d them; they could meet
their fellow Germans with the consciousness that Paris was theirs, and
thus find a reason for their sense of exclusive superiority. I do not
wish to discuss further the reasons why everyone attaches himself more
readily to a big political system which gives scope to his abilities,
than to a divided, albeit related, nation, such as existed formerly on
this side of the Rhine, in so far as the Alsatians were concerned. The
fact is that such disinclination existed, and that it is our duty to
overcome it by patience. We have, it seems to me, many means at our
disposal. We Germans are accustomed to govern more benevolently,
sometimes more awkwardly--but in the long tun really more benevolently
and humanely, than the French statesmen. This is a merit of the German
character which will soon appeal to the Alsatian heart and become
manifest. We are, moreover, able to grant the inhabitants a far
greater degree of communal and individual freedom than the French
institutions and traditions ever permitted.

If we watch the present movement in Paris (the Commune), we shall
find, what is true of every movement possessing the least endurance,
that it contains at bottom a grain of sense in spite of all the
unreasonable motives which attach to it, influencing its individual
partisans. Without this no movement can attain even that degree of
force which the Commune exercises at present. This grain of sense--I
do not know how many people believe in it, but surely the most
intelligent and best who at present are fighting against their
countrymen do believe in it--is, to put it briefly, the German
municipal government. If the Commune possessed this, then the better
element of its supporters--I do not say all--would be satisfied. We
must differentiate according to the facts. The militia of the usurpers
consists largely of people who have nothing to lose. There are in a
city of two million inhabitants many so-called "_repris de justice_,"
or as we should say "people under police supervision," who are
spending in Paris the interval between two terms in prison. They are
congregating in the city in considerable numbers and are ready to
serve disorder and pillage wherever it may be. It is these people who
gave to the movement, before we had scrutinized its theoretical aims,
the occasionally prominent character which seemed to threaten
civilization, and which, in the interest of humanity, I now hope has
been overcome. It is,