This was
done by all foreign newspapers, but good care was taken that no word of
the sort should be published in Paris. It is, therefore, evident that,
if the Kaiser has been twice placed in the position which has enabled
him to get in well ahead of Alexander III and Nicholas II, the blame
must not be ascribed to any indifference, or lukewarm feelings on the
part of the friends of France. The most one can reproach them with is
to have retained at Paris an Ambassador about whose sentiments both
Tzars were fully informed long ago.
[10] "Truly, this man must be devoted to France," M. Emile Hinzelin
writes me, "he must love her dearly, since he keeps a strip of her, cut
from the living flesh, which still palpitates and bleeds. Whom can he
possibly hope to deceive? Muelhausen is not far from Paris, neither is
Colmar, nor Strasburg, nor Metz. It is from this unhappy town of Metz,
the most cruelly tortured of all, that he sends us his condolences and
his bag of money. As is usual with complete hypocrites, he is by no
means lacking in impudence. Never have the French people of
Alsace-Lorraine been accused with more bitter determination,
prosecuted, condemned and exploited by all possible means and
humiliated in every way. Never has William himself displayed such
unrestraint and wealth of insult in his speeches to the Army. I came
across him during a journey of mine some months ago, just as he was
unveiling a monument, commemorating the fatal year of 1870.
Pages:
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179