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 Letters on the war between Germany and F 
 
 a. 1924 028 336 257 
 
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THEODORE MOMMSEN 
 
 TO THE PEOPLE op ITALY.* 
 
 I.— THE WAE. 
 
 LETTER 
 
 INSEBTED 
 
 IN THE MILANESE PAPER 'LA PERSEVERANZA/ 
 
 Of the VMK of August, 1870. 
 
 Do you know what it is that people here are afraid of ? 
 Some of our Politicians, to whom I do not belong, 
 profess to believe in the existence of a plot of long 
 standing between the Cabinets of Paris and Florence. 
 They think that just as France has been forced into 
 a war against us, so it will be with Italy, unless Italian 
 citizens prove themselves to be stronger and wiser 
 than the French have done. 
 
 And do you know what the friends of Italy reply to 
 this? 
 
 * Translated from the Italian by I. C. 
 Ti Digitized by Microsoft® B 
 
I THEODORE MOMMSEN 
 
 They say, "As for the Italian Cabinet, anything is 
 possible ; but as for the Italian people, they will sup- 
 port the Germans, and offer an invincible obstacle to 
 any such policy." 
 
 Still, to say the truth, we are not entirely safe. It 
 is only too easy to deceive a people ; and I do not feel 
 convinced that your countrymen recognize the serious- 
 ness of this impending danger, or that they are on the 
 alert in looking out for it. 
 
 This war is a terrible one, as we well know ; its scale 
 is tremendous ; but how overwhelmingly would it be 
 magnified, if the material forces of another of the 
 great nations were thrown into it ! 
 
 But this is not the point that most disturbs us. 
 You are distant from us, and in any case, the Ger- 
 mans are not easily alarmed, and have ample reliance 
 in their own powers. 
 
 Within these last few days, in the single city of 
 Berlin alone, 28,000 young volunteers have enrolled 
 themselves ; as fresh ones arrive, the authorities smile 
 doubtfully, at a loss what to do with such numbers ; 
 still the young champions persevere, and go here and 
 there, determined to get enrolled somewhere. 
 
 To-day a friend described to me the case of a father 
 sending forth to the war his four sons ; grasping each 
 one by the hand in turn, " Come back," he said, 
 " victorious or never." 
 
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TO THE PEOPLE OP ITALY. 3 
 
 The old Hanoverian officers, who have hitherto re- 
 fused to serve under the King of Prussia, come forward 
 now, ready to fight the French with us. 
 
 In Prague and Vienna the German students are 
 applying to their Governments for permission to enter 
 the Prussian army. Even the Duke of Nassau, whom 
 we dispossessed, has rejected with disdain the offer of 
 the French to reinstate him. 
 
 No ; it is not fear that speaks, when we exhort you 
 to maintain your neutrality, — very different to this are 
 the motives that inspire us. 
 
 I do not know if we are making war upon the 
 French nation, or upon that handful of daring adven- 
 turers, who, having contrived to possess themselves of 
 the government of France, now hope to subject le 
 monde au demi-monde. But take it to be true that 
 the French people wish for war, that a rabid chau- 
 vinisme } whilst condemning the senseless motives 
 assigned by the reigning Government of France for 
 declaring war upon us, still accepts the consequences, 
 and sees in it the longed-for revenge, whether of 
 Waterloo or of Sadowa; you at least must feel for- 
 bidden by houour to take part in a war meditated for 
 years, behind the mask of false professions and falser 
 friendship, and brought forward now, with an im- 
 pudence and levity offensive to all Europe. It rests 
 with you, that this war, so dreadful already, shall not 
 
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4 THEODORE MOMMSEN 
 
 develop into something still more dreadful — a war of 
 races — a war between the Latins and the Germans. 
 
 Oh! my friends beyond the Alps, I am no blind 
 admirer, either of ancient Some or of modern Italy. I 
 see the sad inheritance which the slavery of centuries 
 has left to your noble country ; and I know that al- 
 though a Cavour could break your chains, the future 
 alone can efface their traces. But I have faith in this 
 future; and I love the Italy of to-day with all her 
 wounds. We Germans put our trust in you. Italians, 
 every hope of a happier era to come depends upon a 
 solid and loyal alliance between the various nations. 
 
 There was a time when Rome was the destruction of 
 every nation about her ; and when the holocaust was 
 completed, Romans saw with horror, in the ruin of 
 their foes, their own destruction. 
 
 Ah ! do not deprive us of this treasured hope — the 
 hope that the world is wide enough to hold yet an- 
 other free and fortunate nation. Ah ! do not engender 
 among the German peoples the miserable thought, 
 that the Roman races wish to subjugate or exterminate 
 them. 
 
 Can we not live in peace — you in your fair garden 
 of Europe, we in our less favoured plains ? 
 
 Does the Prussian Government tout for clerical votes 
 by mounting guard at the Yatican ? 
 
 And if the Prussian Government has a friendly feel- 
 
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TO THE PEOPLE OP ITALY. 5 
 
 ing for certain Protestant popes (protestant followers 
 of the Pope)) not a whit .less knavish and a good deal 
 more dangerous than yours, do you think, for all this, 
 that the German people will see with any less rejoicing 
 the Infallible precipitated from the heights of the 
 Capitol ? 
 
 If you desire to consolidate the fetters which hinder 
 the advance of your battalions on Koine, you have only 
 to consolidate the present rule in France ; that sacred 
 personage, Napoleon, reigns only by the support of 
 the priests. 
 
 Is it Germany that is keeping down Italy ? Are 
 our shouts of admiration for the combatants of Novara 
 — our enthusiasm when Lombardy shook off the Aus- 
 trian yoke already forgotten ? Is that happy brother- 
 hood in arms no longer remembered which brought 
 bhe Prussians to the Maine and the Italians to Venice ? 
 
 When the question came up of that great undertak- 
 ing, the pride of our times, — the tunnelling of the 
 Alps, — was it the German nation that proposed the 
 absurd and disgraceful condition that it should be for 
 the advantage of a single nation alone ? 
 
 Have we given to an ancient and refined people a 
 literature foul as the waters of the Paris Seine, that 
 corrupts the hearts of your youth, and spreads even 
 imongst your respectable classes like an insidious 
 
 ranker ? 
 
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O THEODORE MOMMSEN TO THE PEOPLE OP ITALY. 
 
 Oh, Italians ! you know that the Germans neither 
 could nor would possess themselves of that which of 
 right is yours ; and you know as well, that the cradle 
 of your king is now a French department, and your 
 hero ex post facto a Frenchman by birth ! 
 
 If the old Italian territory, respected in its nationality 
 even in the saddest days of its servitude, is thus in- 
 fringed as the nation rises with a new birth, and, 
 like the unlucky man freed from brigands, you are 
 compelled to pay a ransom to the semi-brigands who 
 set you free, — is it not the hand of France that you 
 feel in all this ? 
 
 A second Sadowa on the banks of the Ehine — an- 
 other such day — will give you a full and lasting free- 
 dom. 
 
 We ask for no battalions. Our forces by themselves 
 suffice to protect the Continent against the common 
 enemy ; but bear in mind the natural alliance between 
 our nations, and do not forget our fidelity at Cus- 
 tozza. 
 
 Berlin, July 23rd, 1870. 
 
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LETTER 
 
 TO 
 
 THE EDITOR OF THE MILANESE PAPER 'II SECOLO/ 
 
 Inserted in the number for the 20th of August, 1870. 
 
 TflE ' Perseveranza ' was pleased to give place in its 
 columns to some remarks of mine respecting the pre- 
 sent political situation, especially the relations between 
 Italy and Germany; and if this paper has thought 
 proper to make its own reservations, by suppressing 
 those passages which appeared incompatible with its 
 profound respect for the Tuileries, this was not so 
 much the fault of the honourable editor, whose bon- 
 homie and good faith I am ready to admit, as of my- 
 self, the author, who could not distinguish between 
 the ' Perseveranza ' of yesterday and the ' Perseve- 
 ranza ' of to-day. 
 
 So much the more am I obliged to your journal for 
 reproducing my letter, and accompanying it with such 
 sympathetic words, dictated by the same spirit of fra- 
 ternal feeling between the two nations which inspired 
 my own. 
 
 If I take up my pen for the second time, it is not to 
 repel the act of accusation of Italy against Germany 
 which the 'Perseveranza' chose to place side by side 
 with my letter. Before proceeding to do this, I await 
 
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8 THE0D0BE MOMMSEN 
 
 Italy's assent to this accusation, which I think im- 
 probable. 
 
 If all the wrongs and crimes wrought when the do- 
 mination of Austria weighed as heavily upon Prussia 
 as upon Italy, are to be laid to the charge of the Ger- 
 man people and of their present rulers, there is sound 
 cause to show why the Germans and the Italians can 
 never unite in a loyal friendship; and even further, 
 we might, with a moderately fair face, defend that 
 most ingenious theory, that Italian freedom is to be 
 found in the continuation of French fetters. 
 
 It is too true — nor have we forgotten it — Prussia 
 was long a stay to the policy of Schonbrunn ; but, 
 beyond this, it is also true that the desires and hopes 
 of the better part of the German people were in direct 
 opposition to that ill-starred policy, and the liberals of 
 the North especially have always fought, both in the 
 press and in Parliament, for Italian independence. It 
 is (thanks also to this liberal policy) that in 1859 we 
 were able to stop our Government on the eve, as the 
 ' Perseveranza ' rightly says, of reconquering your 
 splendid city for its secular tyrant. 
 
 But are not such petty recriminations unworthy of 
 men whose glory it is to be the contemporaries of a 
 Cavour and a Bismarck ? — whose glory it is to belong 
 to two nations that have known how to arise and 
 rehabilitate themselves ? 
 
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TO THE PEOPLE OP ITALY. 9 
 
 He who makes the Prussia of Konigsgratz and 
 Worth responsible for the political deeds of the epoch 
 of Manteuffel, might with equal force reproach the 
 Italy of to-day with the policy of the Bstes and the 
 Bourbons . 
 
 We will not forget those unhappy times, but we 
 will remember them as passed away — passed away 
 through the common efforts of your and our great 
 men, your and our noble aspirations. 
 
 But it is not to tell them this that I writs to my 
 friends in Italy. There is no need to tell men over 
 again those things which they thoroughly know and 
 feel. 
 
 A few days ago I wrote to you, influenced by a well- 
 grounded fear that, in spite of yourselves, you might be 
 dragged into a war, the memory of which would have 
 remained a barrier between us, more insurmountable 
 than the Alps. But this danger, perhaps the most 
 serious that could have befallen us in this great and 
 lamentable struggle, has happily passed away. We 
 may hope now that the great conflagration will not con- 
 sume the whole secular edifice of European civilization. 
 
 This, Italians, we owe in no small measure to you ; 
 and I, for one, out of the many that now are feeling 
 this, rome forward to say it to you and to grasp 
 by the hand a faithful ally. Truly we must not forget 
 
 what the German sword has done — 
 
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10 THEODORE MOMMSEN 
 
 " II lampo de' manipoli e l'onda del cavallo." * 
 Our German sword, which knew how to wait and 
 when to strike, — which gave no chance to the be- 
 trayers of the nations to consummate the evil things 
 they had meditated. 
 
 Our debt to you is a debt to the Italian people 
 solely: without the opposition of the popular voice, 
 matters might have taken a very different turn. A 
 worthy friend of mine, writing to me from Italy, says, 
 " Our Government sides with Napoleon, but in the 
 presence of the unanimous feeling of the nation, which 
 openly threatened insurrection from one end of the 
 peninsula to the other, in case of an alliance with 
 France, the Government was unable to carry out its 
 wishes." 
 
 Every one knows how true this is. You have now 
 done for us what we did for you in 1859, but you 
 have done it better and with more success ; not that 
 you threw yourselves into the cause with more ardour 
 than we did, but because the weight of public opinion 
 has more effect in Italy than in Germany, our Go- 
 vernment being stronger, both for good and for evil. 
 But letting alone the question as to the how, the fact 
 remains that the good sense and good faith of the 
 Italian people frustrated this sinister alliance, and the 
 German nation thank them for it. 
 
 * The fire and rush of foot and horse. 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ITALY. 11 
 
 Ministers may come and go, and transitory as their 
 fame may be the recollection of their misdeeds, ful- 
 filled or unfulfilled, but peoples remain, — and the 
 faith these plight together augments the common 
 weal, and advances the world one step nearer to that 
 great union of the nations, when each and all will 
 desire nothing better than to live side by side in 
 mutual love and respect. 
 
 I will add a few words upon your relations, and 
 our own, with Prance. When I wrote my first letter, 
 this great war could scarcely be said to have begun, 
 now it is waxing to its close. I wrote my first 
 letter when the French nation was preparing to con- 
 quer, when ours was getting ready to resist ; now, 
 facts have spoken. 
 
 The confidence of our foes has suffered a terrible 
 disenchantment — terrible even to their enemies. A 
 discouragement has fallen upon them, springing as 
 much from their vanished dream of success as from 
 the reality of their present reverses. From bravado 
 to despair is but a leap, and these unfortunates have 
 a perilous facility for both these extremes. 
 
 But for us, in spite of our victorious successes, you 
 may be well assured that the thinking portion of our 
 community still see nothing in this war but a de- 
 plorable necessity, — and were it possible even now to 
 
 exchange it for a secure and lasting peace, they would 
 
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 most willingly do so. 
 
12 THEODORE MOMMSEN 
 
 If you want a thoughtfully-considered opinion upon 
 the French nation from a German point of view, I can 
 recommend to your notice an admirable publication 
 by one of our leading jurisconsults, Treitschke of 
 Heidelberg, ' On the Present State of France ;' you 
 will find it in the second series of his politico-historical 
 essays. There you will see the thesis proved, much 
 better than I could do it, that the ruin of France 
 must be a calamity for Europe. 
 
 We do not pass sentence upon the nation of 
 Moliere, of Voltaire, of Cuvier, of De Musset, and of 
 the gamins de Paris; we did not do so yesterday, 
 nor shall we do so to-day, whether it should present 
 itself before us in the form of an elegant article, 
 signed " Cassagnac, pere, fils et Cie.," or whether it 
 should come to us in person, via Weissemburg, in the 
 garb of the gentle Zouaves. 
 
 On the other hand, it is incontrovertible that we 
 
 have to deal not only with the battalions of Napoleon 
 
 the last, but with the French nation, — those very 
 
 men in France who most condemned the frivolous 
 
 pretext which was made the excuse for a declaration 
 
 of war against us, and who also foresaw the inevitable 
 
 issue, yet were wishing themselves for war in the same' 
 
 breath. I hold, and, if I mistake not, Germany holds 
 
 France in its entirety, responsible for this war. Yet 
 
 this does not make the French nation any the less a 
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TO THE PEOPLE OP ITALY. 13 
 
 European necessity, — France is still " La Grande 
 Nation/' though she would be greater if she made a 
 more temperate use of the well-merited epithet. 
 
 I am not a politician. The future of Europe, within 
 a little, rests in certain hands. I do not pretend to say 
 what they will do with it ; but this I can say, — Italians 
 will never be called upon to abandon their French 
 sympathies ; amongst ourselves there are many who 
 still cherish and glory in them, — many who will soon 
 resume them. 
 
 Could we only hit upon some method of inspiring 
 our neighbours with that quality in which, unhappily, 
 they are so deficient, — I mean the love of peace, and 
 the power of realizing the fact that liberty and equality 
 as principles are not exclusively reserved for the French 
 people, but are the common property of all nations, — 
 could we do this, no one again in Germany would think 
 any longer of a Vosgian frontier. 
 
 The constitution of our nation is essentially federal, 
 and as a consequence of this war, the federal principle 
 will assert itself more and more forcibly. It is true 
 that in this war our strength lay in the righteousness 
 of our cause, that right was might. We were con- 
 strained to defend ourselves, from this came our union, 
 and from union came victory. But we made ourselves 
 heroes with heavy hearts ; nor do we admire the pro- 
 spect of having to cull similar laurels every five years. 
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14 THEODOKE MOMMSEN 
 
 Such considerations as these, I think, will dictate a 
 peace. May God preserve us as much from Scylla as 
 from Charybdis, — from diplomatic cowardice, and from 
 the ambition of conquest. 
 
 II.— PEACE. 
 
 War seems ended. 
 
 And now, how are we to make the peace that will 
 conclude it — and for the sake of which so many brave 
 men have died — as lasting and happy as the war has 
 been brief and disastrous ? 
 
 To achieve this, our statesmen will have to surmount 
 difficulties as great in their kind as those which our 
 arms have so gloriously overcome. 
 
 Heaven grant that the same far-seeing judgment 
 which has blessed our Prussian strategy may attend 
 our policy ! 
 
 With good reason the world already proclaims Moltke 
 a great leader, it will be for another generation to judge 
 how far Bismarck was his equal. Posterity will de- 
 cide; meantime we must act, and to the best of our 
 ability make such a peace as shall be wisest for the 
 safety of Germany and the quiet of Europe. 
 
 But in doing this, let it be understood, we shall do it 
 alone. We shall suffer no intervention from those 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ITALY. 15 
 
 governments who have been simple lookers-on during 
 our tremendous struggle. We admit that all the great 
 Powers have a legitimate interest .in a peace which 
 affects the immediate future of Europe ; and as con- 
 querors, we hold it still to be our duty to respect these 
 interests, and the so-called European equilibrium, any 
 disturbance of which must be as hazardous to our 
 country as to any other. 
 
 But, single-handed we have been forced to fight out 
 this war, and to defend this equilibrium, threatened by 
 France armed and prepared to upset it, by the dismem- 
 berment of Prussia and the conquest of half Germany. 
 And now, single-handed we intend to provide for our 
 own tranquillity and the tranquillity of Europe. Amic- 
 able advice, coming from old friends, will be fairly 
 considered ; counsel which comes as a threat will have 
 the answer of Ems. 
 
 As regards the Cabinet of Florence, it might have 
 been co-operating with us in this great work. It has 
 not done so, and, at this hour, its interference would 
 meet with a rebuff, in place of the sympathy we lately 
 extended to it. 
 
 All the same, we can distinguish between an inimical 
 government and a friendly people, and the demonstra- 
 tions of the Italian nation in favour of our cause will 
 never be forgotten by us. You have shown that, 
 whilst generously compassionating the misfortunes of 
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16 THEODORE MOMMSEN 
 
 France, you are still alive to the injustice that violated 
 the sacred rights of a nation, and the criminal levity 
 with which war was declared upon us ; you are able to 
 discern that this war on the part of France is one of 
 aggression, on our side one of defence ; and you admit 
 the culpability of this aggressive attack of an autocracy 
 barely veiled by a rag of Parliamentary form, upon a 
 nation of freemen, who possess, in their national con- 
 stitution, the elements, at least, of the freedom of the 
 state and the liberty of the person. 
 
 In this crisis of affairs, I think we Germans owe a 
 duty to you Italians, since in all human probability we 
 shall dictate the terms of peace ; and you ought to be 
 satisfied as to our aspirations, and to have some assu- 
 rance that the national enthusiasm which has carried 
 us to our supreme position, will not degenerate into a 
 Napoleonic passion for conquest. 
 
 No doubt serious mistakes, with frightful conse- 
 quences, are possible ; but we shall not fall into these 
 errors, if the aspirations of our statesmen are regulated 
 by those of our people. Now what these last are I 
 know, and I will justify them to you. 
 
 Let us first consider a little the position of Germany 
 in respect of France. 
 
 My political memory serves me for a retrospect of 
 at least thirty years. Now I can prove that this 
 entire period has been filled with French intrigues, 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ITALY. 17 
 
 having for their object the seizure of the left bank of 
 the Rhine. 
 
 During the lapse of a whole generation, threats of 
 the war which has just burst out have not ceased to 
 ring in our ears ; and because at last M. de Gramont 
 comes upon the stage, and violates all the rules of the 
 scenic art in having the tragedy of war preceded by 
 his stupid farce of a declaration, — -because of this, the 
 whole crime of the tragedy, as well as the folly of the 
 farce, are alike to be saddled upon this poor puppet, 
 and his wire-puller Napoleon the Third ! 
 
 Ah ! indeed ! if this were but true ! Peace, then, 
 would soon and safely be made ! 
 
 Napoleon the Third is not guiltless ; he has to an- 
 swer for the gigantic proportions of this terrible war. 
 But for the war itself that is now raging between Ger- 
 mans and Frenchmen he is not answerable,- — such a 
 tremendous responsibility could not belong to one 
 man, were he ten times an autocrat. 
 
 We are to be excused if our German estimate of the 
 Emperor of the French is not quite so correct as the 
 aim we take at his soldiers with our needle-guns. 
 There are some that call him a Caligula; others, a 
 Nero ; others, a fool led by his wife,; and again some 
 describe him as a mediocrite meconnue, adopting the 
 witty mot of that brilliant but luckless Frenchman, 
 who, entangled in the nets of Imperial obliquity, saw, 
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18 THEODOKE MOMMSEN 
 
 when too late, the abyss that yawned beneath it, and 
 in a moment of despair made himself its first victim. 
 
 Without attempting to refute any of these charges, 
 we are compelled to admit, by the force of facts, that 
 in the remarkable compound which makes up the cha- 
 racter of the man who held so long the destinies of 
 Europe, there are qualities which can neither be con- 
 sidered criminal nor contemptible. 
 
 It is to the initiative of Napoleon the Third that 
 Prance owes the revolution of her commercial enter- 
 prise. To the same hand Italy is indebted for her 
 revival, — based, too, upon the soundest principles of 
 nationality. The benefit thus conferred was inestimable, 
 although it was hampered by unjustifiable reserva- 
 tions, and though it was forced by the genius and 
 virtue of the loyal and gifted Cavour. 
 
