aking the peace, the
League cannot stop it. How could it? It lacks the means. There will be
no army ready. It would have to create one. Even now, when such an army,
powerful and victorious, is in the field, the League--for the Supreme
Council is that and more--cannot get its orders obeyed. How then will
its behest be treated when it has no troops at its beck and call? It is
redrawing the map of central and eastern Europe, and is very satisfied
with its work. But, as we know, the peoples of those countries look upon
its map as a sheet of paper covered with lines and blotches of color to
which no reality corresponds."

The constitution of the League was termed by Mr. Wilson a Covenant, a
word redolent of biblical and puritanical times, which accorded well
with the motives that decided him to prefer Geneva to Brussels as the
seat of the League, and to adopt other measures of a supposed political
character. The first draft of this document was, as we saw, completed in
the incredibly short space of some thirty hours, so as to enable the
President to take it with him to Washington. As the Ententophil _Echo de
Paris_ remarked, "By a fixed date the merchandise has to be consigned on
board the _George Washington_."[359]

The discussions that took place after the President's return from the
United States were animated, interesting, and symptomatic. In April the
commission had several sittings, at which various amendments and
alterations were proposed, some of which would cut deep into
international relations, while others were of slight moment and gave
rise to amusing sallies. One day the proposal was mooted that each
member-state should be free to secede on giving two years' notice. M.
Larnaude, who viewed membership as something sacramentally inalienable,
seemed shocked, as though the suggestion bordered on sacrilege, and
wondered how any government should feel tempted to take such a step.
Signor Orlando was of a different opinion. "However precious the
privilege of membership may be," he said, "it would be a comfort always
to know that you could divest yourself of it at will. I am shut up in my
room all day working. I do not go into the open air any oftener than a
prisoner might. But I console myself with the thought that I can go out
whenever I take it into my head. And I am sure a similar reflection on
membership of the League would be equally soothing. I am in favor of the
motion."

The center of interest during the dr