veryone had known since the beginning of the war. At a council of
war directly after Gravelotte it was determined to require Alsace; after
Sedan the terms naturally rose. The demand for at least some territory
was indeed inevitable. The suggestion that from confidence in the
peaceful and friendly character of the French nation they should
renounce all the advantages gained by their unparalleled victories
scarcely deserved serious consideration. Had the French been successful
they would have taken all the left bank of the Rhine; this was actually
specified in the draft treaty which General Le Brun had presented to the
Emperor of Austria. What claim had France to be treated with a leniency
which she has never shewn to any conquered enemy? Bismarck had to meet
the assumption that France was a privileged and special land; that she
had freedom to conquer, pillage, and divide the land of her neighbours,
but that every proposal to win back from her what she had taken from
others was a crime against humanity.

So long as the Provisional Government adopted the attitude that they
would not even consider peace on the basis of some surrender of
territory, there was no prospect of any useful negotiations. The armies
must advance, and beneath the walls of Paris the struggle be fought out
to its bitter end. Bismarck meanwhile treated the Government with great
reserve. They had no legal status; as he often pointed out, the Emperor
was still the only legal authority in France, and he would be quite
prepared to enter into negotiations with him. When by the medium of the
English Ambassador they asked to be allowed to open negotiations for an
armistice and discuss the terms of peace, he answered by the question,
what guarantee was there that France or the armies in Metz and Strasburg
would recognise the arrangements made by the present Government in
Paris, or any that might succeed it? It was a quite fair question; for
as events were to shew, the commander of the army in Metz refused to
recognise them, and wished to restore the Emperor to the throne; and the
Government themselves had declared that they would at once be driven
from power if they withdrew from their determination not to accept the
principle of a cession of territory. They would be driven from power by
the same authority to which they owed their existence,--the mob of
Paris; it was the mob of Paris which, from the beginning, was really
responsible for the war. What use was the