 But let us grant that the ostensible responsibility of 
 this miserable war rests with Napoleon the Third, I 
 can still prove that he entered upon it by the desire of 
 the French people. Those who know the French 
 nation best, and particularly the political and military [ 
 portion of it, know as well as I do that this war has 
 been hatching ever since the final overthrow of the 
 first Empire, and that since the reconstruction of Ger- 
 many, war has only been a question of time. I 
 entirely agree in the opinion held by many, that 
 the Emperor was averse, not to War, — Heaven knows j 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ITALY. 19 
 
 the Empire never meant Peace, — but to a war which, 
 if not successful, would jeopardize his dynasty. Among 
 us in Germany it was universally believed that a war 
 against us would be the inevitable result of a change in 
 the French government, whensoever that change came. 
 But how it came to pass, after years of his habitual in- 
 decision, that Napoleon, with reckless suddenness at 
 last, exchanged these warlike meditations for the horrid 
 reality, remains to be explained by the historians of 
 the future. I may suggest in passing, however, that it 
 is not improbable the prospect of a revolution at his 
 death tempted him to steal a march upon his possible 
 successors, and, that by re-baptizing his dynasty in 
 Prussian blood, as he expressed it, he hoped to give it 
 its best chance of stability. Thus he sought to com- 
 bine the parts of a good Father and a good French- 
 'man! 
 
 i It is certain that, unlike his Mexican war, or even 
 i his Italian campaign, — both of which were unpopular, 
 i — Napoleon, in the present war, had the popular voice 
 i with him ; — not only with him, but urging him with 
 i such a force that, at all hazards, he was induced to 
 J venture upon it. 
 
 It is certain also that the majority of Frenchmen, of 
 
 'all shades of politics, have held together on one point, 
 
 'viz. the wish to get possession of one of our most 
 
 sfertile provinces, as rich as any in Germany, abounding 
 
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20 THEODORE MOMMSEN 
 
 in coal-mines, and remarkable for the industry and 
 commercial talent of its inhabitants ; two things, how- 
 ever, always conspicuously absent in it, — a native 
 Frenchman and a French party. 
 
 Now, then, after we have repulsed these aggres- 
 sors, after fifty thousand of our bravest hearts have 
 sealed the safety of our frontiers with their blood, we 
 have to settle our account for all this, not with the 
 French Emperor, but with the French nation. 
 
 We will not consider now the probable expenses of 
 this war, large enough necessarily, and greatly in- 
 creased by the indispensable indemnifications due to 
 those unfortunate Germans who, relying on French 
 hospitality, were basely betrayed, though an equal 
 number of Frenchmen remained undisturbed in their 
 safe quarters in Germany ; increased also by the claims 
 made by the proprietors of unarmed vessels, as yet the 
 only war trophies of the boasted French navy. And 
 we must not forget also the just compensation that 
 must be made for the unjust attack upon Kehl, an 
 open city, barbarously bombarded by Strasburg balls. 
 
 This is a large bill, but it is only a part of our 
 reckoning. We ask something more than money. 
 We claim territory ; not French territory, but German. 
 
 The German nation, in point of its frontiers, is in an 
 analogous position to the Italian. Our neighbours for 
 centuries have gone on enlarging their boundaries at 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ITALY. 21 
 
 our expense. "We know it, and feel it, and cannot 
 forget it. At length the tables were turned; like 
 you, we got rid of a number of worse than useless 
 dynasties, and gave, by this means, strength and dig- 
 nity to the central power. 
 
 Some knaves and fools chose to call my native soil, 
 the Baltic duchies, a Danish ■province; but we Hol- 
 steiners will not and never did call ourselves Danes ; 
 and Germany, at last, has liberated us from our forei gn 
 yoke, just as Italy has liberated Lombardy and Venetia. 
 
 But we halt there. We might go further, and with 
 justice; but the risk to the national independence 
 would be too great, and the means a disproportionate 
 sacrifice to the end. Millions of Germans people 
 Austria, Eussia, France, and Switzerland. Trent is 
 an Italian country ; Istria, once Sclavonic, is now vir- 
 tually Italian ; Corsica obeys France ; so does Nice, 
 the ransom of Italian freedom. But since these things 
 are so, though Italians and Germans may deplore their 
 ancient losses, yet they should now, as good patriots, 
 resign themselves to the inevitable. 
 
 Melancholy indeed is the old story of German dis- 
 union. Melancholy, too, is the tale of our neighbours 
 appropriating Lorraine first, then Alsace. As we. read, 
 our indignation boils against the weak wretches who 
 could not defend their own, even more than against 
 the treachery and violence of their despoilers. Bitter 
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22 THEODOBE MOMMSEN 
 
 indeed it was to listen to the well-loved German 
 tongue in the border-lands of France. Bitter in- 
 deed to see a French flag waving over that master- 
 piece of German work, Strasburg Cathedral. When 
 the German student, in the German University of 
 Strasburg, read the sweet story of Goethe's love, — 
 that exquisite idyl of Sesenheim, the dear Alsatian 
 village, — he shut the volume, and asked his heart 
 what manner of men his forefathers could have been, 
 who abandoned to the foreigner this sacred field of the 
 German muse, — to men who cared neither for its buds 
 nor for its blossom, whose whole aim was to extirpate 
 German manners, German religion, and our German 
 tongue. 
 
 I do not praise you Italians for what you are doing 
 in Trent and Trieste at this moment ; and I appeal to ; 
 the history of Germany for the last fifty years as aji 
 witness that we, on our part, have not attempted to! 
 do the like. Not even the French themselves have 
 been able to bring this charge against us, that we had 
 ever opposed in any way the peculiar proceedings by 
 which they tried to spread their civilization. 
 
 We let all this pass ; and why ? We knew then 
 what we know now, that the risk was greater than 
 the gain, the undertaking not worth the cost. 
 
 We cannot see with satisfaction the conduct oi 
 Russia in Livonia, but ask the Germans of Riga, of 
 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ITALY. 23 
 
 Dorpat, if we have aided them in resisting the attacks 
 made upon our nationality in those quarters. We 
 have not even given them the empty comfort of idle 
 promises or foolish sympathy. The days of the Cru- 
 sades are over ; honest patriotism repudiates Quixotic 
 foUy. 
 
 All that we have desired has been to live in peace 
 and quietness with our neighbours. To do this, there 
 must be self-denial and self-control, and mutual con- 
 sideration. If Prance also had been of this pacific 
 mind, our admirers of the Strasburg Minster would 
 have sighed, and pilgrims to pretty Sesenheim would 
 have wept ; bnt the armies of Germany would never 
 have followed on their track to take back these con- 
 secrated spots, sacred to our art and our literature. 
 
 But now these things are changed ! 
 
 Italians ! say, if Austria had claimed Milan once 
 again from you, — if she strove to restore the Bour- 
 bons, and to bring back the Bste, — and if, in your 
 self-defence, you bore your banners dyed with the 
 blood of your heroes, even to the gates of her Vienna, 
 — if it was for her to sue for peace, and yours to make 
 it, — say, how long, think you, would Trent and Trieste 
 belong to Austria ? 
 
 And wise as your counsellors now are, who say to 
 you, " Confine yourselves within your present limits," 
 do you think then that one of them would be coward 
 
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24 THEODORE MOMMSEN 
 
 enough to affect generosity, and counsel a shameful 
 and derogatory peace ? 
 
 The feeble policy of our forefathers betrayed our 
 land, our faith, and our language. They left us this 
 burden, and we have borne it as best we could; 
 but now, when the fortune of war, not of our own 
 seeking, has given us back our own, were we in our 
 turn to act the same cowardly part, we should not 
 even have the plea of non possumus to excuse us to 
 the generations that are to come after us. 
 
 Our nation is unanimous in this — not conquest, but 
 restoration; and Italians who claim justice even for 
 men who are not of the Latin race, will praise, and 
 not blame, a necessary and well-merited act of politi- 
 cal justice. 
 
 The population of Alsace is purely German, if we 
 except a few valleys in the Vosges, which are French.* 
 
 One of our most conscientious political economists 
 calculated, before this war, that but a seventh part of 
 the Alsatians understand French; and again, but a 
 small part of these use this language in domestic life. 
 The country people and peasants universally speak 
 nothing but German. 
 
 How significant was the case of the unlucky French 
 
 * They amount statistically to 20 communes, with 30,000 in- 
 habitants. The remaining 917 communes, with 1,035,102 in- 
 habitants, speak German to thiB day. 
 
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TO THE PEOPLE OP ITALY. 25 
 
 correspondent after the battle of Woerth, who, limited 
 like a true Frenchman to his mother-tongue, was wan- 
 dering about in his belle France, to find an interpre- 
 ter who should explain his wants to the peasants of 
 Alsace ! 
 
 Even those French who migrate from elsewhere 
 into these parts soon assimilate themselves, and 
 become extensively Germanized. French is the en- 
 forced medium of instruction in the primary schools 
 now ; and the single result of this has been, that the 
 efficiency of these schools is no longer what it was. 
 Formerly, the standard of popular instruction here 
 was higher than in any other part of France ; now it 
 has greatly fallen, and it continues to do so every 
 year. 
 
 It was well said by a worthy ecclesiastic that the 
 war waged by the French Government upon the 
 German language was a war against the religion, the 
 morality, and the well-being of the country. 
 
 Here in these valleys you hear our songs and our 
 legends ; and our literature has^formed here a nucleus 
 of oppositionagainstJParis, in revenge for which the 
 Parisian makes the fool in his comedy invariably an 
 Alsatian. 
 
 Alsace escaped that blow which undermined the 
 strong life of France, — I mean the extirpation of the 
 (Huguenots. In this ill-advised persecution we may 
 
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26 THEODORE MOMMSEN 
 
 see the primary cause of the decline of the French 
 nation, just as a rampant Jesuitism ruined Austria. 
 
 A third of Alsace has remained Protestant, providing 
 a backbone of independent thought, and opening an 
 escape from that subjection which we have seen lately 
 leading up by arguments more logical than admirable 
 to that ridiculous monstrosity, the Infallibility of the 
 Pope. 
 
 In Protestant Alsace, we see to this day a liberal 
 and flourishing theology, maintaining the most intimate 
 relations with our German theologians, and maintaining 
 these in spite of the obstacles offered by the Govern- 
 ment, in insisting that the courses shall be delivered 
 in the French language. It was only very lately that 
 the Strasburg Professors were lamenting to me that 
 they were thus compelled to abandon the use of Ger- 
 man in the schools. 
 
 I will tell you what a Protestant minister did at the 
 beginning of this war. His charge was a large village 
 near to Strasburg. Going up into the pulpit with the 
 keys of the church in his hands, he said to the people 
 assembled before him, " I cannot with a good con- 
 science pray to God to give France the victory." 
 Then laying down the keys, he gave up his chargey 
 and departed from the place, and crossed the border) 
 into Germany. Now he follows a Bavarian regiment] 
 in the character of army chaplain. 
 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ITALY. 27 
 
 Such, facts as these have a grave significance; in 
 France especially, where whatever any one may think, 
 few have the temerity to dare to express a doubt as to 
 the glories of the great nation, or the advantages of 
 her language, par excellence the language of civiliza- 
 tion. 
 
 Now, what I have said of Alsace is equally true of 
 German Lorraine, that Allemagne, as it was called, 
 which until 1751 conducted all its official affairs in 
 German, and still preserves this language in its private 
 fife. German Lorraine includes part of the depart- 
 ment east of the Meurthe and the Moselle and the 
 cantons of Saar. By the account of the French Minister 
 of Instruction, made out in 1865, in 76 communes of 
 the department of the Meurthe out of 46,508 inhabi- 
 tants, only 6870 could speak the French language; 
 whilst amongst those who attended the schools, in 
 number 6800, 2400 only could be said to speak it 
 correctly. 
 
 This does not say much for progress under a strong 
 government; but nature is also strong ! — as those 
 young peasants proved, — soon forgetting their school- 
 ing in this precious French, and returning in full 
 force to their native barbarisms ! Tamen usque re- 
 curret ! 
 
 The city and canton of Thionville — Diedenhofen we 
 call it — are completely German. In this same quarter, 
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28 THEODOBE MOMMSEN 
 
 on the confines of Luxemburg, some years ago a whole 
 village, with the priests at their head, went up to the 
 Mairie to protest against the forcible imposition of the 
 French language. The affair came before the Senate 
 in Paris ; how it all ended I forget, but, doubtless, 
 for one thing, in the decoration of the Maire. 
 
 I do not, by what I have cited, mean to prove that 
 in these subjected provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, 
 France has no friends, and Germany no foes. 
 
 France strong, powerful, and united, full of arts and 
 industries, has been in a position to look down upon a 
 divided, backward, enfeebled nation such as ours. The 
 French Revolution, the wars of the first Empire, the 
 great industrial movements, all more or less converg- 
 ing and springing from France, all gave a prestige to 
 this position. And it is the truth too, and not much 
 perhaps to our credit, that the German adapts himself 
 readily to foreign influences. The desperate obstinacy 
 of the Italian under the yoke of the stranger is not one 
 of 'our strong points. And even you Italians have expe- 
 rienced the beguiling effects of French wit and polish 
 upon weak heads and shallow minds. 
 
 Beyond this, in Alsace, we meet an enemy common 
 to all the world : I mean Catholicism — not the Catho- 
 licism of the Strossmayers and of Wessemberg, buti 
 that genuine article redolent of the Vatican, which, If 
 am proud to say, holds Prussia in especial detestation, f\ 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ITALY. 29 
 
 — that style of Catholicism which incited the benighted 
 peasants under its control, to hunt down and murder 
 our wounded soldiers at Woerth. 
 
 Just and necessary as the restitution now has come to 
 be, yet it will not be consummated without many diffi- 
 culties, many heart-burnings, and many dangers ; for 
 the wounds of centuries cannot be healed in a day. 
 A sacre d obliga tion jmpels_us_onward in this matter ; - 
 but for this we would willingly, even at this moment, 
 forego these fruits of our victories, only too glad to 
 renounce these countries whose possession for many a 
 year to come must give us work to do rather than any- 
 thing like solid advantage. 
 
 And after all this, there still remains the important 
 question of the new frontier lines. Let France keep 
 her French territory intact, whether always hers, or 
 not, we will not ask ; we desire no conquests, we want 
 what is our own, neither more nor less. — But what is 
 our own ? 
 
 Tou may determine the height of a mountain and 
 the course of a river, but with what precision can you 
 arrange a national boundary ? 
 
 I have wandered about the slopes of the Mediterra- 
 nean, Istria, and the Alpine valleys of the Trent; every- 
 where you find yourself in a debatable land, belonging 
 to both or to neither of the neighbouring countries. 
 To fix a territorial boundary involves so many points, 
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30 THEODOEE MOMMSEN 
 
 the interests of commerce, the relations of trade, old 
 district combinations, customs and taxes and dues, 
 and perhaps the most important of all, strategic 
 considerations. In our case now these last will, of 
 course, stand first, though the value of a natural bar- 
 rier is not what it was, nor are bristling fortresses 
 along the frontiers much impediment to invasion. 
 II Great rivers, being great highways, should in all 
 /' reason be national property, not national boundaries ; 
 we have seen the result of the divided dominion of 
 the Ehine, — never ending, and ever renewing, contests 
 and disputes. Day by day the French remind each 
 other, with savage joy, that the town of Kehl lies at 
 the mercy of the cannons of Strasburg. On the side 
 of France, too, there is the great entrenched camp of 
 Metz, to which Germany can offer nothing similar. 
 The sole object for which it was made was to support 
 the meditated invasion of the last thirty years, and it is 
 neither more nor less than a constant menace from 
 France to Germany. 
 
 Metz, too, was once German ; it is French now, we 
 grant it, though many Germans demand Metz all the 
 same, — not by right of nationality, but to make our 
 frontiers secure. But in possessing ourselves of Metz 
 there will be a difficulty, as every one will see, in takingl; 
 a French province, however small, ruled by French| 
 laws and sentiments, and making it German; and 
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TO THE PEOPLE OP ITALY. 31 
 
 public opinion when it classes Metz with Alsace and 
 German Lorraine, I think makes a mistake. But as 
 every newspaper reader believes himself to be a 
 general, so everybody thinks himself qualified to have 
 a judgment in these matters. For my part, I think it 
 our duty to leave these grave particulars undiscussed, 
 relying upon those able hands which hold the destinies 
 of the two nations. But I repeat it, the nation is 
 unanimous only for having back the countries which 
 actually belong to us by their language and customs ; 
 it does not wish that our reclamation should degene- 
 rate into conquest. 
 
 And has Europe any just cause for uneasiness be- 
 cause we claim back what was once our own ? 
 
 Doubtless there are men so timorous that they might 
 as well wear petticoats as pantaloons, and there are 
 easy-going politicians who will counsel us to remember 
 the dangers of the future, and to beware how we exas- 
 perate the French. 
 
 But of what avail is such a consideration as this ? 
 Have the days of Woerth and Metz increased the 
 friendship of the French for us ? are not the inevi- 
 table consequences of this war sad memories and slum- 
 bering hatred, primed to explode at any moment ? and 
 does not this tremendous war contain the germs of 
 another, possibly still more gigantic ? 
 i But how was this to be avoided on our part ? God 
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32 THEODORE MOMMSEN 
 
 knows as long as there was a chance of averting this 
 calamitous breach, I laboured, in my small way, to 
 effect it ; and I did this with an honest regard for the 
 great and amiable qualities of the French nation, and 
 out of a true affection towards the many good friends 
 I had found in it. 
 
 And now what can we do ? can we put things back 
 to the state when Waterloo was beginning to be for- 
 gotten, and when Rezonville was not foreseen ? Can 
 we heal the wounded pride, the mortified vanity 
 which defeat at all points at our hands has inflicted 
 on our foes ? Those who know the meaning of French 
 pride and vanity will understand, as I do, that no con- 
 ditions of peace can intensify the hatred roused to its 
 height by utter defeat. What a commentary on the 
 pride and vanity of this great nation is its dreamt- 
 for revenge for Sadowa ! Even our independent vic- 
 tory over the Austrians was received by France as a 
 mortal insult. 
 
 With all this before our eyes, can any one be mad 
 enough to suppose that France can be conciliated by 
 any peace of any kind ? 
 
 Again, I ask, were we to claim back Alsace and* 
 German Lorraine, would Europe and the great Powersp 
 have any just cause for uneasiness ? 
 
 If this were a matter of conquest, the case mighl 
 reasonably alarm the nations, for every conquest is 
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TO THE PEOPLE OP ITALY. 33 
 
 crime against the rights of nations,— to trample upon 
 one nation is to offend all ; but I have shown and proved 
 that this is not a question of conquest. 
 , But I fancy another consideration occupies some 
 Italian minds. Europe is settling, we hope, firmly and 
 happily upon the principle of the unification of the 
 great nations, maintained and balanced by the system 
 of political equilibrium. If we infringe upon this 
 system, all its members suffer. Fraternity amongst 
 nations, as well as men, requires a certain equality. 
 Will it then be an infringement upon this equilibrium 
 if these French provinces, with a German nationality, 
 belong again politically to Germany ? I think not. 
 
 Those who are against us, complain that Prussia is 
 the first military Power in Europe, and as to the ' Per- 
 severanza/ if it could have its way, it would persuade 
 us to restore this equilibrium which it is so alarmed 
 lest we should disturb, by giving to those poor French 
 the whole of the left bank of the Rhine ! What a fine 
 thing is disinterested advice ! But granting that we 
 are the first military Power in Europe, why should 
 that destroy the European equilibrium ? Have not 
 France and Russia, both in turns, enjoyed the name of 
 this supremacy ? It is a pity we cannot have these 
 times back again ! Then, perhaps, the ' Perseveranza 5 
 would think it safe to obtain for us Alsace in the shape 
 of a generous gift. Now, alas ! it will cost us dear ! 
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34 THEODOKE MOMMSEN 
 
 When the invincibility of the French army was as 
 
 much an article of faith at Milan and Vienna as in the 
 
 Bois de Boulogne (though Berlin scepticism never 
 
 quite accepted it), where was the equilibrium then ? 
 
 I In fact, such an equilibrium as this never has existed, 
 
 | and never can ; it is a dream, on a par with the equal 
 
 I division of worldly goods amongst all men. We must 
 
 |/ admit that tbe Prussian army is stronger than the 
 
 Italian ; does it follow, then, that if we attempted 
 
 the conquest of the Peninsula, we should succeed ? 
 
 Morally and materially, a nation's greatest strength 
 
 is for defence, and not for attack, especially in the 
 
 long run. Decidedly, we should issue from any such 
 
 enterprise with loss of honour, and with no advantage. 
 
 Thank Heaven we are not as yet the dictators of 
 
 Europe ! Nero I. and Napoleon I. sent a mandate, 
 
 and changed a neighbouring state into a dependent 
 
 province ; but if any such decree were signed by 
 
 Bismarck, where would it be respected ? 
 
 Yet more, how could two provinces of the size of 
 Alsace and German Lorraine, taken from France and 
 given back to Germany — let us say to Prussia — upset 
 the balance between the great Powers ? The transi- 
 tion for a long time must be anything but remunera- 
 tive to us. But supposing the time when they shall 
 have settled down as good Germans again, like the 
 
 rest of the inhabitants of the Rhenish provinces, what 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ITALY. 35 
 
 will the figures of the case show ? Only 1,200,000 
 more Prussians, and just so many less Frenchmen. 
 The two departments of Savoy and Nice contain two- 
 thirds of this number. Prance, therefore, in 1860, 
 besides violating that generosity which forbids you to 
 exact payment for benefits conferred, committed also 
 the serious wrong of upsetting the equilibrium of 
 Europe ? Had we not better restore the old equili- 
 brium by taking from her Alsace and Lorraine ? 
 
