My dear Reeve,--I don't know whether the article 'Germany since the Peace of Frankfort' has done in Great Britain so much noise as the 'Affghanistan,' which has been, over here, an event in the literary-politic world. But the first one is quite equal to the second, and gives career to endless (alas! useless, too!) reflections. It is a sombre picture, quite in the style of Rembrandt, with a _chiaroscuro_ much akin to darkness. It can be objected that the lights are sacrificed to the shades. But, excepting the strong constitution of the Imperial army, and the perfection to which, according to competent judges, the preparations for an offensive and defensive war have been pushed, I cannot see anything, in the condition of finances, industry, husbandry, and, above all, public morals, which is not threatening, if not absolutely disheartening. No traveller comes back from Germany without a tale of woe. _Savior armis Luxuria incubuit, victamque ulciscitur Galliam_. And while the rancour and the thirst for vengeance are still, in France, what they were in 1871, the whole of power, riches, and fashion in Germany crowding to Paris, give it a sort of transient popularity, and suffers itself to be led by what is among us most frivolous, most immoral, and even less French, in the old and legitimate sense of that word. It is very curious to observe how the strangers flock to Paris in order to enjoy the spectacle of themselves, reckoning the French for nothing save the ministers of their pleasures, _et improbi turba impia vici_. If, in the midst of these brilliant saturnalia, the _pares_ were to rise, and another Commune spring from the kennel to the day, how many of the lords of the Philistines would be buried under the ruins of the temple of Dagon? But to revert to Germany, or, rather, to her ruler.