with the second reply, already quoted, gave rise to indignation not unmixed with alarm. At first the Emperor seemed determined not to recede, and he took counsel with his generals, who could not give him encouragement, because they knew that the Government was absolutely without the means of making even a respectable defence against an invasion. The period of suspense at the Tuileries did not endure long. Shortly after the scene in the Reichstag, the Prussian Minister at the Hague brought the matter to a crisis by a message which he delivered to the Dutch Government. The King of the Netherlands, he is reported to have said, can act as he pleases, but he is responsible for what he may do. If he had believed that the meditated cession was a guarantee of peace, it was the Minister’s duty to destroy the illusion. “My Government,” he added, “advises him in the most formal manner, not to give up Luxemburg to France.” The blow was fatal; the King of course, took the advice to heart, and such a stroke was all the more deeply felt in Paris because there the Emperor, who had considered the end gained, now knew from Marshal Niel that it would be madness to provoke a war. Yet, unless a loophole of escape could be found, war was imminent. M. de Moustier discovered a safe and dignified line of retreat. The Chancellor had referred to the treaty of 1839 which governed the status of Luxemburg; M. de Moustier took him at his word, and virtually brought the dispute within the purview of Europe, by formally demanding that the Prussian garrison should be withdrawn. He held that since the German forces were practically centred in the hands of Prussia, Luxemburg, no longer a mere defensive post, had become a menace to France. In this contention there was much truth, seeing that the new Confederation of the North, and its allies in the South, constituted a political and military entity far more formidable and mobile than the old Bund. When the Chancellor refused a demand, which his adversaries assert he was at one time prepared to grant, the French Government, declaring that they had no wish for other than friendly relations with Berlin, appealed to Europe. The dispute ended in a compromise arranged as usual beforehand, and settled at a conference held in London. The garrison was withdrawn, the fortifications were to be razed, and the Duchy, like Belgium, was thenceforth to be neutral ground, covered by a collective guarantee of the Powers; but it still remained within the German Zollverein.