Two Chancellors Part 6

[59] Dispatch of General Govone, of the 6th April, 1866. La Marmora, p.

139.

[60] _Est aliquid delirii in omni magno ingenio._--BOERHAAVE.

[61] At the moment when hostilities commenced; dispatch of M. de Barral of the 15th June, 1866. La Marmora, p. 332.

[62] Dispatch of General Govone of the 2d April, 1866. La Marmora, p.

131.

[63] Dispatches of General Govone of the 2d April and 22d May 1866. La Marmora, pp. 131 and 245.

[64] George Hesekiel, iii. p. 271.

[65] _E la vipera avra morsicato il ciarlatano._ Dispatch of General Govone of the 15th March, 1866. La Marmora, p. 88.

[66] It was the Queen Augusta who affirmed it in a letter to the Emperor of Austria, saying that on this matter she had received the word of honor of her royal spouse. See the curious dispatch of M. Nigra of the 12th June, 1866, as well as the telegram of General La Marmora of the same day. La Marmora, pp. 305 and 310.

[67] After the death of the great Italian agitator, the journals of Florence published his letters to M. de Bismarck during the years 1868-1869. In case of a war between France and Germany, Mazzini suggests the plan of overthrowing Victor Emmanuel, if this latter allied himself with the Emperor Napoleon III.

[68] It is necessary to observe that the strategical part of the note of d'Usedom was an _almost literal_ copy of an article of Mazzini published in the _Dovere_ of Genoa, the 26th May, 1866.

[69] See the notes of M. d'Usedom of the 12th and 17th June, as well as the dispatch of Count de Barral of the 15th June. La Marmora, pp. 316, 331, 345-348.

[70] In a dispatch of the 1st March, 1866, M. Nigra informs General La Marmora that, conformably with his authorization, he endeavored to broach the question of the exchange of the Danubian Princ.i.p.alities for Venetia. He showed the advantages which this solution would have for France and England, who would thus see the two programmes of the wars of the Crimea and Italy peacefully accomplished. The minister adds that the Emperor Napoleon III. was _struck with this idea_. La Marmora, p. 119.

[71] Dispatch of General Govone of the 3d June, 1866. La Marmora, p.

275.

[72] Telegrams of Count de Barral of the 7th April and the 1st June, 1866. La Marmora, pp. 141 and 266.

[73] Telegram of M. de Launay, from St. Petersburg, of the 1st June, 1866. La Marmora, p. 266. One can see in the same work with what _empress.e.m.e.nt_ M. de Bismarck used this opinion of the Russian chancellor, and transmitted it by telegraph to the different cabinets.

[74] Telegrams of M. de Barral. La Marmora, pp. 248 and 294.

[75] Benedetti, _Ma Mission en Prusse_, pp. 99 and 254.

IV.

THE ECLIPSE OF EUROPE.

I.

In the little _salon_ of the house Jesse, situated on the Rue de Provence at Versailles, in the first of the sad month of November, 1870, sat by the side of the fire two ill.u.s.trious speakers, whose movements Europe in suspense watched with the most intense anxiety. Leaning his elbow on a writing table, on which "two bottles with candles in their necks did service as lights,"[76] M. de Bismarck had asked M. Thiers for permission to smoke a cigar, while he rested from the negotiations pursued during the whole day concerning the armistice and the peace, and entered into a conversation full of _abandon_ and gossip on the events of the war. Among other things he related that the Emperor Napoleon III., having retired to a little garden after the capitulation of Sedan, grew pale at seeing him arrive armed with two pistols in his belt: "He thought me capable of an action in bad taste." One would scarcely be deceived in supposing that the man who since the attack of Blind had not ceased to show a very nervous solicitude for his person,[77]

attributed here in this circ.u.mstance, and surely very ungenerously, to the unhappy monarch sentiments which were far from his mind. However that may be, the Prussian minister took pleasure during whole hours in the reminiscences and stories in which he showed all his brilliancy of mind; and on his part M. Thiers, scarcely returned from that journey of forty days, during which he had twice crossed Europe and negotiated with so many sovereigns and ministers, was not behind hand with _piquant_ anecdotes and ingenious ideas. He thought, however, that it was necessary to recall, after some time, the serious matters which brought him to the head-quarters; but M. de Bismarck,--this "savage full of genius," as the French statesman soon called him in his effusions at the bishop's palace at Orleans,--seemed to wish to prolong as much as possible a delightful chat, and, taking the hand of M. Thiers, he cried out, "Allow me, I beg of you; allow me, it is so pleasant to be a little while with civilization!" The _civilization_, allowed at last to plead his cause anew, did not the less find the old "iron count" in the affable and fluent talker of a few moments before: the arts had decidedly in no respect softened the political manners of the _savage_.

