To the argument, that these provinces, with their strongholds, are needed for the defence of Germany, there is the obvious reply, that, if cut off from France contrary to the wishes of the local population, and with the French people in chronic irritation on this account, they will be places of weakness rather than strength, strongholds of disaffection rather than defence, to be held always at the cannon's mouth. Does Germany seek lasting peace? Not in this way can it be had. A painful exaction, enforced by triumphant arms, must create a sentiment of hostility in France, suppressed for a season, but ready at a propitious moment to break forth in violence; so that between the two conterminous nations there will be nothing better than a peace where each sleeps on its arms,--which is but an Armed Peace. Such for weary years has been the condition of nations. Is Germany determined to prolong the awful curse? Will her most enlightened people, with poetry, music, literature, philosophy, science, and religion as constant ministers, to whom has been opened in rarest degree the whole book of knowledge, persevere in a brutal policy belonging to another age, and utterly alien to that superior civilization which is so truly theirs? There is another consideration, not only of justice, but of public law, which cannot be overcome. The people of these provinces are unwilling to be separated from France. This is enough. France cannot sell or transfer them against their consent. Consult the great masters, and you will find their concurring authority. Grotius, from whom on such a question there can be no appeal, adjudges: "In the alienation of a part of the sovereignty it is required _that the part which is to be alienated consent to the act._" According to him, it must not be supposed "that the body should have the right of cutting off parts from itself and giving them into the authority of another."[Footnote: De Jure Belli et Pads, tr. Whewell, Lib. II. Cap. 6, S: 4] Of the same opinion is Pufendorf, declaring: "The sovereign who attempts to transfer his kingdom to another by his sole authority does an act in itself null and void, and not binding on his subjects. To make such a conveyance valid, the consent of the people is required, as well as of the prince." [Footnote: De Jure Naturae et Gentium, Lib. VIII. Cap. 5, Section 9.] Vattel crowns this testimony, when he adds, that a province or city, "abandoned and dismembered from the State, is not obliged to receive the new master proposed to be given it." [Footnote: Le Droit des Gens, Liv. I. Ch. 21, Section 264.] Before such texts, stronger than a fortress, the soldiers of Germany must halt.