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Cornell University Library 
 D 389.K63 
 
 Two chancellors: Prince Gortchakof and P, 
 
 3 1924 027 823 990 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027823990 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS 
 
 PRINCE GORTCHAKOF AND PRINCE 
 BISMARCK. 
 
 BY 
 
 JULIAN KLACZKO. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE REVUE DES DEUX MONDE S 
 BY 
 
 FRANK p. WARD. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON. 
 CarainlTfle : TO&e V^iitxiOtt ^vtii> 
 1876. 
 
Copyright, 
 By frank p. ward. 
 
 1876. 
 
 RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE ! 
 STBRBOTVPBD AND PRINTED BY 
 
 H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 
 
TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 In the year 1866 Carlyle said: "The only man 
 appointed by God to be His viceregent here on 
 earth in these days, and knowing he was so ap- 
 pointed and bent with his whole soul on doing, and 
 able to do God's work," is M. de Bismarck. If this 
 be true, then M. de Bismarck has found a most val- 
 uable ally and colleague- in the present Premier of 
 Russia. It is of these two men. Prince Bismarck, 
 and Prince Gortchakof, the Chancellor of Germany, 
 and the Chancellor of all the Russias, that this book 
 treats. The author is M. Julian Klaczko, a Polish 
 refugee, a man of cosmopolitan habits, an accom- 
 plished and able writer, thoroughly acquainted with 
 the contemporaneous history of Europe, prejudiced 
 against Prussia, an ardent friend of Austria, and 
 devoted to a conservative and monarchical form of 
 government. He was always the friend of Poland. 
 In 1863 he defended Denmark in a series of able 
 papers, which came out in the " Revue des deux 
 Mondes," under the title of " Studies of Contempo- 
 raneous Diplomacy." After the battle of Sadowa, 
 
iv TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE. 
 
 he appeared as the friend of Austria in a work 
 entitled, "The Preliminaries of Sadowa." Count 
 de Beust summoned him to Vienna, and attached 
 him to the Foreign Ofifice. Klaczko was then 
 elected Deputy in the Polish province of Galicia. 
 After 1870 he resigned his posts and returned to 
 France. 
 
 In the "Two Chancellors" he has given a con- 
 densed but graphic review of the diplomatic history 
 of Europe from 1855 to 1871, and a sketch of the 
 lives of Prince Bismarck and Prince Gortchakof, 
 the two most eminent men of the day. He also 
 seeks to prove that the " disaster " of Sadowa, fol- 
 lowed by the still greater one of Sedan,, was brought 
 about by the blind devotion of Prince Gortchakof 
 to Prince Bismarck, aided largely, it is true, by the 
 " inconceivable vacillations and hallucinations of 
 Napoleon III., the Dreamer of Ham." In a word, 
 he seeks to estabUsh that the prodigious events of 
 the last ten years are due to a conspiracy between 
 Russia and Prussia. This is a one-sided, partial 
 view, but is presented with such power as will almost 
 persuade the reader that such may have been the 
 case. According to Klaczko's theories, Prussia has 
 grasped the substance and Russia the shadow, and 
 the old chancellor of the great empire of the North 
 has been the dupe of his pupil of Berlin. 
 
 The great changes which will undoubtedly soon 
 take place in the East, make M. Klaczko's views 
 
TRANSLATOICS PREFACE. V 
 
 as to the past and present relations between Ger- 
 many and Russia of marked interest, and the stu- 
 dent of contemporaneous history will find in the 
 " Two Chancellors," notwithstanding the pecuUar 
 views and strong prejudices of the writer, one of 
 the most instructive as well as interesting works 
 that have appeared for many years. It has been 
 issued in book form in Paris, and widely circu- 
 lated in Russia, where it has caused a profound 
 sensation. 
 
 In the translation I have endeavored to reproduce 
 as justly as possible the words of M. Klaczko, whose 
 style, though strong and forcible, is at times some- 
 what involved. With these few words in regard to 
 the importance of the subject and the character of 
 the author, I leave to the judgment of the reader 
 the account of the momentous events which may 
 be truly said to have changed the political face of 
 Europe. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 I. 
 
 Pacs 
 The Missions of Prince Gortchakof and the De- 
 buts OF M. DE Bismarck i 
 
 II. 
 
 A National Minister and a Fault-finding Diplo- 
 mat at St. Petersburg 7S 
 
 III. 
 United Action 122 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Eclipse of Europe 188 
 
 V. 
 Orient and Occident 227 
 
 VI. 
 Ten Years of Assocl&tion 287 
 
 APPENDIX 311 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 THE MISSIONS OF PRINCE GORTCHAKOF AND THE 
 DEBUTS OF M. DE BISMARCK. 
 
 The good old Plutarch, in commencing his long 
 and charming series of Parallels with the account of 
 the lives of Theseus and Romulus, experiences some 
 difficulty in justifying such an association of the two 
 heroes ; he can find in them only very vague traits of 
 resemblance, and these by no means striking. " To 
 strength they both joined great powers of mind, 
 both carried off women by violence, and the one as 
 well as the other was not exempted from domestic 
 miseries ; indeed, toward the end of their lives they 
 both aroused the hatred of their fellow-citizens." ^ 
 Without doubt a writer of our day, wishing to give a 
 comparative study of the two most prominent figures 
 of contemporaneous politics,"" the chancellors of Russia 
 and Germany, would only mislead in giving promi- 
 nence to such points of resemblance. The associa- 
 tion in this case is justifiable, for it suggests itself to 
 every contemplative mind, to whoever has meditated 
 on the events of the last fifteen or twenty years. 
 The modern Plutarch who would undertake to write 
 the lives of these two illustrious men, could, as it 
 
 1 Plutarch, Theseus, initio. 
 
 1 
 
2 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 seems to us, easily resist the temptation of search- 
 ing too deeply for, or forcing analogies in a subject 
 where similarities abound and are so striking. Per- 
 haps he would rather have to guard against necessary 
 and tiresome repetitions in presence of a commonalty 
 of ideas and of a harmony of action such as history 
 has rarely known in two ministers guiding two dif- 
 ferent empires. 
 
 It is not, the reader may be well assured, a work 
 of this sort which the author has undertaken in the 
 following pages. We have only given the mere 
 sketch of a picture which, to be even in a slight 
 degree full and satisfactory, would have required 
 much larger proportions, and above all a much more 
 skillful hand. Without pretending to present here 
 new and unpublished materials, or indeed to reunite 
 all those which are already known, we have simply 
 chosen a few, and tried to assort and arrange them 
 so as to afford a better perspective. We have been 
 obliged to renounce the wish to give to the different 
 parts an equality of design and depth of coloring, and 
 we have not even bound ourselves to follow a very 
 regular and methodical course in this narration. Be- 
 fore a subject so vast and presenting so many shades 
 and shadows, we have thought that it was permis- 
 sible, that it was indeed occasionally useful, to vary 
 the points of observation and to present it in dif- 
 ferent aspects. 
 
 Like the Odolef ski, the Obolenski, the Dolgorouki, 
 and many aristocratic families on the banks of the 
 Moscova and the Neva, the Gortchakof also pride 
 
TH^O CHANCELLOR'S. 3 
 
 themselves on their descent from the Rourik ; to 
 speak more plainly, they claim to trace their origin 
 from one of the sons of Michael, Grand Duke of 
 Tchernigof, put to death towards the middle of the 
 thirteenth century by the Mongolians of Batou Khan, 
 since proclaimed martyr of the faith, exalted, indeed, 
 among the saints of the Orthodox Church. One 
 meets, nevertheless, with but few illustrious bearers 
 of the name of Gortchakof in the gloomy and exciting 
 annals of old Russia. In the epoch which preceded 
 the accession of the Romanof, there lived a certain 
 Peter Ivanovitch Gortchakof, the unfortunate com- 
 mander of Smolenski, who surrendered this cele- 
 brated place to the Poles after two years of energetic 
 and desperate resistance. He was taken to Warsaw, 
 and there, in 1611, with the Czar Vassili, the two 
 princes Schouyski, S^hine, and a number of power- 
 ful boiars, he was forced to take part in the famous 
 " cortige of captives " which the grand constable Zol- 
 kiweski presented one day — honorificentissime, says 
 the chronicle of the times — to the king and the 
 senate of the most serene republic. It was only in 
 the second half of the last century, under the reign 
 of Catherine II., that a Prince Ivan Gortchakof suc- 
 ceeded (thanks especially to his marriage with a sis- 
 ter of the opulent and courageous Souvorof) in again 
 raising the glory of his old house, which has never 
 since ceased to distinguish itself in the differ- 
 ent branches of state service, principally in the ca- 
 reer of arms. The France of to-day has preserved 
 the memory of two Princes Gortchakof, two old 
 soldiers of Borodino who distinguished themselves 
 during the war of the Orient. The one commanded 
 
4 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 the left wing of the Russian troops at the battles of 
 Alma and Inkermann; the other. Prince Michael, 
 was the generalissimo of the armies of the czar in 
 the Crimea, and rendered his name imperishable by 
 the heroic defense of Sebastopol. Afterwards he 
 governed the Kingdom of Poland as lieutenant of 
 the emperor, and became therefore (strange example 
 of the vicissitudes of history !) the supreme repre- 
 sentative of a harsh, foreign government in this same 
 city of Warsaw, where one of his ancestors had for- 
 merly figured in a memorable procession of the van- 
 quished. However, if this circumstance ever occurred 
 to Prince Michael, he drew therefrom none but sug- 
 gestions worthy of his character ; he governed the 
 conquered country with moderation and benevolence, 
 and left behind him the fame of a man as just in civil 
 administration as he was intrepid in war. • 
 
 The cousin of Prince Michael and present chan- 
 cellor of the empire, Alexander Mikhallovitch Gort- 
 chakof, was born in 1798, and was educated in that 
 lyceum of Zarkoe-Zeloe which has its distincT; place 
 in the pedagogic history of Russia. Founded by 
 Catherine II. as a model educational establishment 
 for the aristocratic youth of the empire, the lyceum 
 shone with great eclat under the reign of Alexander I., 
 although the RoUin and the Pestalozzi would certainly 
 have had more than one reservation to make with 
 respect to a college which only moulded its scholars 
 for the world, and thought the vigorous classical 
 studies a burden too heavy to carry into the ethereal 
 spheres of pleasures and elegance. Almost all the 
 professors of the establishment were foreigners, men 
 marked with the stamp of the eighteenth century, 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. S 
 
 acute minds, slightly frivolous, and above all disciples 
 of Voltaire. The most eminent among them, the 
 professor of French literature, he who initiated the 
 future chancellor into the language of Voltaire, of 
 which he so well knew the subtleties, was a Gene- 
 vese, who, under the inofEensive name of M. de Bou- 
 dry, concealed another of a terrible significance. M. 
 de Boudry was the brother of Marat, that " sinistre 
 conventionneir ^ The Empress Catherine, in order 
 " to end a scandal," had forced this patronymic change 
 on M. Marat, without, however, succeeding in mak- 
 ing him change his opinions, which always remained 
 " Jacobin." He died in final impenitence, cherishing 
 an openly avowed admiration for the friend of the 
 people, unjustly calumniated. From this education 
 of very doubtful value, the young Gortchakof suc- 
 ceeded in extracting a strong and useful substance. 
 He left Zarkoe-Zeloe with various and solid acquire- 
 ments ; a surprising matter, he was even a good 
 Latinist, and this last fact has remained a cause of 
 amazement to his fellow-scholars as well as to the 
 generations who followed. It is certain, however, 
 that the chancellor could quote Horace with about 
 the same appropriateness as Louis XVIH. of sainted 
 memory. One of his best known dispatches ingen- 
 iously borrows from Suetonius an eloquent passage 
 on the distinction to be established between liberty 
 and anarchy. 
 
 Next to his classical attainments, that part of his 
 youth which the chancellor loves especially to recall 
 is that he was the fellow-scholar, and that he re- 
 mained the friend, of the great national poet, Pouch- 
 1 Aus der Petershurger Gesellschaft, vol. ii. p. 156. 
 
6 TPTO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 kine, a fact more to his honor inasmuch as this 
 friendship has brought with it embarrassments at 
 certain times. When, by the order of the Emperor 
 Alexander I., in consequence of an offensive ode, 
 which one is not now known, the young singer of 
 " Rouslan " and " Loudmila " was confined in an ob- 
 scure village in the- far interior of Russia, only two of 
 his former comrades at the lyceum had the courage 
 to go to see and offer him their condolence, and one of 
 these intrepid youths was Prince Gortchakof. One 
 finds in the work of Pouchkine some verses written 
 in a lively and playful style, and which only derive 
 their interest from the name of Alexander Mikhall- 
 ovitch, to whom they are addressed. In one of 
 these juvenile pieces, Pouchkine wishes his friend 
 " to have Cupid as an inseparable companion as far 
 as the banks of the Styx, and to go to sleep on 
 the bosom of Helen in the very boat of Charon." 
 Thoughtless wishes, which human malignity would 
 surely not have failed to carry out in the end, if very 
 fortunately the chancellor had not been able to pre- 
 serve his old days from every deceitful seduction, 
 and to avoid even the appearance of an arctic Ruy 
 Gomez. The inspiration of the poet was happier 
 another time, when, speaking of their different voca- 
 tions, he predicts for Alexander Mikhaflovitch a 
 splendid destiny, and calls him " the beloved child of 
 fortune." 
 