Then M. Thiers remembered the favorable disposition which he had found in Russia, and he thought it useful to make the most of it in a moment so critical. During his sojourn at St. Petersburg, he had addressed to the delegation of Tours a telegraphic dispatch singularly hopeful. "He had every cause," he said, "to be very much satisfied with his reception by the emperor, the imperial family, Prince Gortchakof, and the other dignitaries as well as with that of Russian society in general. The emperor and his chancellor had expressed themselves warmly against the exorbitant conditions of peace laid down by Prussia; they had declared that Russia would never give its consent to conditions which were not equitable; that, in consequence, the consent of the other Powers would likewise be wanting; the exactions of Prussia would only be from the effect of force, and would not rest on any sanction."[78] Without entering into such developments, M. Thiers spoke this time in general terms of the marks of solicitude which "his friend Prince Gortchakof"

had given him, and ended by stating that Russia had become alarmed and irritated. At these words, M. de Bismarck got up and rang: "Bring the portfolio that contains the papers of Russia." The portfolio having been brought, "Read," said he; "here are thirty letters from St. Petersburg."

M. Thiers did not fail to profit by the permission: he read, he understood, and he was disabused.

Yet, it would not have been difficult for the ill.u.s.trious historian of the Consulate and the Empire to have spared himself this cruel deception, to have avoided, also, more than one false step in his rapid course across Europe, if he had only wished to consult competent men or even paid them the least attention. M. de Beust, for instance, was perfectly able to enlighten him on the real relations between Russia and Prussia; but it was especially M. Benedetti who could have told him the precise and already old date of the understanding agreed upon by the two courts of Berlin and St. Petersburg in view of a war with France, as well as the very extraordinary circ.u.mstances which had accompanied this understanding. Let us briefly recall here those circ.u.mstances, endeavoring to free them as much as possible from certain obscurities with which the interested parties continue to surround them, and let us return once more to the day after Sadowa, to the public or secret transactions which followed this dreadful day. The greater part of the political combinations which were to be so fatal to France in the war of 1870, were contrived and consolidated during that equally gloomy and turbulent period, during the two months of July and August of the year 1866.

"None of the questions which touch us can be solved without the consent of France," the Emperor Napoleon III. had declared the 11th June, 1866, in a solemn doc.u.ment produced before the legislative body; and among those questions any "modification of the map of Europe to the exclusive profit of a great Power" was naturally placed in the first rank. But, using that equally immense as unhoped-for victory of the 3d July, 1866, Prussia intended changing the map to its exclusive profit. In place of "maintaining for Austria its great position in Germany," as the imperial letter of the 11th June had demanded, Prussia demanded that the empire of the Hapsburg should be totally excluded from the Germanic Confederation; in place of according to the secondary States "a more important _role_, a more powerful organization," it aspired to the complete hegemony over all Germany, and furthermore wished to complete large annexations in the countries occupied by its troops. In fomenting this war which was to end in such unforeseen results, the imperial policy had above all pursued two ends,--the affranchis.e.m.e.nt of Venice, and the equitable settlement of affairs in Germany. Venice was ceded, ceded even before the commencement of hostilities, and in accepting this cession, in announcing in the "Moniteur" this "important event" after the great disaster of General Benedeck, the Emperor Napoleon, in the judgment of his minister of foreign affairs, was the more bound not to allow Austria and its allies to be overwhelmed as it concerned the vital interests of France itself. The minister demanded, in consequence, his august master to convoke the legislative body, to send to the frontier of the East an army of observation of 80,000 men whom Marshal Randon would bring together very quickly, and to declare to Prussia that they would occupy the left bank of the Rhine, if it was not moderate in its demands towards the vanquished, and if it realized territorial acquisitions of a nature to destroy the equilibrium of Europe.

