human
Your brother seems out of spirits,--a pleasing contrast to the uproarious mirth with which Parisians welcome the advance of calamity.
gpt
Raoul, as you know, is deeply religious. He regards the defeat we have sustained, and the peril that threatens us, as the beginning of a divine chastisement, justly incurred by our sins--I mean, the sins of Paris. In vain my father reminds him of Voltaire's story, in which the ship goes down with a _fripon_ on board. In order to punish the _fripon_, the honest folks are drowned.
human
Is your father going to remain on board the ship, and share the fate of the other honest folks?
gpt
And what, my dear Enguerrand, do you propose to do?
human
That depends on whether we are really besieged. If so, of course I become a soldier.
gpt
I hope not a National Guard?
human
I care not in what name I fight, so that I fight for France.