566 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE-VI 



negotiations ; that if Bismarck could have had his way he 

 would have asked a larger indemnity, say, seven mil- 

 liards, and would have left Alsace-Lorraine to France; 

 that France would gladly have paid a much larger sum 

 than five milliards if she could have retained Alsace-Lor- 

 raine; that Bismarck would have made concessions; but 

 that "Molkt" would not. He added that Bismarck told 

 "Molkt" that he the latter had, by insisting on terri- 

 tory, made peace too difficult. Saint-Hilaire dwelt long on 

 the fearful legacy of standing armies left by the policy 

 which Germany finally adopted, and evidently considered 

 a great international war as approaching. 1 



Dining afterward at the Foreign Office with my old 

 friend Millet, who was second in command there, I met 

 various interesting Frenchmen, but was most of all 

 pleased with M. Ribot. Having distinguished himself by 

 philosophical studies and made a high reputation in the 

 French parliament, he was naturally on his way to the 

 commanding post in the ministry which he afterward ob- 

 tained. His wife, an American, was especially attractive. 



It is a thousand pities that a country possessing such 

 men is so widely known to the world, not by these, but by 

 novelists and dramatists largely retailing filth, journalists 

 largely given to the invention of sensational lies, politi- 

 cians largely obeying either atheistic demagogues or cleri- 

 cal intriguers; and all together acting like a swarm of 

 obscene, tricky, mangy monkeys chattering, squealing, 

 and tweaking one another's tails in a cage. Some of these 

 monkeys I saw performing their antics in the National 

 Assembly then sitting at Versailles; and it saddened me 

 to see the nobler element in that assemblage thwarted by 

 such featherbrained creatures. 1 



Another man of note, next whom I found myself at a 

 dinner-party, was M. de Lesseps. I still believe him to 

 have been a great and true man, despite the cloud of 

 fraud which the misdeeds of others drew over his latter 

 days. Among sundry comments on our country, he said 



i December, 1880. 



