I was pleased with that. The allies would now, of course, hasten to give up the countries, which they had conquered not for themselves but for another, to that other.
2. “The frontiers will be accurately defined.”
That again is quite right, if only these definitions could have a little more stability; but it is pitiable even to see what everlasting shiftings these blue and green lines on the maps have to suffer unceasingly.
3. “The public debts will be allocated in proportion to the populations.”
That I did not understand. In my studies I had not got up to questions of political economy and finance. I took interest in politics only so far as they bore on peace and war, for this was the vital question to me as a human being and a wife.
4. “The duchies bear the cost of the war.”
That again was to some extent intelligible to me. The country had been devastated, its harvests trampled down, its sons massacred; some reparation was due to it: so let it pay the expenses of the war.
“And what news is there about Schleswig-Holstein?” I myself asked, as the conversation had not yet been brought into the field of politics.
“The latest news is,” said my father, “on August 13 that Herr v. Beust has put the question before the assembly of the Bund, with what right can the allies accept the cession of the duchies from a king whom the Bund has never recognised as their lawful possessor?”
“That is truly a very reasonable objection,” I remarked, “for it surely means that the Protocol-Prince is not the legitimate lord of German soil, and now you accept it solemnly from Christian IX.”