; let him impose upon France such a war
indemnity, that every man, woman, and child in the country will curse
the folly of this war for the next fifty years; and let him give up his
scheme of annexation, and he will then have acted in the interests of
Europe, and ultimately in those of France herself. Prussia, after the
battle of Jena, was as low as France is now. Napoleon stripped her of
her provinces, and she acceded to the treaty of her spoliation, but at
the first favourable opportunity she protested her signature, and the
world has never blamed her for so doing. France, if she is deprived of
Alsace, will do the same. If she signs the treaty, it will only be
binding on her until she is strong enough to repudiate it. A treaty of
territorial spoliation imposed by force never has and never will bind a
nation. The peace of Europe will not be lasting if France hawks about
her alliance, and is ready to tender it to any Power who wishes to carry
out some scheme of aggrandisement, and who will aid her to re-conquer
the provinces which she has lost. I have always regarded the Prussians
as a disagreeable but a sensible nation, but if they insist upon the
annexation of Alsace, and consider that the dismemberment of France will
conduce to the unity of Germany, I shall cease to consider them as more
sensible than the Gauls, with whom my lot is now cast. The Austrians
used to say that their defensive system rendered it necessary that they
should possess the Milanese and Venetia; but the possession of these two
Italian provinces was a continual source of weakness to them, and in the
end dragged them into a disastrous war. The Prussians should meditate
over this, and over the hundred other instances in history of
territorial greed overreaching itself, and they will then perhaps be
more inclined to take a fair and impartial view of the terms on which
peace ought to be made. "Moderation in success is often more difficult
to practise than fortitude in disaster," says the copy-book. My lecture
upon European politics is, I am afraid, somewhat lengthy, but it must be
remembered that I am a prisoner, and that Silvio Pellico, under similar
circumstances, wrote one of the most dreary books that it ever was my
misfortune to read and to be required to admire. I return to the recital
of what is passing in my prison house.

Last night and early this morning I had an opportunity to inspect the
bars of the cage in which I am confined. I happened t