Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 7.djvu/223

 LAMARTINE No; this policy, alike firm and pacific, answers the expectations of the Republic too well for us to change it before the hour when the powers shall change it of themselves. Look at Belgium; look at Switzerland, at Italy, at all the south of Germany; look at Vienna, Berlin. What more do you need? The very possessors of your territories open a path for you to your country and call on you to reconstitute them peacefully. Be not unjust toward God, toward the Republic, or toward us. The nations sympathizing with Germany, the king of Prussia opening the gates of his fortresses to your martyrs, the gates of Poland opened, Cracow freed, the grand duchy of Posen again a Polish province—such are the weapons with which one month of our policy has supplied you.

Ask no others at our hands. The provisional government will not suffer its policy to be changed by a foreign nation, however great the sympathy that may be inspired. Poland is dear to us; Italy is dear to us; all oppressed peoples are dear to us; but France to us is dearer than all, and the responsibility of her destinies, and possibly those of Europe, rests with us. We will surrender this responsibility to the nation alone. Trust to the nation and to the future; trust to those last thirty days which have already gained for the cause of French democracy more ground than thirty pitched battles could have gained, and do not disturb by force of arms, or by an agitation which would only injure our common