In his tight uniform, with his broad chest and square shoulders and bursting with health and strength, he overwhelmed the stooping, thin, tall, miserable-looking lawyer with his frock coat, wrinkled all over, and his white hair falling over his collar.

A look, alas, at the pair was sufficient to distinguish between the conqueror and the conquered, the strong and the weak." This, however, was four months later, when Jules Favre was doubtless much broken by the anxieties of his position, and perhaps also by the want of sufficient food, and Comte d'Herisson is not an impartial witness, for, though a patriotic Frenchman, he was an enemy of the Minister.
Bismarck in granting the interview had said that he would not discuss an armistice, but only terms of peace.

For the reasons we have explained, Favre refused to listen even to the proposition of the only terms which Bismarck was empowered to bring forward.

The Chancellor explained those ideas with which we are already acquainted: "Strasburg," he said, "is the key of our house and we must have it." Favre protested that he could not discuss conditions which were so dishonourable to France.

On this expression we need only quote Bismarck's comment: "I did not succeed in convincing him that conditions, the fulfilment of which France had required from Italy, and demanded from Germany without having been at war, conditions which France would undoubtedly have imposed upon us had we been defeated and which had been the result of nearly every war, even in the latest time, could not have anything dishonourable in themselves for a country which had been defeated after a brave resistance, and that the honour of France was not of a different kind to that of other countries." It was impossible to refuse to discuss terms of an armistice; as in 1866 the military authorities objected to any kind of armistice because from a military point of view any cessation of hostilities must be an advantage to France; it would enable them to continue their preparations and get together new armies, while Germany would have the enormous expense of maintaining 500,000 men in a foreign country.