Not that the old traditional policy of Europe does not mingle itself with, and exercise a powerful influence upon, the new ideas and questions which invade us; however intellectual theories and ambitions may change, the passions and interests of men are permanent. War and the right of conquest have made good their old pretensions, and this before our very eyes, without any respect for the principle of Nationalities and of Races, a principle nevertheless inscribed upon the very standards which the conquerors bore. Prussia has aggrandized herself in the name of German Unity, and at the very moment excluded from participating in the common affairs of Germany, the seven or eight millions of Germans who form part of the Empire of Austria. Prussia seized the petty German Republic of Frankfort, evidently against the will of its sovereign people, and Danish Schleswick does not yet form part of the political group, to the class of which she belongs by similarity of national origin and of language. Even while sheltering themselves under the Ægis of some general idea, selfish interests and rude violence have not ceased to play a great part in the events which are passing before us, and if the ambition of Frederick the Second was not more legitimate, it was at least more logical than that of his successors. {xv} I am far from meaning to deny that the new ideas which men follow, and the desires which they evince, contain a certain part of truth, or to affirm that they have not a right to a certain share of influence. The identity of origin and of race, the possession in common of a single name and of one language, have a moral value very capable of becoming itself a political force; of this fair and prudent statesmanship is bound to hold account. But policy becomes chimerical and dangerous when it attributes to these new ideas and these aspirations a supreme authority and right to dominion; and what shocks all experience and common sense is to reject, as out of date, and no longer applicable, maxims which were the foundation of the public law of nations, and which, up to the present time, have presided over the relations of States. {xvi} The equilibrium of Europe, the long duration of territorial agglomerations, the right of small states to exist and be independent, the ancient titles to government, and the respect for ancient treaties,--all these elements of European order have not succumbed, neither were they bound to succumb, to the theory of nationalities, and the fashionable doctrine of great political unities. What would not be said, and what would not be said with justice, if France had proclaimed that, as Belgium and Western Switzerland speak French, that, as their populations have, both in origin and manners, great affinities with our fellow countrymen in French Flanders and in Franche-Comté, the principal of National Unity requires their incorporation with France? Prince Metternich was wrong to say that Italy was a mere