a.s.suredly, after the terrible experiences of the year 1870, these very legitimate doubts as to the efficaciousness of the measures proposed by M. Drouyn de Lhuys in the month of July, 1866, can be raised; it is nevertheless well to remember that the prestige of France was still great and almost intact; that in a week Austria could bring back from Italy 120,000 or 130,000 soldiers still fresh from the victory of Custozza, and that the troops of General Moltke already began to experience the natural consequences of the whole war, although fortunate. "Prussia is victorious," wrote the amba.s.sador of France at the court of Vienna, "but it is exhausted. From the Rhine to Berlin there are not 15,000 men to be met with. You can be master of the situation by means of a simple military demonstration, and you can do it in all security, for Prussia is incapable at this moment of accepting a war with France. Let the emperor make a simple military demonstration, and he will be astonished at the facility with which he will become, without striking a blow, arbiter and master of the situation." In the confidential letters addressed by M. de Bismarck to his wife during this campaign, there are some traces of anxiety which at this moment a.s.sailed his mind, especially of his efforts to talk sense to the overexcited, "to the good people who do not see farther than their noses, _and swim at their ease on the foaming wave of the phrase_." Six days after Sadowa, on the way to Vienna, he wrote from Hohenmauth: "Do you still remember, my heart, that we pa.s.sed by here nineteen years ago, in going from Prague to Vienna? No mirror then showed us the future, neither did it in 1852, when I crossed this iron line with the good Lynar!... As for us, all is well, and we will have a peace which is worth something, if we do not exaggerate our demands and do not think that we have conquered the world. Unfortunately we are as quick to get drunk as to despair, and I have the unthankful task of pouring water in the foaming wine, and to show that _we are not alone in Europe_ and that we have three neighbors." Lastly, in his celebrated speech of the 16th January, 1874, in the Reichstag, the chancellor of Germany, in speaking of those decisive days, made the important avowal, that, "if France had then had only a few available troops, a small body of French troops would have sufficed to make quite a respectable army by joining the numerous corps of South Germany, which on their part could furnish excellent materials whose organization alone was defective. Such an army _would have first placed us in the prime necessity of covering Berlin, and of abandoning all our successes in Austria_." Let us add to that that Germany was still effervescent against the "fratricidal" policy of Prussia, that the proceedings and the exactions of Generals Vogel de Falkenstein and Manteuffel had exasperated the minds of all on the banks of the Main: there was a single instant, very fleeting also, it is true, when the appearance of the French on the Rhine would not have wounded the Teutonic susceptibilities, would have even been saluted with joy!

"Sire," said to the Emperor Napoleon III. one of the most eminent ministers of the Germanic Confederation,--"sire, a simple military demonstration on your part can save Europe, and Germany will also preserve an eternal recollection of it. If you let this moment pa.s.s, _in four years from now_ you will be forced to make war against Prussia, and then you will have all Germany against you."

But the fright caused by the prodigious victories of Prussia was too great in the Tuileries to allow the preservation of the _sang froid_ which the circ.u.mstances so imperiously demanded. The needle gun was also a revelation which, by turns, exalted or depreciated beyond measure by authorities reputed competent, contributed not a little to increase the perplexities springing up on all sides; lastly, doubts arose even as to the possibility of getting together the 80,000 men of whom the minister of war spoke. The fatal expedition to Mexico had swallowed up almost all the arms, and almost all the troops of France! They were forced to make the strange avowal that they had desired with ardor, favored, provoked the greatest European complications without even asking if, at the critical and foreseen moment of the rupture of the equilibrium of the world, they would be in a condition to make even a simple military demonstration. The _party of action_ in the councils of the empire would then have had a good chance to praise Prussia as the powerful agent of civilization and progress, to rise against the tendencies, always Austrian, of the bureaux of the Quai d'Orsay, and to recommend more than ever an alliance with M. de Bismarck: it was necessary to give him _carte blanche_ in Germany, and to complete French unity in acquiring Belgium. M. Drouyn de Lhuys did not take the trouble to demonstrate the inanity, the temerity of such suggestions, and he asked, not without bitterness, how France, which they declared incapable of placing on foot even a corps of observation on the Rhine, would be strong enough to attack Antwerp, provoke England, and end by probably arraying against itself all the Powers of Europe, among whom Prussia would not be the last? He was not behind hand in recriminations; he showed the officious and culpable zeal which had been used in order to incite war, the consequences of which he, for his part, had never ceased to dread, as they had taken care to place no limit to the _license_ allowed to one of the parties, the most redoubtable, the most skillful, and from which it was most essential to take sureties in advance. On the side from which it was never threatened, it had neglected no precaution; in case of the victory of Austria, Venetia would have nevertheless been acquired by Italy. "In my opinion," ingenuously added the minister, "in a French point of view it is a bad result; but the emperor insisted on it, above all, and I have procured it for him." It was certainly the least that could be asked, he thought, that they should allow him to obtain, on the other hand, compensations, _French this time_, which alone could justify before the nation the kindnesses shown to Prussia.

The debates were long and very violent for several days, and different influences worked in the most opposite directions. The party of the _Palais Royal_ was not the only one, however, to preach the abandonment of the conqueror of Sadowa; in a certain measure it found its adherents among statesmen the most moderate in their opinions, and ordinarily the most calm in their judgments. M. Rouher was one of the first to oppose any armed demonstration on the Eastern frontier, and soon we even hear him speak of a _necessary and fruitful_ alliance between France and Prussia! "Austria," thought another important member of the privy council, "only inspires to-day that interest, so near to indifference, which one feels for the strong become weak through their fault, not having foreseen or prepared themselves. _Up to the present time, all is for the best!_"[79] While M. Magne thus p.r.o.nounced the _vae victis_ on the empire of the Hapsburg,--without thinking that four years later, alas! Europe would use almost the same expressions in regard to France itself,--an august woman, a sister of the King of Wurtemberg, and a near relative of the imperial family of France, used different language. "You cherish strange illusions," said she; "your prestige has diminished more in these last two weeks than during the whole duration of your reign.

You allow the weak to be destroyed, you let the insolence and brutality of your nearest neighbor grow beyond measure; you accept a gift, and you do not even know how to address a kind word to him who gives it. I regret that you do not believe me disinterested in the question, and that you do not see the fatal danger of _a_ powerful Germany and _a_ powerful Italy. The _dynasty_ is menaced, and it will suffer the consequences. Do not believe that the misfortune which overwhelms me in the disaster of my country makes me unjust or distrustful. Venice ceded, it would be necessary to succor Austria, to march to the Rhine, impose your conditions! To let Austria be slaughtered is more than a crime, it is an error!" Error or crime, the decision on this point had been already reached, before this warm appeal from the Queen of Holland reached the Tuileries.[80] Napoleon III. was very ill at this epoch, struggling against the first advances of a cruel disease which never forsook him,--in consequence less than ever inclined to vigorous resolutions; and, on the 10th July, after a grand council of ministers held at Paris in presence of the emperor, the Prince de Metternich was obliged to telegraph to Vienna that France would only interfere in the conflict through its diplomats.

Yet there was something more efficacious, more loyal in any case, in trying only a vain isolated mediation, full of perilous reticence and selfish calculations: that was simply to agree on a harmony of action among the Powers on a question certainly eminently "European," and which interested the equilibrium of the world in so high a degree. A word from France in the sense indicated "would certainly have been listened to,"

to borrow an expression from the imperial letter of the 11th June, for it was Prince Gortchakof himself who spoke at this moment of the necessity of a general congress.[81] Threatened with the first and violent commotion caused by the sudden undermining of Austria at the sight of so many relations and cousins of his august master menaced with spoliation and ruin, the Russian chancellor had in truth given this true description of the situation. So devoted as he was to his former colleague of Frankfort, so fascinated by his genius, Alexander Mikhalovitch had not yet sufficiently cast aside the old Adam, the _attache_ of the suite of Count Nesselrode at the reunions of Laybach and Verona, to admit in a trice that such a considerable transformation of the public right could be effected without the knowledge of Europe and without its consent. Why did the cabinet of the Tuileries not appreciate the solution offered by the Russian chancellor? Why did it not try to provoke a concerted action of the Powers in view of an overturning so menacing for the balance of the states? Why did it not see that in treating separately with M. de Bismarck it only made the game for the conqueror? In spite of all his triumphs, even in spite of all his audacity, the Prussian minister would have been slightly embarra.s.sed in asking before the areopagus of the Powers for the almost complete abolition of the treaties of 1815, the dethronement of the old House of the Guelphs, or the expulsion of the empire of the Hapsburg from the bosom of Germany; and one will see in the sequel the cleverness which he used in escaping from such a necessity and in making France an accomplice in the eclipse of Europe. Strange fatality of the Napoleonic ideology! The dreamer of Ham had pa.s.sed all his reign in proposing congresses, in invoking them at the most inopportune moments, under the least propitious circ.u.mstances, and he neglected to apply this panacea, so celebrated and recommended, on the only occasion where it was demanded by good sense and good right, in the only crisis in which it could become useful and salutary! The not less surprising good luck of the minister of William I., who was "saved from the congress," according to the _mot_ of Count d'Usedom, and saved on two occasions in the s.p.a.ce of some weeks: in the month of June, thanks to the kindness of Prince Gortchakof, and in the month of July, thanks to the infatuation of France! They were not ignorant at the Tuileries of the desire manifested in a moment of happy inspiration by Alexander Mikhalovitch; but the treaties of 1815 had been so eloquently "cursed" in the speech of Auxerre, they had announced with so much noise the "important event" of Venice and had illuminated Paris! As always, they clung to the _prestige_, to the glory of appearing as the "Neptune of Virgil," in the eyes of the profane, and they hoped more than ever to obtain some good G.o.d-send by again obliging the "Piedmont of Germany." Consequently M.

Benedetti received the order to present himself at the head-quarters in Moravia, to offer to M. de Bismarck French mediation, and to "sound"

him on the advantages that in justice he could scarcely fail to accord to the ardent mediator.

II.

There is nothing more curious than the language used by the minister of Prussia to the amba.s.sador of France at those first conversations in Moravia! M. de Bismarck began by renewing the fantasies of Biarritz, and it was the very opposite of a Tilsit who appeared to form plans at the head-quarters at Brunn: the son of Frederick William III., conquered at Jena, seemed to wish to offer to the nephew of Napoleon I. to share the world with him, to share it to the detriment of Russia and England! "He endeavored to prove to me," wrote M. Benedetti on the 15th July, "that the reverses of Austria allowed France and Prussia to modify their territorial situation, and to solve at the present time the greater part of the difficulties which will continue to menace the peace of Europe. I reminded him that treaties existed, and that the war which he desired to prevent would be the first result of such a policy. M. de Bismarck answered me, that I misunderstood, that France and Prussia, united and resolved to remodel their respective frontiers by binding one another by solemn engagements, were henceforward in a position to regulate together these questions, without fear of meeting an armed resistance _either on the part of England or on the part of Russia_." In other words,--and these words were likewise employed in the report of M. Benedetti,--the Prussian minister believed that "he could free himself from the obligation to submit to the control of Europe," thanks to a separate agreement with France. As to the means to bring about this precious agreement, it was perfectly simple: France had only to seek its fortune along the Meuse and the Escaut. "I do not tell your excellency anything new," wrote M. Benedetti to his chief, some days after, from Nikolsburg, in announcing to him that M. de Bismarck was of the opinion "that we should seek compensation in Belgium, and that he offered to act in concert with us." He did not, however, utterly repel the idea of giving France its share on the Rhine, not, for instance, in the Prussian territories, where it would be difficult to persuade King William to renounce any portion of his possession; "but something could perhaps be found in the Palatinate," that is, in Bavaria. He was always "much more Prussian than German," and reasonable terms could be made with the Walhalla.