 Fortune was nevertheless slow to recognize its 
 child, and to give him the lot which he merited. 
 Having early entered the department of foreign 
 affairs, being attached to the suite of M. de Nessel- 
 rode at the time of the Congresses of Laybach and 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. J 
 
 Verona, Prince Gortchakof had already long passed 
 that period which Dante calls the mezzo del cammin 
 di vita ; and even when very near his fiftieth year; 
 was still only a minister plenipotentiary at a little 
 court in Germany. A fortunate event at last came 
 to commend him to the kindness of his master, and 
 to render him distinguished in those diplomatic cir- 
 cles, in those regions " free from tears, but filled with 
 sighs," which in the language of diplomacy are called 
 the secondary posts. 
 
 In a moment of paternal weakness, the Emperor 
 Nicholas had one day consented to the union of his 
 daughter, the Grand Duchess Marie, with the Duke 
 of Leuchtenberg, " the son of a Beauharnais, a Cath- 
 olic officer in the service of the King of Bavaria," as 
 was whispered with sadness in the intimate circles 
 of the winter palace. Nicholas was not the man to 
 retract his given word, but not the less did he feel 
 the sting of what his surrounding court did not 
 cease to call a misalliance ; -and the bitterness in- 
 creased when none of the foreign members of the 
 imperial family came to take part in the brilliant 
 festivities which preceded or followed the nuptial 
 ceremony. Ill-luck would have it that soon after- 
 wards a first cousin of the new imperial son-in-law 
 and daughter of the ex-King Jerome married a Rus- 
 sian grown rich in trade, a prince in the valley of 
 the Arno but scarcely a gentleman on the banks of 
 the Neva, — a disagreeable accident, and which, ac- 
 cording to the amazed courtiers, made the autocrat 
 of all the Russias the relation of one of his subjects ! 
 It became necessary to efface all these unpleasant 
 impressions, and to take, by a brilliant alliance, ^i 
 
« TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 incontestable revenge for so many vexations. It 
 was hoped for .a moment to be able to marry the 
 Grand Duchess Alexandra to an arch-duke of Aus- 
 tria, but it was necessary to fall back on a prince of 
 Darmstadt ; for the Grand Duchess Olga, the mpst 
 beautiful and the most beloved of the emperor's 
 daughters, had been chosen by the only prince royal 
 then unengaged, the presumptive heir to the throne 
 of Wurtemberg, of the old and illustrious house of 
 Suabia. 
 
 The plan was not easily executed. The good 
 Suabian people had little liking for it. A Russian 
 marriage made it tremble for its constitutional liber- 
 ties ; and what was a graver matter, the old King 
 William of Wurtemberg, a good, liberal sovereign, 
 but obstinate in all things, showed himself rather 
 reluctant, and at his own pleasure retarded the nego- 
 tiation. Other objections came from other sides 
 still ; but the Russian minister plenipotentiary at 
 Stuttgart, the old fellow-scholar of Pouchkine, knew 
 how to overcome them all with consummate skill. 
 By aid of art and address," he was able to establish 
 the Grand Duchess Olga in the royal family of Wur- 
 temberg. The joy of the Emperor Nicholas was 
 great and unreserved, and the winter palace sang the 
 panegyrics of the wonderful diplomat. After such a 
 success. Prince Gortchakof could well demand to be 
 promoted in his career, having approached nearer by 
 several strides towards that embassy of Vienna 
 which was considered as the supreme goal of ambi- 
 tion. He did nothing of this sort, however, and 
 showed an admirable patience, — the patience of the 
 patriarch Jacob with Laban, son of Nahor. To the 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 9 
 
 the four years which he had already passed at Stutt- 
 gart, Alexander Mikharlovitch declared himself ready 
 to add another term more prolonged if it were neces- 
 sary. He promised the empress-mother to remain 
 indefinitely by the side of the Grand Duchess Olga, 
 to aid her as a guide and counselor in a foreign 
 country and in the midst of surroundings entirely 
 new to her. Barren as the soil might be, he did not 
 despair of growing there under this ray of beauty 
 and of grace, which came directly from the great 
 boreal sun ; and in truth he kept this post at Stutt- 
 gart for eight more long years. Tenues grandia con- 
 amur ! 
 
 However, any point of observation is good for one 
 who understands how to adjust his glass and ques- 
 tion the stars. The resident minister at Stuttgart 
 had extensive information and found means of in- 
 forming his government of many things quite out- 
 side the limits of the horizon of the little kingdom 
 of Wurtemberg. Soon the year 1848 came with its 
 terrible catastrophes, with its great revolutionary 
 earthquakes which added to the experience of the 
 most experienced, which lightened with a sudden 
 glimmer the ignorant depths of human nature, and, 
 in the words of Milton, lightened the darkness. Such 
 a lesson of history was not without profit, one can 
 well believe, to the former scholar of Zarkoe-Zeloe. 
 The salons and the cabinets for a long time had had 
 no secrets from him ; he now knew those of the forum 
 and of the cross-roads. The vicinity of Frankfort, 
 seat of the famous parliament, permitted him to study 
 closely and fully the German agitation of this mem- 
 orable epoch ; he understood beforehand the phases, 
 
lO TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 by turns naive, burlesque, and odious, and was able 
 to predict in good time the unfailing miscarriage of 
 a revolution, the subdued billows of which foamed 
 for a day even in the streets of Stuttgart, ordinarily 
 so peaceful. 
 
 It was in the month of April, 1849. Preceding 
 by twenty years the great work of 1870, the parlia- 
 ment of Frankfort had just formed a German Em- 
 pire to the exclusion of Austria, and offered the 
 crown to the King of Prussia, Frederick William 
 IV. The King of Prussia hesitated, and ended by 
 declining ; the other German princes were still less 
 willing to assent to a decree which implied their ab- 
 dication ; but this was by no means the plan of the 
 German demagogy. It suddenly fell enthusiastically 
 in love with this constitution, which on the very eve 
 before it had denounced as reactionary, fatal to the 
 liberties of the people, and designed to impose by 
 force the Prussian vassalage decreed at Frankfort on 
 different sovereigns of Germany. In Wurtemberg, 
 the chamber of deputies voted a pressing, imperious 
 address in order to draw from the king the recogni- 
 tion of the Emperor Frederick William IV. The 
 monarch replied by a refusal. The riot thundered 
 on the public square, and the members, of the court 
 were forced to seek refuge at Ludwigsburg, fleeing 
 from an enraged capital. " I will not submit to the 
 House of Hohenzollern," the old King William of 
 Wurtemberg had said to the deputation of the cham- 
 ber. " I owe it to my people and to myself. It is 
 not for myself that I speak thus ; I have but very few 
 years to live. My duty to my country, my House, 
 my family, forces this course of action on me." 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. II 
 
 Alexander MikhaKlovitch, touched by these agitating 
 scenes, by this pathetic protestation of the father- 
 in-law of Olga, "for the House, for the family of 
 Wurtemberg," assuredly had then but little expecta- 
 tion that one day, as Chancellor of the Russian Em- 
 pire, he would become the most useful auxiliary, the 
 firmest aid of an aggressive, audacious policy, des- 
 tined to realize in every particular the plan of the 
 rioters of Stuttgart, and to make Queen Olga the 
 vassal of Hohenzollern. 
 
 This was, however, nothing but the noisy prologue 
 of a drama yet far distant, and the year 1850 could 
 indeed rejoice at seeing disappear in Germany the 
 very last traces of an agitation which had done noth- 
 ing but astonish Europe, instead of illuminating and 
 warning it. Towards the end" of this year, 1850, the 
 German Confederacy was established anew under 
 the terms of the ancient treaty of Vienna. The 
 Bundestag again commenced its peaceable delibera- 
 tions, and Prince Gortchakof was quite naturally 
 appointed to represent the Russian Government at 
 the Diet of Frankfort. Alexander Mikhaiflovitch 
 henceforth had his marked place in a great centre 
 of political affairs, where the personal merit of the 
 minister borrowed a peculiar eclat from the extraor- 
 dinary fortune which the latest events had created 
 for his august master. Russian influence, at all 
 times very considerable with the ruling houses of 
 Germany, had grown prodigiously, having reached 
 its zenith, one will remember, after the disorders of 
 February. Alone remaining sheltered from the 
 revolutionary tempest which had swept over al- 
 most all the States of the Continent, the empire of 
 
12 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 the czars appeared to be at that time the firmest 
 stronghold of the principles of order and conserva- 
 tism. " Humiliate yourselves, nations, God is with 
 us ! " said the Emperor Nicholas in a celebrated 
 proclamation ; and without being too much offended 
 at language which made God in a manner the acces- 
 sory to a great human boast, monarchical Europe 
 had only acclamations for a prince who, after all, 
 worked with a remarkable disinterestedness for the 
 reestablish ment of the legitimate authorities, and for 
 the maintenance of the equilibrium of the world. 
 
 In fact, it is just to acknowledge that in these 
 troubled years of 1848-50, the autocrat of the 
 North used his influence, as also his sword, only 
 to strengthen the tottering thrones and to enforce 
 respect for the treaties. He effectively protected 
 Denmark, towards which from this epoch the rapa- 
 cious hand of Germany was stretched, and he was 
 the most ardent in calling a meeting of the Powers, 
 which ended by snatching from the Germans the 
 coveted prey. He interposed directly in Hungary, 
 and with his military forces helped put down a for- 
 midable insurrection there, which had shaken to its 
 foundations the ancient empire of Hapsburg, under- 
 mined at the same time by intestine troubles and an 
 aggressive war which the kingdom of Piedmont had 
 twice stirred up against it. Little favoring by his 
 principles and interests this united Germany, "of 
 which the first thought was a thought of unjust ex- 
 tension, the first cry a cry of war," 1 he later used 
 all his power in bringing about the reestablishment 
 
 1 Expressions from the Russian circular of the 6th July, 1848, ad- 
 dressed by Count Nesselrode to his agents in Germany. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 1 3 
 
 pure and simple, of the German Confederation on 
 the same basis as prior to 1848. The bonds of re- 
 lationship and of friendship which united him to 
 the court of Berlin were never strong enough to 
 make him abandon for a single instant the cause 
 of the sovereignty of princes, and of the independ- 
 ence of the States ; and in spite of the sincere af- 
 fection which' he bore " his brother-in-law, the poet," 
 he neither spared the King of Prussia, Frederick 
 William IV., the evacuation of the Duchies, nor the 
 hard conditions of Olmiitz. Defender of European 
 right on the Eider and the Main, of monarchical right 
 on the Theiss and Danube, peacemaker for Germany, 
 and, so to say, wholesale dealer in justice for Europe, 
 Nicholas had at this moment a true greatness, an im- 
 mense prestige, well merited on the whole, and which 
 allowed no reflection on the agents charged with rep- 
 resenting away from home a policy of which no one 
 dared contest the immovable firmness and the per- 
 fect justice. 
 
 The Emperor Nicholas, in accrediting Prince 
 Gortchakof to the German Confederation, in an au- 
 tograph letter dated i ith Npvember, 1850, recognized 
 in the reunion of the Diet of Frankfort " a pledge 
 for the maintenance of the general peace," and thus 
 characterized by an able and judicious act, the hon- 
 orable and salutary mission of this Diet in ordering 
 matters created by the treaties of 1815. However 
 legitimate the grievances of the liberal Germans 
 were against the internal policy of the Bund^ and 
 
 1 The Germanic Confederation was formed in 1816. Frankfort was 
 chosen as its seat, whither delegates were sent from all the States of 
 Germany retaining sovereign rights. These delegates formed the 
 assembly called, the Diet. 
 
14 TIVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 its tendencies, little favorable to the development of 
 the constitutional rigime, yet one cannot deny that, 
 according to the European point of view, and with 
 regard to the equilibrium and the general peace of 
 the world, this was a marvelous conception, well fit- 
 ted to preserve the independence of the States and 
 to hinder any deep perturbation in the bosom of the 
 Christian faftiily. The chimerical and mercantile 
 minds of the times, the leading men of Manchester 
 and the rich publicists, with at least "one idea a 
 day," imagined that this was the moment to declare 
 "war to war," to force a universal disarmment, to 
 abolish military slavery ; and to this effect they con- 
 
 The assembly was composed of seventeen envoys, presided over 
 by the representative of Austria. There were however thirty-one 
 States exclusive of the free cities, represented in the last period of 
 the Diet's existence. The Diet was so constituted that each of the 
 following States or combination of States had one representative : 
 Austria ; Prussia ; Bavaria ; Kingdom of Saxony ; Hanover ; Wur- 
 temberg ; Grand Duchy of Baden ; Electorate of Hesse ; Grand 
 Ducal Hesse ; Denmark, for the Duchies of Holstein and Lauen- 
 burg ; The Netherlands, for Limburg and Luxemburg ; The Duchies 
 of Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Saxe-Altenburg ; Bruns- 
 wick and Nassau ; The two Mecklenburgs (Schwerin and Strelitz) ; 
 Oldenburg, Anhalt and two Schwarzburgs ( Rudolstadt and Sonder- 
 hausen) ; Lichtenstein, Reuss, Schaumburg Lippe, Lippe Detmold, 
 Waldeck and Hesse Homburg ; The free cities, Lubeck, Frank- 
 fort, Bremen and Hamburg. 
 
