ndividual, we should have been able to recover, morally at first and
then actually, all the advantages that Prussia gained by her victory.

The Imperial victim of restlessness, whose nerves are so unhealthily
and furiously shaken when he goes abroad, has a craving for disturbing
the nerves of others; this in itself makes him the most dangerous of
advisers. William II never allows to himself or to others any
relaxation of the brain; like all spirits in torment, he must needs
find, forthwith, to the very minute, a counter-effect to every thing
that confronts him. With him, even a sudden calm contains the threat
of a storm, excitement lurks beneath his moods of quietness. The
bastard peace which he has authorised Turkey to conclude, conceals a
new revolution in Crete: such is his will. No sooner is there evidence
of an improvement in our relations with Italy, than he invites King
Humbert to be present at the German military manoeuvres, in order to
create dissension between the two countries. And so it is in
everything. He makes it his business to inspire weariness and vexation
of spirit, to destroy those hopes and feelings which restore vitality
to the soul of a people. He is for ever stretching out a hand that
would fain control by itself the rotation of the globe, and he sets it
all awry.

The glorification of William II at Kiel is founded upon shifting sands.
Schleswig remains Danish and resists the Germanising process with a
force of energy at least equal to that of Alsace-Lorraine. The Danes
of Schleswig are still Danes, they have not bowed the knee in
admiration of German _Kultur_, any more than the Alsatians, Schleswig
says: "Let them ask us by a _plebiscite_ and they shall see what we
want, what civilised men have the right to ask: light and air and the
right to dispose of themselves." The people of Alsace-Lorraine say:
"If you would know what Alsace-Lorraine, which was never consulted,
thinks of the Treaty of Frankfort, ask her."

I blush, and my soul is filled with shame, when I think of the
degradation of French patriotism contained in the utterances
of . . . ., of those words which, to our lasting sorrow, evoked in _the
Centre_ of the Chamber an outburst of enthusiasm. May our patriots
never forget this cowardly session of the French Parliament! Thus,
then, twenty-seven years after the war, when we have spent countless
millions on the remaking of our army and navy, when every Frenchman has
ble