I2 FOR THE FLAG

that the chord of patriotism, becoming unstrung by degrees,
soon ceased to vibrate. For the honour of human nature,
it must be repeated that by this time he was no longer
accountable. His mind was inert, except on the subject
of his invention; in that one particular it retained its power.
But in all that concerned the most ordinary details of
existence, his mental collapse became more marked daily,
and deprived him of complete responsibility for his actions.

His offer, then, was declined. Perhaps it would have been
better to prevent him from taking his invention elsewhere.
This was not done, however, which was a mistake.

The inevitable happened. Under his increasing irrita-
bility, the sense of patriotism which is the essence of the
citizen—who belongs to his country before belonging to
himself—became numbed in the mind of the disappointed
inventor. He turned his thoughts to other nations; he
crossed the frontier, he forgot the never-to-be-forgotten
past, and he offered the Roch Fulgurator to Germany.

There, after learning the inventor’s exorbitant demands,
the Government refused to receive his proposal. More-
over, a new ballistic engine had just been tested in the
war, and the authorities thought they might dispense with
the French invention.

Then the Frenchman’s rage increased to hate—an in-
stinctive hatred against mankind—specially after his
approaches to the Admiral'y of Great Britain had failed.
The English keing a practical people, the Admiralty did
not repulse him all at once—they dallied, temporized, and
circumvented him. Roch would listen to nothing. His