I will not conceal from you, gentlemen, that next year we shall get into even greater trouble for much the same reasons. For two months have passed already, it is now winter, two full months since the States should have assembled in this town and yet to all appearances we shall not see them here soon and they will not establish order in our affairs. They act as if we had no enemy at all! Nevertheless we can hear even in this distant place the cannon which are battering Tournay and, as it were, visualise the assaults made upon that city. And yet (blind as we are) we take no notice of the surprises which the enemy is preparing for us for the coming year. This negligence, gentlemen, is a tremendous evil. It is caused not so much by lack of understanding or of industry, but by the fact that everyone has his private rather than the public interest at heart. With regard to the people, I am conscious that the cause of this evil is that they do not understand that this war is their war.