 The votes were equal. Sittings were secret. 
 
 On important occasions the assembly was resolved into what was 
 called the plenum, in which a greater number of votes were assigned 
 to the chief States, and the total number of voices was then increased 
 to seventy. In these cases a majority of three fourths was necessary 
 for any question to be carried. 
 
 The leading idea with the founders of the Diet was the preserva- 
 tion of internal tranquillity, the next, the formation of a league 
 which should inspire other nations with respect. 
 
 Ambassadors were accredited to the Diet. — Translator. 
 
Tff^O CHANCELLORS. IS 
 
 voked noisy congresses of peace in different parts of 
 the world. They had, indeed, in a day of natveti, 
 convoked one at Frankfort, without suspecting that 
 by their side, and in this very Bundestag of such 
 modest appearance, had sat for a long time a true 
 and permanent congress of peace, — a congress 
 which would do as much good as possible, and 
 which, moreover, would have the advantage of not 
 being ridiculous. 
 
 Placed in the very centre of Europe, separating by 
 its large and immovable body the great military 
 powers which form the border, so to speak, of our old 
 continent, — a power neutral by necessity and almost 
 by law over those great plains, where in former times 
 the destinies of empires were decided, — the Ger- 
 man Confederation formed an ensemble of States 
 sufficiently coherent and compact to repulse any 
 shock from abroad, yet not strong enough to be- 
 come aggressive itself and to menace the security 
 of its neighbors. Many years later, and when chan- 
 cellor of the empire. Prince Gortchakof, in a cele- 
 brated circular, rendered homage to this beneficial 
 combination of the Bund, " a combination purely and 
 exclusively defensive," which permitted the localiza- 
 tion of a war, become inevitable, "instead of gener- 
 alizing it and of giving to the struggle a character 
 and proportions beyond all human calculation, and 
 which in any case would pile up ruins and cause tor- 
 xents of blood to flow." ^ 
 
 In truth, if in this long half century which inter- 
 vened between the Congress of Vienna and the ill- 
 omened battle of Sadowa, the frontiers of the States 
 
 1 Russian circular of the 27th May, 1859, concerning the war in Italy. 
 
l6 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 have changed so little in spite of so many and so 
 great changes in their political complexion ; if the 
 revolution of July, the campaign of Belgium, and 
 even the wars of the Crimea and Italy have been 
 carried on without noticeably disturbing the balance 
 of the nations, or injuring them in their independ- 
 ence, we are specially indebted to this Bundestag so 
 unappreciated, which by its very existence, by its po- 
 sition, and the wheelwork of its completed mechan- 
 ism, prevented any conflict from becoming a general 
 conflagration. It is doubtful whether the cause of 
 humanity and civilization, or the very cause which 
 the chancellor of Russia more specially represents 
 with such facility and klat, have gained in any con- 
 siderable degree in seeing this old " combination " 
 replaced in our time by another, more simple, it is 
 true, but, perhaps, also much less calculated to re- 
 store confidence. 
 
 While acquitting himself zealously of the duties of 
 his office in connection with the Germanic Confeder- 
 ation, Alexander Mikhailovitch continued to occupy 
 the post of minister plenipotentiary at Stuttgart. 
 He held it to be a matter of honor to fulfill to the 
 end his confidential and intimate mission by the side 
 of the Grand Duchess Olga. He divided his time 
 between the free city on the Main, the seat of the 
 Bund, and the little capital on the banks of the 
 Neckar, where a warm and kind interest always 
 greeted him. At Frankfort he took especial ' pleas- 
 ure in the society of his Prussian colleague, a young 
 lieutenant in the Landwehr} an entire novice in the 
 
 1 This young lieutenant was M. de Bismarck. The Landwehr is 
 divided into two levies. The soldier belongs to the first levy seven 
 years, to the second levy for a like period. — Translator. 
 
TPVO CHANCELLORS. 1/ 
 
 diplomatic career, although marked out for such a 
 prodigious destiny. There had been settled here for 
 many years a great Russian celebrity, a poet, who 
 was at the same time an influential courtier, and who 
 could not be overlooked by a diplomat with a love 
 for intellectual enjoyments, and who had been a 
 school-fellow of Pouchkine. The good and mild 
 Vassili Joukofski liad certainly none of the genius 
 of Pouchkine, nor his independent and ardent char- 
 acter. More properly a facile versifier and an ingen- 
 ious translator than a creative and original mind, 
 with a nature rather effeminate and contemplative, 
 the formerly renowned author of " Ondine " had 
 early made his peace with the official society which 
 the despotic will of Nicholas had created, and had 
 always sunned himself in the rays of imperial favor. 
 During his long and pleasant career as poet at the 
 court, he had not been without dignities and honors. 
 He, however, had a mission much more important 
 and honorable ; he was charged with directing the 
 education of the heir-presumptive, Alexander, the 
 present emperor, and of his brother the Grand Duke 
 Constantine. Joukofski devoted himself to this task 
 with intelligence and ardor, and retained the affec- 
 tion of his two august pupils to the end of his life. 
 A proof of this fact is the correspondence which en- 
 sued and which he still maintained with them while 
 at Frankfort. These letters were published quite 
 recently. After having finished the education of 
 the grand dukes, he made a voyage of pleasure in 
 Germany. At Diisseldorf he found a companion for 
 life, much younger than himself, but sharing all his 
 tastes, even his charming weaknesses. He finally 
 
 2 
 
1 8 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 selected a home on the banks of the Main, at Frank- 
 fort. 
 
 Thus, as it happens to more than one of his com- 
 patriots, Joukofski, living entirely in a foreign coun- 
 try, and being indeed manifestly unwilling to return 
 to his native land, considered the Occident miserably 
 sunken and corrupted, and hoped only in "holy 
 Russia" for the renovation and safety of a world 
 overrun and possessed by the demon of revolution. 
 The events of February only served to confirm him 
 in these gloomy visions and to plunge him more and 
 more into an uneasy mysticism, at times even irritat- 
 ing, but more often inoffensive and not devoid of a 
 certain unhealthy charm. The campaign of Hungary 
 caused a momentary diversion in his sad thoughts, 
 and filled him with joy. It was not so much the 
 glory with which the Russian army covered itself 
 which pleased his mind ; it was not even the triumph 
 attained by the Russian sword, the sword of , St. 
 Michael, over " the impure beast : " his prayers, his 
 hopes went far beyond. He hoped — thus he wrote 
 to his imperial pupil that the great czar would profit 
 by the power which God had given him and would 
 "solve a problem on which the crusades had 
 stranded ; " that is to say, that he should drive the 
 infidel from Byzantium, and liberate the holy land. 
 Mme. Joukofski, although born a Protestant, felt in 
 unison with her melancholy husband. Her soul had 
 need of a " principle of authority," which failed her 
 in the reformed confession, and which she sought 
 one day in the Orthodox Church, to the great joy of 
 the poet, without, however, being able to find there 
 perfect rest. 
 
TIVO CHANCELLORS. 1 9 
 
 Sometimes in the salon of the Joukofski the con- 
 versations were strangely varied and bizarre, on lit- 
 erature, politics, the glorious destinies of holy Rus- 
 sia, the inanity of modern civilization, the necessity 
 of " a new eruption of Christianity," and on many 
 matters invisible and " ineffable." Occasionally there 
 fell into the midst of this salon, like a fantastic ap- 
 parition, like a ghost from the world of spirits, a 
 genius original and powerful in a very different 
 way, but also tormented and troubled differently 
 from, the good court poet and former preceptor of 
 the grand dukes. After having unveiled the hideous 
 sores of Russian society with a vigorous, implacable 
 hand, after having presented to his nation, in " Les 
 Ames Mortes " and in " L 'Inspecteur," a picture 
 whose vices were appalling with truth and life, Nich- 
 olas Gogol suddenly gave up in despair civilization, 
 progress, and liberty, and betaking himself to adore 
 that which he had burned, valued nothing but bar- 
 barian Muscovy, saw no salvation but in despotism, 
 thought himself in a state of "unpardonable" sin, and 
 went in search of divine pity which always fled from 
 him. Shortly afterwards he went from St. Petersburg 
 to Rome, then to Jerusalem, then to Paris, everywhere 
 seeking appeasement for his lacerated soul. Then 
 he came from time to time to Joukofski, and passed 
 whole weeks in his house, exhorting his friends to 
 prayer, to repentance, and to contemplation of the 
 divine mysteries. There were discussions without 
 end, without a truce, on the " heathens of the Occi- 
 dent," on " a crusade," which was drawing near, on 
 the redemption of sinful humanity by a race not yet 
 defiled, and which had kept its faith. At several re- 
 
20 riVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 viVals the physicians were forced to interfere to put 
 an end to a connection not without peril. One day 
 Gogol was found, having died of inanition, prostrate 
 before the holy images, in the adoration of which he 
 
 had lost all thought of himself May we be 
 
 pardoned for this short digression. It makes us ac- 
 quainted with the state of the minds of a certain 
 Russian society towards the end of the reign of 
 Nicholas, and adds a curious stroke to the picture of 
 the origins of the war in the Orient. One delights, 
 however, to think of Alexander Mikhadovitch in this 
 Saloi>i of the Joukofski, on an evening for instance, 
 during such an intellectual conflict with the poor 
 Gogol. The diplomat, equally cultivated and skepti- 
 cal, was certainly made to recognize the bright and 
 brilliant flashes which furrowed those driving clouds 
 in a great, disordered mind ; and he was made to 
 unravel more than one strong and thrilling thought 
 from the midst of those strange ramblings concern- 
 ing an imminent crusade and the near deliverance 
 of Zion. 
 
 Who would have thought it ? It was these mys- 
 tics, these men laboring under hallucinations, who 
 had the true presentiment and saw the signs of the 
 times ! While Joukofski composed his " Commen- 
 tary on Holy Russia," and Gogol mortified himself 
 before the icdnes, the Emperor Nicholas revolved 
 in his mind the great thought of a crusade, and pre- 
 pared in the most profound secrecy the mission of 
 Prince Menchikof. The fact that the monarch who 
 had done so much for preserving the peace and equi- 
 librium of Europe had suddenly decided to throw 
 such a fire-lM-and of war in the midst of the continent 
 
TIVO CHANCELLORS. 21 
 
 scarcely consolidated, while on the other hand the 
 autocrat had awaited precisely this epoch of relative 
 calm and of the reestablishment of general order 
 to announce his designs, in place of executing them 
 boldly some years before during the revolutionary 
 tempest which paralyzed almost all the 'Powers, his 
 armies being already in the very heart of Hungary 
 and commanding the banks of the Danube, — these 
 facts will be for the impartial historian an evident 
 proof of the good faith with which the czar under- 
 took his fatal campaign, of the mystical blindness 
 which guided' his spirit at this time, and of the pro- 
 found conviction which he had of the justice of his 
 cause. Did Prince Gortchakof partake in the same 
 measure of the illusions of his master ? We doubt 
 whether he did. We believe that, like the Kisselef, 
 the Meyendorf, the Brunnow, and all the distiu' 
 guished diplomats of Russia, without excepting the 
 chancellor of the empire, the old Count Nesselrode, 
 he was conscious of the great error toward which a 
 proud prince, who allowed no objections and under- 
 stood being " his own minister of foreign affairs," 
 was tending, That naturally did not prevent the 
 Russian representative to the German Confederation 
 from fulfilling his duty with all the zeal which cir- 
 cumstances so critical made necessary, and from 
 placing the various resources of his mind at the ser- 
 vice of his country in the sphere of action which was 
 reserved for him. 
 
 Events did not make it of much importance. In 
 the Bundestag were concentrated not only all the 
 efforts of the secondary States of the confederation, 
 but there also were formed or conceived the projects, 
 
22 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 the preparations, and even the desires of the two 
 principal German powers, the assistance of which 
 Russia on the one side and France and England on 
 the other, were equally concerned in obtaining. 
 Prince Gortchakof could not complain of the turn 
 affairs took in Germany. Frederick William IV. 
 was faithful against every temptation. The czar 
 could count in any case on " his brother-in-law, the 
 poet ; " and Alexander Mikhaitlovitch found an 
 equally firm support in his colleague of Prussia, the 
 young officer of the Landwehr. The cabinet of 
 Berlin consented from time to time to join in the 
 representations which the allies sent to St. Peters- 
 burg, to sign in concert with them the same note, or 
 one analogous or concordant. But it did not take 
 long to see that it only did this to retard their move- 
 ments, and to deter them from any energetic resolu- 
 tion. At decisive moments it stopped short, hesi- 
 tated, and pretended to preserve "la main libre" 
 (free Hand). The other members of the Bund were 
 much more sympathetic and more frankly won over 
 to the Russian policy. They did not think the de- 
 mands of the czar against Turkey at all exorbitant, 
 and troubled themselves very little about the preser- 
 vation of the " sick man." They likewise desired to 
 preserve " la main libre',' closed their ranks in the 
 famous conferences of Bamberg, and were at times 
 all ready to draw their swords. In truth, Alexander 
 Mikhallovitch showed in the sequel, in the fatal year 
 1866, very little gratitude, very little distributive 
 justice, for these poor secondary States, so devoted, 
 so serviceable, so immovably attached at the time of 
 the Oriental crisis. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 2$ 
 
 While at London and at Paris vehement com- 
 ments were made in the celebrated dispatches of Sir 
 Hamilton Seymour, and the ambitious projects of 
 Russia were denounced there, at Hanover, at Dres- 
 den, at Munich, at Stuttgart, at Cassel, nothing but 
 censure was heard against the proceedings of the al- 
 lies and their " usurpations." At Berlin they groaned 
 all the more at seeing Christian monarchies under- 
 take so ardently the defense of the Crescent. A sin- 
 gle Germanic power, however, at that time the largest 
 it is true, maintained a different attitude ; a single one 
 thought the cause of the allies just, seemed, indeed, 
 at moments to be inclined to make common cause 
 with them ; and that power was Austria, — Austria, 
 but lately succored by the Russian arms ; saved by 
 the strong and generous hand of the czar on the very 
 brink of the abyss ; " saved " by him from sudden dis- 
 solution. The astonishment, the stupefaction, the ex- 
 asperation of the Emperor Nicholas knew no bounds. 
 The entire Russian nation shared his sentiments, — 
 Alexander Mikhaiflovitch like every patriotic Mus- 
 covite. "The immense ingratitude of Austria" 
 became even then the unanimous cry, — the siboletk 
 of every political faith in the vast empire of the 
 Noirth ; and so it has remained even to our days. 
 
