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254 ponderance, and had been justly punished. France had now to defend her territory, the citizenship of her people, and her newly recovered freedom. An heroic struggle ending in a disastrous peace would be less surely fatal to the Republic than the immediate acceptance of the best terms that could be got. The majority of the Government did not wish for peace, and no Government at that time could have ventured to admit the surrender of the Eastern Departments.

The moral position of France before the world was much improved when she continued the war on the ground that a State owes a duty to its citizens not to forsake them while it has a million of men to call into the field. On the other hand, the position of Germany was unchanged. Count Bismarck, adopting the inflexible requirements of the Staff, insisted on acquiring a frontier that should protect Germany against attack ; and having stated these conditions in September, he did not raise them after all the fortresses had fallen and all the armies had been dispersed. Conquest is a precarious foundation for rights ; but Europe had never held that conquest is in itself a wrong. Whole States were violently incorporated by Prussia in 1866, and the world looked on unmoved. Of all civilised communities France was the one least able to contend with decency that compulsory annexation is a crime. For the most intense desire of almost all Frenchmen has been for the acquisition of territory not their own. Liberals and Republicans shared with Imperialists this diseased and guilty longing, and urged the Government to enlarge the Eastern boundary. "Let Napoleon take the Rhine," said Montalembert, "and I shall not quarrel with him again." It is only in the last few years that popular and able writers, like the novelists Erckmann-Chatrian, and the historian Lanfrey, have created a reaction against this, the besetting sin of their countrymen. Both the English and the American Governments expressed the opinion that it is becoming to bear with manful courage the common penalties of defeat.

At the time when the second period of the war began,