272 THE ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE PEACE CH.

to itself all the military talent and all the militaryadventurers, all those who regret emperors and hatedemocracy, in the whole of Eastern and Central andSouth-Eastern Europe , a power which would begeographically inaccessible to the military forces ofthe Allies , might well found, at least in the anticipa-tions of the timid, a new Napoleonic domination,rising, as a phoenix, from the ashes of cosmopolitanmilitarism. So Paris dare not love Brandenburg.The argument points, then, to the sustentation ofthose moderate forces of order, which, somewhat tothe world's surprise, still manage to maintain them-selves on the rock of the German character. Butthe present Government of Germany stands forGerman unity more perhaps than for anything else;the signature of the Peace was, above all, the pricewhich some Germans thought it worth while to payfor the unity which was all that was left them of 1870.Therefore Paris , with some hopes of disintegrationacross the Rhine not yet extinguished, can resist noopportunity of insult or indignity, no occasion oflowering the prestige or weakening the influence of aGovernment, with the continued stability of which allthe conservative interests of Europe are neverthelessbound up.

The same dilemma affects the future of Poland inthe role which France has cast for her. She is to bestrong, Catholic, militarist, and faithful, the consort,or at least the favourite, of victorious France ,