The New York herald., 1871-02-23
The Meeting at Versailles and Prospect for
Peace.


Bordeaux, were closeted yesterday at Yer
sailles with Count Bismarck upon the import
ant business OF a treaty of peace between
France and Germany. The 22d Of February,
as the day for this meeting, we regard as
good omen, and, from all that we hear, France
will be spared at least some OF the extreme
exactions heretofore reported as the German
ultimatum. French journal OF some rePute
Cthe RdppeD expresses the opinion that by
Saturday next treaty will be submitted to
the National Assembly for its consideration,
| from which we infer that M. Theirs and his
committee will conclude treaty upon the best
| terms they can obtain, and that they have had
| in advance some general information Of the
| terms that will be demanded Among our
latest rumors of the demands Of Germany, it
| is said that they will embrace the restoration
| Of Nice to Italy and the naturalization Of
| Savoy, the naturalization Of Alsace and Lor-
raine, or the German occupation for time of
these provinces, as material guarantees"
and the transfer of the present neutral terri
tory of Luxembourg to Germany.
OF course all these rumors are mere conjec-
lures; but from time to time during the last
six months we have had, from well authenti-
Gated conversations of Count Bismarck, and
from the German political press we have had
such hints and suggestions as to ju:tify the
opinion that the bill Of peace to France will
include at least one thousand millions of dol
lars as the cash indemnity for the expenses Of
| the war to Germany, the continued neutrai-
zition Of Luxembourg, the independence of
Belgium, the cession to Germany of the whole
Of the province Of Alsace (Which covers the
whole Rhine frontier of Frauce), the cession
of part of Lorraine, and the temporary occu-
patton by Germany of Metz and other strong
places on the military line of the Moselie as
material guarantees" or the dismanting of
those fortresses before their abandonment by
the Germans. 1t has, also, been repeatedly
| given out through the Belgian and the English
| journals that Count Bismarck, in compensation
| for the German merchant vessels de stroyed or
captured during the war, will demand the
surrender of half dozen or more of the
best iron-clad ships Of the French navy, and
and in view of some such demand we have
heard of no objections from France. Indeed,
it has been suggested by certain French
journals representing the present republic that
if Prussia will accept, in lien of Alsace and
Lorraine, fair equivalent in ships of war,
France will no doubt consent to supply them,
but that she never will consent to the dismem-
berment of her ory-''never-never
This is the great difficulty. Napoleon the
Third and France did not enter into this war
with the remotest idea that under any contin-
gencies it would or could result in curtail-
Ing the fair proportions of France. On the
other hand, so eager was France for this con-
test, in view Of the Napoleonic idea adopted
! and cultivated among the French people by
| the late Emperor-his idea of 'sthe rectifica-
ton of our Rhine frontier"-that, on this
wretched Hohenzollern pretext, the voice Of
Paris and Of France gave to Napoleon no
alternative but the fnlflment of his promise
He had his doubts of the march to Berlin;
| but it was the will Of France that he should
| undertake it, and even s'the reds" in the Corps
Legislatif so far as they opposed the war, op-
posed it, not from apprehensions of defeat
but from the fear that it would strengthen the
empire from its conquests, and make
easy and popular the transmission of
the imperial government from father to
son. In truth, Napoleon was in some
danger of French revolution in 1857 il
peaceab.y compromising the Luxembourg diff
Guilty with Prussia, when France was clamor-
Gus for war. Since l8l4-l5 the French peo-
pie had been encouraged with the idea of the
restoration of their boundaries as they were
established under the first republic, covering
the whole line of the Rhine from Switzerland
to Holland and including Belgium.
This territorial restoration of France was
the grand idea Of the empire and its people
under Napoleon the Third, and il extended to
the reclamation on their southeastern frontier
OF Nice and Savoy. The acquisition of the
Island Of Sardinia, in an exchange with Italy
for Rome and the Papal States, was, also. in
the imperial programme of Napoleon. His
scheme was to make of the pretty little Island
Of Sardinia little kingdom or vice royalty for
the Pope, under the protection of France.
The acquisition of Nice and Savoy, by what
we would call in New York wholesale sys-
tenn of election frauds, was accomplished the
scheme for transfer of the Pope to Sardinia,
in connection with the transfer of the Italian
government to Rome, was said to be under
way when General Prirn, with bis amiable
Hohenzollern as King Of Spain, spoiled every
thing. But France was eager for the reclama-
tion of her old Rhine boundaries as the first
NapOIpOu fOund them not ho loft
them. She did not ask for the first empire
for that empire, with its vassals of the German
States embraced in the ''Cenfederation of the
Rhine, was more than France. The third
Napoleon plunged into this war OF 1870 to
restore France to her old Rhine frontier all the
doxrn two hofora this h1 had