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By the cupidity and selfishness of these and other German Princes, and their want of patriotism, Talleyrand was become perfectly acquainted with the value and production of every principality, bishopric, county, abbey, barony, convent, and even village in the German Empire; and though most national property in France was disposed of at one or two years' purchase, he required five years' purchase-money for all the estates and lands on the other side of the Rhine, of which, under the name of indemnities, he stripped the lawful owners to gratify the ambition or avidity of intruders.
For the most part, the troops engaged in them suffered no more heavily than in ordinary police duty, and the costs were the costs of maintaining the regular army. The total money outlay for purchases and indemnities was about 45 millions of dollars.
Even the attendants of the former, and the clerks of the latter, demanded, or rather extorted, douceurs from the exhausted and almost ruined German petitioners; who in the end were rewarded for all their meanness and for all their expenses with promises at best; as the new plan of supplementary indemnities was, on the very day proposed for its final arrangement, postponed by the desire of the Emperor of the French, until further orders.
The measures which the Revolutionary Democracy had introduced into the army, in the hope of realizing freedom, had reduced it to a wild mob. Officers were butchered by their men; regiment after regiment deserted its post and, in some instances, attempted to make a separate peace with the enemy, even offering to pay indemnities.
All the illusions as to the capacity of Germany being able to pay have fallen to pieces, and the indemnities, after the absurd demands which tended to consider as inadequate the figure of 350 milliards and an annual payment of from ten to fifteen milliards have become an anxious unknown quantity, as troublesome to the victors as to the vanquished.
On the other side, the Administration agreed to pay him all indemnities, and to give the child certain stipulated articles of clothing, as was their custom. In ten days all was arranged. Angelique slept upstairs in a room under the roof, by the side of the garret, and the windows of which overlooked the garden. She had already taken her first lessons in embroidery.
All these moneys must be ultimately refunded by their own governments to their captors after the war is over, peace is declared and the intricate problems of indemnities come up for solution. A prisoner of war may even be paroled by his captors, and this is done sometimes when he is disabled or there are circumstances that prompt his enemies to let him go to those who are near and dear to him.
Germany has therefore been put under control for all the time she will be paying the indemnities that is, for an indefinite time.
But in any event the atmosphere for the wise and reasonable consideration of them was hopelessly befogged by the commitments of the British delegation on the question of Indemnities.
MY LORD: The short journey of Count von Haugwitz to Vienna, and the long stay of our Imperial Grand Marshal, Duroc, at Berlin, had already caused here many speculations, not quite corresponding with the views and, perhaps, interests of our Court, when our violation of the Prussian territory made our courtiers exclaim: "This act proves that the Emperor of the French is in a situation to bid defiance to all the world, and, therefore, no longer courts the neutrality of a Prince whose power is merely artificial; who has indemnities to restore, but no delicacy, no regard to claims."
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