Schumann hadn’t been an ardent european before world war two; he was a Christian Democrat who thought that the church should give up the legacy of the Holy Roman Empire, and of a ralliement to the Third Republic, and instead embrace the idea of Christian, pan-European republics held in community. He didn’t think republics had to give up monarchs, either.

One thing I do think agrees with what I suppose was your American point, Bert, was that Schumann also got Dean Acheson to approve the idea, and to keep it silent from Ernie Bevin. The latter (a good hater) never forgave Acheson for it. Acheson’s comment to Schumann–which may have been a diplomatic observation, as it were–was that Europe had been in decline since the reformation, in cultural terms, and needed to come together again. It was such a strange thing for an Anglophile American to say, but flattered a Lorrainer, I guess.