From M. Guizot
Val Richer, September 10th.—I am just up, my dear Sir, having been in bed for a fortnight. Grief and indignation are unhealthy at eighty-three. I am better, and only wish I was as sure of the convalescence of France as of my own. It is true that France has before her more time for recovery than I have.
I will say nothing of the fallen Empire. I should say more than is seemly and less than is true. Never was fall more deserved, more necessary, and more absolute.
Neither will I say anything of the new Government. It is what it professes to be, a power pledged to defend the country. A national constituent Assembly has just been convoked, and meanwhile everything will be done to preserve the honour and integrity of France. This, for the present, is the one idea and the one passion of the whole country, especially of Paris. I hope that the deeds will correspond to the passion.
There are two points on which, in spite of my present weakness, I wish to give you my opinion at once, so as to awaken your interest, and the interest of all the friends of European order and of France now in England.
There is much to be regretted in the general policy of Europe since 1815. Many faults have been committed which might have been avoided, many improvements which might have been made have been miscalculated or have passed as dreams. But throughout this age, and for more than half a century, rising above all faults and blunders, royal or popular, diplomatic or parliamentary, one great and novel fact has dominated the policy of Europe—there has been no question of a war of ambition and of conquest; no State has attempted to aggrandise itself by force at the expense of other States; [Footnote: Guizot's enthusiasm or patriotism here led him into a somewhat reckless assertion. In point of fact, there was not one of the great Continental Powers which, during the previous fifty years, had not 'attempted to aggrandise itself by force,' and, necessarily, 'at the expense of other States.' With the exception of Austria, they had done more than 'attempt'—they had effected the aggrandisement.] respect for peace and the law of nations has become a ruling maxim of international policy. When internal revolution in any State has rendered territorial changes necessary, these changes have been recognised and accepted only after the examination and consent of Europe. Belgium and Greece have taken rank as European States only by the putting on one side all the yearnings of French, Russian, or English ambition. And when, in 1844 and 1848, the Emperor Nicholas, in his familiar interviews with your ambassador at St. Petersburg, proposed that Russia and England should act in concert, and by joint conquest, as he said, put an end to the decrepitude of the Ottoman Empire, two English ministers, Lord Aberdeen and Lord John Russell, to their great honour, rejected any such idea, as an outrage on the law of nations, and the peace of Europe.
I have no hesitation in affirming, my dear Sir, that this is the greatest and most salutary feature of the first half of this century, and has contributed more than anything else to the revival of principles of equity and justice in the relations between governments and their people, to the increased prosperity of different nations, and to the progress of civilisation in the world. And, new as its rule yet is, this fact has been sufficient to stop, or at least to check in their evil developements, the noxious germs of an ambitious and violent policy, revivified in Europe by the revolutionary crises of 1848. Temptations have certainly not been wanting to governments and parties since that date. But in 1848 the French Republic respected the peace of Europe and the law of nations; in 1852 the French Empire hastened to declare that it was peace; and when, leaving that, she threw herself into the Italian war, is it credible that she would have been contented with Nice and Savoy as the price of the support she gave to the Italians if she had not been restrained by the good modern principle of European policy, the condemnation of the spirit of ambition and conquest? [Footnote: Not to speak of the chance of having to deal with Prussia. Cf. ante, p. 27.]
It is this legitimate and guiding principle which is at present ignored, attacked, and in great danger. I have no intention of entering here upon the question of German unity, or of inquiring how far the consequences of Sadowa are to be attributed to the real and spontaneous effort of national sentiment amongst the Germans. I waive all discussion on this point.
I do not suppose anyone will say that in this great German event Prussian ambition had no share, or that force and conquest did not act side by side with the impulse of national sentiment. But I do not now meddle with what has been done in Germany; that has nothing in common with the present pretensions of Prussia to Alsace and Lorraine. Have these provinces given any manifestation, any appearance, of a desire to be included in the German unity? Is not the Prussian policy in this openly and exclusively a policy of ambition and of conquest, such as would have been followed, from more or less specious motives of royal or national selfishness, by Louis XIV. in the seventeenth, by Frederick II. in the eighteenth, by Napoleon I. in the nineteenth century? such as the modern publicists and moralists have so often condemned and fought against? such, in fine, as all nations, in all ages—and especially Europe in our own times—have so cruelly suffered from? I say no more. I should be ashamed to insist upon what is so clear.
I have nothing to do with Utopian ideas. I do not believe in perpetual peace, nor in the absolute rule of the law of nations as affecting the rivalries of governments and the facts of history. I know that ambitious intrigue and violent enterprise will always have a part in the destinies of nations. I only ask that ambition and force shall not be permitted to take that part, controlled only by their own will. At least they ought to be recognised for what they are, and called by their right names; their claims, and the results of them, ought to be placed face to face with the policy of peace and the law of nations; and, lastly, it ought not to be forgotten that this, the only durable and good policy, has prevailed in Europe for half a century, and that it would be shameful and unfortunate to allow it to fall undefended before the first success of the old policy of ambition and conquest.