It is interesting to compare with this Bismarck's own account of the same scene:
"When I addressed a definite demand to Thiers, although he generally could command himself, he sprang up and cried, 'Mais c'est un indignité.' I took no notice but began to talk German. For a time he listened, but obviously did not know what to think of it. Then in a plaintive voice he said, 'But, Count, you know that I do not understand German.' I answered him now in French. 'When just now you spoke of indignité, I found that I did not understand French enough and preferred to speak German, here I know what I say and hear.' He understood what I meant and at once agreed to that which he had just refused as an indignité."
Bismarck's part in these negotiations was not altogether an easy one, for it is probable that, in part at least, he secretly sympathised with the arguments and protests of the French. He was far too loyal to his master and his country not to defend and adopt the policy which had been accepted; but there is much reason to believe that, had he been completely master, Germany would not have insisted on having Metz, but would have made the demand only to withdraw it. The arguments for the annexation of Alsace were indeed unanswerable, and again and again Bismarck had pointed out that Germany could never be safe so long as France held Strasburg, and a French army supported on the strong basis of the Vosges could use Strasburg as a gate whence to sally forth into Germany. No one indeed who has ever stood on the slopes of the Black Forest and looked across the magnificent valley, sheltered by the hills on either side, through which the Rhine flows, can doubt that this is all one country, and that the frontier must be sought, not in the river, which is not a separation, but the chief means of communication, but on the top of the hills on the further side. Every argument, however, which is used to support German claims to Strasburg may be used with equal force to support French claims to Metz. If Strasburg in French hands is the gate of Germany, Metz in German hands is, and always will remain, a military post on the soil of France. No one who reads Bismarck's arguments on this point can fail to notice how they are all nearly conclusive as to Strasburg, but that he scarcely takes the trouble to make it even appear as though they applied to Metz. Even in the speech before the Reichstag in which he explains and justifies the terms of peace, he speaks again and again of Strasburg but hardly a word of Metz. He told how fourteen years before, the old King of Würtemberg had said to him, at the time of the Crimean troubles, that Prussia might count on his voice in the Diet as against the Western Powers, but only till war broke out.
"Then the matter takes another form. I am determined as well as any other to maintain the engagements I have entered into. But do not judge me unjustly; give us Strasburg and we shall be ready for all eventualities, but so long as Strasburg is a sally-port for a Power which is always armed, I must fear that my country will be overrun by foreign troops before my confederates can come to my help."
The King was right; Germany would never be secure so long as Strasburg was French; but can France ever be secure so long as Metz is German?
The demand for Metz was based purely on military considerations; it was supported on the theory, which we have already learnt, that Germany could never take the offensive in a war with France, and that the possession of Metz would make it impossible, as indeed is the case, for France to attack Germany. It was not, however, Bismarck's practice to subordinate political considerations to military. It may be said that France would never acquiesce in the loss of either province, but while we can imagine a generation of Frenchmen arising who would learn to recognise the watershed of the Vosges as a permanent boundary between the two nations, it is difficult to believe that the time will ever come when a single Frenchman will regard with contentment the presence of the Germans on the Upper Moselle.
Even after the preliminaries of peace were settled fresh difficulties arose; the outbreak of the Commune in Paris made it impossible for the French to fulfil all the arrangements; Bismarck, who did not trust the French, treated them with much severity, and more than once he threatened again to begin hostilities. At last Favre asked for a fresh interview; the two statesmen met at Frankfort, and then the final treaty of peace was signed.