to leave their homes, but when they have done so no one can
say how far they will go if they have a guide like our little man
to point out the way. But the great days are gone and the great
men are dead, and here am I, the last of them, drinking wine of
Suresnes and telling old tales in a cafe.
But it is of Venice that I would speak. The folk there live like
water-rats upon a mud-bank, but the houses are very fine, and the
churches, especially that of St. Mark, are as great as any I have
seen. But above all they are proud of their statues and their
pictures, which are the most famous in Europe. There are many
soldiers who think that because one's trade is to make war one
should never have a thought above fighting and plunder. There
was old Bouvet, for example--the one who was killed by the
Prussians on the day that I won the Emperor's medal; if you took
him away from the camp and the canteen, and spoke to him of books
or of art, he would sit and stare at you.
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