It is the Prussian military system of domination with its contagion which has done the harm and which ought to disappear, and that system itself is the fruit of Napoleonic imperialism.  The struggle is always, and more now than ever, between imperialism and liberty, between force and right.  May you in the United States profit by this lesson, so that you may avoid falling into the European error. * * * It is barbarity triumphant.  But that triumph will be only momentary, and all agree at the conclusion of this terrible drama on having a United States of Europe with disarmament, or at least with armaments limited to a collective police force.

Third Letter.

PARIS, Sept. 8, 1914.

* * * You have comprehended that France is struggling for justice and peace.  Be sure that she will resist even to the last man, with the certainty that she is defending not herself alone but also civilization.  Never have I suspected to what degree of savagery man can be degraded by unrestrained violence.  I had believed that the world could never again see the time of the Massacre of the Innocents; I deceived myself; we have returned to barbarity, and the Prussian Army leaves us no alternative between victory and extermination; should she become mistress of Paris, which I doubt, and of the half of France, she will find the other half which will bury her under its ruins. * * *

The English troops march on our roads, stop at Clermont-Creans!  Oh, miracle!  I see among my compatriots the worst chauvinists, those who openly desire for me the fate of Jaures, those who fought me in 1902 with cries of “Fashoda” or “Chicago,” hasten to meet the English soldiers in order to aid and acclaim them, in this country still full of the memories and the ruins of the hundred years’ war!  It is because the English troops are also defending the land of liberty, theirs as ours and as yours.  Every one except the Prussians comprehend this, and this it is which exalts their souls! * * *

The whole misfortune, I repeat, is the result of the crime committed forty-three years ago, the crime which we accepted to avoid recommencing the war.  Our resignation has not sufficed; it has not caused the trouble to disappear; the German Government has none the less been obliged to confirm it each day.  The misfortune has been the forcible annexation of Alsace-Lorraine.  For that the Germans are paying today; for that they will pay until they have made atonement for their fault.  In this regard France is irreproachable; she has resisted the chauvinists; our general elections, the conferences of Berne and of Basle, have proved that, far from seeking revenge, she wished by mutual concessions to arrive worthily at reconciliation in peace.