ong or short-dated. If one were to add
together all the words of peace which William has spoken and all his
war-like utterances, the mass of the latter would irretrievably swamp
all the rest.

October 28, 1895. [12]

His Majesty the German Emperor, King of Prussia, seems to be quite
incapable of understanding that, in love as in hate, it is wisest not
to be overfond of repeating either the word "always" or the word
"never." It is the intention of William II, that Germany should for
ever and ever remain the gate of Hell for France, and he has continued
to din into our ears his _lasciate speranza_ every year for the last
twenty-five. He never misses an opportunity of showing us France
humiliated and Germany magnified and glorified. The monument at Woerth
has been unveiled with such a noisy demonstration, that it has for ever
banished from our minds the figure, softened by suffering, of that
Emperor Frederick, who had made us forget "Unser Fritz" of
blood-stained memory. William II noisily recalls to our mind the
conqueror, when we wished to see in him only the martyr. This is what
the German Emperor now tells the world at large: "Before the statue of
this great Conqueror, let us swear to keep what he conquered, to defend
this territory against all comers and to keep it German, by the aid of
God and our good German sword."

To do him justice, William II has rendered to us patriots a most
conspicuous service. At a word he has set us back in the position from
which the luke-warm, the dreamers, and the cowards were trying to drive
us. By saying that Alsace-Lorraine is to remain Prussian for ever and
for ever, he has compelled France either to accept her defeat for
centuries to come, or to protest against it every hour of her national
existence.

November 2, 1895.

William II suffers from a curious kind of obsession, which makes him
want to astonish the world by his threats, every time that his recruits
take the oath. On the present occasion he said, that the army must not
only remember the Watch on the Rhine but also the Watch on the Vistula.

[1] _La Nouvelle Revue_, April 1, 1894, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[2] _La Nouvelle Revue_, April 16, 1894, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[3] _Ibid._, May 1, 1894.

[4] _La Nouvelle Revue_, August 1, 1894, "Letters on Foreign Policy."

[5] _La Nouvelle Revue_, September 15, 1894, "Letters on Foreign
Policy."

[6] A pun on the word _clou_, a nail.