 Let me speak seriously again. France, I am the 
 first to own it, is a European necessity. She must not, 
 and cannot, be ruined. But a dismemberment that 
 leaves her safe frontiers and thirty-six millions of 
 people is not ruin. 
 
 A sound judge will understand that if the military 
 preponderance of Prussia were much greater than it is 
 (and a great deal at present in its strength is personal, 
 for we cannot always reckon upon a Moltke to lead us, 
 or a Lebceuf to confront us), it still accords better than 
 any other with the independence of other nations. 
 
 Our policy is defensive, not because of chance cir- 
 cumstances, nor from the peaceful character of the 
 people, though that tells powerfully, but from the 
 fundamental constitution of Prussia, so ingrafted in 
 her policy that neither people nor government can 
 change it. 
 
 Again, our policy is defensive, because we have no 
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36 THEODORE MOHMSEN 
 
 profit in victory. As Germans, as Liberals, and as Pro- 
 testants, we reject that Austrian dream of seventy 
 millions of people, no longer united Germans, but a 
 mixture of many peoples, capable only of being ruled 
 by an autocracy, and Catholic more than Protestant. 
 Such acquisitions would be a calamity every way, 
 both to conquerors and conquered. We are even now 
 learning this lesson. However victorious we may be, 
 what must be the fruits of this war ? The loss of the 
 flower of our manhood ; lasting enmity with France ; 
 new perils for the future ; as much within as without. 
 Wise and patriotic was the peaceful policy of Bis- 
 marck which sacrificed something of our victories in 
 1866; and allowed Luxemburg to be dismantled, and 
 has, to preserve peace, kept at bay for a few years the 
 Commissioners of the grand scheme for the remodel- 
 ling of Europe, although our Generals, like their con- 
 freres in Paris, did not cease to assure him that they 
 were more than ready ! and that there was nothing to 
 fear. No — defeat we had not to fear, — but peace was 
 worth more than many victories. 
 
 Again, our policy is necessarily defensive, because 
 by the working of our military system, we feel the 
 penalties of war more profoundly than other nations. 
 In Prance the upper classes contribute but a small 
 portion of the officers of the army. With us, war 
 
 means the whole nation in arms, from the highest to 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ITALY. 37 
 
 the lowest. So in proportion we are stronger ; but 
 we also suffer more. It is in vain to tell me that one 
 man's life is worth as much as another's. The death 
 of a great merchant ; of a rising professor, the idol of 
 his classes ; of a promising politician, in whom the 
 future statesman may be predicted, — the loss of such 
 men as these leaves a more irreparable void than the 
 death of a private individual who lived only for his 
 own family. Testis sum. Would to God that I were 
 not telling you the truth ! Every letter I open brings 
 me the tidings of some valuable life cut short — some 
 friend wounded — some well-known head laid low. I 
 have not the heart to go on. 
 
 Many a time, and truly, Prussia has been reproached 
 for her pusillanimous policy. Few have guessed how 
 much of that policy is due to the terrible responsibility 
 of sending such an army as hers into the field. Yes, 
 my friends, the Prussian sword is very powerful ; but 
 it is powerful for defence only. The nation must feel 
 that it stands face to face with an unalterable necessity 
 to make it raise its arm with full effect. He who would 
 abuse this sword, would break it. 
 
 In the last place, our policy is necessarily pacific, 
 because of the federal system of our political ma- 
 chinery. Our federation is distinct from that of Swit- 
 zerland or the United States ; jt is adapted to the re- 
 quirements of a State that is neither small nor isolated. 
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38 THEODOEB MOMMSEN 
 
 The war of 1866 settled the nucleus of the German 
 nation ; this war will seal its federation. 
 
 There was a doubt in 1866 still, whether in its pro- 
 cess of unification the nation would take the line of 
 centralization or federalism. This to many did not 
 seem a vital question in the face of a great war, full of 
 difficulties and laden with risks ; but now this doubt 
 is decided. The faithful and patriotic help given to us 
 by the whole population of Germany, and by the most 
 important Governments, such particularly as Baden, 
 Saxony, and Bavaria, proves to us beyond a doubt, 
 and beyond a fear, that the federal system suffices for 
 all our aims. It is probable that our national vigour 
 will gain force ; but it is also certain that the existence 
 of the secondary States, their sovereigns, and their 
 representatives, will have a surer guarantee for the 
 future than before this war took place. 
 
 I beg outsiders, and especially Signor Mammiani, to 
 weigh well the consequences of this war. Those who 
 see in the unification of the great German nation a 
 perpetual menace to the rest of the world, are called 
 upon to observe that the political co-operation of the 
 secondary States forms the soundest check upon Prus- 
 sian usurpations. We form a most powerful combi- 
 nation against invasion ; but, thank God, we cannot 
 dispose of the Saxons and the Bavarians after the 
 manner of Napoleon the First when he invaded Eussia. 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ITALY. 39 
 
 I have here set before you the political position 
 which we hold in relation to France and to Europe. 
 Italy is the natural ally of Germany; like us, she 
 has cast off the fetters of internal disunion, and the 
 yoke of the Austrian ; we have common interests and 
 common aspirations, and now more than ever, we 
 should live in close alliance. 
 
 Perhaps it was but right and honourable that the 
 Italian Government should not avail itself of the present 
 opportunity of taking from France the Italian territory 
 she enjoys, but if it does not make an end of the 
 Roman question now, I shall think it is patient and 
 resigned beyond all allowable limits. Signor Terenzio 
 Mammiani, in the letter he favoured me with,* seemed 
 to think that Germany would oppose this movement. 
 I am happy to say that he will certainly be mistaken, 
 provided no misunderstanding turns up. 
 
 I thoroughly disapprove of the policy of our Go- 
 vernment in religious matters. Our minister of public 
 instruction — a colleague of Bismarck by the law of 
 contrasts it must be — will no doubt shed a tear when 
 he hears of the failure of the firm of the Infallibilists. 
 But the Florentine Government should know better 
 than to be asking about here and there for permission 
 to take possession of the Pontifical States. Of course, 
 
 * I have only seen this letter in our newspaper translations ; 
 if they misstate his meaning, the author must excuse me. 
 
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40 ■ THEODORE MOMMSEN. 
 
 if they do this, they will be told to keep quiet. But if 
 they act and don't talk, our Government will say no- 
 thing, and our nation will applaud. 
 
 Beyond this, I do not see that we can go. Mam- 
 miani would like us to join in the solemn declaration 
 that the last Council was not Ecumenical. As for me, 
 I must be excused here. I would do it with all my 
 heart, if it was not necessary to become a Catholic 
 first ; but this, I own, would not at all suit me. 
 
 The attitude of the German Catholics at and after 
 the Council was, to my mind, an improvement upon 
 that of the Italian Catholics; the former certainly 
 made the nearest approach to a serious opposition that 
 was possible in a party professing unanimously to 
 substitute the principle of obedience for that of free 
 will. I believe I express the sentiments of all 
 sensible Germans, whether Protestant or Catholic, when 
 I say that it does not become Italy to declare war 
 against the Papacy. She should rather support this, 
 her greatest political institution ; and the Papacy 
 should and could exist without the temporal power, 
 which really degrades it, by making the first Bishop 
 in the world the last of its Kings. 
 
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41 
 
 D. F. STEAUSS 
 
 TO THE PEOPLE OP FRANCE. 
 
 Letter to Eknest Renan.* 
 
 August 18th, 1870. 
 
 Dear Sir, — Your friendly acceptance of my work 
 on Voltaire, conveyed to me in your letter of the 
 30th ult., was a great comfort to me. The book met 
 with a generally favourable reception in Germany, 
 during the few weeks vouchsafed to it from its first 
 appearance to the breaking out of the war; but I had 
 never concealed from myself the difficulties a foreigner 
 has to cope with in trying to do justice to a man of 
 another nation, especially if that man must be called 
 the very embodiment of the foreign nationality. I 
 awaited, therefore, with some uneasiness the, judg- 
 ments of the leaders of opinion among Voltaire's 
 countrymen. That yours has turned out in favour of 
 my work, makes me right glad ; at all events the 
 truthfulness which you concede to it has been my sole 
 endeavour. 
 
 * Keprinted from the ' Daily News.' 
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42 D. F. STRAUSS 
 
 But who can take pleasure in a literary work, and 
 especially a work for international peace, as my 'Life 
 of Voltaire' was intended to be, at a moment when 
 the two nations to whose union it was meant to con- 
 tribute stand in arms against one another? Rightly 
 do you say that this war must cause the deepest dis- 
 tress to all those who have striven for the intellectual 
 association of France and Germany; rightly do you 
 describe it as a calamity that now again for a long 
 time to come injustice and uncharitable judgment will 
 be the order of the day between the two members of 
 the European family whose sympathy is so indispen- 
 sable to the work of moral civilization ; rightly do you 
 declare it to be the duty of every friend of truth and 
 justice, at the same time that he unreservedly fulfils 
 his national duty, to preserve himself free from that 
 patriotism which is only party spirit — which narrows 
 the heart and perverts the judgment. 
 
 Tou say that you had hoped that the war might 
 still have been stayed. We Germans had the same 
 hope in every case since 1866 when war seemed to 
 threaten ; yet in general we have held a war with 
 France as a consequence of the events of that 
 year to be inevitable, — so inevitable, that here and 
 there one heard the question asked with dissatisfac- 
 tion, " Why did not Prussia declare war sooner, for 
 instance on occasion of the Luxemburg affair, and so 
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TO THE PEOPLE OP FRANCE. 43 
 
 bring things to an issue V Not that we wished for 
 war j but we knew the French well enough to know 
 that they would wish for war. It is now as it was 
 with the Seven Tears' War, the consequence of the 
 Silesian conquests of Frederick the Great. Frederick 
 did not desire that war, but he knew that Maria The- 
 resa desired it, and would not rest till she had found 
 confederates. An established ascendancy is not readily 
 renounced either by a monarch or a people. They will 
 make efforts to preserve it until it is decisively taken 
 from them. So was it with Austria, so is it now with 
 France : both of them against Prussia, by whose side 
 the whole of non- Austrian Germany, better instructed, 
 is this time standing. 
 
 Since the epoch of Eichelieu and Louis XIV. France 
 has been accustomed to play the first role among Euro- 
 pean nations, and in this claim she was strengthened 
 by Napoleon I. The claim was based on her strong 
 politico-military organization, and still more on the 
 classical literature which in the course of the seven- 
 teenth and eighteenth centuries had grown up in 
 France, and made her language and her culture su- 
 preme in the world. But the immediate condition of 
 this supremacy of France was the weakness of Ger- 
 many; over against France united, unanimous, and 
 quick to move, Germany stood divided, discordant, 
 and unwieldy. Yet, every nation has its time, and, if 
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44 D. F. STRAUSS 
 
 it is of the right sort, not one time alone. Germany 
 had had its time in the sixteenth century, in the ago 
 of the Eeformation. It had paid dearly for this pre- 
 eminence in the convulsions of a thirty years' war, 
 which threw it back, not only into political feebleness, 
 but into intellectual stagnation. Yet things were far 
 from having come to an end with it. It saw its time 
 again. It began its wbrk where Prance had fixed 
 the roots, not indeed of its power, but of its true 
 right to European ascendancy. It fashioned itself 
 in silence ; it produced a literature ; it gave to the 
 world a succession of poets and thinkers, who took 
 their place by the side of the French classics of the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as something 
 more than equals. If in finish of cosmopolitan under- 
 standing and cultivation, in clearness and elegance, 
 they fell short of the French, in depth of thought as 
 much as in strength of feeling they surpassed them. 
 The idea of humanity, of the harmonious cultivation of 
 human nature in individual as in common life, was 
 developed in German literature in the last twenty-five 
 years of the eighteenth and the first twenty-five years 
 of the nineteenth century. . 
 
 The result of this was that Germany won the intel- 
 lectual leadership of Europe, while France still main- 
 tained its political ascendancy, though latterly in hard 
 struggle with England. But the literary outburst of . 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF FRANCE. 45 
 
 Germany was either fruitless bloom, or it was destined 
 to be followed, by political regeneration. In the time 
 of Napoleon, France had laid Germany prostrate before 
 her ; the yoke was thrown off in the war of liberation 
 of 1813-14. But the ground of our powerlessness, 
 the want of political unity, was not removed ; on the 
 contrary, if the German empire had long been nothing 
 but a shadow, now even the shadow had vanished. 
 Germany had become a motley aggregate of greater 
 and smaller independent States. This independence 
 itself may have been a mere show, but it was yet real 
 enough to make all energetic action of the whole body 
 impossible ; while, on the other hand, the " Bundestag" 
 which had to represent the unity, made its existence 
 discernible in nothing but the repression of all free 
 movement in the individual States. If France was 
 again taken with' the humour to aggrandize itself at our 
 cost, it was not Germany, but Bussia and England, that 
 had to restrain it. This was keenly felt in Germany. 
 It was felt, by the men who had fought in the Libera- 
 tion War, who, during the dismal years of reaction, 
 saw quite another seed spring up than that which they 
 were conscious of having sown; it was felt by the 
 young men who had grown up in the thoughts and 
 the songs of these wars. Thus it was that strivings 
 after unity during the succeeding time had something 
 very youthful, immature, and romantic about them. 
 
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46 D. P. STEATJSS 
 
 The German idea haunted them as a familiar — as the 
 Ghost of the Old Emperor. That the Governments 
 of the time attached so great importance to the stu- 
 dents' clubs and democratic machinations, as they were 
 called, only showed how bad their conscience was. 
 
 The storm of your July Revolution cleared our at- 
 mosphere to some degree, without carrying us essen- 
 tially forward. There was now too much attention paid 
 to a nation differently constituted; for every people 
 first of all must look to its own work, to its own nature 
 and history. In the Chambers of our smaller States there 
 was life enough ; many robust forces were aroused, but 
 the narrow range of their activity made their horizon 
 equally narrow. As Prussia and Austria remained 
 closed to constitutional life, and held together in oppos- 
 ing its spread in the smaller States, in these latter 
 hostility to the Bundestag, the pitiful remnant of Ger- 
 man unity, passed for patriotism. Indeed, it could 
 not long be concealed that nothing could come of 
 spirited speeches in the small States, so long as their 
 Governments could fall back upon the Bundestag, — 
 that is, upon the two absolute leading States. Thoughts 
 of a representation of the people in the Bund were 
 floating; in Prussia a hopeful, if imperfect step was 
 being taken in the meeting of the united " Landtag," 
 when for the second time an impulse from your coun- 
 try — the February Revolution — struck into the course 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF FRANCE. 47 
 
 of German development. These French influences 
 were dangerous for us only so long as they found us 
 weak. In proportion as we .gained internal strength 
 they became more and more desirable; so that this 
 last, which was thought to be most unfortunate for us, 
 is to-day bringing to our view more auspicious conse- 
 quences than all earlier ones. The impulse of 1848 
 came upon us at a moment when in each of the Ger- 
 man States men had come to be convinced of the fruit- 
 lessness of all separate strivings for freedom and popu- 
 lar well-being, and at one stroke it forced the idea of 
 German unity to the surface. In the German Parlia- 
 ment, elected by the general vote, this thought gained 
 for the first time a political organ, before whose moral 
 authority all existing individual powers had for some 
 time to fall into the background. But if, during the 
 twenty years of reaction, the idea of German unity had 
 had its life principally among our students, then the 
 scoffers might say that in 1848 it had passed to 
 the professors, — and so far at least with truth, as in 
 every educated German, according to the common ex- 
 pression, there is something of a professor. Enough ; 
 the thing was set going very thoroughly in theory, 
 but also very unpractically. In fencing about prin- 
 ciples of right, and debating over paragraphs of the 
 constitution, invaluable time was lost, till, unobserved, 
 the actual Powers had regained their strength, and the 
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48 D. F. STBAUSS 
 
 ideal fabric of a new Germany dissolved like a castle in 
 
 the clouds. 
 
 From such any heights the German imperial throne 
 
 had been offered to a Prince who, although in other 
 
 respects a man of the clouds, had yet so much true 
 
 insight that he could neither believe himself to be 
 
 the right man for the crown nor the crown itself to 
 
 be a possibility. The attempts which he then made 
 
 to appropriate some part of what had been offered 
 
 to him ended even more pitifully than the attempt 
 
 of the German people to constitute itself anew. In 
 
 the course of these struggles the dualism of Austria 
 
 and Prussia had more and more brought itself before 
 
 men's eyes as the essential misfortune of Germany. 
 
 During Metternich's time Prussia had been kept in 
 
 tow by Austria, and this had been thought the 
 
 guarantee of all order and security. Its present 
 
 attempts, each more earnest than the last, to have 
 
 its own will and to carry out its own proper aims, 
 
 were not less disagreeable than novel to Austrian 
 
 policy. Whatever, therefore, from this time onwards 
 
 was undertaken or promoted in Germany by Prussia, 
 
 beginning with the Zollverein, was both secretly and 
 
 openly opposed by Austria. Germany fell into the 
 
 condition of a waggon with one horse before and 
 
 another 'of equal strength pulling behind, with no 
 
 hope of moving. But the times educate their men, 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF PRANCE. 49 
 
 provided that among the young growth there are 
 characters of the right stuff, and that these find them- 
 selves in their right places. Herr von Bismarck was 
 a man of such stuff, and in his position in the 
 Bundestag in Frankfort, he was in the right place 
 for penetrating into the inmost seat of Germany's 
 weakness. It was indeed his Prussian pride which 
 swore revenge upon Austria for the humiliations 
 which she had destined for Prussia ; but in this he 
 was not unconscious that with Prussia, Germany also 
 would be helped forward. On occasion of the war 
 in Schleswig-Holstein, the phenomenon was for a 
 moment seen of the two horses pulling side by side, 
 yet the end was hardly attained before the old oppo- 
 sition began again. Now was the time to cut the 
 traces which fastened the hinder horse to the waggon ; 
 it would then be an easy task for the other to move it 
 forward. A true Columbus egg, this thought ! It 
 would have seemed that every one must have shared 
 it; yet there was but one man — if the thought was 
 not his alone — who conceived the true means to carry 
 it into effect. 
 
 In the life of nations, as of individuals, there are 
 times when that which we have long wished and 
 striven for presents itself to us in so strange a shape 
 that we recognize it not, and even turn away from 
 it in displeasure and resentment. So was it with the 
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50 D. P. STRAUSS 
 
 Austrian war of 1866 and its consequences. It 
 brought to us Germans what we had so long wished 
 for, but it brought it not in the manner that we had 
 wished, and therefore a great part of the German 
 nation thrust it away from them. We had hoped to 
 work out the unity of Germany from the popular idea, 
 from the popular desire, from the thoughts of its best 
 men. Now it was by the action of the de facto 
 Powers, by blood and iron, that we saw the road cut 
 out. We had hoped — so wide and so high had been 
 the range of the idea — to include in one constitution 
 the entire German race. Now as the result of 
 actually present relations, not only the Germans in 
 Austria, but the intermediary South German States, 
 remained excluded. It needed time to reconcile Ger- 
 man idealism, and, perhaps, German obstinacy, with 
 the fact which it found before it ; but the might, nay, 
 the reasonableness of this fact was so irresistible, that 
 in the shortest time the better view had made a most 
 happy progress. 
 
 That which in no small measure contributed to 
 throw a light even upon the most blinded was the 
 attitude which France took up towards these events. 
 France had let it be seen that she hoped to strengthen 
 her pre-eminence by means of the internal conflicts 
 of her neighbour; when she found herself deceived 
 in this hope she could not disguise her vexation. 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF FRANCE. 51 
 
 From this time onwards we Germans could regulate 
 the yalue we attached to our political relations by the 
 French estimate of them, for their value was exactly 
 the reverse to the one and the other people. The 
 sour looks which France cast on Prussia and the North- 
 ern Confederation taught us that in those two lay our 
 safety. Her oglings with the unconfederated South 
 taught us that in the latter lay our greatest weakness. 
 Every movement which Prussia made, not to force 
 the South German States to join it, but merely to 
 keep the door open to them, was suspected by France, 
 and made an occasion of intervention. Even on a 
 question so entirely non-political as the subvention 
 of the Mount St. Gothard Railway, the Gallic cock 
 crowed martially. 
 
 Since the fall of Napoleon, France has three times 
 altered its constitution; on none of these occasions 
 did Germany think of interfering. It has always 
 recognized the right of its neighbour to remodel 
 the inside of his house, according to his need or 
 convenience, even according to his caprice. Were 
 our German transactions of 1866, and subsequently, 
 a different matter ? Did the panels with which we 
 lined our hitherto notoriously uninhabitable house, the 
 rafters that we strengthened, the walls that we carried 
 up, shake our neighbour's house ? Did they threaten 
 to intercept its light or air ? Did they expose it to 
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52 D. F. STEAUSS 
 
 danger from fire ? No suet tiling ! It was simply 
 that our house appeared to him too noble. This 
 neighbour of ours, he wished to possess the finest 
 and highest house in the whole street, and above all, 
 ours should not be too strong. We must not have the 
 means of making it fast ; he must never be deprived 
 of the power to do what he had already done several 
 times, of taking possession of a few of our rooms 
 whenever it suited him, and throwing them into his 
 own house. Yet, in remodelling our house we had 
 made no claim whatever to those portions of it which 
 our violent neighbour had appropriated in bygone 
 days, but had left them to him, and given him the 
 right of prescription. But now, indeed, since he has 
 appealed to the sword, these old questions rise up again. 
 France will not give up its European primacy. 
 
