sess
herself of every kind of influence and every source of wealth, is not
this the chief danger which Russia has to fear, and whose imminence she
should clearly foresee, in dealing with a Sultan like Abdul Hamid, a
man of nervous fears and bloodthirsty instincts, bound to furtherance
of the sudden or premeditated schemes of William II?

July 27, 1897. [13]

Although Germany has commemorated her victories for the last
twenty-five years, and will doubtless continue to commemorate them for
the next six months and then for evermore, it seems that we are to be
compelled, in deference to "superior orders" revealed at the Council of
Ministers, to postpone the official consecration of a monument intended
to prove our devotion to our mutilated country, and our incurable grief
at the defeat of Sedan. It seems that we have not the right, a free
people, to give to sorely oppressed Alsace-Lorraine (which never ceases
to give proofs of her fidelity to France) a proof in our turn, that we
remember the disaster which has separated us, that we lament this
disaster, and hope one day to repair, if not to avenge it. Our pride
is being systematically humiliated in every direction! The nature and
consequences of victory have indeed been cruelly modified, if one must
submit to the law of the conqueror after having been delivered from him
for twenty-five years. The glorious resistance of the past thus
becomes an ignominious surrender and makes us shed tears of shame, even
more bitter than those which we shed over our saddest memories.

Gentlemen of the Government of France, I would ask you to read the
German newspapers; go to Berlin, go wherever you like in Germany or in
Alsace-Lorraine, and you will find there hundreds and hundreds of
monuments which have been inaugurated by the Imperial German
Government. For these, the smallest event, ancient or modern, affords
sufficient pretext. [14]

In all things and in every direction we yield today to the authority of
a monarch who emphasises our defeat more severely than those who
actually conquered us. Our strict national duty towards him who did
not overcome us with his own sword, was to hold ourselves firmly
upright before him and to protect our brethren, victims of the war.
Alas! we have been obedient to Bismarck, and we shall be submissive to
William II. But why, and to what end? Had we met the liar and cheat
with honesty, had we remained calm in presence of this nerve-ridden
i