Edgar Quinet : Lettres d'Eeil Michelet et 4,Divers Amis. Vol.
III. (Calmann L6vy, Paris, 1886.)—The interest of this correspondence increases as it goes on. Quinet's perspicacity with respect to the probable issues of a struggle between France and Germany is almost startling. As far back as 1831 he had pointed oat that Prussia was aiming at a Germanic unity which should be constituted for her benefit and under her rule. On July 11th, 1860, he writes :—" Prussia has been unchained by the Tuileries. She will follow her course. She will not stop till she has in hand the whole German race, to dominate over France or to abase her." On August 4th he writes, in terms absolutely prophetic :—" If freedom reappears some day amongst us, it will be to find France subordinated to forty millions of men who hate her." On March 20th, 1867 : —" Let France avoid great wars with new peoples ! For with this people of the Lower Empire, with these Generals of the Lower Empire, I feel that she would be beaten beyond retrieval?' A striking instance which he gives of the debasement of public spirit under the Second Empire is that, when he succeeded in getting published in the Temps a pamphlet of his, entitled "Prance at Allemagne," the editor insisted on the erasure of the word "conscience" wherever it occurred !
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