 It is necessary to lay stress upon this sentiment 
 born in Russia in consequence of the Oriental con- 
 flict, and to discuss the real causes for it ; for this 
 sentiment has produced incalculable effects. It has 
 contributed largely to the recent catastrophes ; it 
 has dictated more than one extreme resolution to 
 the cabinet of St. Petersburg ; it has made it aban- 
 don its venerable traditions, — its principles, conse- 
 
24 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 crated by the experience of generations and seem- 
 ingly immovable, having become, in a certain sense, 
 the arcana imperii of the descendants of Peter the 
 Great. To sum up, it has governed the general 
 policy of the successor of Nesselrode during the last 
 twenty years; 
 
 Assuredly Russia had the right to count on the 
 recognition of Austria after the signal and incon- 
 testable service which it had rendered her in 1849. 
 The armies which the czar then sent to the'succor 
 of the tottering empire of Hapsburg contributed 
 powerfully to suppress a fatal, menacing insurrec- 
 tion there ; and if it is true that in order to obtain 
 this succor it was sufficient to recall to the Czar 
 Nicholas a word given long before in a moment of 
 confidential intimacy, the action does not become 
 the less meritorious, and does so much the more 
 honor to the heart ,of the autocrat.^ It would be 
 
 1 A writer in a position to be Well informed, a former under secre- 
 tary of state in the ministry of Prince Schwarzenberg, thus narrates 
 the origin of Russian intervention in Hungary, tracing it back to 
 1833, to the celebrated interview of Munchengraetz between the Em- 
 peror Francis I. of Austria and the Czar Nicholas. In one of the 
 confidential conversations, Francis spoke with sadness and appre- 
 hensions of the sickly and nervous state of his son and prospective 
 siiccessor, and begged the czar to maintain towards that son the 
 friendship which he had always had for the father. " Nicholas fell 
 on his knees, and raising his right haiid to heaven, swore to give to 
 the successor of Francis all aid and succor he should ever need. The 
 old Emperor of Austria was profoundly touched, and placed his 
 hands on the head of the kneeling czar as a token of benediction." 
 This strange scene had no witness, but ieach of the two sovereigns 
 narrated it some months later to a superior officer who then com- 
 manded the division of the army stationed at Munchengraetz. This 
 superior officer was no other than the Prince of Windischgraetz, who, 
 later, in 1848, nominated and made generalissimo of the Austrian 
 army at the critical moment of the Hungarian insurrection, took upon 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 25 
 
 difficult to deny that this intervention in Hungary 
 had not a generous and chivalric character which 
 astonished the contemporaries and the clever. The 
 clever ones, the statesmen, who, at this troubled 
 epoch of Europe, had still preserved enough liberal 
 spirit to cast their eyes toward the Danube, — Lord 
 Palmerston among others, — remained for a long 
 time incredulous, and endeavored to divine the re- 
 ward paid for the aid that was lent. Should not the 
 czar retain Galicia as a recompense for his assist- 
 ance 1 Would he not procure some positive assur- 
 ance from the side of the Principalities .'' was asked 
 in the offices of Downing Street. Nothing of the 
 sort happened, however. The Russians left Austria 
 without a reward, as they had entered it without an 
 arrikre fensie, and the troops of Pask^vitch evacuated 
 the country of the Carpathians unladen with booty. 
 A young and ardent orator in the Prussian cham- 
 bers, with the name (as yet but little known) de Bis- 
 marck, — the same who fifteen years later was to 
 project striking a coup au cosur and arming the legions 
 of Klapka, — admired at this moment the brilliant 
 action of the czar, and only expressed the patriotic 
 regret that this magnanimous role had not fallen to 
 his own country, to Prussia. It was for Prussia to 
 bring assistance to its elder brother in Germany, 
 to " its former comrade in arms." ^ But it is allow- 
 
 himself to recall to Nicholas, in a letter, the pledge formerly given at 
 Munchengraetz. The czar replied by placing his whole army at the 
 disposition of his imperial and apostolic majesty. — Cf. Hefter, 
 Geschichte Oesterrekhs, Prague, 1869, vol. i. pp. 68-69. 
 
 1 Session of the Prussian chamber of the 6th September, 1849. 
 This speech is not reproduced in the official collection of the speeches 
 of M. de Bismarck published at Berlin. 
 
26 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 able to suppose that, even with a king as loyal and 
 poetic as Frederick William IV., affairs would have 
 been conducted much less handsomely than with the 
 barbarian of the North, and that similar aid from 
 Prussia would have cost the empire of Hapsburg a 
 part of Silesia or a part of its influence on the 
 Main. 
 
 Shall we say, then, that in intervening in Hun- 
 gary the Emperor of Russia acted from pure chivalry 
 and platonic friendship, that he had no thought of 
 personal interest and the good of his empire 1 Cer- 
 tainly not ; and the czar had too much loyalty not to 
 avow it frankly. He intervened in Hungary, not 
 only as the friend of the Hapsburg, not only as the 
 defender of the cause of order against cosmopolitan 
 revolution ; the most powerful motive in deciding 
 him was the presence in the Hungarian army of Po- 
 lish generals and officers, who intended to carry the 
 war into the countries subjected to Russian rule. In 
 his manifest of the 8th May, 1849, Nicholas ex- 
 pressed himself as follows : " The insurrection sus- 
 tained by the influence of our traitors from Poland, 
 of the year 1831, has given to the Hungarian revolt 
 an extension more and more menacing. .... His 
 majesty, the Emperor of Austria, has invited us to 
 assist against the common enemy We have or- 
 dered our army under way to quell the revolt, and to 
 destroy the audacious anarchists, who equally menace 
 the tranquillity of our provinces!' The language was 
 clear and frank, as was fitting for a sovereign pre- 
 serving the consciousness of his dignity. This sov- 
 ereign intended to render himself a service as well 
 as his ally. He was going to stifle in his neighbors' 
 
TIVO CHANCELLORS. 2^ 
 
 territory an incendiary fire which threatened to harm 
 his own domains ; and in the act of intervening, let 
 it be well understood, he at the same time acted in 
 self-preservation. 
 
 Well ! it seems according to all justice that the 
 gratitude should correspond to the service rendered, 
 and that the law of preservation, the supreme law of 
 nature, should have equal force for the party under 
 obligations as for the benefactor. There is no policy 
 in the world, were it even taken from Holy Writ 
 which could advise voluntary servitude ; there is no 
 doctrine, however sublime one wishes to imagine it, 
 which, among the duties of the confession, recom- 
 mends suicide. Now, it was nothing less than ab- 
 solute subjection, the ruin of its personality as a great 
 European State, which the Russians demanded of 
 Austria in demanding its assent to their pretensions 
 against the Orient. By geography, by the spirit of 
 races, by religion, the Russian enterprises would 
 strike a mortal blow at the empire of the Hapsburg, 
 if this empire allowed them to triumph. A Danubian 
 power, Austria should take care that the Lower Dan- 
 ube remained neutral, and that it should not fall into 
 the hands of a powerful neighbor, who would then 
 become master of this great river. A Sclavic power 
 in its Oriental provinces, it ought to guard against 
 being placed in immediate contact with an empire 
 pan-Sclavic by tradition and by fatality, and it could 
 not wish it to be planted in the Principalities, in Bos- 
 nia and Herzegovania. A Catholic power, it was 
 forbidden to recognize the influence and the protec- 
 torate which the orthodox czar claimed over the 
 Christians of the Grecian rite, of whom it counted 
 
28 TIVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 several millions among its subjects. " My conduct 
 in the question of the Orient ! Why it is written on 
 a map ? " said Count Buol, to his brother-in-law, M. de 
 Meyendorf, the Russian ambassador. He added that 
 it was also written in history. " I have made no in- 
 novation. I have only inherited the political legacy 
 of M. de Metternich." 
 
 In fact, in a previous crisis, at the time of the 
 Hellenic insurrection and the war of 1 828, the grand 
 chancellor of the court and of the empire had de- 
 fended this principle of the integrity of the Ottoman 
 Empire with a firmness which nothing could disturb. 
 During eight years he had defended it, braving the 
 storm alone, not allowing himself to be discouraged 
 either by the unpopularity then attaching to the 
 Turkish cause or by the desertion of France. Why 
 should the Russians hope that Austria would now 
 desert this principle so vital for her, that she would 
 desert it at the very moment when it commenced to 
 triumph over the indifference of the Occident, and 
 counted France and England among its most earnest 
 champions } 
 
 Placed between a sentiment of gratitude very lively 
 and real, as we have said, and a great political neces- 
 sity, the government of Vienna has certainly done 
 for gratitude all that it owed. It lavished warnings, 
 prayers, good offices, offers of mediation on the 
 Emperor Nicholas. Austria pardoned Russia more 
 than one want of respect, more than one action of 
 ill humor ; it pardoned her the more than airy tone 
 in which it had been disposed of in the effusions 
 with Sir Hamilton Seymour, — the manner in which 
 a certain autograph letter of the Emperor Francis 
 
Tff^O CHANCELLORS. 29 
 
 Joseph had been received at St. Petersburg, — the 
 haughty, almost insulting attitude of Count Orlof 
 during his mission at Vienna. It did not cease till 
 the end to calm the irritation of the allies, to modify 
 and alter their programme, to assert the conciliating 
 disposition of the czar, to hope against all hope. It 
 pleaded only for the return in statu quo, repudiating 
 any idea of humiliating or weakening Russia ; it de- 
 manded nothing from her but the freedom of the 
 Danube, the renunciation of the protectorate, and 
 refused to follow the allies in their demands concern- 
 ing the Black Sea. Unfortunately, as it happens too 
 often to him who wishes to be equitable and just to- 
 wards all parties, the Austrian government, by this 
 conduct, ended by alienating France and England 
 and exasperating the Russians. In the summer of 
 1854, at the very moment when Prince Gortchakof 
 exchanged his post at Frankfort for that at Vienna, 
 an eminent publicist, who was then, so to speak, the 
 mouth-piece of the Occident, and of its generous 
 spirits, almost despaired of Austria, and cried with 
 bitterness that over there, in the Burg, " the Russian 
 alliance was something as sacred as a religion, as 
 fixed as propriety, and as popular as a fashion ! " In 
 the spring of the following year, the cabinets of Paris 
 and of London resisted, as too favorable to Rus- 
 sia, a new plan of arrangement presented by Count 
 Buol, and the French government on this occasion 
 reproached Austria, in the " Moniteur Officiel," with 
 offering an expedient rather than a solution. 
 
 The solution ! The Emperor Francis Joseph cer- 
 tainly had it in his hands, and it perhaps depended 
 only on him to render it as decisive and as radical 
 
30 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 as the most mortal enemies of Russia could wish. 
 Why not confess it ? To see the bitter fruit gathered 
 by Austria in consequence of its honorable efforts 
 during the Oriental crisis, and to see the implacable 
 hatred and the cruel disasters which fell to its lot 
 because of its attitude then, one surprises one's self 
 sometimes in regretting that the cabinet of Vienna 
 had so many scruples at this memorable epoch. 
 One almost reproaches it for not having given proof 
 of that independence of heart which seems, alas ! 
 the forced, indispensable condition for the independ- 
 ence of states. If Austria had wished to be a little 
 less grateful and a little less politic during this war 
 of the Orient, she would have resolutely joined her- 
 self to France and England, she would have taken 
 part in the struggle, and instead of letting the aUies 
 rove for years around the borders of Russia, in the 
 Black Sea and Baltic, she would have opened for 
 them the fields of Poland, and have entered there 
 with them. In place of "tickling the soul of the 
 Colossus or of filing off a nail," — as Russian pub- 
 licists said later, and not without justice, — they 
 should then have given him a coup au caur, — one 
 of those blows that the great recluse of Varzin 
 knows how to plan and give. The cabinet of the 
 Tuileries would not have refused to do this. In his 
 dispatch of the 26th March, 1855, M. Drouyn de 
 Lhuys laid down very skillfully the question of Po- 
 land ; neither would the cabinet of St. James have 
 raised serious objections. As to the probable suc- 
 cess of such an enterprise, it suffices to remember 
 that Russia was at the end of its resources, and that 
 Prussia had not yet re-formed its miUtary organiza- 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 3 1 
 
 tion, was not yet in possession of its " instrument," 
 and lastly that in place of William the Conqueror, 
 Frederick the Romantic occupied the throne of the 
 Hohenzollern. The mind is confounded before the 
 contemplation of the consequences which such a 
 decision on the part of the Emperor Francis Joseph 
 might have caused. The face of the world would 
 have been changed ; Austria would certainly not 
 have seen Sadowa^ in 1866 ; Europe would not have 
 seen the dismemberment of Denmark, nor the de- 
 struction of the Bund, nor the conquest of Alsace 
 and Lorraine, 
 
 It was in the summer of 1854, as we have said 
 above, that Prince Gortchakof was sent to Vienna. 
 He replaced there, first provisionally, and in the fol- 
 lowing spring, definitely, Baron de Meyendorf, whose 
 situation had become unpleasant in consequence of 
 his ties of very near relationship with the Austrian 
 Minister of Foreign Affairs. Alexander Mikhallo- 
 vitch at last held that post at Vienna to which he 
 had so long a time aspired, the post which, with that 
 of London, was considered, under the reign of Nicho- 
 las, as the highest in Russian diplomacy, like the 
 bdton of a marshal in his career. But now how full 
 this honor was of bitterness, and what patriotic 
 pangs accompanied a distinction formerly ardently 
 wished for, to-day accepted through devotion to his 
 sovereign and his country ! On this ground, for- 
 merly so pleasant and smiling, the envoy of the czar 
 
 I The battle of Sadowa, or as it is more commonly called in Ger- 
 many, the battle of Konigsgratz, was fought on the 3d of July, 1866, 
 and decided the result of the conflict between Prussia and Austria. — 
 Translator. 
 
