The Indian Chief by Gustave Aimard

The emotion caused by the general's visit gradually calmed down. The Frenchmen, so long the sport of Mexican bad faith, experienced almost joy at seeing themselves at length liberated from the inextricable web of trickery which had encompassed them. With that carelessness which forms the basis of the national character, they began laughing and jibing at the Mexicans generally, and especially at the authorities of the country, of whom they had to complain so greatly, though without daring to offer the least observation, through respect for their chief.

Full of confidence in the count, without calculating that they were only a handful of men abandoned to their own resources, without help or possible protection, more than six thousand leagues from their country, they indulged to the fullest extent of their imagination in the wildest dreams, discussing among themselves the most extraordinary and daring plans, without ever supposing, in their candid filibustering simplicity, that even the least extravagant of their dreams was impossible to realise.