When one remembers the solemn investiture at Kiel of Prince Henry of Prussia, as leader of the crusade which was to spread the sacred words of Christianity amongst the barbarian followers of Confucius, and when one sees this investiture finding its expression in the initiation of the Chinese into the mysteries of Kulmback beer and the search for exportable Gretchens, the association of the two pictures reminds one somehow of tight-rope dancing.  But ridicule is unknown in Germany.

It seems to me that the Kaiser’s latest speech, at the banquet of the provincial Landtag of Brandenburg, is in somewhat doubtful taste.  On this occasion, he spoke first of the divine right and responsabilities of the Hohenzollerns on a footing of familiarity with God, and next he compared the functions of a sovereign with those of a gardener, who stirs up the earth, smokes the roots and hunts out noxious insects.  True, the German Emperor has got to cultivate the tree of 1870-71 and to destroy “hostile animals,” which I take to mean our good simple-minded Frenchmen!

The campaign in favour of a rapprochement between France and Germany continues to be cleverly managed and directed in our midst.  There is talk of a visit of the Tzar, who would come to Antibes and who would there receive William II at the same time as M. Felix Faure.  The formula with which this arrangement is commended to us is “we have sulked long enough.”  In other words, they would convert a great, strengthening and enduring hatred into a trivial grudge.  That, since Fashoda they should regard Sedan as a peccadillo is strange, to say the least of it.

The Kolnische Zeitung, which opened the discussion with regard to a rapprochement with France, now closes it by observing—­

“That if ever the French should feel impelled to seek a reconciliation with Germany, it could only be sincerely effected on the condition that they abandon once and for all the idea of a reckoning to be settled between the two countries for the war of 1870-71.”

When we have estimated the nature and extent of Germany’s greed, calculated the number of her demands and ambitions, reflected by the light of history and German exaggerations, on the character of the German race and its unbridled lust of domination, then the National, Colonial and Continental interests of France (considered dispassionately and without hatred for the conqueror or resentment for the cruel and humiliating past) do not lie in the direction of a rapprochement with Germany.  They lie in the establishment and combination of the Slav States in Europe, in a more effective alliance with Russia, and a rapprochement between the Latin nations.

March 27, 1899. [2]

By our resistance, since the national defeat of 1871, we have pledged ourselves not to accept it.  Our moral position and the dignity of our claims to restitution have been worthy of our history because we inveterate Frenchmen have never ceased to maintain that our power over Alsace-Lorraine has been overthrown by force, but that our rights remain undiminished.  Austria, to Germany, and Italy, to Austria, have sacrificed this moral position and the dignity of their respective claims, in return for an alliance which, besides being treacherously false, has brought them neither wealth nor honour.