178 THE LIFE OF PASTEUR 



international sociability, and that her smiles were sufficient to 

 maintain peace and jcy in Europe. 



Far from being alarmed by certain symptoms in her neigh- 

 bours, she voluntarily closed her eyes to the manoeuvres of the 

 Prussian troops, her ears to the roar of the artillery practice 

 constantly heard across her eastern frontier ; in 1863 patrols of 

 German cavalry had come as far as Wissemburg. But people 

 thought that Germany was " playing soldiers." Duruy, who 

 shared at that time the general delusion, wrote in some 

 traveller's notes published in 1864: ;< We have had your 

 German Ehine, and though you have garnished it with 

 bristling fortresses and cannon turning France- wards , we do 

 not wish to have it again, ... for the time for conquests is 

 past. Conquests shall only now be made with the free consent 

 of nations. Too much blood has been poured into the Rhine ! 

 What an immense people would arise if they who were struck 

 down by the sword along its banks could be restored to life ! ' ' 



After the thunderclap of Sadowa, the French Government, 

 believing, in its infatuation, that it was entitled to a share of 

 gratitude and security, asked for the land along the Rhine as 

 far as Mayence ; this territorial aggrandizement might have 

 compensated for Prussia's redoubtable conquests. The refusal 

 was not long in coming. The Rhenish provinces immediately 

 swarmed with Prussian troops. The Emperor, awaking from 

 his dream, hesitating to make war, sent another proposition 

 to Prussia : that the Rhenish provinces should become a buffer 

 State. The same haughty answer was returned. France then 

 hoped for the cession of Luxemburg, a hope all the more 

 natural in that the populations of Luxemburg were willing to 

 vote for annexation to France, and such a policy would have 

 been in accordance with the rights of nations. But this request, 

 apparently entertained at first by Prussia, was presently ham- 

 pered by intrigues which caused its rejection. Duped, not even 

 treated as an arbiter, but merely as a contemptible wit- 

 ness, France dazzled herself for a moment with the brilliant 

 Exhibition of 1867. But it was a last and splendid 

 flash ; the word which is the bane of nations and of 

 sovereigns, " to-morrow," was on the lips of the ageing Em- 

 peror. The reform in the French army, which should have 

 been bold and immediate, was postponed and afterwards begun 

 jerkily and unmethodically. Prussia however affected to be 

 alarmed. Then irritation at having been duped, the evidence 



