Count Bismarck, judging probably by reports from the occu- pied
provinces, believes firmly that a freely elected Assembly would make peace upon his own terms. He is also alarmed at the absence of any legal government in France, which, if Paris falls, may throw upon him the task of controlling a vast Poland. He therefore earnestly desires an Assembly, and has offered to permit elections without an armistice. This offer, which would have placed in his hands the power of nominating one-third of the representatives, and have embarrassed every operation of the war, was, of course, rejected, to the great wrath of the German Press, which declares that the cannon must bring Frenchmen to reason. Yet Germans would, we fancy, decline to deliberate under an invader's guns. The Assembly could only sit in Paris, as, if it sat anywhere else, Paris would disobey its decrees.
