Even the Napoleonic Wars did not really break the links binding France and England. In some ways they may even be said to have strengthened them. Not only were our troops always on the Continent, but Napoleon occasionally made a great sweep of any English travellers he could catch, either in France, or in the countries which he successively conquered. These unfortunate people were what would now be called “interned” in various French towns, where in some cases they were compelled to remain for years. But I am glad to tell you that these forlorn creatures were treated most kindly by their French neighbours, and when they finally came back to England, so fond had they become of France that some of them used to go back there for two or three months of each year. Gradually, it is difficult to say why, the two countries drifted apart. Indeed it began to seem that the nearer they grew together in a material sense—the less and less time it took to get from London to Paris, for instance—the less all that was best in French art and in French life, appealed to English people. One thing that perhaps made the English nation distrust the French was France’s constant change of rulers. After France had had a king for a few years she would suddenly change about and have a republic; then would come a king again, another small revolution, and then an emperor! It was during the reign of an emperor, Napoleon III, that Paris became for the first time the playground of Europe, the place where foreigners went rather to amuse themselves in stupid ways, instead of to see beautiful things and to meet agreeable and interesting people. Then, quite suddenly, there came a terrible day, just forty-four years ago, when the playground of Europe became a battle-ground, and when, with surprise and horror, England saw that the French, busily engaged in amusing themselves and other people, had entirely neglected to get ready for the awful thing, War, which had suddenly come upon them. As a result of this neglect, Germany, for the first time in their joint history, conquered France. So easily, so surprisingly quickly, was this conquest achieved, that it made the Germans get what is vulgarly called “swelled head.” It also undoubtedly led to their confident belief that everything must go well with them in the present war. But France, as Germany now knows to her bitter cost, had learned her lesson. Without spending nearly so much time and thought on war, and the terrible engines of war, as Germany had done for forty years, she yet prepared quietly and soberly for the big conflict which, unlike England, she felt quite sure must be coming on Europe, if only because of the extraordinary preparations which she noticed her bullying neighbour was continually making. II