Now hatred has arisen between us. Whose the fault? First, our stupidity, our ignorance. We all believed that the Plebiscite was for peace; the Ministers, the prefets, the sous-prefets, the magistrates, the commissioners of police, everybody in authority confirmed this. A villain has used it to declare war! But the Germans were glad of the war; they were full of hatred, and malice, and envy, without betraying it: they had long watched us and studied us; they endured everlasting drill and perpetual fatigue to become the strongest, and sought with pains for an opportunity to get war declared against themselves, and so set themselves right in the eyes of Europe. The Spanish complication was but a trap laid by Bismarck for Bonaparte. The Germans said to one another: "We have twelve hundred thousand men under arms; we are four to one. Let us seize the opportunity! If the French Government take it into their heads to organize and discipline the Garde Mobile, all might be lost.... Quick, quick!" This is the uprightness, frankness, and fraternity of the Germans! Our idiot fell into the trap. The Germans overwhelmed us with their multitudes. They are our masters; they hold our country; we are paying them milliards! and now they are coming back, just as before, into our towns and cities in troops, smiling upon us, extending the right hand: "Ha! ha! how are you now? Have you been pretty well all this long while? What! don't you know me? You look angry! Ah! but you really shouldn't. Such friends, such good old friends! Come, now! give me a small order, only a small one; and don't let us think of that unhappy war!" Faugh! Let us look another way; it is too horrible. To excuse them, I say (for one must always seek excuses for everything) man is not by nature so debased; there must be causes to explain, so great a want of natural pride; and I say to myself--that these are poor creatures trained to submission, and that these unfortunate beings do as the birds do that the birdcatcher holds captives in his net; they sing, they chirp, to decoy others. "Ah! how jolly it is here! how delightful here in Old Germany, with an Emperor, kings, princes, German dukes, grand-dukes, counts, and barons! What an honor to fight and die for the German Fatherland! The German is the foremost man in the world." Yes. Yes. Poor devils! We know all about that. That is the song your masters taught you at school! For the King of Prussia and his nobility you work, you spy, you have your bones broken on the battle-field! They pay you with hollow phrases about the noble German, the German Fatherland, the German sky, the German Rhine; and when you sing false, with rough German slaps upon your German faces. No; no! it is of no use; the Alsacians and the Lorrainers will never whistle like you: they have learned another tune.