Was it possible to believe that they had the remotest chances of success, the Teuton Vergniauds who thought of renewing, after the lapse of a century, the adventure of the constituent assembly? Had they any clear idea of the terrible power of absolutism incarnate in the junkers and in the Prussian officers? These had no resemblance whatever to our eighteenth-century seigneurs, light-hearted, winning, generous, and philosophic—such men as Noailles, d’Aiguillon, and Montmorency, who spontaneously despoiled themselves on the 4th of August. I foresaw that it would be crushed without pity, this liberal impulse, so fragile even in its strength, the instant it transcended the sphere of art and letters. “Give us ten years,” the Munich socialist frequently said. “By that time the crown prince of Bavaria, who is a liberal, will have become king; the Prussian electoral system, the Bastille of the autocracy, will have been destroyed. But if we fail in Prussia, we shall have done with legal methods, and our watchword will be _Vive la Révolution_! For the death of William II will mean the regime of the sabre.” “Ten years,” I rejoined, “is a long time in an epoch of tense and threatening rivalries. Are you not afraid that before this period comes to an end fear of democracy, ambition, and economic needs may force your government to declare war against us? “You will all be famous soldiers of the Kaiser, should that happen, you good liberals and socialists. You imagine yourselves opposed to militarism. But, without knowing it, you are its best resource, its great accomplice. You are such ardent patriots. You have so fanatical a belief in the destiny of Germany. How trifling is the difference between you and the pangermanists. You desire hegemony without war; they desire it at all costs, even if they have to fight for it. What does this distinction matter? It will be so easy, when the right moment comes, to befool you. It will be so easy for the wolf to appear in sheep’s clothing; to masquerade as a victim; to pretend that Germany has been invaded; to give to a war of aggression and conquest the sacred aspect of a war of national defence!