But while, as ardently as any Socialist in existence, we deprecate the commencement of hostilities by any European power, and earnestly desire to see the great social experiment now making in France brought to a pacific issue, in order that its practicability and expedience may for ever be determined among men, yet it is evident that things _may_ take a different issue in that country. It is possible—though God forbid we should say it is probable—that the great republic may, from internal suffering, be driven to foreign aggression. This, on Lamartine’s own admission, has happened once: it may happen twice. France has four hundred thousand regular troops under arms; and every man capable of bearing a musket is to be forthwith enrolled in the National Guard. Twenty-five thousand of that body have already been taken into regular and permanent pay, at thirty sous, or about fifteenpence, a-day, and sent to the frontier. It is impossible to say how soon this immense and excited mass, with arms in their hands, and little food in their stomachs, may _drive_ the government, as in 1792 they did that of the Girondists, on Lamartine’s admission, into foreign warfare. It behoves Europe to be on its guard. Fortunately the course which its governments should pursue in such an event lies clear and open. They have only to resume the Treaty of Chaumont, concluded in 1813, to curb the ambition of the great military republic of which Napoleon was the head. Let that treaty be secretly but immediately renewed as a purely _defensive league_. Let no one think of attacking France; but the moment that France invades any other power, let the four great powers forthwith bring a hundred and fifty thousand each into the field. Let not the wretched mistake be again committed, of the others looking tamely on when one is assailed—“et dum singuli pugnant, universi vincuntur.”[11] The moment the French cross the Rhine or the Alps, the states of Europe must stand side by side as they did at Leipsic and Waterloo, if they would avoid another long period of oppression by the conquering republicans.