War between England and France to-day would be like a great game of chess between two masters of equal strength--one having a secret knowledge of his opponent's each ensuing move.

You can guess what the end of that would be.

Our only hope is at once to reconstruct our plans.

We are hard at it now by day and by night, but the time has arrived when we can go no further without a meeting, and the actual committal to paper and diagram of our new schemes.

We have discussed the whole matter most carefully, and we have come to the following decision.