he bitter feeling of France herself,
it seemed to fall into something like the following dialogue:

[2] These pages were written in the first week of February.

"All is well. The Peace Conference is sitting in Paris."

"Yes--_but what about France_?"

"President Wilson and Mr. Lloyd George have gradually brought the
recalcitrant elements into line. The League of Nations is a reality."

"_Yes--but what about France?_ Has the President been to see these
scores of ruined towns, these hundreds of wiped-out villages, these
fantastic wrecks of mines and factories, these leagues on leagues of
fruitful land given back to waste, these shell-blasted forests, these
broken ghosts of France's noblest churches?"

"The President has made a Sunday excursion from Paris to Rheims. He
saw as much as a winter day of snow and fog would allow him to see.
France must be patient. Everything takes time."

"Yes!--so long as we can be sure that the true position is not only
understood, but felt. But our old, rich, and beautiful country, with
all the accumulations on its soil of the labour, the art, the thought
of uncounted generations, has been in this war the buffer between
German savagery and the rest of Europe. Just as our armies bore the
first brunt and held the pass, till civilisation could rally to its
own defence, so our old towns and villages have died, that our
neighbours might live secure. We have suffered most in war--we claim
the first thought in peace. We live in the heart and on the brink of
danger. Our American Allies have a No Man's Land of the Atlantic
between them and the formidable and cruel race which has wreaked this
ruin, and is already beginning to show a Hydra-like power of
recuperation, after its defeat; we have only a river, and not always
that. We have the right to claim that our safety and restoration, the
safety of the country which has suffered most, should at this moment
be the first thought of Europe. You speak to us of the League of
Nations?--By all means. Readjustments in the Balkans and the East?--As
much as you please. But here stands the Chief Victim of the war--and
to the Chief Victim belongs of right the chief and first place in
men's thoughts, and in the settlement. Do not allow us even to _begin_
to ask ourselves whether, after all, we have not paid too much for the
alliance we gloried in?"

Some such temper as this has been showing itself since the New Year,
in the discontent of the French Pres