The French government fell into the trap which was thus set, and it then aided Prussia in _freeing itself from all control of Europe_, in working at these preliminaries of Nikolsburg, signed the 26th July, and which sealed the exclusion of Austria from Germany, and const.i.tuted a confederation of the North, under the hegemony of the Hohenzollern. This grave attack on public right and the equilibrium of the world once conceded, and the war virtually ended, one began to talk of compensations. In a letter addressed to M. de Goltz, and dated from Vichy the 3d August, M. Drouyn de Lhuys declared that the emperor, his august master, "had not wished to complicate the difficulties of a work of _European interest_ in treating _prematurely_ with Prussia" on territorial questions; but the moment seemed finally come to consider these questions, all the more as they were preparing to obtain large annexations north of the Main. "The king," M. de Bismarck had written to M. de Goltz the 10th July,--"the king cares less for the const.i.tution of a political northern confederation, and _above all desires annexations_; he would rather abdicate than return without an important territorial acquisition."[82] In fact, besides the Duchies of the Elbe, the abandonment of which had been stipulated at Nikolsburg, Prussia still wished to absorb the free cities, Ca.s.sel, Hanover, even Saxony, and at the Tuileries they hoped to measure the French demands according to the number of souls and of square leagues that William the Conqueror should demand for himself. "The great war for German nationality," which the popular Caesar had recommended at Biarritz, turned in a measure into "this human cattle market," so blamed at the congress of Vienna, at the "execrated" treaties of 1815,--and how is it possible not to acknowledge that France played a _role_ there unworthy of itself? It was for it to deny at once the new and the old right, the principle of national will as well as that of the legitimacy of princes; it wished, moreover, to realize an illicit gain and a paltry sum on the occasion of a great universal calamity, and, to speak with the English humorist, to profit by the eruption of Vesuvius to boil an egg! M. de Bismarck uttered at this moment a cruel _mot_, but which was not entirely unmerited. "France,"

said he to a former minister of the Germanic Confederation,--"France _follows a Trinkgeld policy_ (_la France fait une politique de pour-boire_)."

A letter written by M. Rouher on the 6th August, 1866, and since found among the papers of the Tuileries,[83] makes us see the strange illusions which the French government then cherished, and the amba.s.sador of Prussia at Paris did his best to sustain. "M. de Goltz finds our pretension legitimate in principle," wrote the minister of state; "he considers that satisfaction ought to be given to the only wish of our country to const.i.tute between France and Prussia _a necessary and fruitful alliance_." The embarra.s.sment is solely to determine the sum of the demands that should be put forward. "The empress would demand much or nothing, in order not to compromise our final pretensions." As for M.

Rouher, he thinks that "public opinion would have _food_ and _direction_, if to-morrow we could say officially, Prussia consents that we retake the frontiers of 1814, and thus efface the consequences of Waterloo." Let it be well understood, the minister of state does not admit "that this rectification would serve as a receipt for the future!"

"Without doubt, new facts must develop in order that new pretensions arise, but these facts will certainly be developed. Germany is only in the first of those numerous oscillations which it will undergo before finding its new position. Let us be more ready, in the future, to better profit by events; opportunities will not be wanting. The States south of the Main, especially, will be, in a few years from now, an apple of discord or a matter for a compromise. M. de Goltz does not dissimulate at present the covetousness as regards this group of confederates."

Thus, at the very moment that they boasted of "saving" the States of the South, of establishing on the other side of the Rhine a new political combination which the minister of state was soon to adorn with the famous name of _three fragments_, and to declare, marvelously rea.s.suring for France, they already waited for an opportunity to abandon this combination, and to traffic for it "at a reasonable price!"