32 rPVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 could everywhere see nothing but briers and thorns. 
 In this capital, renowned for its boisterous gayety 
 and too frequent frivolity, he received nothing but 
 disastrous and distracting news. And this "Aus- 
 trian ingratitude," which he had only had glimpses 
 of and combated from afar during his mission at 
 Frankfort, he could now look in the face — and smile 
 at it ! There is a grief greater than the ricordcure 
 tempi felici nella miseria ; it is to see a dream of 
 happiness turn into a reality of misery, and one can 
 easily understand what a treasure of gall this sojourn 
 at Vienna must have heaped up in the wounded 
 heart of the Russian patriot.^ 
 
 It is superfluous to lay stress upon the activity 
 which the new envoy of the czar displayed in this 
 unhappy mission ; to mention the infinite variety of 
 means which he placed at the service of his cause, 
 
 1 We take the liberty of citing on this subject a piq^uante seine 
 d'antichambre which has its instructive side. There was then at 
 Vienna, in the ministry of foreign affairs, a very origSnal figure, an 
 usher, the memory of whom is not effaced at the Ballplat^. He 
 bore the uncouth name of Kadernoschka ; placed in the large wait- 
 ing room before the cabinet of the minister, it was his duty to intro- 
 duce the different visitors to the chief. This M. Kadernoschka was 
 an usher of great style : he had been trained by the old Prince Met- 
 ternich himself and loved to recall that he had "exercised his func- 
 tions " from the time of the famous congress of 1815 ! One day, after 
 a long interview with Prince Gortchakof, Count Buol sees this good 
 Kadernoschka entering with a more than usually solemn air. He 
 had a communication to make to his Excellency " in the interest of 
 the service ! " And Count Buol learns that the Russian envoy, after 
 having left his Excellency, had appeared entirely overcome and suf- 
 focating with anger, — that he had asked for a glass of water ; that 
 for half an hour he had walked up and down in the waiting room, 
 gesticulating with violence, talking to himself, and crying from time 
 to time in French : " Oh ! some day they shall pay me well for that, 
 they shall pay me for that ! " 
 
Tff^O CHANCELLORS. 33 
 
 especially during the conferences of Vienna, whicb 
 were opened after the death of Nicholas and the ac- 
 cession of the Emperor Alexander II. That was a 
 moving sight and one which was truly not wanting 
 in grandeur, that of the two Gortchakof, one behind 
 the ramparts of Sebastopol, the other before the 
 council board of Vienna, both defending their coun- 
 try with an equal tenacity, only yielding each inch 
 of ground after a desperate combat, forced into their 
 last intrenchments, but honored even to the end by 
 loyal and chivalrous adversaries. To-day an epoch 
 "of iron and of blood" has accustomed us to the 
 summary proceedings — we had almost said execu- 
 tions — of Nikolsburg, of Ferri^res, of Versailles, 
 and of Frankfort, and a martial law used by the 
 diplomats in helmets has replaced that which a 
 former Europe, full of prejudices, loved to call the 
 right of nations. To-day it is difficult to resist a 
 sentiment of astonishment, almost of incredulity, in 
 re-reading the protocols of these conferences of Vi- 
 enna, where everything breathes decorum, polite- 
 ness, urbanity, and mutual respect. One thinks him^ 
 self carried back to an idyllic age, one far from us, to 
 a world of ancient gentlemen. M. Drouyn de Lhuys, 
 Minister of Foreign Affairs in France, Lord John 
 Russell, until lately President of the Privy Council 
 of England, did not think it beneath their dignity to 
 go "in person to Vienna to discuss there with Prince 
 Gortchakof the possible conditions of a peace. Rus- 
 sia had lost several great battles, the allied fleets 
 had blockaded all its seas and even menaced its cap- 
 ital. That did not prevent the French and English 
 plenipotentiaries from treating it with all deference. 
 
34 TJVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 with all the respect which the diplomacy of this 
 good old time could employ. They displayed a ver- 
 itable art in the invention of euphemisms ; they gave 
 themselves pains to find the mildest mediums, the 
 most acceptable terms for the representative of a 
 vanquished power. Indeed, that excellent Lord 
 John Russell forced kindness so far as to recall, 
 ■and that in the face of M. Drouyn de Lhuys, that 
 England had made Louis XIV. submit to conditions 
 much harder and more humiliating.^ That was, 
 perhaps, the only instance of want of tact which 
 one can find in the conferences of Vienna, and yet 
 what was it but a courteousness from an ally to an 
 ally .' As for Austria, it exhausted itself in finding 
 means to spare the susceptibilities of Russia, and, 
 «nded by presenting a plan of arrangement which 
 was judged inaccep table by the cabinets of London 
 and Paris, and drew on it the reproach of the " Mon- 
 iteur Officiel," of which we have already spoken. 
 
 Negotiations were broken off, and nothing could 
 ■be done but to await the issue of the supreme com- 
 bat under the walls of Sebastopol. The Russian 
 plenipotentiary awaited it at his post in Vienna in 
 the twofold anguish of a patriot and a relation. The 
 bulwark of the Crimea fell, and Russia found itself in 
 the most critical situation. It was exhausted, — in- 
 deed much more exhausted than Europe then thought, 
 — and the prolongation of the war would have infal- 
 libly transported the hostilities to the plains of Po- 
 land. At this moment Austria intervened anew. 
 It agreed to the demands made by the allies at the 
 conference of Vienna, — even that clause concerning 
 
 1 Protocol of the conference of the 17th April, 1855. 
 
TIVO CHANCELLORS. 35 
 
 the neutralization of the Black Sea, which. it had 
 hitherto resisted as too wounding to Russia. It was 
 not possible to refuse this satisfaction to the allies 
 after the capture of Sebastopol. In reality, these 
 were the easiest conditions which have ever been 
 imposed on a power at the close of a war so long, so 
 bloody, and of such incontestable victories. Aus- 
 tria did more ; it sent these conditions under form 
 of an ultimatum, declaring that it would make com- 
 mon cause with the allies if they were not accepted ; 
 and Russia accepted them. To look at it plainly, 
 this was a service rendered to a young sovereign, 
 who, having inherited a disastrous war, thus found 
 the means to spare at the same time the memory of 
 his predecessor and the pride of his people. He 
 could say now that he had only made peace because 
 of a new adversary, who had arisen at the side of the 
 old ones, and whom his father did not count on. In 
 fact, it was said in Russia, — it was believed, indeed, 
 so much was it in their interest to believe it. The 
 Russian people were quickly reconciled with the con- 
 querors of Alma and of Malakof. A single power 
 remained in their eyes responsible for their disas- 
 ters, — the power which during the whole war had 
 rested on its arms. Even at this hour every Russian 
 heart boils with indignation at the thought of Aus- 
 tria, of its immense ingratitude and its great treason. 
 Alexander Mikhaiflovitch shared these bitternesses, 
 these popular rancors, and became the most ener- 
 getic and openly avowed representative of them. In 
 this respect he allowed his sentiments to burst forth 
 with a frankness which approached very nearly to 
 ostentation, A remark uttered by him during the 
 
36 TfVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 session of the Congress at Paris, is still cited at Vi- 
 enna : " Austria is not a_§tate, it is only a govern- 
 ment." These words preceded him to St. Petersburg 
 and made his fortune there. The popular voice des- 
 ignated him as the future avenger, as the man des- 
 tined to prepare for his nation a brilliant revenge ; 
 and the acute diplomat did not trouble himself to 
 controvert such an opinion. Already, however, at 
 this Congress of Paris certain tendencies, certain de- 
 sires were revealed, which gave hope, which even 
 opened horizons entirely new. The name of Italy 
 was pronounced there. Roumania itself found there 
 an unexpected support. At this strange Congress, 
 which definitely regulated the conditions of a peace 
 that France, England, and Austria had imposed on 
 Russia, Austria appeared gloomy and morose, Eng- 
 land irritated and nervous. France and Russia alone 
 exchanged between one another the most exquisite 
 politeness and surprising cordialities. The sword of 
 Napoleon III. became the lance of Achilles, healing 
 where it had just wounded, wounding where it had 
 healed. " There was balm of Gilead in it," and sup- 
 port in the sovereign of the Tuileries. The day 
 after the Congress, in the month of April, 1856, the 
 old Count Nesselrode asked to be retired on account 
 of his age, and Prince Alexander Gortchakof became 
 Minister of Foreign Affairs. 
 
 11. 
 
 During the four years which he had passed at 
 Frankfort as representative of his government to 
 the German Confederation, Prince Gortchakof, as we 
 have already seen, had made the acquaintance of, and 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 37 
 
 maintained the most intimate relations with a coir 
 l^gue, whose rare qualities of mind, as probably also 
 those of the heart, he appreciated as no one else did. 
 The two friends were separated in the summer of 
 1854, when the Russian plenipotentiary went to ful- 
 fill his painful mission at Vienna. But they did not 
 delay in meeting anew, and found as before that per- 
 fect congeniality of ideas and of sentiments, which, 
 established since their first meeting in Frankfort, has 
 never been interrupted, and has lasted for twenty- 
 five years : grande mortalis cevi spatium. This friend 
 of Prince Gortchakof on the smiling banks of the 
 Main, was no other than M. de Bismarck, the future 
 ehancellor of Germany. 
 
 Otto-Edward-Leopold de Bismarck-Schoenhausen, 
 born the ist of April, 1815, at Schoenhaus'en, he- 
 reditarj/* estate of his family in the old Mark of Bran- 
 denburg, could not flatter himself with having, like 
 his friend Alexander Mikhaiflovitch, blood of the 
 Saints in his veins. His biographers even observe 
 with visible satisfaction, that at least two of his an- 
 cestors were excommunicated by the Church and 
 died in final impenitence. What is more serious is 
 that the most authorized historians of the Mark of 
 Brandenburg, M. de Riedel among others, call into 
 question the noble origin of the family. They show 
 that the first of the line, of whom authentic docu- 
 ments of the fourteenth century speak, Rulo Bis- 
 marck, was a member and on several occasions even 
 provost of " the guild of master tailors in cloth " at 
 Stendal, a small market town of the old Mark. The 
 fact does not seem doubtful. But could not the citi- 
 zens of Stendal, just as well as those of certain cities 
 
38 TfVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 in Tuscany, have forced every country noble, who 
 wished to inhabit the city, to subscribe himself in one 
 of those guilds ? This is the opinion of the tories in 
 this curious genealogical dispute. To hear them, 
 the good citizens of Stendal must have been on a 
 par, in the fourteenth century, with the great citizens 
 of Florence and of Pisa, and Rulo Bismarck must 
 have been master tailor in cloth about as much as 
 Dante, his contemporary, was an apothecary. The 
 whigs, on the contrary, the biographers in national- 
 liberal colors, take their part gayly, and one of them 
 ingeniously concludes, that in any case the ancestor 
 Rulo ought " to contemplate with satisfaction and 
 pride from the high heavens the splendid imperial 
 mantle which his descendant has made for King Will- 
 iam out of the cloth of Europe." 
 
