Or, again, treaties solemnly ratified between two Governments are generally regarded as binding. And certainly a nation that never kept such a treaty would find itself in a position where it was impossible to make any treaties at all. Still, if upon a vague calculation of men's memories, the acuteness of the circumstance, the advantage ultimately to follow, and so on, it be to the advantage of Prussia to break such solemn treaty, then such a treaty should be broken. To this he adds: This doctrine of the "Frederician Tradition" does not mean that the Prussian statesmen wantonly do wrong, whether in acts of cruelty or in acts of treason and bad faith. What it means is that, wherever they are met by the dilemma, "Shall I do _this_, which is to the advantage of my country but opposed to European and common morals, or _that_, which is consonant with those morals but to the disadvantage of my country?" they choose the former and not the latter course. That this tradition not merely existed but was the paramount influence in Prussian foreign politics Mr. Belloc had long realized, while, at the same time, he had been very well aware of the fatuous illusions about themselves under which the Prussians and a great portion of the German-speaking peoples labour--illusions which necessarily led the German national will into conflict with the will of the other European nations. Proof of the fact that Mr. Belloc had long held this view of Prussia may be found by any reader of his essays, while a passage which occurs in _Marie Antoinette_ is especially illuminating: