Lady John Russell Part 33

_Lady Russell to Mr. Rollo Russell_

_June_ 2, 1870

I wish most earnestly for legal and social equality for women, but I cannot shut my eyes to what woman has already been--the equal, if not the superior, of man in all that is highest and n.o.blest and loveliest. I don't at all approve of any appearance of setting one against the other. Let equal justice be done to both, without any spirit of antagonism.... I can well believe in all the delights of Oxford, and envy men that portion of their life.

CHAPTER XII

1870-78

In July, 1870, public attention was abruptly distracted from Irish and educational questions by the outbreak of the Franco-German War, which followed immediately upon the King of Prussia's refusal to promise France that he would never, under any circ.u.mstances, countenance his cousin Prince Leopold's candidature for the Spanish throne. War came as a surprise to every one, even to the Foreign Office, and its real causes were little understood at the time. The entire blame fell on Napoleon. Only some, who had special information, knew that Bismarck had long been waiting for the opportunity which the extravagant demand of France had just given him; and very few among the well-informed guessed that he might have had a hand in contriving the cause of dispute itself. Napoleon, since his annexation of Savoy, had so bad a reputation in Europe, a reputation which Bismarck had managed to blacken still more in their recent controversy over Luxembourg, that people were ready to take it as a matter of course that Napoleon should be the aggressor. Finally, by publishing through the _Times_ the secret doc.u.ment in M. Benedetti's own hand, which a.s.sured help to Germany in annexing Holland, if Germany would help Napoleon to seize Belgium, Bismarck destroyed all remaining sympathy for France.

Now, however, that the inner history of events has come to light, we know that it was Germany who fomented the quarrel, though both Austria and France must be held responsible for the conditions which made the policy of Germany possible. The significant suppression of the part of Bernhardi's memoirs dealing with his secret mission from Bismarck to Spain, and the fact that a large sum of Prussian money is now known to have pa.s.sed to Spain, [80] while the Cortes was discussing the question of succession, make it probable that Bismarck not only took advantage of French hostility to Prince Leopold's candidature, but deliberately instigated the offer of the Spanish throne to a German prince, because he knew France was certain to resent it.

[80] Lord Acton, "Historical Essays and Studies."

Napoleon, however, must be held responsible, inasmuch as since the close of the Seven Weeks' War, he had intrigued with Austria to induce her to revenge herself by a joint attack with him upon Germany, hoping that he might win with Austria's help those concessions of territory along the Rhine, which Bismarck had peremptorily refused him as a _pour-boire_ after Sadowa. Austria, too, must take a share of the responsibility, since through the secret negotiations of the Archduke Albrecht she had encouraged Napoleon in this idea. Both Napoleon and the Archduke were convinced that those South-German States which had been annexed by Prussia for siding with Austria would rise, if their attack on Prussia could be a.s.sociated with the idea of liberation. Bismarck's cleverness in picking the quarrel over the question of the Spanish succession, a matter which did not in the least concern South-Germany, proved fatal to their expectations. This triumph of diplomacy, together with the success of his master-stroke of provocation, the Ems telegram, decided the fate of France. As edited by Bismarck, the King of Prussia's telegram describing his last interview with the French Amba.s.sador at Ems, infuriated the French to the necessary pitch of recklessness, while to Germans it read like the account of an insult to German-speaking peoples, and tended to draw them together in resentment.

_Lady Russell to Lady Dunfermline_

SALTBURN, _August_ 24, 1870

Don't you sometimes feel that a few weeks' delay in beginning this horrible war might have given time to Europe to discover some better means than war for settling the dispute? We are full of schemes for the prevention of future wars. The only compensation I see for all these horrors is the conviction they bring of the amount of heroism in the world and of the progress made in humanity towards enemies--especially sick and wounded.

_Lady Russell to Lady Dunfermline_

SALTBURN, _August_ 30, 1870

Poor Paris! You may well say we must be sorry for it, having so lately seen it in all its gay spring beauty--and though no doubt the surface, which is all we saw of its inhabitants, is better than the groundwork, how much of good and great it contains! How the best Frenchmen everywhere, and the best Parisians in particular, must grieve over the deep corruption which has done much to bring their country to its present dreary prospects. I did not mean that any mediation or interference of other Powers would have prevented this war, but that there ought by this time to be a subst.i.tute found for all war.