 Only if it has a right to this, has it a right to inter- 
 fere with our internal questions ? But on what is 
 this pretended right to the primacy based ? In culti- 
 vation Germany has long placed itself on a level with 
 Prance. The equal rank of our literature has long 
 been recognized by the representatives of that of 
 France. The just proportion in which, thanks to a 
 well-devised school education, moral and intellectual 
 training have penetrated every class of our people, is 
 envied by the best men among the French. The ex- 
 clusion of the Eeformation from France, greatly as it 
 
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TO THE PEOPLE OP PRANCE. 53 
 
 contributed to strengthen its political power, had an 
 equally great effect in destroying its intellectual and 
 moral well-being. But even in political capacity we 
 have now fully come up to the French, though slowly. 
 The Revolution of 1789 appeared to give them an im- 
 mense advantage over us. "We have to thank it for 
 loosening us from many chains which would otherwise 
 have weighed upon us far into the future ; but what 
 we have seen in France since the Revolution has not 
 been of a character to frighten us out of our competi- 
 tion. Limited Governments appear to have come into 
 being only to be undermined, to sink into anarchy, as 
 this, in its turn, into despotism. Whether Constitu- 
 tional Monarchy, in which you, no less than myself, 
 recognize the only durable form of Government for 
 Europe (exceptional conditions put aside), can ever 
 strike its roots deep in France, appears to be doubtful 
 to yourself in your admirable essay on the subject ; at 
 least it is your wish rather than your hope. 
 
 That I am not blind to the many good qualities of 
 the French nation — that I recognize in it an essential 
 and indispensable member of the European national 
 family, a beneficial leaven in their mingling— it is as 
 little necessary that I should assure you, as that you 
 should assure me of the like unperverted estimation of 
 the German people and their merits on your side. 
 But nations, as well as individuals, have, as the 
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54 D. P. STEAUSS 
 
 reverse side of their merits, not less conspicuous faults ; 
 and in relation to these faults, our two nations have 
 for centuries enjoyed a very different, nay, totally op^ 
 posite, training. We Germans, in the hard school of 
 calamity and dishonour, in which your countrymen in 
 great measure were our relentless schoolmasters and 
 chasteners, have learnt to recognize our essential and 
 hereditary faults under their true form — our visionari- 
 ness, our slowness, and, above all, our want of unity, 
 as the hindrances of all national success. We have 
 taken ourselves to task, we have striven against these 
 failings, and sought more and more to rid ourselves of 
 them. On the other hand, the national faults of the 
 French, pampered by a succession of French mon- 
 archs, were for a long time intensified by success, and 
 not cured even by misfortune. The craving for glit- 
 ter and fame ; the tendency to grasp at these rather 
 by loud adventurous achievements without than by 
 silent effort within; the pretension to stand at the 
 head of nations, and the thirst to patronize and 
 plunder them ; all these faults which lie in the Gallic 
 nature, as those above named do in the German, were 
 fostered to such an extent by Louis XIY., by the first 
 and by, let us hope, the last Napoleon, that the na- 
 tional character has suffered the deepest injury. Glory 
 in particular, which one of your Ministers has recently 
 called the first word in the French language, is rather 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF FEANCE. 55 
 
 its worst and most pernicious ; one which the nation 
 would do well to strike out of its dictionary for a long 
 time to come. It is the golden calf round which the 
 nation has for centuries kept up its dance ; it is the 
 Moloch at whose altar it has sacrificed and is even 
 now again sacrificing its own sons and the sons of 
 neighbouring nations ; it is the ignis fahms which has 
 lured it from fields of prosperous labour into the wil- 
 derness, and often to the brink of the precipice. And 
 while those earlier monarchs, Napoleon I. especially, 
 were themselves possessed by this national demon, 
 and therefore went even into their unjust wars with 
 something of sincerity;, with the present Napoleon it 
 is the conscious cunning design to lead the nation 
 astray into aims of- cool self-seeking ; to draw their at- 
 tention away from their moral and political destitution 
 within, that is, by ever and ever stirring up the na- 
 tional passion for glitter, fame, and depredation. 
 Against Russia in the Crimea, against Austria in Italy, 
 he was successful. In Mexico he met with sensible 
 disaster. Against Prussia .he let the right moment 
 slip. At the beginning of this year the world could 
 for a moment believe that he was in good faith, leaving 
 this path and turning to that of internal reform, in the 
 sense of rational freedom and administrative amend- 
 ment; till his backward spring to the Plebiscite con- 
 vinced all the world that' he was still his old self. From 
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56 D. F. STKATJSS 
 
 that time Germany, too, had everything to fear — rather, 
 should I say, everything to hope. 
 
 That unity which he desired to frustrate is ours. 
 The unheard-of claim which lay in his demand on the 
 King of Prussia was as comprehensible and intolerable 
 to the poorest peasant in the March as to the kings 
 and dukes south of the Main. The spirit of 1813-14 
 swept like a storm through every German land; and 
 already the first events of the war have given us a 
 pledge that a nation which fights only for that for 
 which it feels both the right and the power in itself 
 cannot fail of its end. This end for which we struggle 
 is simply the equal recognition of the European peo- 
 ples, — the security that for the future a restless neigh- 
 bour shall no more at his pleasure disturb us in the 
 works of peace, and rob us of the fruits of our labour. 
 For this we desire a guarantee, and only when this is 
 given can we speak of a friendly understanding, of a 
 harmonious combination of the two neighbouring peo- 
 ples in all the labours of civilization and humanity; 
 but not till that time when the French people shall 
 find its false road closed to it will it be able to open 
 its ear to voices like your own, which for long time 
 past have called it to the true road — the road of honest 
 domestic effort, of self-control and morality. 
 
 I have written in greater detail than pleases me 
 individually, and indeed than is becoming; but our 
 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF FRANCE. 57 
 
 German affairs and aspirations easily rise before the 
 foreigner as a mere mist ; and to make them a little 
 clear, some minuteness is unavoidable. You will, per- 
 haps, think it even less becoming that these lines come 
 to you in print, not in writing. In ordinary times I 
 would certainly have first asked your consent to their 
 publication ; but as things are now, the right moment 
 would have passed before my request could reach you, 
 and your answer come to my hands ; and I think that 
 it is not ill done if in this crisis two men of the two 
 nations, each in his own nation independent and far 
 from political party strife, freely, though without pas- 
 sion, address one another on the causes and the mean- 
 ing of the war ; for my utterance will seem to me only 
 then to have its true worth if it gives you occasion to 
 express yourself in the like manner from your own 
 point of view. 
 
 Eobschach, 12£A August, 1870. 
 
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58 
 
 MAX MULLEB 
 
 TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. 
 
 Five Letters to the Editoe of the 'Times.'* 
 
 FIRST LETTER, August 29th, 1870. 
 
 Sir, — I could hardly trust my eyes when I read in 
 the ' Times ' of to-day the following paragraph : — 
 
 " Neither of the powerful contending countries seem to have 
 regarded as disgraceful or criminal the proposal of the other to 
 dismember and appropriate, in spite of treaties, the whole or 
 portions of independent, peaceful, well-governed nations, — Hol- 
 land, Belgium, Switzerland ; though we well know that an En- 
 glish Minister who could dishonour his country by listening for 
 a moment to such proposals, would be driven from office by an 
 indignant people." 
 
 My surprise became still greater when I saw this 
 terrible charge endorsed by a name that is honoured 
 in Germany as much as in England — the name of Sir 
 
 ' * These letters have been revised by the writer, who has 
 also made a few additions. 
 
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MAX HULLER TO THE PEOPLE OP ENGLAND. 59 
 
 Harry Verney. In these words, which could not have 
 been penned with a light heart, he arraigns at the bar 
 of public opinion, not simply two ministers, but two 
 nations ; and he declares, with the undisguised pride 
 of an Englishman, that a policy which in France and 
 Germany is tolerated and approved by the people 
 would have been branded in England as disgraceful 
 and criminal. 
 
 I feel certain you will allow me to take up this 
 challenge as far as Germany and Count Bismarck are 
 concerned. Sir Harry Verney writes with so much 
 confidence that I tremble lest he have some evidence, 
 unknown to me and others, that Count Bismarck was 
 really an accomplice of Count Benedetti, and not 
 simply an unwilling listener; nay, as he so pointedly 
 refers to Holland, the only share of the booty which 
 could possibly have been claimed for Germany, he 
 may possess documents, withheld as yet from the 
 public, proving that Count Bismarck really bargained 
 for Holland as a sop to Germany. 
 
 If that is the case, I give up Count Bismarck, but 
 not yet the German people, whom Sir Harry has 
 attacked as enduring a Minister "who in England 
 would have been driven from office by an indignant 
 people." If, on the contrary, there is no further evi- 
 dence forthcoming for the grave charges brought 
 against this German statesman, I think it is time to 
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60 MAX MULLEE 
 
 remind his accusers that there ought to be no differ- 
 ence between private and public morality, and that to 
 take away the character of a public man by vague 
 accusations, is as grave a breach of the Ninth Com- 
 mandment as to repeat idle reports affecting the cha- 
 racter of private individuals. 
 
 I shall now follow Sir Harry step by step. Let us 
 suppose, first of all, that Count Bismarck was as dark 
 a conspirator as Count Benedetti. Did the people of 
 Germany know the secret diplomacy of these two men 
 before we knew it in England ? and do you expect 
 that on the eve of an invasion or in the throes of a 
 deadly war Germany should first have convoked her 
 Parliament, and, by crushing majorities or bloody 
 6meutes, have hurled Count Bismarck from power? 
 Is that the way in which England would have dealt 
 with her Prime Minister when the safety of the coun- 
 try was at stake ? Ay, even in times of peace, does 
 the moral indignation of the English people always 
 assume the form of annihilating majorities in Parlia- 
 ment? I do not wish to retaliate; but I may refer 
 Sir Harry to the histories of Lord Macaulay and Lord 
 Stanhope, or even to the recollections of his own long 
 Parliamentary career. 
 
 I now advance one step. I deny that the acts of a 
 Foreign Minister must be judged according to the 
 same rigid laws that govern the acts of private per- 
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TO THE PEOPLE OP ENGLAND. 61 
 
 sons. What an admission ! Sir Harry would exclaim. 
 WIlo but a German could nave made it ? Bear with 
 me for one moment. A man of high honour may 
 decline to act as counsel in criminal or civil cases ; but 
 if he is once engaged for the defence, he is bound in 
 honour to think of the interests of his client, and to 
 leave it to the other side to discover and lay open the 
 weak points of his case. A Foreign Minister is the 
 counsel of his country, and he is bound by the sim- 
 plest rules of prudence not to disclose many a secret 
 of which, as a private person, he might decline to 
 become the depositary. He has to listen to proposals 
 of compromise, and, for argument's sake, to take into 
 consideration eventualities which, as a private indivi- 
 dual, he might indignantly decline to entertain. Do you 
 suppose that Lord Palmerston had never to listen for 
 a moment to suggestions about Turkey and Egypt, 
 about Savoy and Nice, and was he driven from office 
 by an indignant people ? If Sir Hamilton Seymour 
 had published to the world the proposals of the Em- 
 peror Nicholas about " the Sick Man," he would have 
 brought on the very war which it was his object to pre- 
 vent. But when the war had broken out, the English 
 Government had no hesitation in publishing the de- 
 spatches of this able and honourable diplomatist. 
 
 I now advance a step further, and unless Sir Harry 
 Verney can produce crushing proof to the contrary, 
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62 MAX MULLEE 
 
 I maintain against him and against everybody that, 
 during the years which alone concern us, from 1866 
 to 1870, Count Bismarck's policy has been patriotic 
 and peaceful, sans reproche, though, no doubt, also 
 saws peur. 
 
 You know the political history of Germany from the 
 beginning of this century. You know that ever since 
 Jena one idea has pervaded every German heart, from 
 the least to the greatest, — to re-establish a United 
 Germany, to save the country from its divided and 
 helpless state, to rescue it from its political nullity. 
 You know of the many noble efforts to realize this 
 great national purpose, and of the many failures. 
 You know how, long before Italian unity was dreamt 
 of, German patriots were everywhere at work to undo 
 the mischief so carefully planned by the Congress of 
 Vienna; you know how such men as Jahn, Arndt, 
 Uhland, were hunted down as demagogues because 
 they wanted a United Germany, instead of thirty- 
 eight rags; you know how Gagern succumbed at 
 Frankfort ; how Radowitz died of a broken spirit after 
 Olmiitz ; how Bunsen retired in despair. You know 
 how Austria attempted once more to rally the Sove- 
 reigns of Germany round her ancient banner; how 
 she failed because the German leaven was too weak in 
 her, because she had not the moral strength, the mili- 
 tary discipline, and the heroic self-denial which were 
 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. 63 
 
 necessary for achieving the great work which she un- 
 dertook. You also know how at last Prussia stepped 
 forward, and, staking her very existence for the unity 
 of Germany, 'succeeded, by dint of hard fighting with 
 a well-trained, intelligent, and determined army, in 
 putting an end to the misery of Germany. The soul 
 of that final effort on the part of Prussia was Bis- 
 marck; and if Sir Harry Verney had accused his 
 policy at that time of acts of harshness and violence, 
 he might have made out a strong case against him, 
 and not only against him, but against the German 
 nation, .who supported him in his policy. There are 
 in the history of all countries great convulsions which 
 one cannot criticize according to the ordinary rules of 
 right and wrong. • We do not criticize thunderstorms 
 that dart en heaven and earth, strike down palaces, 
 and carry off the harvest of peaceful villages. We 
 stand in awe while they last, but we know that Nature 
 cannot do without them, and that when they are past, 
 the air will be purer, and we shall breathe again more 
 freely than before. No one would maintain that 
 Parma and Modena, that Nassau or Hesse were wiped 
 out from the map of Europe according to strict law. 
 The friends of these dethroned dynasties will never 
 cease to exclaim against the despoiler. There are 
 Jacobites in England even now, or there were till very 
 lately. At such mighty critical moments the public 
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64 MAX MULLEE 
 
 weal is paramount. If Germany was to be united, 
 somebody must unite it. It might have been done 
 through Prussia, or through Austria, or through a 
 Eepublio ; but somebody had to do the work, to incur 
 the responsibility, to take all the blame. This is what 
 Prussia has done. She has made Germany; she has 
 become Germany. 
 
 After the battle of Sadowa the whole of Germany 
 might have been united but for the interference of 
 Prance. France alone of all the nations of Europe 
 stepped forward and said, " Tou shall not have an 
 inch of Austrian soil ; you shall not have my old ally, 
 Saxony ; you shall not pass the line of the Main ; you 
 shall give up part of Schleswig." No other Govern- 
 ment in Europe thought that it had a right to interfere 
 in the internal affairs of Germany. France laughed at 
 us for our naivete in supposing that we should be 
 allowed to set our house in order without her, leave. 
 '' Tield on these points," she said, " if not, c'est la 
 guerre." 
 
 "What was the policy of Bismarck then and has been 
 ever since ? The North of Germany was united. 
 Time was required for welding the various elements of 
 the North more closely together. With every year the 
 local interests would become less troublesome, with 
 every year the army of the North would become more 
 truly a national army. Treaties, defensive, though not 
 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. 65 
 
 offensive, had been concluded with Bavaria, Wiirtem- 
 berg, Baden, and Hesse. It was better to consolidate 
 the North first, and to wait for the South. A union 
 with the South was so inevitable that it would have 
 been folly to precipitate it ; on the contrary, the South 
 had to be discouraged. There was work enough to be 
 done in organizing the North, and a certain rivalry 
 between South and North was an element of strength 
 rather than of weakness. What, then, was Count 
 Bismarck's policy ? To yield to Prance as much as 
 possible, to put off the evil day as long as possible. 
 Many things might happen in France, and Germany 
 might become an accomplished fact without passing 
 through the fiery ordeal of a war with France. Sir 
 Harry Verney may say that this was a selfish and 
 purely German policy ; but surely there was nothing 
 in it that could be stigmatized as criminal, nothing to 
 dishonour the country which Count Bismarck had 
 tried so faithfully to serve ? 
 
 What was the policy of the Emperor? He had 
 allowed, he had even helped to unite Italy ; but he re- 
 quired his reward, he rectified the frontier of France by 
 annexing Savoy and Nice. He had allowed Germany 
 to become united, — i. e., he had not invaded Prussia 
 while she was at war with Austria ; and for this too he 
 claimed blackmail, some slice of Germany to rectify the 
 western, frontier of France. This may in itself seem 
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6Q MAX MULLEE 
 
 harmless enough. But was it possible ? Could Count 
 Bismarck sacrifice German soil while Prussia claimed 
 to be recognized as the protector of Germany ? What, 
 then, was the Prussian Minister to do ? He withdrew 
 from Berlin. He had all he wanted. But he could not 
 avoid the French Ambassadors and agents altogether. 
 They would not leave him alone, not even at Varzin. 
 
 Now let us look at once at the Benedetti document, 
 and let us apply to it the old legal maxim, Gui bono ? 
 Whom did it benefit ? a question which Roman 
 lawyers were fond of asking whenever the guilt seemed 
 to lie between two parties. Whom does that Treaty 
 benefit ? Is there one single point in favour of Prussia ? 
 Is the name of Holland as much as mentioned ? The 
 one clause apparently favourable to Prussia was that 
 France should guarantee the status quo in Germany. 
 Guarantee against whom ? The very idea of such a 
 guarantee was so distasteful to Count Bismarck that, 
 even on that piece of French paper on which Benedetti 
 scribbled his draft treaty, he insisted on its being 
 cancelled. You can see it in the facsimile. Every- 
 thing else in the draft embodies simply and solely 
 the desires of France. It would have benefited France 
 and no one else. 
 
 If Count Bismarck's policy had been so criminal 
 and disgraceful as Sir H. Verney believes, why what 
 statesman ever had a better opportunity of doing 
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TO THE PEOPLE OP ENGLAND. 67 
 
 mischief, of troubling the waters of Europe, of set- 
 ting all his neighbours against each other, and then 
 doing what he liked ? If he had given one word of 
 encouragement to France in her designs on Belgium, 
 there was a war between England and Prance ready to 
 hand. Or, if he himself had wanted war with France, 
 he need only have waited till France stretched out 
 her hand to seize Belgium, and then declared war 
 against her, having England and Eussia for his allies. 
 That would have been disgraceful and criminal. Or if 
 he had simply given utterance to his own feelings, 
 if he had bluntly declared to Count Benedetti that his 
 Government considered a proposal to dismember and 
 appropriate, in spite of treaties, the whole or portions 
 of peaceful and well-governed nations as disgraceful 
 and criminal, what would have been the result ? La 
 guerre, the very war he wished and tried to avert. 
 
 What, then, did Count Bismarck do ? He knew 
 his neighbour, and he kept , his country prepared 
 against any surprise ; but he hoped against hope to 
 avoid a conflict, if possible. He did not by abruptly 
 refusing to listen to any more proposals wish to 
 drive the Emperor to a decided policy. We can 
 well imagine with what bitter scorn in his heart he 
 said smilingly to Benedetti, " If you must have some- 
 thing to quiet the people of France, why there is 
 Belgium, there is England or Spain. Why do you 
 , Digitized by Microsoft® Y 2 
 
68 MAX MULLER 
 
 not take them V Did he promise to help in these 
 adventures ? Did he bind himself to furnish one 
 single soldier ? Did he betray Belgium by thought, 
 word, or deed, or act disloyally towards England ? 
 
 Surely, Sir Harry Verney knows better than I do 
 that life at Courts and Embassies is not like the life of 
 a quiet country parish. You cannot say to an Emperor 
 or his Ambassadors, " Begone I" You must take 
 them as they are, you must humour them, you must 
 try to make them harmless, or, if that is impossible, 
 let them perish in their own snares. Count Bismarck, 
 in his capacity of Minister of Foreign Affairs for Ger- 
 many, seems to me simply blameless. He has achieved 
 a noble work, the greatest work in the history of the 
 nineteenth century : he has given back Germany to 
 Europe. Germany may still be beaten, she may be 
 conquered and dismembered again, she may share the 
 fate of Poland, for the counsels of God are inscrutable ; 
 but the Germans, depend upon it, will now conquer or 
 die together, and, whatever may befall, they will never 
 forget what they owe to Count Bismarck, who has 
 proved himself more than the Cavour of Germany. 
 Cavour did not achieve the unity of Italy without 
 French bayonets, and he had to sell an Italian province. 
 Bismarck succeeded without French bayonets, and he 
 declined to sell one inch of German soil. 
 
 I need hardly say that I detest as heartily as Sir 
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TO THE, PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. 69 
 
 Harry Verney the unconstitutional proceedings that 
 have marked the internal government of Count Bis- 
 marck. The Liberal party in Germany has never 
 ceased to oppose him at home, in spite of his dazzling 
 successes abroad. But surely in England one learns 
 to respect even those from whom one differs; one 
 learns to oppose without insulting. Everything for 
 the people, nothing through the people, which seems 
 Count Bisinarck's maxim in home politics, is a maxim 
 not very distasteful to a certain class of English states- 
 men. Count Bismarck in England would be a Tory, a 
 somewhat extreme Tory ; but he would not, for all that, 
 be driven from office by an indignant people. 
 
