“Having erased Sedan, we now must erase Waterloo. France cannot be a great continental power unless she is a Rheinish power…French political wisdom has never consisted in immoderate acquisitions. In the days of France's European hegemony, she always preferred influence and infiltration to indigestion.”

Action Française (1 December 1918), quoted in William R. Keylor, Jacques Bainville and the Renaissance of Royalist History in Twentieth-Century France (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979), p. 129.

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Jacques Bainville 7
French historian and journalist 1879–1936

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