ook place. After the first shock of surprise there was no
shriek of fear. Capitulation was negotiated on January 26th, not on
account of this new danger, but {215} because there was no longer bread
for the citizens to buy.

Gambetta resisted to the last, but his dictatorship was ended, and a
National Assembly at Bordeaux elected M. Thiers their president. By
the treaty of Frankfort, signed in May 1871, France ceded Alsace and
Lorraine to Prussia, together with the forts of Metz, Longwy and
Thionville. She had also to pay a war indemnity of 200,000,000 pounds
sterling. By the exertions of Bismarck, the imperial crown was placed
upon the head of Wilhelm I, and the conqueror of France was hailed as
Emperor of United Germany in the Great Hall of Mirrors at Versailles by
representatives of the leading European states. The German troops were
withdrawn from Paris, where civil war raged for some six weeks, the
great buildings of the city being burned to the ground.

Europe was satisfied that united Germany should take the place of
Imperial France, whose policy had been purely personal and selfish
since its first foundation in 1852. The fall of Napoleon III caused
little regret at any court, for he had all the unscrupulous ambition of
his mighty predecessor, without the genius of the First Napoleon.

{216}

Chapter XIX

The Reformer of the East

Italy had won unity after a gallant struggle, and Greece some fifty
years before revolted from the barbarous Turks and became an
independent kingdom. The traditions of the past had helped these,
since volunteers remembered times when art and beauty had dwelt upon
the shores of the tideless Mediterranean. Song and romance haloed the
name of Kossuth's race when the patriot rose to free Hungary from the
harsh tyranny of Austria. General sympathy with the revolutionary
spirit was abroad in 1848, when the tyrant Metternich resigned and
acknowledged that the day of absolutism was over.

It was otherwise with the revolting Poles, who dwelt too far from the
nations of the West to rouse their passionate sympathies. France
promised to help their cause, but failed them in the hour of peril.
Poland made a desperate struggle to assert her independence in 1830,
when Nicholas the Autocrat was reigning over Russia. The Poles entered
Lithuania, which they would have reunited with their ancient kingdom,
but were completely defeated, losing Warsaw, their capital, and their
Church