 The times in which we live are critical times, and 
 he who embitters the feelings of one nation against 
 another incurs fearful responsibilities. The temper of 
 the English people, — I mean the true aristocracy of 
 the English people — has hitherto been most dignified ; 
 their action worthy of a great and sorrowing nation. 
 England is neutral; and what else could she have 
 been ? The Emperor, whatever he was at home, has 
 been a useful ally to England; and whether it was 
 wise or not to listen to his solicitations, per/ids Albion 
 is not so perfidious as to turn against an old ally at 
 the time of his sorest need. But to be neutral does 
 not mean to surrender the right of judging and of 
 expressing one's judgment without fear. There is no 
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70 MAX MULLER 
 
 Englishman that I know of who would accept neutrality 
 on such terms. England, whether through the press 
 or through some, at least, of her most trusty statesmen, 
 has pronounced her judgment of this war in no uncer- 
 tain tone. Not even the most determined partisans of 
 the Imperial Court of Prance have hesitated to call the 
 war unprovoked. That may seem a mild epithet, but 
 in a court of law it is enough to change manslaughter 
 into murder; in history it changes war into bri- 
 gandage. The pretext of the candidature of Prince 
 Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen has been blown 
 away like a ring of smoke. If Prance was really 
 offended, surely Prim, who proposed this candidature, 
 was the real offender, not the King of Prussia; and 
 one word from the Emperor to Prim would have ren- 
 dered Prince Leopold as impossible as the Duke of 
 Montpensier. That the King of Prussia wanted peace 
 he proved by allowing French diplomacy to have its 
 triumph, and by doing what few Kings would have 
 done, withdrawing, at the dictation of France, the 
 permission which he had previously granted.* 
 
 The Emperor had planned this war for four years. 
 We know it from the mouth of his own Minister. 
 The country followed him at first with giddy ambition, 
 but now with heroic patriotism. France may still 
 come out victorious, but the Government that planned 
 this war is judged already by history. 
 * See M. Benedetti^/}<^]b>Ul^to4(&t»ndard,' D ec- g^ igj 0- 
 
TO THE PEOPLE OP ENGLAND. 71 
 
 Germany was threatened, insulted, invaded. The 
 people of Germany has risen to repel invasion and to 
 punish the invader. It is cruel to taunt that people, 
 while trembling with fury in this deadly struggle, 
 with moral cowardice at home, with complicity in 
 fraud, with evil designs which cannot be substantiated, 
 and which, I am convinced, never existed, except in 
 the brains of Corsican statesmen. 
 
 I have written as a German, but bound, as is known, 
 to England b'y the strongest bonds of gratitude that 
 can bind a man to his native soil. If I am prejudiced, 
 I believe my prejudices are English rather than Ger- 
 man. Anyhow, there are few that have such good 
 reason for loving both England and Germany as I 
 have; few who wish so ardently as I do that these 
 two nations should love each other, and should stand 
 together, shoulder to shoulder and hand in hand, as 
 the guardians of peace, the defenders of right, the 
 champions of all that is good and true, lovely and 
 noble on earth. If Germany conquers, a new era of 
 peace will dawn on Europe; for Germany, if once 
 united, would tolerate no war of conquest. An army 
 in which every second man is the father of a family is 
 the best guarantee for the peace of the world. 
 
 There need be no formal alliance between England 
 and Germany. The two nations are one in all that is 
 essential, in morality, in religion, in love of freedom, 
 
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72 MAX MULL BE 
 
 in respect for law. They are both hard workers, hard 
 thinkers, and, when it must be, hard hitters too. In 
 the whole history of modern Europe Germany and 
 England have never been at war; I feel convinced 
 they never will be, they never can be. We have both 
 our weak and our strong points, and we know it ; but 
 it is neither English nor German to thank God that 
 " we are not like other people." 
 
 I have the honour to be, Sir, 
 
 Your obedient 'servant, 
 
 Max Mullee. 
 
 SECOND LETTER. 
 
 October 22nd, 1870. 
 
 Sir, — No one, I think, can have read M. Arles- 
 Dufour's simple but powerful appeal to the English 
 people without asking himself, what in the world are 
 we to do ? How can we help France ? How can we 
 stop the horrors of the war ? There are some generous 
 and impulsive hearts in England who would gladly 
 rush into the fray and separate the two combatants, at 
 whatever risk to themselves or to the country. This 
 is not what M. Arles-Dufour desires. He wishes for 
 peace, not for war ; and he feels convinced that England 
 possesses sufficient influence with one or both of the 
 
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TO THE PEOPLE OP ENGLAND. 73 
 
 belligerents to induce them to accept terms of peace. 
 I confess I fully share his conviction. 
 
 Though I can judge of public opinion in Germany 
 from newspapers only, and from such letters as I re- 
 ceive from time to time, I have no hesitation in say- 
 ing that the voice of England has not lost its weight 
 with the better portion of the German people. The 
 old love of Germany for England, though less pas- 
 sionate than it was, is not extinct. Germany never ex- 
 pected active help from England in her war against 
 France ; she would have been quite satisfied with a 
 passive attitude ; but a feigned neutrality, which, in 
 the face of a flagrant outrage, pretended that it was 
 difficult to apportion the guilt, gave rise, no doubt, for 
 a time to sinister rumours. A bold avowal on the part 
 of England that during the war she would place no re- 
 strictions on her trade would have given far less offence 
 than the most courteous explanations as to the doubts 
 and difficulties inherent in international law. We 
 shall never have rest till these arbitrary restrictions of 
 the trade of neutrals are swept away with other legal 
 cobwebs, and every nation does what seems right in its 
 own eyes with regard to the export of arms and 
 ammunitions of war. Of course, no effort was spared 
 by those whose interest it was to fan the first sparks of 
 ill-humour between two nations who, if once united by 
 a common policy, would keep the peace of Europe in 
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74 MAX MULLER 
 
 the West and in the East. But, in spite of all, no real 
 mischief, I believe, has as yet been done, and an honest 
 understanding and hearty co-operation between Eng- 
 land and Germany remain as much as ever the goal of 
 true German statesmanship. If England would but 
 speak the language of a friend, free from lofty airs and 
 magisterial accents, she would herself be surprised at 
 the effect she might produce. 
 
 With regard to France it is more difficult to speak 
 with confidence, because it is almost impossible to dis- 
 cover who at present dares to speak the true feelings 
 of that country. But surely if there is a friend to 
 whose advice France might listen without misgivings, 
 it is England. Where has there been truer sympathy 
 for her misfortunes than here ? No doubt stern lan- 
 guage has been used against those who have brought 
 that beautiful country to the brink of ruin. The 
 crimes of her Imperial ruler, the vices of her Imperial 
 court, the follies of her Imperial society, the corrup- 
 tion of her Imperial administration have been laid 
 bare with an unsparing hand ; but France, real France 
 — France freed from her Imperial doom, has lost no 
 friends in England. She has gained in her distress 
 friends whom she had lost in her prosperity. 
 
 What, then, can England do as she stands between 
 France and Germany ? 
 
 If what M. Jules Favre is reported to have said 
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TO THE PEOPLE OP ENGLAND. 75 
 
 Ni un pouee de notre territoire, ni une pierre de nos 
 forteresses were the real voice of Prance, and if what 
 Count Bismarck is reported to have said, " We must 
 have Blsass and Lothringen whether they hate us or 
 not," were the last word of Germany, then, no doubt, 
 the task of the peacemaker would be hopeless. 
 
 But did M. Jules Favre speak the deliberate opinion 
 of France ? He hardly ventured to say so himself, and 
 other voices have since been heard far less uncompro- 
 mising. M. Arles-Dufour does not endorse his senti- 
 ments. The horrors of the war, the unbroken succes- 
 sion of misfortunes, and, above all, the utter want of 
 all real government, have told on the brave heart of 
 France. France knows that it is impossible to exempt 
 a people from plenary responsibility for the acts of its 
 Government, and that she cannot shrink from the 
 penalty which the criminal conduct of her rulers has 
 brought upon her. " Take all our money," she says, 
 "but do not add dishonour to our misfortunes." 
 
 Now here is surely an opportunity for England to 
 step in and to impress upon France that there is no 
 dishonour in bravely taking a punishment after the 
 guilt has once been admitted. There are offences for 
 which no judge would dare to inflict a mere fine. The 
 actual expenses of the war may be reimbursed, but to 
 suppose that the lives of thousands of soldiers could 
 be valued at so much a head would be to carry us back 
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76 MAX MULLEE 
 
 into the darkest ages of barbarism. If England would 
 but speak to Prance as a friend to a friend, and as the 
 defender of those eternal principles of justice which 
 must regulate the conduct of nations as well as of in- 
 dividuals, France would be the first to admit that for 
 the war which JVI. Jules Favre has boldly denounced as 
 a crime she owes a heavier guerdon than mere money. 
 
 Let us now see what Germany demands. I say Ger- 
 many, because her minister, Count Bismarck, has not 
 yet officially formulated any conditions of peace. He 
 guarded most carefully against the supposition that he 
 had discussed with M. Jules Favre the terms of peace, 
 and if in an animated conversation on the terms of an 
 armistice he said that he could not but hold Blsass 
 and Lothringen, nous ne pouvons pas ne pas les 
 prendre, that, after all, was but naming a round sum 
 and there are equivalents by which such a sum might 
 be represented. 
 
 It is said that Germany is gloating over conquest, 
 and that she carries on the war which she began in 
 self-defence for the sake of territorial aggrandizement. 
 Nothing could be more unfounded, more unjust. 
 There is in Germany more sorrow than joy, and 
 greater sacrifices would be made for peace than have 
 been made for war. Why, then, it is asked, did 
 Germany not make peace after Sedan ? But how ? 
 and with whom ? Was General Moltke to march his 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. 77 
 
 army back across the Rhine, trusting to the peaceful 
 disposition of a furious, half-beaten French army? 
 Incredible as it sounds, this is what some influential 
 politicians in England have advised General Moltke to 
 do. Whenever in the whole history of the world one 
 single precedent can be pointed out for such tactics, 
 it will be time to answer such taunts. But what I 
 deny in toto is, that either now or at any time has 
 Germany been influenced by the greed of conquest. 
 The conquest of territory inhabited by people who are 
 not German in national sentiment is an idea abhorrent 
 to the German mind, and Elsass and Lothringen are 
 the best proof of my assertion. The tradition that 
 these provinces belonged once to Germany, that they 
 were taken from Germany by fraud and violence, and 
 in spite of the remonstrances of the German people 
 and the German princes, has never been forgotten on 
 the right side of the Rhine. At the end of the Napo- 
 leonic war, German statesmen pointed out the inse- 
 curity of the south-western frontier, and claimed 
 Elsass as the old bulwark of the German empire 
 against France. German poets, like Schenkendorf, 
 who died in 1817, bewailed the "lost patrimony" on 
 the Vosges. But when peace was made, and political 
 intrigues had defrauded Germany of her rightful claim, 
 the people submitted to the inevitable, and an offen- 
 sive war against France to recover Strasburg would 
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78 MAX MULLEK 
 
 Lave been an impossibility, even for Count Bismarck. 
 A war in Germany requires an enormous effort, and it 
 can never be undertaken with a light heart. But if 
 once undertaken, it becomes terrible, and cannot be 
 ended until a real peace has been secured. What 
 Germany wants at present is a real peace, or, what is 
 the same, a secure frontier, and that she is determined 
 to have at any price. 
 
 Think only of what has happened ! France attacks 
 Germany with the avowed purpose of annexing German 
 soil. The French army is beaten back, and the German 
 army in pursuing the enemy finds itself in actual pos- 
 session of its old patrimony, Alsace and Lorraine. The 
 sacrifices have been terrible ; there is hardly a family 
 from the Vistula to the Rhine that is not in mourning. 
 " My only son," ic my husband," " our father," " my 
 four sons," such are the headings that rivet our eyes 
 when reading the notices of deaths in German news- 
 papers. Think how every heart in England quivered 
 when the news arrived that three young Englishmen 
 had been killed by Greek brigands; multiply that 
 feeling by hundreds and thousands, and you may then 
 form an idea of the sorrow and the fury that pervades 
 the country. It is a mercy that there have been no 
 German reverses, and that the atrocities of former 
 French invasions have not been repeated. It is a 
 mercy that the feeling of revenge does not exist in the 
 
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TO THE PEOPLE OP ENGLAND. 79 
 
 German army. But on one point all Germans are 
 agreed, that, as far as in them lies, such a war must 
 not occur again. Can any Power in Europe deny that 
 Germany has acquired not only the power, but the 
 right, not only the right, but the sacred duty to take 
 the most ample guarantees for the safety of her 
 western frontier ? Would not England have resented 
 it as an insult if the Greek Government had offered 
 her a pecuniary indemnity and required a free pardon 
 for those who had killed her sons ? Yet the guilty 
 there were mere brigands by profession, the guilty 
 man here was the sovereign of a nation. 
 
 The new frontier line between Germany and France 
 will have to be drawn by military authorities, not by 
 diplomatists ; and those who know Count Moltke 
 know that they may trust his wisdom and moderation. 
 No doubt that line will cut through French territory, 
 and in cutting through French territory, it will also 
 cut through the French population. It is easy to say 
 that to transfer even a few thousands of people from 
 one country to another is repugnant to our feelings. 
 It is repugnant, no doubt, but so is war with all its 
 consequences. I fully grant that it is a proceeding 
 that should not be countenanced except in cases of 
 extreme necessity. But it is a proceeding to which 
 many people, particularly those who inhabit the 
 marches of countries, have had to submit even in the 
 
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80 MAX MULLER 
 
 century in which we live, — people as patriotic as the 
 inhabitants of Alsace, and attached to their country, 
 not only by the mere instinctive love of their soil, but 
 by a loyal devotion to their sovereign. It is easy to 
 say that we are better than our fathers. I cannot read 
 that lesson in the pages of history, least of all in the 
 last twenty years of this much vaunted nineteenth 
 century. Why is it that Alsacian German is spoken 
 in the streets of Philadelphia ? It is because the Ger- 
 mans of Elsass, rather than submit to the despotism of 
 their new master, Louis XIV., preferred to leave their 
 homes, and migrated to America, 180 years ago. That 
 remedy is always open to the true patriot, and it is 
 open to the Alsacians ; but I doubt whether it will 
 be largely resorted to by the present population of 
 Alsace. Political sentiments have not the same inten- 
 sity in all classes of society, and the Alsacian peasant 
 has never been a very active politician. The Alsacian 
 was petted by the Government ; he was constantly 
 told how proud he ought to be of belonging to France ; 
 but on the French stage and in the novel the Alsacian 
 was always more or less of a Boeotian, and he never 
 was considered as quite a Frenchman. France ought 
 to be thankful that she has these outlying provinces, 
 part of which she can cede with a good grace, and 
 without too sharp a pang at parting with her own 
 flesh and blood. To maintain that such an amputa- 
 
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TO THE PEOPLE OP ENGLAND. 81 
 
 tion would be annihilation to France — that if odo 
 stone was moved the whole building would crumble to 
 pieces — is mere poetry and wicked metaphor., Is 
 there a republican now in France who one year ago 
 would not gladly have yielded Alsace, if by so doing 
 he could have freed the country of Imperialism ? 
 
 No, no ! France will not cease to be a great nation 
 because she has lost a strip of Alsace and Lorraine. 
 Those who say so know little of the sources of the real 
 and indestructible greatness of that country. If one 
 thinks what France has achieved for herself and for the 
 world at large, in spite of Imperialism, in spite of the 
 constant drain on her physical and intellectual resources 
 produced by the love of military glory, it is not diffi- 
 cult to foresee her triumphs in the future. No one 
 has doubted the bravery of her gallant soldiers, what- 
 ever may have been said of the truly Abyssinian gene- 
 ralship of their leaders. How can one doubt that there 
 is civic virtue left among her citizens if one knows 
 how, for nearly twenty years, many of the best families 
 have resisted the temptation of Imperial favours, and 
 sacrificed their own and their children's interests rather 
 than bow before the golden image ? It has become 
 the fashion of late to preach on French frivolity and 
 immorality as pervading the whole country ; but those 
 who know France best know that it is not so. No 
 doubt the upper classes have paraded their extrava- 
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82 MAX MULLER 
 
 gance and their vices before the eyes of the world in 
 France more than they would dare do in other coun- 
 tries ; but the middle classes are sound and safe, and 
 there is among the lower classes less drunkenness and 
 brutality than elsewhere. The constantly accumulating 
 wealth of France is the best proof of the industry and 
 frugality of the nation, and but for this fatal war France 
 would soon have been the queen among the nations of 
 Europe. What has been may be again, and in the 
 peaceful but far more honourable contests for superior- 
 ity in manufactures, in art, in learning, and literature, 
 France will soon prove again a match, and more than 
 a match, for England and Germany. If men of the 
 stamp of M. Arles-Dufour would but boldly step for- 
 ward and appeal to the French people, we should soon 
 have peace. Germany desires peace, and though there 
 are parties in Germany who insist on the whole of 
 Alsace and Lorraine, there are others who object to any 
 annexation. Count Bismarck seems to have taken his 
 stand between both extremes. He is too good a states- 
 man to imagine that the annexation of disaffected pro- 
 vinces is any addition to the strength of Germany, but 
 he is too good a patriot to leave the western frontier of 
 the Empire any longer exposed as it has been. Stras-- 
 burg and the gates of the Vosges may be taken back 
 by force, never by argument. If England could pre- 
 vail on France to admit the principle of territorial 
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TO THE PEOPLE OP ENGLAND. 83 
 
 cession, as far as it is required for the security of the 
 western frontier of Germany, peace could be made, and 
 details could be arranged by a Military Commission. 
 In such a Commission the voice of a victorious general 
 would no doubt have its weight, but the voice of Ger- 
 many would counsel wisdom, and the voice of the worli 
 would throw in its powerful warning, Ne nimis ! 
 
 Max Mullee. 
 
 THIRD LETTER. 
 
 October 29th, 1870. 
 
 Sir, — It is true, as your correspondent " Scrutator " 
 remarks, that the Imperial Government has never in 
 any official document avowed that the Rhine frontier 
 was the object of its attack on Germany. Whether, as 
 your correspondent avers, it disavowed that object in 
 any official document, I cannot tell. But as your corre- 
 spondent adds, 
 
 " I have little doubt that if France had been victorious, she 
 would have annexed German soil" 
 
 he really strengthens my argument so much that I 
 willingly accept his correction. 
 
 But I think " Scrutator " has been too hard on the 
 rest of my argument. What I maintained was, that 
 with the military system of Germany, a wanton aggres- 
 sion was impossible, and that the conquest of territory 
 
 g2 
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MAX MULLER 
 
 inhabited by people who are not German in national 
 sentiment was an idea abhorrent to the German mind. 
 In proof of this I appealed to Alsace and Lorraine, and 
 I think I was strictly correct in stating that Germany, 
 although not forgetful of what she had lost, would 
 never have sanctioned an attack on France even for the 
 sake of retaking territory that had once been her own. 
 German statesmen, I said, after the victories of 1815 
 insisted on the necessity of a stronger frontier as a 
 bulwark against French ambition, and events have 
 proved how right they were. German poets, I said, 
 had lamented that their dearly-bought victories had 
 been frustrated by the hostile attitude assumed by the 
 Great Powers against Germany at the Congress of 
 Vienna. But an attack on France for the sake of re- 
 taking the stolen patrimony in the West, I main- 
 tained, and still maintain, would have been a sheer 
 impossibility; at all events, whether owing to the 
 strong hand of a responsible Government, or to the 
 strong sense of right among the people, it has never 
 occurred. Granted, therefore, even though I did not 
 say so, that it was the day-dream of some German 
 poets and statesmen that the gates of the Vosges should 
 again become the gates of Germany, was it not all the 
 more creditable that the nation at large resisted all 
 temptations to commit a breach of the peace ? 
 
 It is against the rules of fair argument if " Scru- 
 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. 85 
 
 tator " tries to make me responsible for what Professor 
 Treitschke has written. I therefore pass over that. 
 But if, because the Countess de Pourtales told General 
 Ducrot, and because General Ducrot told General 
 Trochu, that Prussia would seize the first opportunity 
 to make war on Prance, it is argued that Prussia 
 stands convicted of greed of conquest, both the pre- 
 mise and the conclusion seem to me extremely weak. 
 After what happened at Nikolsburg and at Prague, 
 German officers were convinced that Prance, sooner or 
 later, would go to war for the championship of Europe, 
 and anybody might have heard what Countess de 
 Pourtales heard, that " if France wants a fight she 
 may have it, but she shall not escape again as she did 
 in 1816" If Prussia had wished for war with Prance, 
 why did she yield 'to French menaces at Nikolsburg ? 
 Why did she sacrifice the old German stronghold of 
 Luxemburg, — a sacrifice which for a time made Count 
 Bismarck the most unpopular man in Germany ? Why, 
 if Prussia wanted war, was it France that seized the 
 first opportunity to make war on Prussia ? 
 
 But my object in writing to you was not contro- 
 versy, but Peace. My object was to show that there 
 were two points, at least, on which all right-minded 
 people, whatever their national or political bias might 
 be, could honestly agree, viz. : — 
 
 I . That it would be subversive of the cardinal prin- 
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86 MAX MULLEB 
 
 ciples of public right to allow an unprovoked war to be 
 atoned for by a pecuniary fine. 
 
 2. That Germany, after her dearly-bought victories, 
 has a right to the most ample guarantees for the safety 
 of her south-western frontier. 
 
 The admission of the first point, I thought, would 
 make it possible for England to impress on France 
 the duty of submitting to a harder sentence than a 
 mere payment of damages. 
 
 The second point once admitted, England, as soon 
 as her kind offices are asked for, would be justified in 
 proposing a Military Commission to> consider what 
 changes were absolutely necessary on the frontier line 
 of Germany to secure the safety of the country. In 
 this way the right of self-defence would have taken 
 the place of the right of conquest, the most difficult 
 questions would have been taken out of the hands of 
 diplomatists, and, once brought within the narrow 
 limits of technical strategy, would have lost much of 
 their irritating character. 
 
 " Scrutator " re-opens the question of Schleswig- 
 Holstein, and maintains that the people in Schleswig 
 are not German in national sentiment. Were he a 
 Dane himself, he could only mean the North of Schles- 
 wig. But I abstain from plunging into a Schleswig- 
 Holstein controversy. Let those who really wish to form 
 a fair judgment on that point read the Treaty of Prague 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. 87 
 
 and the speeches of Count Bismarck in the Lower House 
 in December, 1866, and they will then perhaps judge 
 less harshly of that much-abused German statesman. 
 
