Note 94 — Chapter VII · THE SPIRITUAL ROOTS OF THE SETTLEMENT

Here is what the Times of December 10th, 1870, has to say about France and Germany respectively, and on the Alsace-Lorraine question:—

‘We must say with all frankness that France has never shown herself so senseless, so pitiful, so worthy of contempt and reprobation, as at the present moment, when she obstinately declines to look facts in the face, and refuses to accept the misfortune her own conduct has brought upon her. A France broken up in utter anarchy, Ministers who have no recognised chief, who rise from the dust in their air balloons, and who carry with them for ballast shameful and manifest lies and proclamations of victories that exist only in their imagination, a Government which is sustained by lies and imposture, and chooses rather to continue and increase the waste of lives than to resign its own dictatorship and its wonderful Utopia of a republic; that is the spectacle which France presents to-day. It is hard to say whether any nation ever before burdened itself with such a load of shame. The quantity of lies which France officially and unofficially has been manufacturing for us in the full knowledge that they are lies, is something frightful and absolutely unprecedented. Perhaps it is not much after all in comparison with the immeasurable heaps of delusions and unconscious lies which have so long been in circulation among the French. Their men of genius who are recognised as such in all departments of literature are apparently of opinion that France outshines other nations in a superhuman wisdom, that she is the new Zion of the whole world, and that the literary productions of the French, for the last fifty years, however insipid, unhealthy, and often indeed devilish, contain a real gospel, rich in blessing for all the children of men.

We believe that Bismarck will take as much of Alsace-Lorraine, too, as he chooses, and that it will be the better for him, the better for us, the better for all the world but France, and the better in the long run for France herself. Through large and quiet measures, Count von Bismarck is aiming with eminent ability at a single object; the well-being of Germany and of the world, of the large-hearted, peace-loving, enlightened, and honest people of Germany growing into one nation; and if Germany becomes mistress of the Continent in place of France, which is light-hearted, ambitious, quarrelsome, and over-excitable, it will be the most momentous event of the present day, and all the world must hope that it will soon come about.’