 In times relatively more modern, the H-ouse of 
 Bismarck presents, like many a noble country fam- 
 ily of Brandenburg, an unbroken succession of mod- 
 est and faithful servants of the state, some soldiers, 
 some employed in civil duties. The eighteenth cent- 
 ury offers us two rather more curious specimens, 
 the grandfather and great uncle of, the chancellor. 
 One was surnamed the/(7^/, the other the adventurer. 
 The poet, this painful avowal must be made, com- 
 posed his verses in the French language. We have 
 notably by him an " Eloge ou Monument Mgi d la 
 Mimoire de Christine de Bismarck, nie de Schoenfeld, 
 par Charles-Alexandre de Bismarck" Berlin, 1774. 
 It was to his dead wife that the retired captain of 
 cavalry thought necessary to elevate this mausoleum 
 of words and of Welche rhymes, full of the insipid 
 sentimentality of the time. The adventurer (Ludolf- 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 39 
 
 August) is more deserving of his name. He killed 
 his servant in a fit of anger or drunkenness, was par- 
 doned, took service in Russia, became involved in 
 political intrigues in Courland, and was forced to go 
 to Siberia in exile. Pardoned again, he entered into 
 Russian diplomacy, filled several missions, and died 
 commanding general at Poltava. Let us say in pass- 
 ing, that this Ludolf was not the only one of his 
 family to serve under the Russian flag, and thus the 
 name of Bismarck has long been well known at St. 
 Petersburg. 
 
 The whig biographers lay much stress on the fact, 
 that the mother of the young Otto, " an intelligent, 
 ambitious, and rather cold woman," was a bourgeois^, 
 a Miss Menken, of a family of savans well known at 
 Leipsic. They love to prove in this manner that the 
 restorer of the empire was connected by his mother 
 with the bourgeoisie, that studious and cultivated 
 bourgeoisie-^Y^v^ is the great strength of Germany, — 
 while claiming his right to the nobility and the army 
 by his father, retired captain of cavalry, and by his 
 grandfather ^&poet. Those profound Germans have 
 a weakness, it is known, for all symbolism. They 
 dignify very often with this name that which is noth- 
 ing but ^jiu d' esprit, in reality "a play of words, and 
 it is thus that they attach a certain signification to 
 the futile circumstance that the young Otto was con- 
 firmed ^ at Berlin at the hands of Schleiermacher, 
 the celebrated Doctor of Divinity, whose learning 
 was much more respectable than his life ; " in a man- 
 
 1 A religious ceremony which, in the Protestant Church, corre- 
 sponds in a certain degree to the first communion in the Catholic 
 Church. 
 
40 TfVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 ner and for a fleeting moment, it is true, but sol- 
 emnly, the young man called to a life of action ptir 
 excellence, was brought in contact with oUr learned 
 theology and our romantic philosophy." Nor has it 
 been forgotten to exalt the name of the " gray clois- 
 ter" (Grauer Kloster), which the lyceum at Berlin 
 bore, where the future destroyer of convents studied, 
 or to note the French origin of one of his principal' 
 professors. Doctor Bonnet, descendant of a Hugue- 
 not family which sought refuge in Brandenburg in 
 consequence of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes,] 
 After having finished his studies at the lyceum of 
 the gray cloister. Otto de Bismarck went to thej 
 University of Goettingen, to the celebrated Georgia 
 Augusta, in order to study. In reality, he did nothr^ 
 ing but lead the life of the sons of the muse, who 
 have the good or bad fortune to be at the same time 
 sons of family, cavalieri ; he cultivated nothing but 
 hunting, riding, swimming, gymnastic exercises, and 
 fencing. He had more than twenty duels, and fully 
 justified the glorious name of Bursche, which clung 
 to him for a long time afterwards, even when he was 
 ambassador and minister. One easily understands 
 that the Institutes and Pandects cannot be very thor- 
 oughly studied in the midst qf so many corporal ex- 
 ercises, and even the attempt to change the noisy 
 Georgia Augusta for the most quiet and sedate Uni- 
 versity of Berlin, was a remedy heroic rather than effi- 
 cacious. Has M. de Bismarck ever regularly passed ' 
 this " state examination " {Staatsexamen) which in 
 Prussia is the indispensable condition for an appoint- 
 ment to any public function ? A grave question, 
 which was discussed for a long time in Germany, 
 
TIVO CHANCELLORS. 4I 
 
 and out of which a weapon has shaped itself for 
 twenty years against the man, the deputy, the am- 
 bassador, the president of the council. A fact wor- 
 thy of notice, and one which well characterizes the 
 formal and regulative mind of the nation : M. de 
 Bismarck had already defied all Europe, and dismem- 
 bered the Danish monarchy, when in the opposition 
 journals of Germany, there appeared from time to 
 time, like belated rockets, malignant allusions to this 
 problematical state examination ! Since the epoch 
 of Sadowa only have these malicious jibes entirely 
 ceased : Sadowa caused many other irregularities to 
 pass unnoticed, and assuredly much graver ones. 
 
 It is perhaps proper to inquire here what benefits 
 M. de Bismarck reaped from his academic life, and to 
 estimate, if but briefly, the cultivation and the pecul- 
 iarities of his mind. It seems certain that M. de 
 Bismarck is not a man of science and study, and that 
 Ms liberal education shows more than one gap. A 
 pleasing contrast, the two chancellors, Russian and 
 German, of whom one knew but a single lyceum and 
 that one of very doubtful merit, while the other at- 
 tended the most renowned college {gymnasium) and 
 alma m^ter of learned Germany. Certainly the pupil 
 of Zarkoe-Zeloe, as regards classical knowledge and 
 true humaniora, is far in advance of the lucky foster 
 child of Georgia Augusta. Nevertheless it is well 
 to observe that M. de Bismarck fills and more than 
 fills a certain programme laid down one day by the 
 spirituel and regretted Saint-Marc Giradin for the 
 well educated men of -the world. "I do not require, 
 said he, that they know Latin ; I only ask that 
 they have forgotten it." From his academic youth, 
 
42 TIVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 there has always remained to the chancellor of Ger- 
 many a fund of culture of which he well knows the 
 use on occasion, and he understands in a sufficient 
 degree, his Bible, his Shakspere, his Goethe, and 
 his Schiller, those four elements of all education, 
 even the most common one, in German countries, — 
 precious and enviable quadrivium of the children of 
 Arminius ! Prince Gortchakof has the refinements 
 as well as the weaknesses of the man of letters ; he 
 takes care of his " mot," he corrects his phrase, he 
 looks at and admires himself in his compositions ; 
 it is known that he was one day surnamed the Nar- 
 cissus of the inkstand. By his tastes, by his exqui- 
 site sensibility, by his artistic instinct, he has a 
 marked superiority over his former colleague of 
 Frankfort. But the latter regains all this advantage 
 as soon as one considers the original and personal 
 stamp which he knows how to give to his thoughts 
 and to his speech, as soon as one seeks the individu- 
 ality, the breathing creator, the mens agitans molem, 
 that something mysterious and powerful which an- 
 tique sculpture rendered so ingeniously by placing 
 a flame on the forehead of certain of its statues. 
 
 The chancellor of Germany is not a lettered man 
 in the strict and somewhat vulgar acceptation of the 
 world. He is, to speak correctly, neither an orator 
 nor a writer. He does not understand developing a 
 theme well, graduating its arguments, arranging its 
 transitions. He does not construct his period and 
 does not trouble himself about it. He has difficulty 
 in expressing himself, both on the tribune and also 
 with the pen. His style is harsh, occasionally very 
 incorrect, as unacademical as possible. It is intri- 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 43 
 
 cate, embarrassed, even trivial at moments. Every 
 part guarded, and all reserve made, there is some- 
 thing of Cromwell in his manner of expressing him- 
 self. But in an entirely different manner than in 
 Cromwell one is forced to admire in him those flashes 
 of thought, those strong and unforeseen images, those 
 penetrating words which strike, which impress them- 
 selves, and which are not forgotten. When quite 
 lately in the midst of an argument, disconnected and 
 embarrassed, concerning his conflict witlji Rome, he 
 suddenly cried out : " Be sure of one thing, gentle- 
 men, we will not go to Canossa I " ^ one should re- 
 member that he knew how to comprise there, in a 
 sort of menacing cceterum. censeo? a whole world of 
 memories and of passions. In a very different spirit, 
 also in a time already far distant, it is true, speaking 
 one day — about twenty years have since flown — 
 of the principles of revolution and contra-revolution, 
 he said that a parlimentary debate could never 
 decide between these two principles : " The deci- 
 sion will only come from God, from thfe God of bat- 
 tles, when he lets fall from his hand the iron dice of 
 destiny ! " One thinks that he hears De Maistre in 
 this last part of the phrase, and like M. de Maistre 
 the chancellor of Germany has had his passage de- 
 cried by the hangsman ; we wish to speak of this 
 invocation to iron and to blood, which must be 
 replaced in its frame and put in its true light, — 
 
 1 Referring to Henry IV., Emperor of Germany from 1056 to 1106, 
 who humbled himself before Pope Gregory VIL at Canossa in 1077. 
 — Translator. 
 
 '■^ Referring to the closing words of Cato's speeches : Cceterum censeo 
 CarthagtTum esse delendam. — Translator. 
 
44 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 to settle its date, — to appreciate all the relief by the 
 side of the incontestable brutality. The invocation 
 was made when those national-liberals, to-day of such 
 great servility towards him and with the obedience of 
 a corpse, wished to prevent him from reforming the 
 army, at the same time demanding him to complete 
 the unity of Germany. The man who felt the dis- 
 tant thunder of Sadowa and Sedan rumble in his 
 soul, launched at this moment to the orators the 
 dhfi which he has only too well justified since, saying 
 that it was not by speeches that Germany could be 
 united : " to consummate this unity, iron and blood 
 are necessary ! " This orator does not breathe at 
 ease in the uniform which never leaves him, and he 
 advances only by fits and starts. He collects labo- 
 riously the clouds of his rhetoric, but the spark ends 
 by flashing and by illuminating the whole situation. 
 To make himself understood he employs the greatest 
 or most familiar images, without choice, just as they 
 come ; he borrows a quotation from Shakspere and 
 from Goethe' just as well as from the Wasps of M. 
 Alphonse Karr, or from a couplet of the vaudeville. 
 One of his most happy, most memorable inspira- 
 tions, he suddenly drew one day from the libretto of 
 the " Freischutz." 
 
 The reader will kindly permit us to recall this last 
 episode, even at the risk of delaying somewhat in 
 some preliminary explanations of which a German 
 auditory, full of souvenirs of its " Freischiitz," would 
 have no need. In this opera of Weber, Max, the 
 good and unfortunate hunter, borrows a cartridge 
 from Robin, the evil spirit, and immediately kills an 
 eagle, one of whose feathers he proudly sticks in his 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 45 
 
 cap. He then asks for some more cartridges, but 
 Robin tells him that they are " enchanted balls," and 
 that in order to obtain them he must surrender him- 
 self to the infernal spirits, and deliver his soul to 
 them. Max draws back, and then Robin, sneering, 
 tells him that he hesitates in vain, that the bargain 
 is made, and that he has already committed himself 
 by the ball he made use of : " Do you think, then, that 
 this eagle was a free gift?" Well! when in 1849 
 the young orator of the Mark of Brandenburg had to 
 implore the Prussian chamber not to accept for the 
 King of Prussia the imperial crown which the parlia' 
 ment of Frankfort offered him, he ended by crying 
 out : " It is radicalism which offers this gift to the 
 king. Sooner or later this radicalism will stand up^ 
 right before the king, will demand of him its recom- 
 pense, and pointing to the emblem of the eagle on 
 that new imperial flag, it will say : Did you think, 
 then, that this eagle was a free gift?" A striking 
 image and equally deep and ingenious ! Yes, one 
 cannot use with impunity the "enchanted balls" 
 of revolution, and one does not make a bargain with 
 the popular demon, without leaving it some of his 
 soul. Sooner or later there will stand upright be- 
 fore you the bad genius whose aid you have ac- 
 cepted, Robin of the woods and the streets. He 
 will come to receive your salute, and tell you that 
 he did not intend to have worked for the King of 
 Prussia.'' This magnificent oratorical burst of the 
 young deputy of the Mark, the chancellor of Ger- 
 many might have considered with benefit in more 
 than one decisive circumstance, for instance on the 
 day when he overthrew the secular throne, also 
 
46 rPi^O CHANCELLORS. 
 
 the day when he gave the signal for the combat of 
 civilization. 
 
 The writer does not differ much from the orator, 
 and, in speaking of the writer, we think above all of 
 those intimate and familiar letters which have been 
 published in the well known book of George Hese- 
 kiel, and which have had a merited success in Ger- 
 many. There is always the same obscurity, the 
 same embarrassment of elocution, the same disorder,- 
 from time to time passages of lively and original ex- 
 pressions, of astonishing figures, of a bitter, harsh 
 humor, which grinds and bites you with cruel pleas- 
 ure. These letters are for the great part addressed 
 to his sister, to " dear Malvina " (married to an Ar- 
 nim), and we will borrow from them more than once 
 during the course of this study. One notices in 
 them certain descriptions of nature, of the brightness 
 of the moon, of the North Sea, of the view of the 
 Danube from the heights of Buda-Pesth, which are 
 not wanting in coloring effect, and make up a picture. 
 There is something of Heinrich Heine in these pri- 
 vate Reisebilder, and it has been remarked of them, 
 that there is perhaps something of Hamlet (and 
 what a Hamlet !) in the following passage, the only 
 melancholy one which we have met with in the midst 
 of so many sanguine and robust sallies. "At the 
 mercy of God ! Everything is in reality but a ques- 
 tion of time, peoples and individuals, wisdom and 
 folly, peace and war. To the living, everything upon 
 earth is but hypocrisy and jugglery, and this mask of 
 flesh having once fallen off, the wise nian and the fool 
 resemble each other greatly, and it would be hard 
 to distinguish between the Prussian and the Aus- 
 
rWO CHANCELLORS. 47 
 
 trian, their skeletons being very carefully prepared^' 
 These lines fell from the same hand, however, which, 
 since then, and assuredly by a very specific patriot- 
 ism, has furnished so many thousand subjects to the 
 preparers of skeletons ! 
 