 I feel deeply conscious of the great disadvantages 
 under which I tried to plead the cause of Peace, and I 
 wish that abler and more powerful hands would take up 
 a cause which I fear I have only injured. If every man, 
 woman, and child in England who have contributed so 
 generously to the relief of the sick and wounded, with- 
 out any reference to their nationality, would now give 
 all their energies, all their thoughts, all their prayers 
 to the cause of Peace, England, without shedding a 
 drop of blood, might still win the most glorious laurels. 
 Germany, in spite of her righteous indignation, in spite 
 of her military successes, in spite of the sharpness of 
 her sorrows, is anxious for Peace, but for a durable 
 Peace. Let Count Moltke be satisfied that Germany's 
 frontier is safe for the future, and, depend upon it, 
 Germany will be satisfied with as little purely French 
 soil and with as few purely French subjects as is com- 
 patible with her safety. It is in France that England 
 ought to exercise her legitimate influence for peace, and 
 where she might hope to do real good. Reason, after all, 
 is more powerful than rhetoric, and the earnest pleading 
 of a friend like England must convince the people of 
 France that the honour and greatness of their country 
 do not depend on a strip of Alsace or Lorraine. If 
 
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00 MAX MULLER 
 
 Lewis the Great could offer to cede Strasburg for the 
 sake of peace, the present Government of France need 
 not fear to compromise its honour by following his 
 example. 
 
 France has many friends and sincere admirers among 
 her enemies, — many who would think life dull and 
 dreary without the quickening light of her genius, 
 without the generous impulses of her noble heart. 
 Surely, in the face of such sufferings as we have lately 
 witnessed, nationality disappears and humanity takes 
 her rightful place, and appeals to friend and foe in 
 language that is intelligible to all, — imploring them to 
 forget all differences, all strife, all angry feeling, and 
 to merge every thought in the one thought of Peace — 
 Peace at any price, Peace at any sacrifice, but an 
 honourable and a durable Peace. 
 
 Max Muller. 
 
 FOURTH LETTER. 
 
 November 2nd, 1870. 
 
 Sir, — I felt convinced throughout that in " Scru- 
 tator " I had to deal not with an enemy, but with a 
 friend, and if I reply once more to his scrutiny, it is 
 more for the purpose of thanking him for his important 
 admissions than of carrying on a warfare about words. 
 
 I maintained, — 
 
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TO THE PEOPLE OP ENGLAND. 89 
 
 1. That it would be subversive of the cardinal prin- 
 ciples of public right to allow an unprovoked war to be 
 atoned for by a pecuniary fine. 
 
 " Scrutator " finds fault with the epithet " unpro- 
 vohed." I thought I might safely use it, for it had 
 been used by the most reticent of English statesmen. 
 It was less offensive than " criminal/' the word used 
 by M. Jules Favre, and yet more telling than the 
 shower of damning epithets poured on the war by 
 M. Guizot. 
 
 "Scrutator" says it is not true that, if peace were 
 made to-morrow on the basis of a war indemnity, a 
 pecuniary fine would represent all the punishment 
 inflicted on Prance. He charges me with being for- 
 getful of the myriads of desolate homes, the ruined 
 towns, the burnt Tillages, the extinguished industry, 
 and the humiliation of France, unparalleled in the 
 annals of modern war. I can assure him they are 
 before my mind day and night. But does not " Scru- 
 tator," in order to give strength. to this argument, use 
 " punishment " in two different senses ? Suffering 
 such as France has brought on herself is punishment, 
 no doubt; but when I spoke of a punishment that 
 should not by its lightness prove subversive of the car- 
 dinal principles of public right, I clearly meant punish- 
 ment in a legal sense. • 
 
 My second position was, — 
 
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90 MAX MULLEE 
 
 2. That Germany, after her dearly bought victories, 
 has a right to the most ample guarantees for the safety 
 of her south-western frontier. 
 
 It is to this statement that " Scrutator " seems 
 most determined to demur. So strong is his ingrained 
 suspicion of the astuteness of Count Bismarck, that in 
 spite of the absence of any incriminating evidence, — 
 nay, in spite of the strongest evidence to the contrary 
 (Treaty of Prague, surrender of Luxemburg, with- 
 drawal of the Prince of Hohenzollern) he cannot bring 
 himself to accept the only true and only natural expla- 
 nation of things, viz. that Count. Bismarck was bent 
 on peace, and the Emperor was bent on war. Because 
 I mentioned that German statesmen and poets had 
 never ceased to regret the loss of Elsass, " Scrutator " 
 argues — 
 
 " That the national sentiment of Germany has always de- 
 manded the reconquest of Alsace and Lorraine." 
 
 Now, surely with honest people there is a difference, 
 and a very wide difference, between regretting a loss 
 and wishing to take back what is no longer our own ? 
 Can " Scrutator " bring forward one single word from 
 any German statesman or poet of note durino- the last 
 fifty years in support of a reconquest of Elsass ? Will he 
 return the same challenge to me with regard to French 
 statesmen and poets and the Rhine frontier ? And if 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. 91 
 
 not, how could he force his unwilling pen to write such 
 a sentence ? — 
 
 " It is unfortunately true that the extension of her frontier in 
 the direction of the Rhine has entered as much into the dreams 
 of Frenchmen as the recovery of Alsace and Lorraine has 
 entered into the national sentiment of Germany." 
 
 There should really be no misunderstanding on such 
 essential principles of public morality, and in order to 
 avoid every possible ambiguity I may be pardoned if I 
 have recourse to a practical illustration. Suppose two 
 jewellers' shops on opposite sides of a street. In the 
 show window of the one there is a splendid tiara of 
 diamonds ; only one stone is broken out, and that very 
 stone, having come into the possession of the other 
 jeweller — we will not inquire by what means — is ex- 
 hibited in the brilliant window opposite. Now, we can 
 well imagine that one jeweller, whenever he passed the 
 window of his rival, would cast a glance at the missing 
 diamond, and we can equally understand that the other, 
 on seeing the tiara, might find it hard to suppress a 
 furtive wish for some of the remaining stones. Every 
 moralist would admit that, under those circumstances, 
 both were in danger of breaking the Tenth Command- 
 ment. But as long as the one simply looks at his lost 
 diamond, and sighs, and passes on, surely he deserves 
 praise rather than blame for resisting temptation; 
 while if the other actually thrusts his- arms through the 
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 plate-glass, and tries to carry off another stone of the 
 Imperial tiara, he cannot plead,' as an "attenuating 
 circumstance," that his rival, in his secret heart, 
 wished to have back his diamond. And if in breaking 
 the plate-glass he wounded his hand, and was brought 
 bleeding before the judge, would his suffering go 
 towards a mitigation of punishment ? 
 
 In spite of the repeated temptation, I must decline 
 to be drawn by " Scrutator " into a Schleswig-Holstein 
 controversy, though I hold as strongly as ever that, 
 whether on the ground of technical law or on the 
 ground of national will, the cause of Schleswig-Holstein 
 was a just and righteous cause ; nay, though I might 
 appeal to an authority which " Scrutator " would cer- 
 tainly respect, in stigmatizing the Protocol of London 
 as a piece of diplomatic iniquity, and a revival of the 
 evil spirit of the Treaty of Vienna. 
 
 But, as I said in the beginning, the points on which 
 " Scrutator " agrees with me are infinitely more im- 
 portant than the points on which we differ, and I, 
 therefore, gladly take note of them. He now 
 admits, — 
 
 . 1. That Germany would not be guilty of a great 
 crime by annexing some of the territory she has con- 
 quered. 
 
 2. That it would be criminal on the part of France to 
 refuse peace now on such a basis. 
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TO THE PEOPLE OP ENGLAND. 93 
 
 I am less German here than " Scrutator." I object 
 to Germany taking any territory by way of reprisal. 
 I think her only justification in annexing territory is a 
 rigid regard for the safety of her frontier. If she is 
 once satisfied on that point, I have that confidence in 
 her King and in her statesmen and spokesmen that I 
 fully expect the grand opportunity of raising Europe to 
 a higher standard of international morality than has 
 hitherto prevailed will not be lost, and the mediaeval 
 idea of paying for defeat in living souls will be struck 
 out for ever from the code of international law. To 
 trust implicitly in the peaceful dispositions of France 
 without taking the best security against a recurrence 
 of the theatrical bombardment of Saarbriick would be 
 on the part of the King a dereliction of the most 
 sacred duty ; to take one inch of territory beyond what 
 is absolutely necessary for a strong defensive position 
 would be a folly of which the greatest statesman of our 
 time is not likely to become guilty. If " Scrutator " 
 says that the verdict of 78 French Departments out of 
 89 against war proves that the development of com- 
 merce is a safer guarantee for peace than the ramparts 
 of frontier fortresses, how does he dispose of the fact 
 that, in spite of the 78 French Maires, war was 
 declared ! If an insult which, as " Scrutator " says, 
 was never offered could rouse France to fever heat, 
 how can he call on German statesmen not to mind 
 
 " the vapouring of French colonels" ? 
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94 MAX MULLER 
 
 " Scrutator " proves himself a true friend of Prance 
 when he openly declares that it would be criminal on 
 her part to refuse peace on the basis of a cession of 
 territory. France will find out some day who have 
 been her true friends and who have been her worst 
 enemies on this side of the Channel. France can 
 afford to give up part of Elsass, and be France again 
 for all that. What is painful and almost intolerable 
 for her is that at the same time she should have to 
 part with any of her sons. It is a rude shock to our 
 ideas of the dignity of human nature if even one single 
 ' person is coerced into giving up his nationality, %. e. 
 into giving up himself. With the great mass of the 
 people in Elsass, I believe the difficulty will be much 
 smaller than we suppose. They are all German by 
 blood, many by language, and, what is most import- 
 ant, they are still German by the simplicity and ho- 
 nesty of their religion. We are told by English tra- 
 vellers that many of the peasants even now, if allowed 
 to vote by ballot, would vote for Germany. For the 
 true patriot there always exists the option of emigra- 
 tion, — a cruel option I grant, yet an option which 
 formerly was denied to conquered provinces. But is 
 there no other remedy ? Would it be quite impossible 
 that those who are really' French in heart should re- 
 main French citizens, although living in a German 
 province? The world is. no longer what it was. 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. 95 
 
 Thousands of Frenchmen are now living in Germany, 
 thousands of Germans live in France or England, 
 thousands of Englishmen are domiciled all over the 
 world. In Hamburg, out of a population of 220,000, 
 70,000 are aliens. I look upon this as a sign of pro- 
 gress, as the result of free trade and free intercourse 
 among civilized nations ; and it seems to me possible 
 that the same principle on a larger scale might be 
 applied to Elsass. No doubt there are difficulties, and 
 they stare us in the face ; but why should we not at- 
 tempt to face them ? Why should not every Alsacian 
 who wants to remain French (and I doubt whether 
 their number will be very formidable) be allowed to 
 do so, if he only conforms to the laws of the country 
 where he takes up his abode, and contributes his share 
 to its taxes ? There would be the difficulty of military 
 service, which is really a kind of tax from which no 
 one in Germany is exempt. But this might be met by 
 an equivalent, by a tax, and a heavy tax, to be paid by 
 those inhabitants of Elsass who wish to remain French. 
 This would act as a very fair test of patriotism, as a 
 true plebiscite, and would in a short time lead to a 
 natural solution of all difficulties. Some people would 
 object to the additional tax, and would become Ger- 
 man ; others would object to it, and would migrate to 
 France. Anyhow, no violence would thus be done to 
 those convictions which form the inmost sanctuary of 
 
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96 MAX MULLER 
 
 a man's soul. I am afraid the rough and ready an- 
 swer of the practical statesman will be that such a re- 
 medy is impracticable. It may be so. But if it is, I 
 say again, as I said before, that all this misery is but 
 a warning against the crime of war, and that when the 
 flower of a nation has been mowed down by death, 
 those who are spared to find new resting-places for 
 themselves, whether in France or in more distant lands, 
 may well be thankful for their fate. 
 
 Max Mullie. 
 
 FIFTH LETTER. 
 
 - November'lth, 1870. 
 
 Sir, — When I ventured to accept the first challenge 
 of " Scrutator," it was not from any presumptuous con- 
 fidence that I should be able to withstand in argu- 
 ment one of the most powerful athletes of our time, 
 but simply and solely because I had such perfect con- 
 fidence in his love of truth and his passion for justice 
 that I felt convinced he would rather break his sword 
 than use it against an adversary whom he thought in 
 the right. Nor have I been mistaken in my expecta- " 
 tion; and, though in his last letter there are a few 
 thrusts which show a love of victory rather than a love 
 of truth, I feel it right to thank him thus publicly for 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. 97 
 
 the tender way in which he has dealt with one who, 
 after all, can only handle a wooden sword, while he 
 wields the very brand Excalibur. 
 
 If I write once more, it is not in order to carry on a 
 controversy, but because I feel it my duty to make 
 amends, as far as I can, for some omissions in my 
 former replies, complained of by " Scrutator." I know 
 now which are the points that seem vital to " Scru- 
 tator," and not one of them, I can promise him, shall 
 be passed over in silence. 
 
 No one, I think, could have read " Scrutator's" last 
 letter attentively without thinking, as I did, that its 
 marrow consisted in the two weighty sentences which 
 I quoted : — . 
 
 1. "That Germany would not be guilty of a great 
 crime by annexing some of the territory she has con- 
 quered." 
 
 2. " That it would be criminal on the part of France 
 to refuse peace now on such terms." 
 
 "Scrutator," however, explains that when he ac- 
 quitted Germany of a "great crime," he was judging 
 her by what he himself regarded as a low and faulty 
 standard of public morality ; " for I added," he says, 
 "that in annexing some portion of French territory 
 Germany would certainly lose a noble opportunity of 
 raising the standard of international morality." 
 
 I fully share " Scrutator's " sentiments, and I have 
 
 H 
 
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98 MAX MULLEE 
 
 maintained throughout that the annexation of territory 
 for the mere pleasure of annexation seems to me totally 
 unjustifiable. I cannot conceive of any excuse for 
 territorial annexation, except so far as it is demanded 
 by a strict regard for the safety of a frontier that has 
 been pronounced unsafe by the highest military 
 authorities, and has proved to be so by long and sad 
 experience. But, though I hold this opinion as strongly, 
 nay, as we shall see, more strongly even than " Scru- 
 tator," I should consider it the height of injustice to 
 say to Germany, " Because you do not inaugurate a 
 new era of international morality ; because you do not 
 what I am bound to confess is without a precedent in 
 the annals of history; because you do not what neither 
 England nor any other country in the world has ever 
 done ; because after having driven the invader back 
 across the frontier, you do not simply present your bill 
 of blood and march home, — therefore your morality is 
 low ; therefore your morality is unchristian ; therefore 
 you are not worthy of the title of a civilized nation ; 
 therefore you are almost brutal." What would England 
 have said if Germany had preached in that tone at the 
 time when the Sikhs had recrossed the Sutlej, and the 
 Maharaja had surrendered himself a prisoner to Lord 
 Hardinge ? 
 
 " Scrutator " next enters on the circumstances that 
 preceded and followed the famous fracas at Ems. 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. 99 
 
 Though. I am prepared to question the accuracy of 
 several of his statements, for the sake of argument I 
 am willing to accept them all in a lamp. But what 
 then ? Are we to believe that " Scrutator " means to 
 defend the Due de Gramont for having declared war 
 in the French Chambers because of a paragraph that 
 appeared in a newspaper giving a true or an imaginary 
 account of a true or imaginary insult offered by the 
 King of Prussia bo M. Benedetti ? When a real insult 
 had been offered by America to England by the cap- 
 ture of Messrs. Mason and Slidell, England sent her 
 message and stood calmly by her guns, and waited for 
 an answer ; and if any English statesman had dared to 
 declare war before that answer was received, woe to 
 him, and woe, I add, to those who venture to defend 
 such proceedings ! The business of statesmen is of too 
 grave a character to be transacted in newspapers, and 
 granting even that Count Bismarck had written that 
 paragraph which is supposed to have given such offence 
 to M. Ollivier — a statement for -which there is not one 
 atom of evidence, — a declaration of war in answer to 
 an article in a newspaper, or in a review, would still, 
 according to all laws, human and divine, remain abso- 
 lutely unprovoked, absolutely indefensible, absolutely 
 criminal and diabolical. 
 
 I see I have passed over another indictment which 
 Scrutator " brings, not against the people of Germany 
 
 h 2 
 
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100 MAX MULLEE 
 
 and Count Bismarck, but against the King and the 
 
 Crown Prince of Prussia. 
 
 "It has been repeatedly asserted, and as often denied," lie 
 writes, "that the King of Prussia, on the beginning of the war, 
 declared that he was making war on the Emperor of the French, 
 not on the French nation. The king certainly did not say so 
 in so many words, and yet I think I can prove that the honour 
 of Prussia is really committed to the line of policy attributed to 
 King William. The King of Prussia's words are as follows : — 
 ' I am waging war against French soldiers, not against French 
 citizens. The latter, consequently, will continue to enjoy se- 
 curity for their persons and property so long as they themselves 
 shall not by hostile attempts against the German troops deprive 
 me of the right of according them any protection."' 
 
 " Scrutator " maintains that the proclamation con- 
 tained a distinct promise that the King would recross 
 the frontiers of France when the aggression had been 
 repelled. I maintain that it would upset all rules of 
 grammar and logic if we attributed to it such a meaning. 
 The proclamation is neither more nor less than an as- 
 surance — and, after the lying rumours that had been 
 spread among the peasants of Alsace, a very necessary 
 assurance — that the lives and property of private per- 
 sons would be safe during the war, provided that the 
 war was carried on according to the recognized rules 
 of war — by soldiers, and not by civilians. How could 
 the King promise to accord protection to French 
 citizens after he had recrossed the frontiers of France ? 
 
 The next person arraigned is the Crown Prince. He, 
 too, published a proclamation, in which the sentence 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. 101 
 
 occurs, " Germany makes war on the Emperor, not on 
 the people of Prance." This again, we are told, could 
 only mean that as soon as the German army had taken 
 Napoleon prisoner, they would march home. If it were 
 so, this proclamation would really carry us back to the 
 times when wars were decided by single combat. But 
 what would become then of that plenary responsibility 
 for the acts of its Government from which, as the 
 writer in the ' Edinburgh Review ' told us, no people 
 is exempt ? What of the penalty which the criminal 
 conduct of her rulers had brought on France, and 
 from which France was told she ought not to shrink ? 
 But now comes the worst. Because the King of 
 Prussia did not fulfil a promise which he never made, 
 because the Crown Prince of Prussia fought not only 
 against the Emperor or the Imperial Guard, but against 
 the French army wherever he could find it, therefore, 
 
 "This masking of sinister intentions under fair professions 
 until the time for throwing off the mask has arrived has caused 
 a widespread and profound distrust in the policy of Count 
 Bismarck." 
 
 *I have frequently been bewildered of late, but never 
 so much as at such premises followed by such a con- 
 clusion. I can assure " Scrutator " on my honour that 
 by no effort of casuistry can I discover in the procla- 
 mations of the King and the Crown Prince the mean- 
 ing which he so confidently ascribes to them. 
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102 MAX MULLEE 
 
 I now proceed to the next point. " Scrutator " says 
 that, in challenging him to bring forward one word 
 from any German statesman or poet of note during the 
 last fifty years in support of a reconquest of Elsass, I 
 had him at a disadvantage, because I was familiar with 
 the literature of Germany, while his acquaintance with 
 it was very meagre. A challenge given in the ' Times ' 
 is not a challenge given in a corner ; it is a challenge 
 given to the whole world, and it is clear from the 
 letter of " W. S." that " Scrutator " would not have 
 been left without allies if I had made a reckless chal- 
 lenge. At all events " Scrutator " has returned an an- 
 swer to my challenge ; — but is it a fair answer ? While 
 I was writing ' fifty years' in round numbers, I was 
 thinking to myself, is it necessary to say from 1816 to 
 1866 ? That the question of Alsace was discussed in 
 1816 surely every English statesman knows full well; 
 that it was mooted again after 1866, when France had 
 threatened war unless Prussia complied with her con- 
 ditions of peace at Prague, is known to every reader 
 of newspapers. But between 1816 and 1866, or, to 
 speak more distinctly — for there is no charm about 
 these dates — between the generation of statesmen and 
 poets that witnessed the war of liberation and the 
 generation of statesmen and poets that witnessed the 
 battle of Sadowa, I challenge not only " Scrutator," 
 but anybody to bring forward one word from any 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. .103 
 
 German statesman or poet of note in support of the 
 reconquest of Elsass. What does " Scrutator " answer ? 
 He says, — 
 
 "After the fall of the first French Empire at Waterloo, the 
 statesmen who represented Germany in the negotiations for 
 peace claimed the right of disposing of Alsace and Lorraine, 
 irrespectively of the wishes of the other allied Powers." 
 
 But in what year was that ? In 1816. And allow me 
 to add that it was not from German statesmen only 
 that these claims proceeded. I quote from a letter of 
 a well-known English publicist : — 
 
 " In vain," he says, " the German military writers demon- 
 strated to the Congress of Vienna how indispensable was the 
 possession of the fortresses of Metz, Strasburg, and Luxem- 
 burg, and of the line of the Moselle and the Vosges, for the 
 safety of Southern Germany. Prince Talleyrand succeeded 
 in wheedling the Emperor Alexander and one of the Plenipo- 
 tentiaries of England into the belief that the maintenance of 
 their protigi, Louis XYIIL, on the throne of France depended 
 on the preservation for that country of its frontiers in 1790 ; 
 and thus, in order to reconcile the French people to a sovereign 
 reinstated by the aid of foreign bayonets, the ' integrity ' of 
 France found support, while the territorial pretensions of Ger- 
 many, though admitted to be just, were shelved by the Con- 
 gress." 
 
