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that's the usual official statement between visiting foreign officials.

At any rate, there was some talk about how the English were so alarmed over the German situation, and had I been in England? Yes. Did I find that so? Yes, I said, seeking not to betray my friends, I thought there was some concern in England certainly. This was before Munich. I said, “Do you not feel concern here also? Do you think the English have alarmed themselves?”

I remember Petain saying, “The English frequently alarm themselves. They talk about the French being excitable, but the French are realists, my dear madame. The English are the excitable people.”

Then Tardieu broke in with something or other.

Then I said, “Can one safely assume that there is no hazard of an uprising?”

“Our information is that there is none,” said the Marshal, and then, with a shrug of his shoulders, “They will meet France and France is able to meet them. We are impregnable. We had a dreadful lesson in the First World War, a dreadful lesson, and now we are impregnable. We have made the most magnificent defenses. You have heard of the Maginot Line, madame, have you not?”

I said, “Oh yes, I've heard of the Maginot Line.”