_Lady Russell to Lady Dunfermline_

SALTBURN, _September_ 7, 1870

Don't you find it bewildering to be hurried at express speed through such mighty pages of history? And if bewildering and overpowering to us, who from the beginning of the war could see a probability of French disaster, what must it be to Paris, to all France, fed with falsehood as they have been till from one success to another they find their Emperor and an army of 80,000 men prisoners of war! But what a people! Who would have supposed by reading the accounts of Paris on Sunday, the excess of joy, the _air de fete_, the wild exultation, that an immense calamity, a bitter mortification had just befallen the country! that a gigantic German army was on its way to their gates! I should like to know whether many of those who shouted "Vive l'Empereur" when he left Paris, who applauded the war and hooted down anybody who doubted its justice or attacked Imperialism, are now among the shouters of "Vive la Republique" and the new Democratic Ministry.

Let us hope not. Let us hope a great many things from the downfall of a corrupt Court, and the call for heroism and self-sacrifice to a frivolous and depraved city--frivolous and depraved, and yet containing so much of n.o.ble and good--all the n.o.bler and better, perhaps, from the constant struggle to remain so in that atmosphere. Even if, as G.o.d grant, there is no siege, the serious thoughts which the prospect of it must give will perhaps not be lost on the Parisians. I, like you, long that the King of Prussia may prove that he spoke in all sincerity when he said that he fought against the Emperor, not France, and be magnanimous in the conditions he may offer--but what does that precisely mean? John says he is right to seek for some guarantee against future French ambition. Hitherto he has acted very like a gentleman, as John in the House of Lords declared him to be, and may still be your model sovereign.

_Lady Russell to Mr. Rollo Russell_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _November_ 3, 1870

Your letter is so interesting and raises so many serious thoughts that I should like to answer it as it deserves, but can't do so to-day as I am obliged to go to London on business, and have hardly a moment. The kind of "gigantic brains" which you mention are, I agree with you, often repulsive--there is a harshness of _dissent_ from all that mankind most values, all that has raised them above this earth, which cannot be right--which is the result of deficiency in some part of their minds or hearts or both, and not of excess of intellect or any other good thing. If they are right in their contempt of Christian faith and hope, or of all other spiritual faith and hope, they ought to be "of all men most miserable"; but they are apt to reject Christian charity too, and to dance on the ruins of all that has. .h.i.therto sustained their fellow-creatures in a world of sin and sorrow. That they are not right, but wofully wrong, I firmly believe, and happily many and many a n.o.ble intellect and great heart, which have not shrunk from searching into the mysteries of life and death with all the powers and all the love of truth given them by G.o.d to be used, not to lie dormant or merely receive what other men teach, have risen from the search with a firmer faith than before in Christ and in the immortality which he brought to light. I believe that many of those who deem themselves sceptics or atheists retain, after all, enough of the divine element within them practically to refute their own words.

_Lady Russell to Lady Dunfermline_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _January_ 4, 1871

I wonder whether the solemn thoughts which must belong to the end of a year, and the solemn services by which it has been celebrated both by Germans and French, will lead them to ask themselves in all earnestness whether it is really duty, really what they believe to be G.o.d's will, which guides them in the continuance of a fearful war--whether earthly pa.s.sions, earthly point of honour, do not mingle with their determination. If they do ask themselves such questions, what will be the answers? I, too, am often tempted to wish peace at any price, yet neither you nor I would act upon the wish were we the people to act. It was the peace at any price doctrine that forced us into the Russian war.

_Lady Russell to Lady Dunfermline_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _January_ 25, 1871

Hopes of peace at last, thank G.o.d! I can think of little else--the increasing and acc.u.mulating horrors, miseries, and desolation of this wicked war have been enough to make one despair of mankind.

France alone was in the wrong at first, but both have been wrong ever since Sedan, so at least I think, but it is too long a matter to discuss in a letter. If the new Emperor [81] does not grant most honourable terms to Paris, I shall give him up altogether as a self-seeking, hard-hearted old man of fire and sword. I dare say you have not heard as many sad stories as we have of the losses and disasters and unspeakable sorrows of people in Paris, known to other people we have seen. I won't repeat any of them, as it can do no good. I am glad to know that the Crown Prince _hates_ the war, _hates_ the bombardment, and opposed it strongly, and then again opposed sending sh.e.l.ls into the town, and was very angry when it began to be done. Indeed, everything that we hear of him is highly to his credit, and one may hope much for the welfare and good government of United Germany from him and his wife.

[81] King William of Prussia had just taken the t.i.tle of German Emperor.

_Lady Russell to Mr. Rollo Russell_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _January_ 26, 1871

... We are rejoicing and thanking G.o.d for the blessed news of the coming surrender of Paris. Alas for all the wasted lives--wasted, _I_ think, on both sides, for I cannot perceive that it was on either side one of those great and holy causes in which the blood shed by one generation bears fruit for the next. The _Times_ was too quick in drawing conclusions from Jules Favre being at Versailles, but there can be little doubt that terms are under consideration, and I hope the Germans will show that they are not so spoiled by success as to be ungenerous in their demands. As to Alsace and Lorraine, I fear that it is a settled point with them.

If so, they ought to be all the more ready to grant terms honourable in other respects. Do you see that a brave man in the Berlin Parliament raised his voice against annexation of French provinces, on the discussion of address to the new Emperor on his new dignity? ... What wonderfully interesting lectures Tyndall is giving.

LONDON, _July_ 12, 1871

We lunched yesterday, all three, with Bernstorffs, [82] to meet Crown Prince and Princess--best of Princes and Princesses. It was interesting and agreeable. John and I had the luck to sit beside her and him. I was delighted to hear him say, "I hate war," with an emphasis better than words.

[82] Count Bernstorff was German Amba.s.sador in London.

_Lady Russell to Lady Dunfermline_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _July_ 27, 1871

... I suppose Agatha told you of the Emperor of Brazil's visit to us at 7 a.m.--it was amusing to get up at six to receive an Emperor, impossible to put on much ceremony with one's garments at that unceremonious hour, and fortunately unnecessary, for His Majesty was chatty and easy. He took a turn along West walk, admired the view, had a cup of chocolate, thanked us for our courtesy, and was off again before eight with his sallow-faced, grimy gentleman in waiting, who looked as if the little sleep he ever had was with his clothes on. We tried to see another Emperor [83] on Tuesday, having at last made out our journey to Chislehurst. Unluckily he and his son had gone to town, but we found the Empress. How unlike the splendid, bejewelled, pomp-and-gloryfied Empress of the Tuileries: her dress careless and common, her face little, if at all, painted, and thereby to my eye improved--but so altered. She seemed, however, in good spirits. She did not talk of France, but feared for England anything tending to diminish authority of "powers that be."

[83] Napoleon III and the Empress Eugenie were living at Chislehurst.

On August 18, 1871, Lord Russell's seventy-ninth birthday was celebrated at Pembroke Lodge by the school children under the cedar in the garden. "His serene and cheerful mind, a greater blessing year by year as enjoyments one by one drop away. He looks back with grat.i.tude, he accepts the present with contentment. He looks forward, I think, without dread." In September they went abroad, and took for the second time the house at Renens-sur-Roche, in Switzerland, where they had stayed in 1855. Lady Russell's mind was still full of horror of the recent war.

The first morning at Glyon (she writes to her sister, Lady Dunfermline) was one of merciless rain, but the afternoon did well enough for Chillon, to which use we all put it, and very interesting, grimly and horribly so, we found it. Men are less wicked and less cruel, tyrants are less tyrannical nowadays than when so-called criminals, often the best men in their country, were chained by iron rings to dungeon stones for years and years, or fastened to pillars and tortured by slow fires, or thrown down "oubliettes" into the lake below, falling first on a revolving machine stuck full of sharp blades--of all which horrors we were shown the scene and the remains. But I hope that some centuries hence travellers will wonder at even the present use to which Chillon is put, that of an a.r.s.enal, and thank G.o.d that they did not live in an age when sovereigns and rulers could command man to destroy his brother-man.

From Switzerland they moved down to the South of France to get to a warmer climate. They had taken a villa for the winter at Cannes, where they had a happy time, brightened during the Christmas vacation by the visits of their sons with friends from Oxford. In his old age Lord Russell seemed to enjoy more and more the companionship of the young, and entered with spirit into their merry jests and their eager conversations on great subjects, discussed with the freshness and enthusiasm of youth.

Lord Russell, as the following letters show, was still taking keen interest in education questions:

_Lord Russell to Colonel Romilly_

RENENS, _September_ 27, 1871