 In a letter from Lord Castlereagh to the Duke of 
 Wellington, dated Vienna, October 2, 1814, we see 
 that, in his opinion, Prussia was the natural and only 
 safe guardian of the south-western frontier of Ger- 
 many, and that the hankering of Prance after what 
 
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104 MAX MULLER 
 
 she falsely styled her "natural frontier" was incu- 
 rable, and, though it might slumber in the day of dire 
 reverses, would infallibly awaken whenever circum- 
 stances should favour its gratification. Lord Oastle- 
 reagh adds : — 
 
 "In examining the larger principles, I am always led to re- 
 vert with considerable favour to that policy which Mr. Pitt, in 
 the year 1805, had strongly at heart, which was to tempt Prussia 
 to put herself forward on the left bank of the Rhine, more in 
 military contact with France .... for our first object is to 
 provide effectually against the systematic views of France to 
 possess herself of the Low Countries and the territories on the 
 left bank of the Rhine — a plan which, however discountenanced 
 by the present French Government, will infallibly revive when- 
 ever circumstances favour its execution." 
 
 The Duke of Wellington replied under date of 17th 
 of October, 1814 :— 
 
 " I agree so far in principle with you that I think it would be 
 desirable that, if possible, all the territories on the left bank of 
 the Rhine should belong to one Power only, and that that Power 
 should be Prussia." 
 
 On the 28th of July, 1815, Lord Liverpool wrote to 
 Lord Castlereagh : — 
 
 " It is quite natural that the Powers bordering on France 
 should look to their own security in some permanent reduction 
 of the territory of that country. It is quite intelligible, likewise, 
 that the Emperor of Russia should be desirous of being con- 
 sidered as a protector of the French nation ; but this disposi- 
 tion on the part of his Imperial Majesty should be kept within 
 reasonable bounds. He should recollect that those who are near 
 to France, and consequently in the post of danger, have the 
 deepest interest in the contest ; and, though it may be very pro- 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. 105 
 
 per that he should so far act the part of a mediator as to keep 
 down extravagant and unreasonable pretensions, he ought not to 
 sacrifice what may be necessary for the security of his allies, to 
 the pretensions of the French nation, particularly as that nation 
 has never acted upon the principle of permanent territorial inte- 
 grity with respect to other countries when the fortune of war has 
 placed the power in its own hands." 
 
 So much for 1816. 
 
 Now, who is the next statesman or poet of note whom 
 " Scrutator " quotes in reply to my challenge ? A Mr. 
 P. S. von Hirschfeld, who wrote the ' The Immediate 
 Future of the European States, or Prophecies for the 
 Coming Year/ I should never have recognized the 
 author of these Prophecies as a statesman of note, even 
 if he had written between 1816 and 1866. But in what 
 year was his book published? In 1867, i.e. just fifty 
 years after 1816. , 
 
 "Scrutator" then proceeds and quotes another 
 book by Adolf Schmidt. But even if he mistook the 
 distinguished historian Adolf Schmidt for a statesman 
 or poet of note, his book was published in 1870. 
 
 " W. S." is more skilful in his reply to my chal- 
 lenge. He quotes a poem of old Father Arndt, the 
 famous poet of ' Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland ? ' 
 I fully expected that Arndt would be thrown in my 
 teeth, but the answer to his name seemed to me so self- 
 evident that I did not think it necessary to exempt him 
 and his contemporaries from my general challenge. 
 
 Arndt was born in 1769 ; he was not a young man in 
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106 MAX JflULLER. 
 
 1816, and lie is the very representative of the genera- 
 tion that shook off the yoke of Napoleon. That he and 
 his friends claimed Elsass, and more than Elsass, for 
 Germany, is known to everybody who knows his songs. 
 He is the very type of the veterans of 1816. And if 
 he lived on to a good old age, and remained true 
 through his life to his watchword. So weit die deutsclw 
 Zunge klingt,is it fair to argue thathe represents the gene- 
 ration of statesmen or poets that came after Waterloo ? 
 Lastly, the poem which has lately been revived in 
 Germany, and which is also quoted as an answer to 
 my challenge, — 
 
 " Doch dort an den Vogesen 
 Liegt ein verlornes Gut, 
 Da gilt es deutsches Blut 
 Vom Hbllenjooh zu losen," 
 
 — was written by Max von Schenkendorf, who died in 
 1817. So far, therefore, my challenge still holds good, 
 and ought to convince " Scrutator " that his suspicions 
 against Germany are totally unfounded. 
 
 I have now answered, I believe, every point in 
 " Scrutator's " letter, and, if it did not seem very 
 presumptuous, I should like to ask "Scrutator" to 
 look again at one or two of the arguments which I 
 have advanced in support of my own position, that 
 Count Bismarck's policy— or, I should rather say, 
 Count Bismarck's interest — since 1866, was peace. 
 '•' Scrutator " h&S[$m$]lfr}&B6m&t<&hom, and yet I feel 
 
TO THE PEOPLE OP ENGLAND. 107 
 
 certain that, if he would but once make an effort to 
 look on Count Bismarck as being neither a fool nor a 
 rogue, but simply a statesman like other statesmen, he 
 would see that there is not only reasonableness but 
 naturalness in his policy of peace. " Scrutator " knows 
 better than most people what happened at Nikolsburg 
 and Prague in 1 866. Prussia was coerced into con- 
 cluding a peace at the dictation of France. Every 
 general then was for war against France; Count Bis- 
 marck counselled peace. " Scrutator " knows what 
 a sacrifice Germany made in surrendering the ancient 
 German fortress of Luxemburg. Prussia was ready 
 for war, Count Bismarck counselled peace. " Scruta- 
 tor " knows what a diplomatic triumph France achieved 
 by forcing the King of Prussia to withdraw the Prince 
 of Hohenzollern. During all that time every German 
 officer felt convinced that, as soon as her new military 
 organization was perfect, France would go to war, 
 and everybody might have heard what the charming 
 Countess Pourtales confided to General Ducrot as an 
 important State secret, viz. that Germany was arm- 
 ing tooth and nail against an attack from France. The 
 measure of national wrath was nearly full, yet Count 
 Bismarck still held the vial in his strong and steady 
 .hand, so that not one drop ran over till the Due de 
 Gramont dealt it his wanton blow, and the vial broke, 
 and the furies of war broke loose. 
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 I am sorry for it, but I must utter one word of com- 
 plaint against " Scrutator." He takes advantage of 
 my illustration of the two jewellers, which, like every 
 illustration, fails if it is drawn beyond its legitimate 
 limits. He says, — 
 
 " Would the jeweller whose shop was broken into be justified 
 not only in knocking the burglar down and compelling him to 
 pay the damages, but, in addition, in breaking into his shop and 
 carrying off some of his jewellery, by way of making him keep 
 the peace in future P Would not such an application of the lex 
 talionis be more likely to breed lawlessness than to stimulate a 
 desire for peace ? Yet such is the advice which ' M. M.' gives to 
 Germany." 
 
 This little artifice would be quite fair in a young 
 barrister ; it is not so, I think, in one who takes the 
 proud name of " Scrutator." And when " Scrutator " 
 brings himself to say that I advise Germany to apply 
 the lex talionis, and to carry off some of the jewellery 
 of France, I must protest, for I said the very contrary. 
 After having quoted the words of " Scrutator," — 
 
 1. "That Germany would not be guilty of a great- 
 crime by annexing some of the territory she has con- 
 quered ;" and, 
 
 " 2. That it would be criminal on the part of France 
 
 to refuse peace now on such terms," I said, — 
 
 " I am less German here than ' Scrutator.' I object to Ger- 
 many taking any territory by way of reprisal, i. e. by the lex 
 talionis. I think her only justification in annexing territory is 
 a rigid regard for the safety of her frontier." 
 
 Were I not what I am. I could almost bring- mv- 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. 109 
 
 self to wish that Prance were strong enough to force 
 the German army to recross the French frontier. It 
 would facilitate peace, and yet France would not easily 
 forget the lessons which this war has taught her. Be- 
 sides, as a man is all the better for powerful rivals, a 
 country is best kept up to the mark by powerful 
 neighbours. It is quite fair, therefore, that " Scruta- 
 tor " should wish success to France, and that he 
 should urge his friends to tight as long as there is a 
 spark of hope. But when the last spark of hope is 
 gone, would it not be the duty of a true friend to tell 
 France plainly that she must yield to the inevitable, 
 and that she ought to yield to it with dignity, as 
 behoves a great nation ? I must claim no longer the 
 sympathy of " Scrutator " for Germany and the Ger- 
 man cause, for his heart is in France ; but for the sake 
 of France I adjure him to counsel peace and timely 
 concessions to prevent the utter ruin of the country 
 which he loves. 
 
 Max Mullee. 
 
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110 MAX.MULLEB 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 After this controversy between "Scrutator" and. 
 myself Had been summed up with judicial impartiality 
 by a leading article in the ' Times/ " Scrutator " has 
 renewed the conflict once more in a letter printed 
 in the ' Times ; of November 15. I refrained from 
 answering it, because on the main points of the argu- 
 ment nothing new had been advanced, while a few 
 minor objections could, as I thought, be safely left to 
 the discernment of the English public. 
 
 I had to complain in my last letter that " Scru- 
 tator" had offended against one of the recognized 
 rules of argumentation, and I am sorry to say that, 
 in the hurry of writing, he seems again to have 
 allowed himself to commit some breaches of those laws 
 of civilized warfare which are binding on soldiers of 
 the pen as much as on soldiers of the sword. 
 
 He writes : — " M. M. asserts that a peace without 
 the seizure of the enemy's territory would he subversive 
 of the cardinal principles of public right." 
 
 Would any reader believe that I could have made 
 so absurd a statement ? What I really said was : — 
 
 1 . That it would be subversive of the cardinal prin- 
 ciples of public right to allow an unprovoked war to be 
 atoned for by a pecuniary fine. 
 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. 1 1 ] 
 
 This proposition requires no proof till some one will 
 venture to assert the contrary, viz. that the right 
 punishment for an unprovoked war is simply a pay- 
 ment of damages. 
 
 I then proceeded to lay down my second propo- 
 sition : — 
 
 2. That Germany, after her dearly-bought victories, 
 has a right to the most ample guarantees for the safety 
 of her south-western frontier. 
 
 This, I believe, is admitted by " Scrutator." 
 
 I then put these two propositions together, and I 
 concluded that, if the crime of France made her liable 
 to more than a pecuniary mulct, and if the injured 
 party, viz. Germany, had established her right to en- 
 sure the safety of her south-western frontier, England, 
 as a friend of France, still more as a friend of justice 
 and peace, should impress on France the duty and 
 necessity of yielding to the demands of Germany. 
 
 " Scrutator," by substituting the special application 
 for a general principle, makes me say what is absurd, 
 but he can hardly have believed that the readers of the 
 ' Times ' could be deceived by these little artifices. 
 No judge need be ashamed to say that it would be 
 subversive of the cardinal principles of justice to allow 
 a murder to be atoned for by a pecuniary fine ; but to 
 say that it would be unjust not to hang a murderer 
 would be absurd, because he might be beheaded, or 
 
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112 MAX MULLER 
 
 shot, or transported, though never let off with a mere 
 mulct. 
 
 " Scrutator " next makes me say that " a peace 
 without the seizure of the enemy's territory would be 
 without a precedent in the annals of history." 
 
 How could I have said so, considering how many 
 battles have been drawn battles, how many wars have 
 had no decisive issue ? What I really said was this. 
 Under the peculiar circumstances of this war between 
 France and Germany, a peace without ample gua- 
 rantees for the safety of the oft-invaded frontier of 
 Germany would be without a precedent. And I said 
 this, not in order to exalt the self-denial required of 
 Germany, but in answer to those who with one breath 
 call on Germany to raise the standard of public mo- 
 rality, i. e. to do something over and above the old 
 standard of public morality, and who with the next 
 breath turn round and call Germany " almost brutal " 
 for not doing what has never been done before. If it 
 were necessary to discuss the precedents adduced by 
 " Scrutator," I should say that they had not been 
 happily chosen. At the end of the Crimean War 
 an alteration of the boundaries at the mouth of the 
 Danube was made with the very object that alone 
 justifies, in my eyes, an alteration of the boundaries 
 between Germany and France ; and at the end of the 
 Napoleonic wars, while everybody helped himself to 
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TO THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND. 113 
 
 something, Germany alone, owing to her divided state, 
 was persuaded to practise that noble generosity which 
 has just cost her another war, and which she is yet 
 invited to practise once more. 
 
 I am sorry for the length to which this controversy 
 between "Scrutator" and myself has run, but I am 
 glad to find that at the end of our discussion we do not 
 differ so much, at least on essential points, as we did 
 in the beginning. We differ as to what is the best way 
 of securing the safety of the German frontier ; or rather, 
 while I abstain from expressing any opinion on a ques- 
 tion that must be solved by the masters of military 
 science, " Scrutator " seems to have formed a definite 
 opinion on this subject. But we agree, or very nearly 
 agree, as far as principles are concerned. 
 
 My two positions have remained throughout un- 
 shaken, — 
 
 1 . That it would be subversive of the cardinal prin- 
 ciples of public right to allow an unprovoked war to 
 be atoned for by a pecuniary fine. 
 
 2. That Germany, after her dearly-bought victories, 
 has a right to the most ample guarantees for the safety 
 of her south-western frontier. 
 
 I place by their side " Scrutator's " almost un- 
 willing, though all the more honourable admissions : — 
 1. That Germany would not be guilty of a great 
 
 i 
 
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114 MAX MLLLEK TO THE PEOPLE OP ENGLAND. 
 
 crime by annexing some of the territory she has con- 
 quered. 
 
 2. That it would be criminal on the part of France 
 to refuse peace now on such terms. 
 
 And I finish with the concluding words of the lead- 
 ing article of the ' Times : ' — 
 
 " Welcoming the ascendency of the German people, 
 which, by its history, its geographical position, its educa- 
 tional progress, and its domestic character, is, of all 
 Continental nations, the least dangerous to Europe." 
 
 Oxfoed, Bee. 6, 1870. 
 
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115 
 
 ME. CAKLYLE ON THE WAK. 
 
 To the Editor of the 'Times.' 
 
 Sir, — It is probably an amiable trait of human 
 nature, this cheap pity and newspaper lamentation 
 over fallen and afflicted France ; but it seems to me a 
 very idle, dangerous, and misguided feeliag, as applied 
 to the cession of Alsace and Lorraine by France to her 
 German conquerors, and argues, on the part of Eng- 
 land, a most profound ignorance as to the mutual 
 history of France and Germany, and the conduct of 
 France towards that country, for long centuries back. 
 The question for the Germans, in this crisis, is not one 
 of " magnanimity," of " heroic pity and forgiveness to 
 a fallen foe;" bat of solid prudence and practical con- 
 sideration what the fallen foe will, in all likelihood, do 
 when once on his feet again. Written on her memory, 
 in a dismally instructive manner, Germany has an ex- 
 perience of four hundred years on this point, of which 
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116 CARLYLE ON THE WAE. 
 
 on the English memory, if it ever was recorded there, 
 there is now little or no trace visible. 
 
 Does any of us know, for instance, with the least 
 precision, or in fact know at all, the reciprocal proce- 
 dures, the mutual history, as ws call it, of Louis XI. 
 and Kaiser Max ? Max in his old age put down, in 
 chivalrous, allegorical, or emblematic style, a wonder- 
 ful record of these things, the Weisse Konig ("White 
 King," as he called himself; " Red King," or perhaps 
 " Black," being Louis's adumbrative title), adding 
 many fine engravings by the best artist of his time : 
 for the sake of these prints, here and there an English 
 collector may possess a copy of the book ; but I doubt 
 if any Englishman has ever read it, or could, for want 
 of other reading on the subject, understand any part 
 of it. Old Louis's quarrel with the Chief of Germany 
 at that time was not unlike this last one of a younger 
 Louis : " You accursed Head of Germany, you have 
 been prospering in the world lately and I not ; have at 
 you, then, with fire and sword !" But it ended more 
 successfully for old Louis and his French than I hope 
 the present quarrel will. The end at that time was 
 that opulent, noble Burgundy did not get re-united to 
 her old Teutonic mother, but to France, her grasping 
 step-mother, and remains French to this day. 
 
 Max's grandson and successor, Charles V., was hardly 
 luckier than Max in his road-companion and contem- 
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CAELYLE ON THE WAR. 117 
 
 porary French King. Francis I., not content with 
 France for a kingdom, began by trying to be elected 
 German Kaiser as well, and never could completely 
 digest his disappointment in that fine enterprise. He 
 smoothed his young face, however, swore eternal 
 friendship with the young Charles who had beaten 
 him, and, a few months after, had egged on the poor 
 little Duke of Bouillon, the Reich's and Charles's 
 vassal, to refuse homage in that quarter, and was in 
 hot war with Charles. The rest of his earthly existence 
 was a perpetual haggle of broken treaties and ever- 
 recurring war and injury with Charles V., — a series, 
 withal, of intrusive interferences with Germany and 
 every German trouble that arose, to the worsening and 
 widening of them all, not to the closing or healing of 
 any one. A terrible journey these two had together, 
 and a terrible time they made out for Germany between 
 them, and for France too, though not by any means in 
 a like degree. The exact deserts of his most Christian 
 Majesty Francis I. in covenanting with Sultan Soliman 
 — that is to say, in letting loose the then quasi-infernal 
 roaring-lion of a Turk (then m the height of his san- 
 guinary fury and fanaticism, not sunk to caput mor- 
 tuum and a torpid nuisance, as now) upon Christendom 
 and the German Empire — I do not pretend to state. 
 It seems to me no modern imagination can conceive 
 this atrocity of the most Christian King, or how it 
 
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118 CAELYLE ON THE WAE. 
 
 harassed and haunted with incessant terror the Chris- 
 tian nations for the two centuries ensuing. Richelieu's 
 trade again was twofold : first, what everybody must 
 acknowledge was a great and legitimate one, that of 
 coercing and drilling into obedience to their own 
 Sovereign, the vassals of the Crown of France; and 
 secondly, that of plundering, weakening, thwarting, 
 and in all ways tormenting the German Empire. " He 
 protected Protestantism there." Yes, and steadily 
 persecuted his own Huguenots, bombarded his own 
 Rochelle, and in Germany kept up a thirty-years' war, 
 cherishing diligently the last embers of it till Germany 
 were burnt to utter ruin ; no nation ever nearer abso- 
 lute ruin than unhappy Germany then was. An 
 unblessed Richelieu for Germany, nor a blessed for 
 France either, if we look to the ulterior issues, and 
 distinguish the solid from the specious in the fortune 
 of nations. No French ruler, not even Napoleon I., 
 was a feller or crueller enemy to Germany, or half so 
 pernicious to it (to its very soul as well as to its body) ; 
 and Germany had done him no injury that I know of, 
 except that of existing beside him. 
 
 Of Louis XIV.'s four grand plunderings and incen- 
 diarisms of Europe — for no real reason but his own 
 ambition and desire to snatch his neighbour's goods — 
 of all this we of this age have now, if any, an altogether 
 
 faint and placid remembrance, and our feelings on it 
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CAELYLE ON "THE WAE. 119 
 
 differ greatly from those that animated our poor fore- 
 fathers in the time of William III. and Queen Anne. 
 Of Belleisle and Louis XV.'s fine scheme to cut Ger- 
 many into four little kingdoms, and have them dance 
 and fence to the piping of Versailles, I do not speak ; 
 for to France herself this latter fine scheme brought its 
 own reward : loss of America, loss of India, disgrace 
 and discomfiture in all quarters of the world — Advent, 
 in fine, of the French Revolution, embarcation on the 
 shoreless chaos on which ill-fated France still drifts 
 and tumbles. 
 
 The Revolution and Napoleon I., and their treatment 
 of Germany, are still in the memory of men and news- 
 papers ; but that was not by any means, as idle men 
 and newspapers seem to think, the first of Germany's 
 sufferings from France ; it was the last of a very long 
 series of such — the last but one, let us rather say ; and 
 hope that this now going on as " Siege of Paris," as 
 wide-spread empire of bloodshed, anarchy, delirium, 
 and mendacity, the fruit of France's latest " marche a 
 Berlin " may be the last ! No nation ever had so bad 
 a neighbour as Germany has had in France for the last 
 400 years ; bad in all manner of ways ; insolent, rapa- 
 cious, insatiable, unappeasable, continually aggressive. 
 
 And now, furthermore, in all history there is no 
 insolent, unjust neighbour that ever got so complete, 
 instantaneous, and ignominious a smashing down as 
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120 CAELYLE ON THE WAR. 
 
 France has now got from Germany. Germany, after 
 400 years of ill-usage, and generally ill-fortune, from 
 that neighbour, has had at last the great happiness to 
 see its enemy fairly down in this manner ; and Ger- 
 many, I do clearly believe, would be a foolish nation 
 not to think of raising up some secure boundary-fence 
 between herself and such a neighbour now that she has 
 the chance. 
 
