This opinion was confirmed, inasmuch as the first question which arose after 1870 was the Eastern question. The part taken by Germany is well known, and certainly the peace was concluded at Berlin, where the Treaty of San Stefano, which had secured to Russia the price of her action, was cancelled. Russia issued from the struggle seriously shaken, nor has she yet recovered from the shock. The Russian nation, deluded in its most cherished expectations, has been given up to a state of discontent which it is not necessary to study in its forms but in its essence. The people are conscious of having been misdirected in their course, and are displeased with whoever has failed to interpret their wishes. It seemed as if this might have been the moment for a second war with France, and especially since it was unlikely that Russia would forget, when her strength returned, the _auto da fé_ made at Berlin of the Treaty of San Stefano. To this end all the manœuvres of the Berlin Cabinet seem to have tended, as if the powerful hand of the German Chancellor had only been exerted to effect its conclusion. The mountain did not, however, bring forth a mouse but a _canard_, for such it must appear to our calmer judgment, in the unexpected rumor of a Franco-German alliance. We are not now in a position to examine the reasons of this abortive birth. It only concerns us to show that when the hypothesis of this solution was overthrown by the power so ably and opportunely exerted, the question was reproduced to the German nation in its integrity. Placed between and in collision with the interests of two great nationalities, the one consisting of nearly sixty and the other of forty million inhabitants, Germany was still uneasy and insecure. Her people are, however, strictly disciplined, trained for conflict, and of a naturally brave temperament, and all means have been used to develop this quality in them. We know that when men conscious of strength are uncomfortable or of evil humor they soon try to mend their condition, and that they expend their wrath on some thing or person until they have regained security and calmness. This constitutes one of the most serious questions now presented to Europe, and whence issues much of the uncertainty and dangers which menace its peace.