74 FRENCH PERSONALITIES AND PROBLEMS
might very easily be thought to have been more than covered by the
acquisition of Alsace-Lorraine, was fresh in the minds of French-
men of M. Maurras's generation. The growth in wealth and popula-
tion of Germany might be represented to be (and in some degree
was) the fruit of victory. The spoils of the new German empire as
well as the petty plunder of the rank and file, might be believed to
be a standing temptation to the Germans to raid, once again,
the fertile lands to the west. That the French indemnity, like the
French clock in Alphonse Daudet's story, might have had other
effects than the despoilers of France expected, could be ignored.
France was a more desirable and a richer country than Germany;
Germany was overpopulated and so there must be repeated waves
of German assault on France, raids for plunder, more ambitious
invasions for dismemberment. So it was of old in the Roman
Empire> so it is to-day; the barbarian still covets the lands of the
civilized man. It is treason to teach that things have changed, that
war no longer pays and that, with the spread of this lesson, the
German menace need no longer be feared. Germany has conquest
and pillage in the blood. "With time conditions have changed. The
ways of life are altered. But as the nations which are Germany's
neighbours have equally evolved, the relation between them has
not varied and it is in vain that, between the Rhine and the Vistula,
factory chimneys cover ground once thick with gloomy pines;
men remain too many for the resources; their European overflow,
which remains inevitable, will come about, as it has always come
about, arms in hand. The arms are not those of the time of Varus
and of Augustus, that is the only difference which prevents the
writing of a history of Germany in the language and spirit of
Veilleius Paterculus."1
In this passage there speaks not only the Frenchman seeing in
Germany the country which has invaded France five times since
1792, but the Proven9al for whom the conflict has not changed
since the days when Marius defeated the Cimbri and Teutones.2
If this be true, then a condition of all healthy French life must
be security against the outer barbarians, and all questions of
1 Le Mauvais Traitl, vol. ii, p. 369.
2 With, possibly, a memory of "Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen bluh'V
M. Maurras warns Frenchmen against the horde anxious to "take again the road
to the countries where our orange trees flourish." (Les Conditions de la
vol. i, p. 370-)