But even in this London season I found more serious work to attend to than comic ballads or society. Mr. Trubner was very anxious to have me write a pamphlet vindicating the claim of Germany to Alsace and Lorraine, and I offered to do it gladly, if he would provide all the historical data or material. The result of this was the _brochure_ entitled "France, Alsace, and Lorraine," which had a great success. It at once reappeared in America, and even in Spanish in South America. The German Minister in London ordered six copies, and the _Times_ made the work, with all its facts and figures, into an editorial article, omitting, I regret to say, to mention the source whence it was derived; but this I forgive with all my heart, considering the good words which it has given me on other occasions. For the object of the work was not at all to glorify the author, but to send home great truths at a very critical time; and the article in the _Times_, which was little else but my pamphlet condensed, caused a great sensation. But the principal result from it was this: I had in the work discussed the idea, then urged by the French and their friends, that, to avoid driving France to "desperation," very moderate terms should be accepted in order to conciliate. For the French, as I observed in effect, will do their _very worst in any case_, and every possible extreme should be anticipated and assumed. This same argument had previously been urged in my "Centralisation _versus_ States Rights." When Prince Bismarck conversed with the French Commissioners to arrange terms of peace, he met this argument of not driving the French to extremes with a phrase so closely like the one which I had used in my pamphlet, that neither Mr. Trubner nor several others hesitated to declare to me that it was beyond all question taken from it. Bismarck had _certainly_ received the pamphlet, which had been recognised by the _Times_, and in many other quarters, as a more than ordinary paper, and Prince Bismarck, like all great diplomatists, _prend son bien ou il le trouve_. In any case this remains true, that that which formed the settling argument of Germany, found at the time expression in my pamphlet and in the Chancellor's speech.