francs, and build ourselves a fortress a few
miles further back, somewhere about Falkenberg or
Saarbrueck--there must be some suitable spot thereabouts. We
should thus make a clear profit of 200,000,000 francs.
[N.B.--A milliard = 1,000,000,000 francs.] I do not like so
many Frenchmen being in our house against their will. It is
just the same with Belfort. It is all French there too. The
military men, however, will not be willing to let Metz slip,
and perhaps they are right[59].

[Footnote 59: Busch, _Bismarck in the Franco-German War_, vol. ii. p.
341.]

A sharp difference of opinion had arisen between Bismarck and Moltke on
this question, and the Emperor Wilhelm intervened in favour of Moltke.
That decided the question of Metz against Thiers despite his threat that
this might lead to a renewal of war. For Belfort, however, the French
statesman made a supreme effort. That fortress holds a most important
position. Strong in itself, it stands as sentinel guarding the gap of
nearly level ground between the spurs of the Vosges and those of the
Jura. If that virgin stronghold were handed over to Germany, she would
easily be able to pour her legions down the valley of the Doubs and
dominate the rich districts of Burgundy and the Lyonnais. Besides,
military honour required France to keep a fortress that had kept the
tricolour flying. Metz the Germans held, and it was impossible to turn
them out. Obviously the case of Belfort was on a different footing. In
his conference of February 24, Thiers at last defied Bismarck in these
words: "No; I will never yield Belfort and Metz in the same breath. You
wish to ruin France in her finances, in her frontiers. Well! Take her.
Conduct her administration, collect her revenues, and you will have to
govern her in the face of Europe--if Europe permits[60]."

[Footnote 60: G. Hanotaux, _Contemporary France_, vol i. p. 124 (Eng.
edit.). This work is the most detailed and authoritative that has yet
appeared on these topics. See, too, M. Samuel Denis' work, _Histoire
Contemporaine_.]

Probably this defiance had less weight with the Iron Chancellor than his
conviction, noticed above, that to bring two entirely French towns
within the German Empire would prove a source of weakness; beside which
his own motto, _Beati possidentes_, told with effect in the case of
Belfort. That stronghold was accordingly saved for France. Thiers also
obtained a reduction