frequently and more successfully by a reference to the razing of that
unimportant place of Hueningen than by the loss of any conquered
territory which France had to suffer in 1815. I placed, therefore, no
confidence in this means, especially since the geographical
configuration of this advanced outpost--as I took the liberty of
calling it--would have put the starting place for the French troops
just as near to Stuttgart and Munich as it had always been. It was
important to put it farther back.

Metz, moreover, is a place of such a topographical configuration, that
very little art is needed to transform it into a strong fortress. If
anyone should destroy these additions to nature--which would be a very
expensive undertaking--they could be quickly restored. Consequently I
looked also upon this suggestion as insufficient.

There might have been one other means--and one which the inhabitants
of Alsace and Lorraine favored--of founding there a neutral territory
similar to Belgium and Switzerland. There would then have been a chain
of neutral states from the North Sea to the Swiss Alps, which would
have made it impossible for us to attack France by land, because we
are accustomed to respect treaties and neutrality, and because we
should have been separated from France by this strip of land between
us. France would have received a protecting armor against us, but
nothing would have prevented her from occasionally sending her fleet
with troops to our coast--a plan she had under consideration during
the last war, although she did not execute it--or from landing her
armies with her allies, and entering Germany from there. France would
have received a protecting armor against us, but we should have been
without protection by sea, as long as our navy did not equal the
French. This was one objection, although one of only secondary
importance. The chief reason was that neutrality can only be
maintained when the inhabitants are determined to preserve an
independent and neutral position, and to defend it by force of arms,
if need be. That is what both Belgium and Switzerland have done. As
far as we were concerned in the last war no action on their part would
have been necessary, but it is a fact that both these countries
maintained their neutrality. Both are determined to remain neutral
commonwealths. This supposition would not have been true, in the
immediate future, for the neutrality newly to be established in Alsace
and Lorraine