 One sees by these letters that M. de Bismarck 
 handled at an early hour and with predilection this 
 irony, in which he is without a master ; a cold, 
 crafty irony, and which too often approaches sneer- 
 ing. ^ He used it later in his speeches, in his conver- 
 sations with ministers and ambassadors, and even in 
 diplomatic negotiations, in the most important, most 
 decisive moments of history. At such moments this 
 irony sometimes affects a great frankness, sometimes 
 a great politeness, but a frankness to make you fall 
 on your knees before the first lie, however brazen, a 
 politeness to make you implore an incivility without 
 forms as a veritable charity. One day, on the very 
 eve of the war of 1866, Count Karolyi, ambassador 
 of Austria, and acting in the name of his govern- 
 ment, summoned M. de Bismarck to declare categor- 
 ically if he expected to break the treaty of peace, the 
 treaty of Gastein.^ "No," was the reply, "I have 
 not that expectation ; but, if I had, would T answer 
 you differently f " There is an example of that frank- 
 ness which disconcerts, which confounds, and seems 
 to cry in your ear with that devil from the " Inferno" : 
 
 " Tu non pensavi ch'io loico fossi ! " 
 
 As to the murderous politeness, which sometimes 
 clothes the sarcasm of M. de Bismarck, let us recall 
 here the mot which he launched later at the nego- 
 
 1 Treaty of Gastein, 14th August, 1865, between Austria and Prus- 
 sia on the one side and Denmark on the other. — Translator. 
 
48 TIVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 tiators of Versailles, coming to treat with him con- 
 cerning the surrender of famished Paris, and to offer 
 him two hundred millions in contributions. " Oh," 
 said he, " Paris is too great a personage that we 
 , should treat it in such a shabby manner ; let us do 
 it the honor of a milliard." That is truly an original 
 turn which the rival of Heine thought to give to the 
 maxima reverentia which one owes to misfortune ! 
 When one is destined in a ripe age to exercise his 
 humor with such ease at the cost of princes and 
 of peoples, how is it possible when young not to jest 
 pleasantly about that poor fellow of a peasant in 
 Pomerania who drank too much water ? In one of 
 his letters to his dear Malvina, the young country 
 gentleman describes with a hilarious spirit an inun- 
 dation which swept over his domain which is divided 
 by a little branch of the narrow river Hampel. This 
 inundation severed him from all his neighbors, car- 
 ried off so and so many casks of eau-de-vie^ " intro- 
 duced an anarchical interregnum from Schievelbein 
 to Damm," and he ends by this stroke : " lam proud 
 to be able to say, that in my little branch of the Ham- 
 pel a wagoner was drowned with his hc5rse and his 
 whole load of tar ! " How proud in a different de- 
 gree was this gentleman one day when, Europe 
 having become his domain, he saw disappearing in 
 the midst of the billows^ billows of blood this time, 
 a whole army and its chief, a whole empire and its 
 emperor, — currus Gallice et auriga ejus ! That 
 did not prevent, at another time, the young coun- 
 try gentleman from jumping bravely into the water 
 to rescue his groom and gaining the medal for sav- 
 ing life. During many years this "medal was the 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 49 
 
 only one to decorate the broad chest of the Prussian 
 minister at Frankfort. Asked one day by a col- 
 league to the Bund about a decoration to which the 
 diplomatic corps is but little accustomed, he replied 
 in the tone which he alone possesses, that he some- 
 times happened to rescue a man, — in his leisure mo- 
 ments, be it understood. Probably, if he had been 
 further pressed, he was capable of adding that he 
 only did it for exercise. 
 
 Thus, to resume, from the epoch of his apprentice- 
 ship at the gray cloister and Georgia Augusta, Otto 
 de Bismarck carried a literary burden, which, without 
 being eith-er too heavy or too full, has nevertheless 
 enabled him to make his tour of the political world 
 with ease and honor. And also since this epoch his 
 mind disclosed the precious qualities which still dis- 
 tinguish it ; a vivid and powerful imagination, a rare 
 happiness in his choice of expressions occasionally 
 grandiose, occasionally vulgar, but always striking ;; 
 and lastly, a humor which has no equal, and which,, 
 to speak with Jean Paul, is a true sirocco to the soul. 
 With all this no grace, no charm, no distinction or 
 delicacy, — not a generous accent, no sweet and 
 sympathetic cord, a complete absence of that milk 
 of human kindness of which the poet speaks, an ab- 
 solute want of that charity which, according to the 
 great Christian moralist, is like the heavenly perfume 
 of the soul. As to the art or rather handicraft, as to 
 the work which consists in arranging his phrases, 
 in connecting and disposing them so as to intro- 
 duce harmony and clearness in the different parts of 
 speech, in effacing its asperities and inequalities, in 
 
 one word as to the style, M. de Bismarck never 
 4. 
 
50 TWO CBANCELLOJ^S. 
 
 learned it or always disdained it. If we dared to 
 apply to this style one of those trivial but expressive 
 images of which he himself offers us more than one 
 example, we would willingly compare it to a certain 
 strange drink, hardly credible, and which, according 
 to his' biographers, the German chancellor has always 
 liked : it consists of a mixture of champagne and 
 porter! The language is in imitation of the drink : 
 one finds in it ^& piquant, the sparkling, the exhik'^ 
 rkting of the Ay together with the heaviness, the 
 blackness, and above all the bitterness of the stout. 
 
 It is a curious fact, that the man who one day was 
 to impose on all the States of Germany, the severe 
 bureaucratic. and military laws of Prussia, "to place 
 Germany in the saddle," to use one of his mots, to 
 press it into the straight jacket of obligatory service, 
 — even to indirectly train all Europe to new exer- 
 cises, and to make it leave the plow for the sword, 
 liberal occupations for the autumn and summer ma- 
 noeuvres, — this man, for his part, has never been able 
 to bind himself down to academic duties, neither to 
 the regular work of the bureau, nor to the severe dis- 
 cipline of the soldier. He himself has acknowledged 
 having heard but two hours of lecture during his 
 whole stay at Georgia Augusta. The university 
 course being ended, he tried several times the ad- 
 ministrative or judiciary career ; he tried it at Aix- 
 la-Chapelle, at Potsdam, at Greifswalde, then again 
 at Potsdam, and had to give it up every time, dis- 
 gusted by the monotonous labor of the bureau, or 
 by quarrels with his superiors. On this subject is 
 told the piquant reply of the yojing referendarius 
 to a principal who had made him wait an hour in an 
 
riVO CHANCELLORS. $1 
 
 antechamber : " I came to request a short leave of 
 absence ; but during this long hour I have had time 
 to reflect, and I demand my dismission." Thrice he 
 made a trial of the military service, without arriving 
 at a higher grade than that of lieutenant in the Land- 
 wehr, a rank which he appreciated, however, and of 
 which he loved to don the uniform on solemn occa- 
 sions, even at the very time when he was already 
 minister at Frankfort. The reader knows that the 
 day of Sadowa brought him the insignia of a general. 
 Those ten or twelve years which had passed for M. 
 de Bismarck since his disputed state examination to 
 his entrance into the Prussian chamber, the German 
 biographers call by the fine name "years of storm 
 and trouble," which recalls one of the most brilliant 
 epochs of their literature.^ In truth they were 
 stormy, filled with miscarriages of more than one 
 kind, with travels, financial embarrassments, perhaps 
 also with an unrequited love. At least that is the 
 meaning one is inclined to give to the following pas- 
 sage from a letter addressed to his sister Malvina : 
 
 " I struggle in vain, I shall end by marrying ; 
 
 the world wishes it thus, and nothing seems more 
 natural, and then we will both be killed on the spot. 
 She left me coldly, it is true, but they all do that. 
 It would not be so bad, however, if one could throw 
 off his feelings with his shirts, no matter how rarely 
 one changes the latter." 
 
 He seems to have had a very sincere affection for 
 
 this sister ; he overwhelms her with the most tender 
 
 names. Thus he calls her his little dear, his Malvina, 
 
 his Maldewinchm, his good little Arnim ; he even 
 
 1 Sturm and Drang-Feriode, first period of Goethe and Schiller. 
 
52 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 calls her once (pardon him, O divinities of Walhalla) 
 simply and in French, "ma sceur!' In all the letters 
 of this epoch, dated for the most part from the estates 
 of Kniephof or Schoenhausen (it was not until later 
 that M. de Bismarck acquired the famous Varzin ^), 
 by the side of an always biting and harsh humor, 
 one can perceive a certain disenchantment ; by the 
 side of the cares of fortune appear from time to time 
 projects for the future, very modest, truly, and which 
 seldom aim at politics. In 1846 he attached a cer^ 
 tain importance at being made surveyor of dikes in 
 the district {Deichhauptmann). " The position is not 
 remunerative, but it offers some interest in regard 
 to Schoenhausen and other estates, for we would de- 
 pend on it in a great measure if we were again with- 
 out water as in the past year Bernard (a friend) 
 
 insists on my going to Prussia (to Berlin)! I would 
 like to know what he expects there. He affirms that 
 by my disposition and my inclinations, I am made 
 for the service of the state, and that sooner or later 
 I will end by entering it." Suddenly, and on the 
 very eve of the reunion of the first Prussian par- 
 liament, one is surprised by the plan of a voyage to 
 the Indias, — probably to make his fortune and es- 
 tablish himself there, — and one thinks involuntarily 
 of Cromwell wishing to embark for America on the 
 eve of the long parliament. Do not think, however, 
 that the days passed sadly and morosely at Kniephof 
 and at Schoenhausen : one lives there, one overlives 
 
 ^ Varzin, the Tusculum of the German chancellor, is situated in 
 Pomerania, to the right pf the Stettin-Danzig road, and about ten 
 miles from Schlawe. The comfortable dwelling-house is almost sur- 
 rounded by a magnificent park of beech and oak trees. Varzin has 
 been in M. de Bismarck's possession since 1867. — Translator. 
 
TIVO CHANCELLORS. S3 
 
 the life of yuncker (country squire) and the officers 
 of the neighboring garrison are good and stout fel- 
 lows, in whose company one hunts and dances, " one 
 empties great bowls half filled with champagne, half 
 with porter ; " the guests are awakened in the morn- 
 ing by pistols fired off close to their pillows ; on en- 
 tering the salon the female cousins are frightened 
 with four foxes, and honor is paid to the name given 
 by the whole country to the proprietor of the do- 
 main, the name of " mad Bismarck " {der tolle Bis- 
 marck). They are madcaps, and blusterers, prompt 
 to draw their swords, to fight with pistol or steel, 
 and they do not even avoid a'pugilistic scene. One 
 day in a smoking room at Berlin, the former pupil 
 of Georgia Augusta broke his beer mug on the 
 skull of a stranger disrespectful in his language to- 
 wards a member of the royal family ; not, however, 
 without having first addressed a charitable warning 
 to the insolent speaker, nor without having after- 
 wards, very sedately, very politely, asked of the 
 waiter the cost of the damage.^ This happened in 
 1850; M. de Bismarck had already been deputy sev- 
 eral years, and was on the point of becoming min- 
 ister plenipotentiary to the Germanic Confederation. 
 Der tolle Bismarck ; it was not only at Kniephof 
 and at Schoenhausen that the future chancellor of 
 Germany was thus called. The Berlinese themselves 
 had no other name for him for a long time, during 
 all the parliamentary period of the young deputy of 
 the Mark, since his maiden speech and his first ap- 
 pearance on the tribune, — when having provoked 
 
 1 In the popular edition of the book of M. Hesekiel, this scene is 
 illustrated by a vignette. 
 
54 TtVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 an indescribable tumult by a violent attack against 
 the liberals he dre^from his pocket a newspaper, 
 and quietly commenced reading, while waiting for 
 the storm to calm, — up to his last speech on De- 
 cember 3, 1850, which completed the exasperation 
 of the chamber, but was worth a diplomatic post to 
 the orator. Success advances a little like the aristo- 
 cratic law of the Chinese : it is necessary to supply 
 glory from the rear and to throw lustre on the ob- 
 scure antecedents of the favorite of fortune. This 
 was, however, more to mistake the time and to mis- 
 place the historical perspective, than to wish to as- 
 sign to M. de Bismarck in those years (1847-50) any 
 important rdle which he did not fill until fifteen years 
 later. The truth is that this rdle was not in this first 
 period either of such eminence, or, above all, suffi- 
 ciently respected to be tempted to arrange itself in an 
 abstract, inductive method. An active and restless 
 member of the group of yuncker in 1847, and of the 
 great party of the cross which was formed after the 
 revolution of February, the country gentleman of 
 Schoenhausen was far from having in the bosom of 
 this party the authority of a Gerlach and a Stahl, or 
 the great position of a similar feudal lord of Silesia 
 or Pomerania. In spite of his audacity, his impetuos- 
 ity, and his sang-froid; in spite of his exceedingly 
 happy sallies with an eloquence unequal and embar- 
 rassed in a very different manner from to-day, M, de 
 Bismarck was at this epoch nothing but the Hotspur, 
 and the enfant terrible of the sacred phalanx which 
 defended the throne, the altar, and the conservative 
 principles. He was in a measure the General Tem- 
 ple of the ill-tempered light-horsemen, a General 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 55 
 
