35lJ THE PLEBISCITE IN ANCIENT AND FEUDAL TIMES 53 



1648 confirmed not only the acquisition by France of these 

 three bishoprics, but of all its conquest on the left bank of 

 the Rhine comprising practically all of Lorraine and Alsace 

 formerly belonging to the Germanic Empire. Having once 

 come under French sovereignty, these countries were of 

 course now subject to the doctrine of the inviolability of 

 French soil and could never be ceded without the consent 

 of the entire nation.'^* 



We thus find practiced in France in the sixteenth century 

 a policy of .opportunism which recognized, or even insisted 

 upon, the principle of popular self-determination in the 

 transfer of cities and territories if such self-assertion was 

 favorable or could be forced into an expression favorable 

 to France, but which refused to acknowledge any voice or 

 opinion to those it wanted to conquer against their will, or 

 to any section of the kingdom which for some reason or 

 other might wish to sever its former voluntary or forced 

 connection with France. One cannot ascribe to this period 

 and the cases discussed the practice and character of popu- 

 lar consent in the establishment of sovereignty. 



''^ It was on the principle of the inviolability of French soil that, 

 at the end of the Franco-Prussian war, Thiers solicited neutral 

 Europe's aid against the cession of Alsace-Lorraine to the new Ger- 

 man Empire. See below, pp. 174-175. 



