8o RECOLLECTIONS OF FORTY YEARS. 



and to the lively sympathy which you have often 

 expressed for our cause and its destinies. It is not, 

 we can assure you, by diplomatic means that we can 

 come to a mutual agreement, but by an appeal from 

 people to people, frankly and cordially expressed, with- 

 out mistrust as without afterthought. France, more 

 than any other nation, is capable of hearing and 

 understanding this appeal. This appeal for the cessa- 

 tion of a normal state of things, and one which, be- 

 tween the French Eepublic and us, especially after 

 the declaration of your Assembly and the newly ex- 

 pressed sympathies of the French people for us, would, 

 if continued, become absolutely incomprehensible, we 

 now address to you for the last time, with all the 

 force of conviction and desire which is in us. May 

 you hold it sacred, sir, for it sums up the immovable 

 convictions and ardent desires of a small but brave 

 and honourable people, which has not forgotten its 

 ancestors, which has not forgotten that they did some- 

 thing for the world, and which, fighting to-day for a 

 sacred cause, that of its independence and liberty, is 

 irrevocably resolved to follow in their footsteps. This 

 people, sir, has the right to be understood by France, 

 and to find in her a prop and not a hostile power. 

 It has the right to expect from France fraternity and 

 not protection, the demand for which would, at the 

 present hour, be interpreted in Europe as a cry of dis- 

 tress, lowering it in its own eyes, and rendering it 

 unworthy of the protection of France, upon which it 



