What can be his aim but to intimidate and subdue us, in order to bring us to accept a congress, and the introduction of shameful modifications in our new institutions?
"Perhaps," added Gensonne, "this idea has germinated in France?
Perhaps secret information induces the emperor to hope that peace may be maintained on such conditions.

He is deceived: it is not at the moment when the flame of liberty is first kindled in a nation of twenty-four millions, that Frenchmen would consent to a capitulation, to which they would prefer death.

Such is our situation, that war, which in other times would be a scourge to the human race, would now be useful to the public welfare.

This salutary crisis would elevate the people to the level of their destiny; it would restore to them their pristine energy--it would re-establish our finances, and stifle the germ of intestine dissension.

In a similar situation Frederic the Great broke the league formed against him by the court of Vienna, by forestalling it.