As far as France is concerned, our first reverses have served to exalt the national spirit and to fortify the unanimous resolution to conquer or to die. It is important that this be well understood in the United States and that it be given due consideration if it is desired to intervene without irritating the most noble scruples. * * * It is the Prussian military system of domination with its contagion which has done the harm and which ought to disappear, and that system itself is the fruit of Napoleonic imperialism. The struggle is always, and more now than ever, between imperialism and liberty, between force and right. May you in the United States profit by this lesson, so that you may avoid falling into the European error. * * * It is barbarity triumphant. But that triumph will be only momentary, and all agree at the conclusion of this terrible drama on having a United States of Europe with disarmament, or at least with armaments limited to a collective police force. *Third Letter.* PARIS, Sept. 8, 1914. * * * You have comprehended that France is struggling for justice and peace. Be sure that she will resist even to the last man, with the certainty that she is defending not herself alone but also civilization. Never have I suspected to what degree of savagery man can be degraded by unrestrained violence. I had believed that the world could never again see the time of the Massacre of the Innocents; I deceived myself; we have returned to barbarity, and the Prussian Army leaves us no alternative between victory and extermination; should she become mistress of Paris, which I doubt, and of the half of France, she will find the other half which will bury her under its ruins. * * * The English troops march on our roads, stop at Clermont-Créans! Oh, miracle! I see among my compatriots the worst chauvinists, those who openly desire for me the fate of Jaurès, those who fought me in 1902 with cries of "Fashoda" or "Chicago," hasten to meet the English soldiers in order to aid and acclaim them, in this country still full of the memories and the ruins of the hundred years' war! It is because the English troops are also defending the land of liberty, theirs as ours and as yours. Every one except the Prussians comprehend this, and this it is which exalts their souls! * * *