He considered the fall of
Strasburg imminent. He was less surprised than I at the unbounded
incapacity shown by the French fleet under the difficult conditions; all
plans for a descent on Northern Germany had already been given up, and
the French fleet was unable to set about even so much as a blockade of
the ports, such as the Danes had successfully carried out six years
before.
Taine was as depressed as Renan. He had returned from Germany, where he
had gone to prepare a treatise on Schiller, on account of the sudden
death of Madame Taine's mother. As early as August 2d, when no battle
had as yet been fought, he felt exceedingly anxious, and he was the
first Frenchman whom I heard take into consideration the possibility of
the defeat of France; he expressed great sorrow that two nations such as
France and Germany should wage national war against each other as they
were doing. "I have just come from Germany," he remarked, "where I have
talked with many brave working-men. When I think of what it means for a
man to be born into the world, nursed, brought up, instructed, and
equipped; when I think what struggling and difficulties he must go
through himself to be fit for the battle of life, and then reflect how
all that is to be flung into the grave as a lump of bleeding flesh, how
can I do other than grieve! With two such statesmen as Louis Philippe,
war could certainly have been averted, but with two quarrelsome men like
Bismarck and Napoleon at the head of affairs, it was, of course,
inevitable.
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