How nave to think that after Sadowa and Nikolsburg, the ruin of Austria consummated, Germany completely subjected, all intervention of Europe checked, and the military weakness of France proclaimed to all the winds,[84] that one would find Prussia accessible to those arrangements which it had not wished to make before its immense victories, at the moment of its greatest perplexities, and in the midst of the anguish of a crisis which all the world agreed in proclaiming perilous in the extreme! Even on the 8th June, on the eve of the war, M. Benedetti thus summed up the state of public opinion in Prussia in regard to France: "The apprehensions which we inspire everywhere in Germany still exist, and they will awaken unanimously and violently at the least sign which would allow our intention of enlarging our boundaries towards the East to be guessed. The king, like the most humble of his subjects, would not bear at this moment the suggestion of the probability of a sacrifice on the Rhine. The crown prince, so profoundly convinced of the dangers of the policy of which he is the witness, declared, not long ago, to one of my colleagues, with extreme vivacity, that he preferred war to cession, if it was only the little county of Glatz."[85] And it was the same diplomat who had so appreciated the situation before the campaign of Bohemia, it was this same amba.s.sador who now took upon himself to present to M. de Bismarck the demands of the cabinet of the Tuileries, who even submitted to him on the 5th August a project for a secret treaty, implying the abandonment to France of all the left bank of the Rhine, without excepting the great fortress of Mayence! "In view of the important acquisitions which the peace a.s.sures to the Prussian government," said M. Benedetti, "I was of the opinion that a territorial remodeling would hereafter be necessary for our security; I have instigated nothing, I have still less guaranteed the success; I have only allowed myself to hope for it, provided that our language were firm and our att.i.tude resolute." Was firmness wanting, or was too much of it shown? In any case, M. de Bismarck a.s.serts that he replied in a tone which certainly showed no irresolution. "Very well," he replied to the pressing entreaties of the amba.s.sador, "then we will have war. But let his majesty well observe, that such a war could become in certain eventualities _a_ war with a revolution, and that in presence of revolutionary dangers, the German dynasties would prove to be much more firmly established than that of Napoleon."[86]

That was not, however, the last remark of the Prussian minister.

Perfectly decided not to admit the discussion on the subject of the Rhine, he took care, nevertheless, not to completely discourage the French amba.s.sador, and to continue a game with him which later, in his circular of the 29th July, 1870, he called by the name, unknown until then in the diplomatic dictionary, of _dilatory negotiations_. He spoke of his liking for Napoleon III., of his great ambition to solve in concert with him the important problems of the future. "Prussia needs an alliance with a great Power;" that was his inmost conviction; he did not cease to preach it to the king his august master,--and what alliance more desirable, in a point of view of progress and of civilization, than that with the French empire? He thus returned to his recent effusions of Brunn and Nikolsburg; he insinuated "that _other arrangements_ could be made which would satisfy the respective interests of the two countries,"[87] and he strengthened M. Benedetti in his design to return to Paris and to expose the situation.

At Paris the conflict of Powers was carried on with vigor between the minister of foreign affairs and the amba.s.sador of Prussia, M. de Goltz, ably seconded by the _party of action_, to which the arrival of M.

Benedetti (11th August) brought considerable support. M. Drouyn de Lhuys was not at all surprised at the _Prussian ingrat.i.tude_, as M. Benedetti had expressed it in one of his last dispatches,[88] but, by a logic which escapes us, he did not the less rejoice at seeing the French demands at last stated, "They can be taken up again in good time." He had no doubt of the use that they would soon make on the banks of the Spree of the project of the treaty of the 5th August! He hoped, besides, that the final refusal given at Berlin would cause the ardent promoters of dangerous intrigues to reflect that it would prevent certain engagements for the future which he apprehended above all. M. de Goltz suddenly told him that he had come to an agreement with the emperor concerning the annexations to be effected by William I. in Northern Germany, and a letter addressed the 12th August by the chief of state to the Marquis de La Valette cut short all controversy with Prussia. "It results from my conversation with Benedetti," wrote Napoleon III. to the minister of the interior, "that we will have all Germany against us for a small profit; it is important not to let public opinion be mistaken on this point." The misfortune was only that the imperial government allowed itself at this moment to be misled on a very dangerous point, and that Belgium became for it, from that time, the object of a negotiation as deceptive as fatal, and from which later, at the beginning of the war of 1870, it in vain endeavored to elude the crushing responsibility.

That M. de Bismarck was, from the beginning, the great tempter of the imperial government, and the tempter repulsed even for a long time, in these shadowy projects concerning the country of the Meuse and the Escaut, is a truth which to-day cannot be doubted, the authentic doc.u.ments published lately suffice to convince the most incredulous mind. It was not only in his conversations with General Govone that the president of the Prussian council indicated on several occasions, and very clearly, Belgium and certain parts of Switzerland as the most proper territories to "indemnify France:" long before the spring of the year 1866, even long before the interview of Biarritz, M. de Bismarck had tried to _sell the bear-skin_, as Napoleon III. said to him one day.

