We would then take 800,000,000 francs, and build ourselves a fortress a few miles further back, somewhere about Falkenberg or Saarbrueck--there must be some suitable spot thereabouts.

We should thus make a clear profit of 200,000,000 francs.
[N.B .-- A milliard = 1,000,000,000 francs.] I do not like so many Frenchmen being in our house against their will.

It is just the same with Belfort.

It is all French there too.

The military men, however, will not be willing to let Metz slip, and perhaps they are right[59].
[Footnote 59: Busch, _Bismarck in the Franco-German War_, vol.ii.