There is another consideration, not only of justice, but of public law, which cannot be overcome. The people of these provinces are unwilling to be separated from France. This is enough. France cannot sell or transfer them against their consent. Consult the great masters, and you will find their concurring authority. Grotius, from whom on such a question there can be no appeal, adjudges: “In the alienation of a part of the sovereignty it is required _that the part which is to be alienated consent to the act_.” According to him, it must not be supposed “that the body should have the right of cutting off parts from itself and giving them into the authority of another.”[213] Of the same opinion is Pufendorf, declaring: “The sovereign who attempts to transfer his kingdom to another by his sole authority does an act in itself null and void, and not binding on his subjects. To make such a conveyance valid, the consent of the people is required, as well as of the prince.”[214] Vattel crowns this testimony, when he adds, that a province or city, “abandoned and dismembered from the State, is not obliged to receive the new master proposed to be given it.”[215] Before such texts, stronger than a fortress, the soldiers of Germany must halt. Nor can it be forgotten how inconsistent is the guaranty of Dismemberment with that heroic passion for national unity which is the glory of Germany. National unity is not less the right of France than of Germany; and these provinces, though in former centuries German, and still preserving the German speech, belong to the existing unity of France,--unless, according to the popular song, the German’s Fatherland extends “Far as the German accent rings”; and then the conqueror must insist on Switzerland; and why not cross the Atlantic, to dictate laws in Pennsylvania and Chicago? But this same song has a better verse, calling that the German’s Fatherland “Where in the heart love warmly lies.” But in these coveted provinces it is the love for France, and not for Germany, which prevails. GUARANTY OF DISARMAMENT. The Guaranty of Dismemberment, when brought to the touchstone of the three essential conditions, is found wanting. Dismissing it as unsatisfactory, I come to that other guaranty where these conditions are all fulfilled, and we find security for Germany without offence to the just sentiments of France, and also a new safeguard to civilization. Against the Guaranty of Dismemberment I oppose the Guaranty of Disarmament. By Disarmament I mean the razing of the French fortifications and the abolition of the standing army, except that minimum of force required for purposes of police. How completely this satisfies the conditions already named is obvious. For Germany there would be on the side of France absolute repose, so that Count Bismarck need not fear another invasion,--while France, saved from intolerable humiliation, would herself be free to profit by the new civilization.