General La Marmora, who understood it a long time, adds that "the bear was neither in the Alps nor in the Carpathians; he was very well (_stava benone_) and he neither wished to die nor to be caged up."[89] Such suggestions were, without doubt, of a nature to startle the _party of action_ in the councils of the empire, they were, however, eagerly received by it; but scornfully checked, up to that point, by M. Drouyn de Lhuys, treated as "projects of brigandage" by the chief of the state, they had to await that hour of _patriotic anguish_ which marked the arrival of Benedetti, to be at last taken into serious consideration.

Certainly the amba.s.sador of France at the court of Berlin had, in this year 1866, a very difficult and painful situation, we had almost said a pathetic one. He had worked with ardor, with pa.s.sion, to bring about this _connubio_ of Italy and Prussia, which seemed to him to be an immense good fortune for the imperial policy, a brilliant victory gained over the old order of things to the profit of the "new right" and Napoleonic ideas. In the fear, very well founded besides, of seeing this work miscarry and Prussia draw back, if one spoke to it of eventual compensations and preventive engagements, he had not ceased to dissuade his government from any attempt of this kind, and to lay stress upon the fierce, intractable, and suspicious patriotism of the House of Hohenzollern, even to the point of being sometimes suspected at the Hotel of the Quai d'Orsay of somewhat exaggerating the colors, and of making a certain devil blacker and more German than he really was. The work had at last succeeded; succeeded beyond all expectations; succeeded in inspiring fear, in suddenly convincing M. Benedetti "that a territorial remodeling was henceforth necessary to the security of France." This remodeling he had flattered himself for a moment with having obtained on the Rhine: "He had not guaranteed the success, but he had allowed himself to _hope_ for it." Refused with firmness, if not with pride, "and having taken the measure of Prussian ingrat.i.tude," he was nevertheless soon given to hope what the minister of William I. had insinuated to him, "that other proper arrangements could be made to satisfy the respective interests of the two countries," and he had grasped at the expedient which was thus pictured before his eyes, with so much the more feverish energy as he saw in it a new triumph for the modern right and the principles dear to his party. Anxious to repair the consequences of a policy to which for his part he had contributed more than any other to make it successful; recognizing, however, the difficulties, if not the impossibility, for the court of Berlin to cede any portion of the German soil, and always convinced of the sincere desire of M. de Bismarck "to indemnify France,"[90] at this decisive hour he made himself, at the side of Napoleon III., the interpreter of the ideas which he had gathered from the head-quarters at Brunn, and pleaded with warmth for this necessary and fruitful alliance with Prussia, which, extolled for a long time by the Palais Royal, had recently deluded even the well balanced mind of M. Rouher.

Let it be well understood, there was no question of immediate action, of which, indeed, the military situation of the country allowed no thought; the question was simply of an agreement and a solidarity to be established for future eventualities, for the time more or less distant, but inevitable, when Prussia should think of crowning its work, of freeing the Main, of extending its rule from the Baltic to the Alps,--this question was of _boldly taking stand on the ground of nationalities_! "If France boldly takes its stand on the ground of nationalities," said a curious note found among the papers of the Tuileries, and which incontestably sums up the ideas of the party of action at this epoch,[91] "it is necessary to establish now that there exists no Belgian nationality, and to fix this essential point with Prussia. As the cabinet of Berlin seemed to be, on the other hand, disposed to enter with France into arrangements which would suit France, there would be time to negotiate a secret act which should bind the two parties. Without pretending that this act was a perfectly sure guarantee, it would have the double advantage of compromising Prussia, and would be for it a gage of the sincerity of the policy or of the intentions of the Emperor.... To be certain of finding at Berlin a confidence which is necessary for the maintenance of an intimate understanding, we must try to dissipate the apprehensions which have always been entertained, which have been reawakened, and even overexcited by our last communications. This result cannot be obtained by words; an act is necessary, and one which will regulate the ulterior lot of Belgium in concert with Prussia, in proving at Berlin that the emperor seeks elsewhere than on the Rhine the extension necessary for France since the events of which Germany was the theatre. We must at least have a relative certainty that the Prussian government will not oppose our aggrandizement in the North."

III.