All the violences against Germany
were, until the day before yesterday, an effect of hatred; to-day they
derive from dread. Moral ideas have for nations a still greater value
than wealth. France had until the other day the prestige of her
democratic institutions. All of us who detested the Hohenzollern
dynasty and the insolent fatuity of William II loved France, heir of
the bourgeois revolution and champion of democracy. So, when the War
came, all the democracies felt a lively pang: the crushing of France
meant the crushing of democracy and liberty. All the old bonds are
broken, all the organization which Germany had abroad is smashed up,
and France has been saved, not by arms alone, but by the potent life
of free peoples.
Yet victory has taken away from France her greatest prestige, her
fascination as a democratic country. Now all the democratic races of
the world look at France with an eye of diffidence--some, indeed, with
rancour; others with hate. France has comported herself much more
crudely toward Germany than a victorious Germany would have comported
herself toward France.
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