We therefore had reason to hope that we might find in the great Powers, not only the sympathy with which everyone had been inspired by our resistance, but the firm desire to help us in our efforts at arriving at the conclusion of an honourable peace. Certainly I could not, and did not, hope to succeed in drawing either England or Austria into a war against Prussia. I knew both countries too well to abandon myself to such an illusion. But what we hoped for with conviction, and what we had reason to hope for, was that the European Powers, in the general interests of the future, would arrive at an entente, and would associate themselves in an effort to obtain from Prussia terms of peace less harsh than those which the latter had proudly been announcing ever since the first days of her victories. If Austria and England seriously desired this result, then Italy, that beautiful kingdom for whose unity France had poured out the best of her blood, could not withdraw from the union, and Russia, herself a powerful and precious friend of the old King of Prussia, would be happy to serve as mediator between the Powers thus united and Germany. There was, in fact, reason to hope that the Powers would come to an understanding with the object of speaking the language of reason to Prussia and making her understand, with firmness and resolution, that all Europe was interested in seeing this war terminated by a lasting peace, whose conditions could be accepted without humiliation and without the arrière pensée that a contract, accepted by France against her will and under the force of necessity, might be torn up in time to come. Such were my sincere hopes. What really happened disappointed these hopes. But that does not prove that we were wrong in conceiving and attempting the enterprise, and there will certainly come a day[A]--perhaps not far distant--when history will judge that European diplomacy then lost one of the most propitious occasions for laying the foundations of a pacifist policy and preparing the era of general disarmament. Already to-day this dream might be realised, to the profit and happiness of all humanity. For if France had not been mutilated, what obstacle would there now be to the general disarmament of Europe? [A] NOTE:--M. Reitlinger’s volume was published in Paris in 1899. * * * * * We had also received divers reports concerning Prussia’s allies. Certain individuals, who claimed and believed themselves to be well informed, carried rumours which were really very extraordinary to the Hôtel de Ville. Bavaria and Wurtemburg, it was said, were tired of the war, tired in particular of always seeing their soldiers in the front rank, and ardently desirous of peace. One even went so far as to say that South Germany was animated by great discontent against Prussia, and that a breach was not far distant.