ince, but while
we can imagine a generation of Frenchmen arising who would learn to
recognise the watershed of the Vosges as a permanent boundary between
the two nations, it is difficult to believe that the time will ever come
when a single Frenchman will regard with contentment the presence of the
Germans on the Upper Moselle.

Even after the preliminaries of peace were settled fresh difficulties
arose; the outbreak of the Commune in Paris made it impossible for the
French to fulfil all the arrangements; Bismarck, who did not trust the
French, treated them with much severity, and more than once he
threatened again to begin hostilities. At last Favre asked for a fresh
interview; the two statesmen met at Frankfort, and then the final treaty
of peace was signed.

CHAPTER XV.

THE NEW EMPIRE.

1871-1878.

WITH the peace of Frankfort, Bismarck's work was completed. Not nine
years had passed since he had become Minister; in that short time he
completed the work which so many statesmen before him had in vain
attempted. Nine years ago he had found the King ready to retire from the
throne; now he had made him the most powerful ruler in Europe. Prussia,
which then had been divided in itself and without influence in the
councils of Europe, was the undisputed leader in a United Germany.

Fate, which always was so kind to Bismarck, was not to snatch him away,
as it did Cavour, in the hour of his triumph; twenty years longer he was
to preside over the State which he had created and to guide the course
of the ship which he had built. A weaker or more timid man would quickly
have retired from public life; he would have considered that nothing
that he could do could add to his fame, and that he was always risking
the loss of some of the reputation he had attained. Bismarck was not
influenced by such motives. The exercise of power had become to him a
pleasure; he was prepared if his King required it to continue in office
to the end of his days, and he never feared to hazard fame and
popularity if he could thereby add to the prosperity of the State.

These latter years of Bismarck's life we cannot narrate in detail; space
alone would forbid it. It would be to write the history of the German
Empire, and though events are not so dramatic they are no less numerous
than in the earlier period. Moreover, we have not the material for a
complete biographical narrative; there is indeed a great abundance of
public records; but as