 There is no law of nature that I know of, no Heaven's 
 Act of Parliament, whereby France, alone of terrestrial 
 beings, shall not restore any portion of her plundered 
 goods when the owners they were wrenched from have 
 an opportunity upon them. To nobody, except to 
 France herself for the moment, can it be credible that 
 there is such a law of nature. Alsace and Lorraine 
 were not got, either of them, in so divine a manner as 
 to render that a probability. The cunning of Riche- 
 lieu, the grandiose long-sword of Louis XIV., these are 
 the only titles of France to those German countries. 
 Richelieu screwed them loose (and, by happy accident, 
 there was a Turenne, as General, got screwed along 
 with them ; — Turenne, I think, was mainly German by 
 blood and temper, had not Francis I. egged on his 
 ancestor, the little Duke of Bouillon, in the way we 
 saw, and gradually made him French) ; Louis le Grand, 
 with his Turenne as supreme of modern Generals, 
 managed the rest of the operation, except indeed, I 
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CARLTLE ON THE WAR. 121 
 
 should say, the burning of the Palatinate, from Heidel- 
 berg Palace steadily downwards, into black ruin ; which 
 Turenne would not do sufficiently, and which Louis had 
 to get done by another. There was also a good deal 
 of extortionate law-practice, what we may fairly call 
 violently sharp Attorn eyism, put in use. The great 
 Louis's " Ghambres de Reunion" Metz Chamber, 
 Brissac Chamber, were once of high infamy, and much 
 complained of, here in England, and everywhere else 
 beyond the Rhine. The Grand Louis, except by sub- 
 lime gesture, ironically polite, made no answer. He 
 styled himself on his very coins (ecu of 1687, say the 
 Medallists), Excelsus super omnes Gentes Dominus, but 
 it is certain attorneyism of the worst sort was one of 
 his instruments in this conquest of Alsace. Nay, as to 
 Strasburg, it was not even attorneyism, much less a 
 long-sword, that did the feat ; it was a housebreaker's 
 jemmy on the part of the Grand Monarque. Strasburg 
 was got in time of profound peace' by bribing of the 
 magistrates to do treason, on his part, and admit his 
 garrison one night. Nor as to Metz la Pucelle, nor 
 any of these Three Bishoprics, was it force of war that 
 brought them over to France ; rather it was force of 
 fraudulent pawnbroking. King Henri II. (year 1552) 
 got these places — Protestants, applying to him in their 
 extreme need — as we may say, in the way of pledge. 
 Henri entered there with banners spread and drums 
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122 CAELYLE ON THE WAR. 
 
 beating, " solely in defence of German liberty, as God 
 shall witness ;" did nothing for Protestantism or Ger- 
 man liberty (German liberty managing rapidly to help 
 itself in this instance) ; and then, like a brazen-faced, 
 unjust pawnbroker, refused to give the places back, — 
 had ancient rights over them, extremely indubitable to 
 him, and could not give them back. And never yet, 
 by any pressure or persuasion, would. The great 
 Charles V., Protestantism itself now supporting, en- 
 deavoured, with his utmost energy and to the very 
 cracking of his heart, to compel him, but could not. 
 The present Hohenzollem King, a modest and pacific 
 man in comparison, could and has. I believe it to be 
 perfectly just, rational, and wise that Germany should 
 take these countries home with her from her unex- 
 ampled campaign, and, by well fortifying her own old 
 Wasgau ("Vosges"), Hundsriick (Dog's-back), Three 
 Bishoprics, and other military strengths, secure herself 
 in time coming against French visits. 
 
 The French complain dreadfully of threatened "loss 
 of honour;" and lamentable bystanders plead earnestly, 
 " Don't dishonour France ; leave poor France's honour 
 bright." But will it save the honour of France to 
 refuse paying for the glass she has voluntarily broken 
 in her neighbour's windows? The attack upon the 
 windows was her dishonour. Signally disgraceful to 
 
 any nation was her late assault on Germany ; eouallv 
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CARLYLE ON THE WAK. 123 
 
 signal has been the ignominy of its execution on the 
 part of Prance. The honour of France can be saved 
 only by the deep repentance of France, and by the 
 serious determination never to do so again — to do the 
 reverse of so for ever henceforth. In that way may the 
 honour of France again gradually brighten to the 
 height of its old splendour, far beyond the First Napo- 
 leonic, much more the Third, or any. recent sort, and 
 offer again to our voluntary love and grateful estima- 
 tion all the fine and graceful qualities Nature has im- 
 planted in the French. For the present, I must say, 
 France looks more and more delirious, miserable, 
 blamable, pitiable, and even contemptible. She re- 
 fuses to see the facts that are lying palpable before her 
 face, and the penalties she has brought upon herself. 
 A France scattered into anarchic ruin, without recog- 
 nizable head ; head, or chief, indistinguishable from 
 feet, or rabble ; Ministers flying up in balloons ballasted 
 with nothing but outrageous pubUc lies, proclamations 
 of victories that were creatures of the fancy ; a Govern- 
 ment subsisting altogether on mendacity, willing that 
 horrid bloodshed should continue and increase rather 
 than that they, beautiful Republican creatures, should 
 cease to have the guidance of it : I know not when or 
 where there was seen a nation so covering itself with 
 dishonour. If, among this multitude of sympathetic 
 
 bvstanders, France have any true friend, his advice to 
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124 CAELYLE ON THE WAR. 
 
 France would be, — To abandon all that, and never to 
 resume it more. France really ought to know that 
 " refuges of lies " were long ago discovered to lead 
 down only to the Gates of Death Eternal, and to be 
 forbidden to all creatures ! — that the one hope for France 
 is to recognize the facts which have come to her, and 
 that they came withal by invitation of her own : how 
 she — a mass of gilded, proudly varnished anarchy — has 
 wilfully insulted and defied to mortal duel, a neighbour 
 not anarchic, but still in a quietly human, sober, and 
 governed State, and has prospered accordingly. Pros- 
 pered as an array of sanguinary mountebanks versus a 
 Macedonian phalanx must needs do ; — and now lies 
 smitten down into hideous wreck and impotence, testi- 
 fying to gods and men what extent of rottenness, 
 anarchy, and hidden vileness, lay in her. That the in- 
 exorable fact is, she has left herself without resource or 
 power of resisting the victorious Germans; and that 
 her wisdom will be to take that fact into her astonished 
 mind ; to know that, howsoever hateful, said fact is 
 inexorable, and will have to be complied with, — the 
 sooner at the cheaper rate. It is a hard lesson to vain- 
 glorious France ; but France, we hope, has still in it 
 veracity and probity enough to accept fact as an evi- 
 dently adamantine entity, which will not brook resist- 
 ance without penalty, and is unalterable by the very 
 gods. 
 
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CARLYLE ON THE WAR. 125 
 
 The quantity of conscious mendacity that France, 
 official and other, has perpetrated latterly, especially 
 since July last, is something wonderful and fearful. 
 And, alas, perhaps even that is small compared to the 
 self-delusion and wreconscious mendacity long preva- 
 lent among the French ; which is of still feller and 
 more poisonous quality, though unrecognized for poi- 
 son. To me, at times, the mournfullest symptom in 
 France is the figure its " men of genius," its highest 
 literary speakers, who should be prophets and seers 
 to it, make at present, and, indeed, for a generation 
 back have been making. It is evidently their belief 
 that new celestial wisdom is radiating out of France 
 upon all the other overshadowed nations ; that France 
 is the new Mount Zion of the universe ; and that all 
 this sad, sordid, semi-delirious, and, in good part, in- 
 fernal stuff which French Literature has been preach- 
 ing to us for the last fifty years is a veritable new 
 Gospel out of Heaven, pregnant with blessedness for 
 all the sons of men. Alas, one does understand that 
 France made her Great Revolution; uttered her tre- 
 mendous doom's voice against a world of human 
 shams, proclaiming, as with the great Last Trumpet, 
 that shams should be no more. I often call that a 
 celestial-infernal phenomenon, — the most memorable 
 in our world for a thousand years ; on the whole, a 
 transcendent revolt against the Devil and his works 
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126 CAKLYLE ON THE WAE. 
 
 (since shams are all and sundry of the Devil, and poi- 
 sonous and unendurable to man). For that we all 
 infinitely love and honour Prance. And truly all na- 
 tions are now busy enough copying France in regard 
 to that ! From side to side of the civilized world 
 there is, in a manner, nothing noticeable but the whole 
 world in deep and dismally chaotic Insurrection 
 against Shams, determination to have done with shams 
 coute qu'il coilte. Indispensable that battle, however 
 ugly. Well done we may say to all that ; for it is the 
 preliminary to everything ; but alas, all that is not yet 
 victory ; it is but half the battle, and the much easier 
 half. The infinitely harder half, which is the equally 
 or the still more indispensable, is that of achieving, 
 instead of the abolished shams which were of the Devil, 
 the practicable realities which should be veritable and 
 of God. That first half of the battle, I rejoice to see, 
 is now safe, can now never cease except in victory ; 
 but the further stage of it, I also see, must be under 
 better presidency than that of France, or it will for 
 ever prove impossible. The German race, not the 
 Gaelic, are now to be protagonist in that immense 
 world-drama; and from them I expect better issues. 
 Worse we cannot well have. France, with a dead-lift 
 effort, now of eighty-one years, has accomplished un- 
 der this head, for herself or for the world, nothing, 
 
 or even less, — in strict arithmetic, zero with minus 
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CARI.YLJE ON THE WAE. 127 
 
 quantities. Her prophets prophesy a vain thing ; her 
 people rove in darkness and have wandered far astray. 
 Such prophets and such a people ; — who in the way 
 of deception and self-deception have carried it far ! 
 " Given up to strong delusion/' as the Scripture says ; 
 till at last the lie seems to them the very truth. And 
 now, in their strangling crisis and extreme need, they 
 appear to have no resource but self-deception still, 
 and quasi-heroic gasconade. They do believe it to be 
 heroic. They believe that they are the " Christ of 
 Nations;" an innocent godlike people, suffering for 
 the sins of all nations, with an eye to redeem us all: — 
 let us hope that this of the " Christ of Nations" is the 
 non plus ultra of the thing. I wish they would in- 
 quire whether there might not be a " Cartouche of 
 Nations" fully as likely as a " Christ of Nations" 
 in our time ! Cartouche had many gallant quali- 
 ties, was much admired, and much pitied in his suf- 
 ferings, and had many fine ladies begging locks of 
 his hair while the inexorable, indispensable gibbet 
 was preparing. But in the end there was no salva- 
 tion for Cartouche. Better he should obey the heavy- 
 handed Teutsch police-officer, who has him by the 
 windpipe in such frightful manner, give up part of 
 his stolen goods ; altogether cease to be a Cartouche, 
 and try to become again a Chevalier Bayard under 
 improved conditions, and a blessing and beautiful 
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128 , CAELYLB ON THE WAR. 
 
 benefit to all his neighbours, instead of too much the 
 reverse, as now ! Clear it is, at any rate, singular as 
 it may seem to France, all Europe does not come to 
 the rescue, in gratitude for the heavenly "illumina- 
 tion" it is getting from France : nor could all Europe, 
 if it did, at this moment prevent that awful Chancellor 
 from having his own way. Metz and the boundary- 
 fence, I reckon, will be dreadfully hard to get out of 
 that Chancellor's hands again. 
 
 A hundred years ago there was in England the live- 
 liest desire, and at one time an actual effort and hope, 
 to recover Alsace and Lorraine from the French. Lord 
 Carteret, called afterwards Lord Granville (no ancestor, 
 in any sense, of his now honourable synonym), thought 
 by some to be, with the one exception of Lord Chat- 
 ham, the wisest Foreign Secretary we ever had, and 
 especially the " one Secretary that ever spoke German, 
 or understood German matters at all," had set his heart 
 on this very object, and had fair prospects of achieving 
 it, had not our poor dear Duke of Newcastle suddenly 
 peddled him out of it, and even out of office altogether, 
 into sullen disgust (and too much of wine withal, says 
 Walpole), and into total oblivion by his nation, which, 
 except Chatham, has none such to remember. That 
 Bismarck, and Germany along with him, should now 
 at this propitious juncture make a like demand is no 
 surprise to me. After such provocation, and after 
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CARLYLE ON THE WAS. 129 
 
 such a victory, the resolution does seem rational, just, 
 and even modest. And considering all that has 
 occurred since that memorable cataclysm at Sedan, I 
 could reckon it creditable to the sense and moderation 
 of Count Bismarck that he stands steadily by this ■ 
 demanding nothing more, resolute to take nothing 
 less, and advancing with a slow calmness towards it by 
 the eligiblest roads. The "Siege of Paris," which 
 looks like the hugest and most hideous farce-tragedy 
 ever played under this sun, Bismarck evidently hopes 
 will never need to come to uttermost bombardment, to 
 million-fold death by hunger, or the kindling of Paris 
 and its carpentries and asphalt streets by shells and 
 red-hot balls into a sea of fire. Diligent, day by day, 
 seem those Prussians, never resting nor too much hast- 
 ing ; well knowing the proverb, " Slow fire makes 
 sweet malt." I believe Bismarck will get his Alsace, 
 and what he wants of Lorraine ; and likewise that it 
 will do him, and us, and all the world, and even Prance 
 itself by-and-by, a great deal of good. Anarchic 
 France gets her first stern lesson there (a terribly dras- 
 tic dose of physic to sick France !) ; and well will it be 
 for her if she can learn her lesson honestly. If she 
 cannot, she will get another, and ever another ; learnt 
 the lesson must be. 
 
 Considerable misconception as to Herr von Bismarck 
 is still prevalent in England. The English news- 
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130 CAKLYLE ON THE WAR. 
 
 papers, nearly all- of them, seem to me to be only get- 
 ting towards a true knowledge of Bismarck, but not 
 yet got to it. The standing likeness, circulating every- 
 where ten years ago, of demented Bismarck and his 
 ditto King to Strafford and Charles I. versus our Long 
 Parliament (as like as Macedon to Monmouth, and not 
 liker) has now vanished from the earth, no whisper of 
 it ever to be heard more. That pathetic Niobe of Den- 
 mark, reft violently of her children (which were stolen 
 children, and were dreadfully ill- nursed by Niobe Den- 
 mark), is also nearly gone, and will go altogether so 
 soon as knowledge of the matter is had. Bismarck, as 
 I read him, is not a person of " Napoleonic " ideas, but 
 of ideas quite superior to Napoleonic ; shows no invin - 
 cible " lust of territory," nor is tormented with " vul- 
 gar ambition," etc. ; but has aims very far beyond that 
 sphere ; and, in fact, seems to me to be striving with 
 strong faculty, by patient, grand, and successful steps, 
 towards an object beneficial to Germans and to all other 
 men. That noble, patient, deep, pious, and solid Ger- 
 many should be at length welded into a nation 
 and become Queen of the Continent, instead of vapour- 
 ing, vainglorious, gesticulating, quarrelsome, restless, 
 and over-sensitive Prance, seems to me the hopefullest 
 public fact that has occurred in my time. 
 
 I remain, Sir, yours truly, 
 
 T. Caeltle. 
 Chelsea, Nov. l%/ g/feed by Microsoft® 
 
WOEKS BY 
 
 WILLIAM BATHBONE GREG. 
 
 LITERARY AND SOCIAL JUDGMENTS. Second 
 
 Edition, in One Volume, 8vo, pp. 416, handsomely bound in cloth, 
 price 12s. 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. Madame de Stael. 
 II. British and Foreign Characteristics. 
 III. False Morality of Lady Novelists. 
 TV. Kingsley and Carlyle. 
 V. French Fiction : The Lowest Deep. 
 VI. Chateaubriand. 
 
 VII. M. De Tocqueville. 
 VIII. Why are Women redundant? 
 IX. Truth versus Edification. 
 X. The Doom of the Negro Race. 
 XI. Time. 
 XII, Good People. 
 
 "The contents of the volume before us stand forth in agreeable contrast to the, 
 very ordinary essays, dissertations, and disquisitions, which have flooded the literary 
 world of late. Mr. Greg 1 wields his pen with the vigour and skill of a practised 
 writer ; his sentences, well rounded and sonorous, strike upon the ear with a power 
 and effect which strongly excite the imagination. . . . HiB diction is singularly apt 
 und felicitous, and his style, with his wealth of words and profuseneas of illustration, 
 at times reminds one of the matchless manner of Maoaulay." — Examiner. 
 
 "The charm of Mr. Greg's writing, more especially upon political subjects, consists 
 in no slight degree in the difficulty his readers feel in differing wth him. Grant his 
 postulates, and it is nearly impossible not to grant his conclusions. His argument is 
 ' linked reason long drawn out,* stated in language as pellucid as it is possible for 
 language to be, interrupted by few digressions, and spoiled by no needless qualifica- 
 tions. — Spectator. 
 
 " In the essay entitled ' Doom of the Negro Race,' even thoBe who migbt be most 
 inclined to criticise his conclusions will agree that Mr. Greg comes out as a publicist 
 of very high quality indeed ; the careful preparation of facts, their lucid and orderly 
 arrangement, and the wisdom of the political philosophy, compose a most masterly 
 piece." — Saturday Seview. 
 
 " Selection and discrimination become then all the more valuable from their rarity, 
 and, independently of the intrinsic interest of the articles, a volume like Mr. Greg's 
 ought to be welcomed as a protest against slipshod habits of thought and a vindica- 
 tion of the dignity of criticism. The articles he reproduces deal rather with import- 
 ant and suggestive than unfamiliar subjects. In every page we can see that his 
 works have been labours of love, and he only comes to his conclusions after carefully 
 collecting and weighing all accessible evidence."— Times. 
 
 "At a time when bo much intellectual power is monopolized by criticism, it is much 
 to stand in the second rank of critics, and Mr. Greg stands perhaps in the first; for 
 * The Literary and Social Judgments/ which he has collected from the pages of re- 
 views and magazines, and has here republished in a permanent form, disclose the 
 possession of many of those gifts which, possessed in full measure, form the finely 
 appreciative and discriminating critic, and enrich us with such criticisms as Goethe, 
 Leasing, or Hazlitt has given. Aouteness, power of analysis, combined with sufficient 
 synthetic power to cast the analytical results into artistic form, skill to draw fine dis- 
 tinctions, to express them broadly, to magnify them so as to be distinguishable by 
 the naked eye, and to bc^j^E^^iyWfc&S9#©9 and tangible imagery— these 
 arms make up the greater part of a critic's intellectual outfit, and these Mr. Greg 
 possesses in considerable degree."— Scotsman. 
 
Works by WilUam Bathbone Greg (continued) . 
 
 POLITICAL PROBLEMS FOR OUR AGE AND 
 
 COUNTRY. In One Volume, demy 8vo, pp. 342. Cloth, 10a. 6d. 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 VII. The Economic Problem. t 
 VIII. Political Consistency. 
 IX. The Parliamentary Career. 
 
 X. The Price we pay for Self-govern- 
 ment. 
 XI. Vestryism. 
 XII. Direct v. Indirect Taxation. 
 XIII. The New Regime, and how to 
 meet it. 
 
 I. Constitutional and Autocratic 
 
 Statesmanship. 
 II. England's ^Future Attitude and 
 Mission. 
 
 III. Disposal of the Criminal Classes. 
 
 IV. Kecent Change in the Character of 
 
 English Crime. 
 V. The Intrinsic Vice of Trade Unions. 
 VI. Industrial and Co-operative Part- 
 nerships. 
 
 "A large section of the educated classes may welcome in Mr. Greg a confident 
 guide to lead them towards doctrines which they are inclined and yet afraid to ac- 
 cept." — Saturday Review. 
 
 "It is always a pleasure to read Mr. Greg's political or literary writings. . . . But 
 ir you like the companionship of a robust intellect that braces all whom it comes in 
 contact with, and can be chivalrous enough to admire feats of strength and moral 
 courage, whatever their object be, and if you like to commune with a political writer 
 who is no mere political attorney, you will bear with Mr. Greg's rough points, and 
 will frankly own him to be one of the ablest of living political writers. His intellec- 
 tual gifts are numerous." — Scotsman. 
 
 "We are always compelled to admire, but very seldom allowed to agree with Mr. 
 Greg's political writings. He is an idealogue, with the style of a consummate jour- 
 nalist and the knowledge of a practised statistician." — Spectator. 
 
 ** It can hardly be necessary to say to any one who knows anything of him, that 
 Mr. Greg is always a thoughtful and able writer, and that we do not enjoy him the 
 less when we happen not to agree with him/' — Echo. 
 
 "It is perfectly unnecessary to say that his 'Political Problems' is a very able 
 work. Everything produced by Mr. Greg is characterised by great ability and marks 
 of deep and earnest thought." — Civil Service Gazette. 
 
 " Favourably known to the more thoughtful section of the public by his ' Literary 
 and Social Judgments,' Mr. Greg now strengthens his position by a volume of essays 
 more uniformly Berious in aim, and worthy of attentive perusal." — Weekly Dispatch. 
 
 " i W. R. G.* is thoroughly individual, and what he thinks for himself he does not 
 hesitate to say." — Edinburgh Evening Courant. 
 
 "It is very refreshing to meet with a writer like Mr. Greg, who handles the most 
 pressing social and political questions at once acutely and profoundly, and yet with 
 a rare amount of independence of all the sections of current opinion." — Westminster 
 Review, April, 1870. 
 
 " Mr. Greg thinks clearly, and expresses his thoughts in vigorous language. He 
 rarely writes on a subject without having taken considerable trouble to master its 
 details ; and the questions which, in his ' Political Problems,' he offers for solution, 
 or attempts to solve, are of great and immediate importance. For all these reasons 
 his book will repay study."— North British Review, April, 1870. 
 
 THE CREED OF CHRISTENDOM; its Foundation 
 
 and Superstructure. Second Edition, in One Volume, crown 8vo 5 pp. 
 
 xx. and 280, cloth, price 6s. 
 
 " We do not hesitate to say, that for a man of Bound mind to read this book through 
 slowly, and to retain his belief in the verbal inspiration of the Mosaic Record, is a 
 moral impossibility,'' — Spectator. 
 
 TRUTH versus EDIFICATION. In One Volume, fcp. 
 
 8vo, pp. 32. Cloth, price Is. 
 
 WHY ARE WOMEN REDUNDANT? In OneVo- 
 
 lume, fop. 8vo, pp. 40. Cloth, price Is. 
 
 TRUBNER & CO., SW'g©? BMM3P0ITER ROW, LONDON 
 
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