M. de Beust answered me, smiling delicately and almost bitterly. “Is that what you think?” said he. “Well, you are mistaken; Prussia will listen to no one in Europe. She will be influenced by nothing except the number of soldiers whom Europe can send to the theatre of war, and Europe has none to send.” The conversation had arrived at this point, and the Chancellor was speaking to me so openly and frankly, in language so free from reticence and reserve,--that I answered him in the same open manner. I told him that I had just traversed a large part of Germany and that I was perfectly informed as to the situation. “With one hundred thousand men,” I said, “you could take Berlin.” “Perhaps that is true,” he answered, “but Russia would then send two hundred thousand men into Austria.” * * * * * That was the situation in Europe. As regards our attitude towards Prussia, he found that we were lacking in cleverness. He was convinced that we were uselessly stimulating the appetite of our enemy by our attitude and that we ought to have said exactly the contrary to what was the gist of our language to Prussia. “You make yourselves out too rich,” he added. “You repeat to M. de Bismarck: money, as much money as you like, but no provinces. These are bad tactics! You do not know your enemy. He will take both your money and your provinces. “Tell him, on the contrary, that you are poor, that the war has exhausted your resources and that you are no longer capable of paying a large indemnity. Give up Alsace. It is an inevitable necessity and you cannot escape from this calamity. Who can say what the future has not in store for us? A province lost is not necessarily a province lost for ever, while as to your millions, you will never see them again.” He then went on to examine the resources of Germany in their turn--and he knew them well--and admitting for a moment the most favourable chances that could still befall us, M. de Beust, after having weighed and calculated everything, concluded as he had commenced. He thought it impossible to resist the forces that had invaded France. Any continuation of the conflict was a useless sacrifice. We should only exhaust the country without being able to hope for any result. And he sincerely advised us to stop the struggle and conclude peace as quickly as possible, because the more we delayed, the greater would be the demands of the conqueror. “To-day rather than to-morrow,” said he. We had already shrunk too long from facing the facts. He would have liked to see an assembly of the Representatives of the Nation, but he freely admitted that in order to have elections we should have need of an armistice and the revictualling of Paris, which appeared difficult to obtain.