Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/26

 in exchange for your personal Republic. Why did you give way? I will tell you—because the Foreign Minister hinted at the possibility of assembling the former Legislative Body. Then you signed everything.

"To continue. Your incapacity led to the triumph of the Commune in Paris, and to daily increasing demands on the part of the Germans. The negotiations languished at Brussels, and nothing was accomplished. You went to Frankfort, but what was done there? You signed an aggravation of the preliminaries of peace, first, by shortening the time for the payment of the indemnity; secondly, by prolonging until December, 1871, the occupation of the northern forts, which were to have been evacuated after the payment of the first 500 millions; and, thirdly, by not making Prussia take to her charge so much of the former national debt of France as belonged to the departments ceded, in proportion to the territory and the number of the inhabitants, which is a principle of public law, and which was admitted on the cession of Lombardy, Savoy, Nice, and Venetia.

"Did not Prussia in 1866 accept the liabilities of Hanover, Electoral Hesse, and the Grand-Duchy of Nassau? The Prussian negotiators, even in their victorious ascendency, could not openly refuse you that point. You bowed your head because you feared an appeal to the French nation. You then conceded everything; and again at Frankfort, as at Versailles, you sacrificed France to your inveterate hatred. The mode of proceeding never varied to obtain everything from your government; all that was required was to show you the possibility of the triumph of the national will.

"I do not condemn those who, in a terrible conjuncture, accepted the preliminaries, perhaps inevitable, of Versailles, and still less the Assembly which ratified them; I do not consider I have the right to do so. But you are