 Temple joined with the ' Marquis of Pir6, At any 
 rate he only passed for a successful Thadden-Trig- 
 laif, that brave M. Thadden-Triglaff who declared 
 that he desired the liberty of the press, on condition, 
 however, " that there was a power by the side of each 
 journal to hang up the pamphleteers." The speeches 
 of M. de Bismarck, friend and neighbor of this in- 
 genious legislator of the press, were often not more 
 reasonable. Did he not say one day, word for word, 
 " that all the great cities ought to be destroyed and 
 razed to the ground, as the eternal homes of revo- 
 lution ? " 
 
 The Athenians of the Spree ^ laughed at these 
 jests, repeated those words full of humor, and above 
 all admired a certain argument ad hominem by means 
 of a mug of beer. Occasionally also they criticised 
 with malice the advances made to the innocent, to 
 the democrats, and diverted themselves especially 
 over the famous little branch of olive which the 
 country squire of Schoenhausen showed one day to 
 his colleague of the chamber, the very radical Doc- 
 tor d'Ester. This branch, he told him, he had cut 
 in a recent excursion to Vaucluse, from the tomb 
 of Laura and Petrarch. He put it carefully in his 
 cigar case and thought of presenting it one day to 
 the" red gentlemen "as a sign of reconciliation." 
 It was in the strange destiny of this extraordinary 
 man not to be thought in earnest until the day 
 when he became terrible. Der tolle Bismarck, the 
 Germans said in 1850; at Frankfort the good Count 
 Rechberg called him scofSngly a Bursche, and he 
 was considered a personage worthy of laughter in 
 
 1 Berlin is situated on the river Spree. — Translator. 
 
S6 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 the eyes of the French minister, a man of mind, 
 
 however, even in 1864. The year after the legend- 
 
 t ary coast of Biarritz, he pursued with his projects 
 
 j the Emperor Napoleon III., who, resting on the arm 
 
 I of the author of " Colomba," whispered from time to 
 
 time into the ear of the academician senator those 
 
 words : " He is crazy ! " Five years later the dreamer 
 
 of Ham gave up his sword' to the crazy man of the 
 
 Mark. 
 
 " I belong," — such was the defiant declaration of 
 M. de Bismarck in one of his first speeches in the 
 chamber, — "I belong to an opinion which glories 
 in the reproaches of obscurantism, and of tendencies 
 of the Middle Age ; I belong to that great multitude 
 which is compared with disdain to the most intelli- 
 gent party of the nation." He wanted a Christian 
 State. "Without a religious basis," said he, "a state 
 is nothing but a fortuitous aggregation of interests, 
 a sort of bastion in a war of all against all ; without 
 this religious basis, all legislation, instead of regen- 
 erating itself at the living sources of eternal truth, 
 is only tossed about by human ideas as vague as 
 changeable." It is for this reason that he pro- 
 nounced against the emancipation of the Jews, and 
 repulsed, above all, with horror the institution of civil 
 marriage, a degrading institution, and one which 
 " made the church the train-bearer {Schleppentraeger) 
 of a subaltern bureaucracy." ^ He was as intran- 
 sigeant for the throne as for the altar : he set at defi- 
 
 1 Session of the chamber of the isth November, 1849. One 
 knows that the chancellor of Germany has lately enacted a law which 
 institutes civil marriage in Prussia. However, none of the speeches 
 which have been cited is found in the official collection of the speeches 
 of M. de Bismarck published at Berlin. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. $7 
 
 ance the principle of the sovereignty of the people ; 
 universal suffrage (which he himself was to introduce 
 one day into the whole German empire !) seemed to 
 him a social danger and an outrage to good sense. 
 He denied the rights of the nation ; the crown alone 
 had rights : the old Prussian spirit knew but that, — 
 " and this old Prussian spirit is a Bucephalus who 
 willingly allows his legitimate master to mount him, 
 but who will throw to the ground every Sunday rider 
 (JSonntagsreiter) ! " 
 
 A resolute adversary of modern ideas, of consti- 
 tutional theories, and of all that then formed the pro- 
 gramme of the liberal party in Prussia, the deputy 
 of the Mark combated with the same energy the 
 two great national passions of this party : the " de- 
 liverance" of Schleswig-Holstein and the unity of 
 Germany. He deplored that " the royal Prussian 
 troops had gone to defend the revolution in Schles- 
 wig against the legitimate sovereign of that country, 
 the King of Denmark ; " he asserted that they were 
 making a groundless quarrel with this king, that 
 they sought a quarrel with, him "for no cause" (fim 
 des Kaisers Bart), and he did not hesitate to declare 
 before an angry chamber, that the war provoked in 
 the Duchies of the Elbe was " an undertaking em- 
 inently iniquitous, frivolous, disastrous, and revolu- 
 tionary." ^ As to the unity of Germany, the young 
 orator of the ultras repulsed it in the name of Right, f, 
 of the sovereignty and of the independence of princes, i 
 as well as in the name of patriotism, be it understood. 
 He was Prussian, a specific Prussian, a hardened j 
 
 1 Session of the chamber of the zist April, 1849. See also the 
 interpellation of M. Temme in the session of the 17th April, 1863. 
 
S8 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 Prussian {stockpreusse), and cared very little to unite 
 the good and firm substance " with the dissolved ele- 
 ments {das zerfahrene Wesen) of the South." He 
 called on the army : Does this army wish to exchange 
 the old national colors, black and white, for this Ger- 
 man tricolor, which was only known to it as the 
 emblem of revolution? Does it wish to exchange 
 its old Dessauer march for the song of a Professor 
 Arndt on the German fatherland f 
 
 We have already spoken of his speech against the 
 imperial crown offered by the parliament of Frank- 
 fort, of the ingenious allusion borrowed from the 
 libretto of the " Freischiitz. While refusing the im- 
 perial crown, Frederick William IV. did not the less 
 endeavor, during the years 1849 and 1850, to rescue 
 some waifs from this wreck of unitarian ideas ; he 
 tried to group around himself, and with the aid of 
 the liberals, a notable part of the Germanic body, to 
 create a sort of northern confederation : " restricted 
 union " became for a moment the tnot d'ordre of a 
 programme which General Radowitz was charged to 
 place on the stage of the parliament of Erfurt. M. 
 de Bismarck condemned without pity or weakness 
 all these vain attempts ; with the great theorician of 
 Ills party, the celebrated Professor Stahl, he pleaded 
 for the return to the statu quo prior to 1848. Like 
 him he demanded "that the overturned column of 
 right be replaced in "ISermany," that the Bund be 
 restored on le^al bases, according to the terms of 
 the treaty of Vienna, and that no cessation should 
 be made in placing Prussian politics on its guard 
 against any "course of Phaeton" in a region of 
 clouds and thunder. 
 
TH^O CHANCELLORS. 59 
 
 The thunderbolt did not in truth delay in striking, 
 and the " course of Phaeton " was brusquely arrested 
 by the hand of that great Austrian minister, who him- 
 self only traversed, like a luminous meteor, the most 
 elevated regions of power to disappear suddenly and 
 to leave behind him eternal regrets. Prince Felix 
 de Schwarzenberg recalls in some respects - those 
 statesmen of whom England lately offered the as- 
 tounding example, those Peterboroughs, those Ben- 
 tincks, and those like them, who knew how to inter- 
 rupt, almost suddenly, a life given up to pleasures 
 and to the frivolous follies of the world, to reveal 
 themselves in a trice like veritable political geniuses, 
 and to die before their time, after having exhausted 
 the intoxication of easy good fortune and of glory, 
 arduous in a very different degree. It is known with 
 what a firm and steady hand the prince seized the 
 helm of affairs in Austria, and in how short a time 
 he succeeded in lifting up a monarchy placed on the 
 brink of an abyss. Was his conduct in every par- 
 ticular irreproachable ; was it even provident to the 
 end t That is not the question for us. Let us limit 
 ourselves in saying that rarely has a minister met 
 with more good luck in his short career, found so 
 much assurance in success, and spoken in a loftier 
 or prouder tone in vexatious necessities. This time 
 Prince Schwarzenberg spoke with all the authority 
 which right gave him. Perhaps he spoke even too 
 harshly, and Prussia seemed for a moment ready to 
 pick up the glove. Frederick William IV. demanded 
 of the chambers a credit of fourteen million tha- 
 lers for the armament, and made a warlike speech. 
 Europe became attentive, the national assembly of 
 
60 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 France was on the point of ordering a new levy of 
 troops, and, fatidical prelude of a tragedy which was 
 not to be played till fifteen years later, in 1850 as in 
 1866, Louis Napoleon thought that he ought to en- 
 courage the cabinet of Berlin, encourage it with aid, 
 and in direct opposition to the general sentiment of 
 the country ! While the national assembly in France 
 pronounced itself very plainly for neutrality and the 
 minister of foreign affairs was even inclined in favor 
 of Austria, the president of the republic sent an in- 
 timate friend to Berlin, M. de Persigny, with the 
 mission to engage the King of Prussia as much as 
 possible in the war. War appeared inevitable. The 
 troops were already disposed in two parts ; there had 
 already been encounters between the advanced 
 guards. All of a sudden, and before a menacing 
 ultimatum from Vienna, strengthened by a friendly 
 notice from St. Petersburg, M. de Manteuffel, pres- 
 ident of the Prussian council, proposed to that of 
 Austria to hold an interview at Oderberg, on the 
 frontier of the two States. Some hours after having 
 sent this proposition, he announced by telegraph (a 
 proceeding then very rare), that, on positive orders 
 from the king, he should go as far as Olmiitz, with- 
 out waiting for the reply. He went there, and signed 
 j(22J^ovember, 1850) the preliminaries of peace, the 
 famous " punctuations " by which Prussia yielded to 
 the demands of Austria on every point. 
 
 It is not astonishing that such a profound humil- 
 iation, — preceded by a measure of distress up to 
 that time unheard of in the annals of diplomacy, 
 and immediately followed by an Austrian dispatch 
 which very uselessly did nothing but irritate the 
 
TJVO CHANCELLORS. 6l 
 
 wound,^ — filled liberal Prussia with grief and indig- 
 nation. It was in vain that M. de Manteuffel en- 
 deavored to justify his conduct before the national 
 mind. He affirmed that he would rather be placed 
 "in front of conical balls than pointed speeches" 
 {Jieber Spitzkugeln als spitze Rederi) ; the chamber 
 of Berlin expressed with passion the griefs of the 
 country, and M. de Vincke closed one of the most 
 vehement philippics with these words : " Down with 
 the ministry ! ' A single orator dared to undertake 
 the defense of the ministry, and to make in the same 
 moment the apotheosis of Austria. Already in the 
 preceding year M. de Bismarck had desired for his 
 country the rdle of the Emperor Nicholas in Hun- 
 gary. Since then he had never neglected an occa- 
 sion to resent in behalf of the empire of the Haps- 
 burg the insults which German liberalism had heaped 
 on him, and he remained true to this policy even in 
 the most extraordinary circumstances, and in the 
 midst of the indescribable clamors of the assembly. 
 He maintained that there could be no possible or, 
 legitimate federation in Germany without Austria.,- 
 One of the greatest griefs of the Teutons against 
 Austria has been in all times its not forming a state 
 purely German, its containing in its bosom differ- 
 ent populations and of an "inferior" race. This 
 was the principal argument of the parliament of 
 Frankfort in favor of the constitution of a Germany 
 without the empire of the Hapsburg, and M. de Bis- 
 
 * A circular of Prince Schwarzenberg, made public by a calculated 
 indiscretion, after having related the incident of the telegraph, and 
 the desperate course of M. de Manteuffel as regards the Austrian 
 minister, added : " His majesty the Emperor thinks it his duty to 
 comply with the desire of the King of Prussia, so modestly ex- 
 pressed." 
 
62 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 marck did not fail to reproduce it in 1866, in a mem- 
 orable circular. In 1850 the deputy of the Mark 
 did not share this opinion ; he was convinced that 
 "Austria was a German power in the full force of 
 the term, although it also had the good fortune to 
 exercise its dominion over foreign nationalities," and 
 he boldly concluded that "P russia sh ould__subordi- 
 nate itself to ^«j^r/«Jq_the radtHkt they might com- 
 bat in'cdncert the menacing democracy." Truly, 
 in recaIlmg"tKat session of the Prussian chamber 
 on the 3d December, 1850, one can, in the words 
 of Montesquieu, observe the spectacle of the as- 
 tounding vicissitudes of history ; but the irony of 
 fate commences to take its truly fantastic propor- 
 tions, when one remembers that it was precisely this 
 speech of the 3d December, 1850, which decided the 
 vocation of M. de Bismarck and opened to him the 
 career of foreign affairs. Forced to consent to the 
 restoration of the Bund, and resigned to the prepon- 
 derance of the empire of the Hapsburg, the Prussian 
 government thought in truth that it could give no 
 better pledges of its disposition than in choosing for 
 its plenipotentiary to the Germanic Confederation 
 the ardent orator^hose devotion to the cause of the 
 Hapsburg was even able to resist the proof of the 
 humiliation qfpimutz. And it was as the most de- 
 cided partisan of Austria that the future conqueror 
 of Sadowa made his entrance into the arena of di- 
 plomacy ! 
 
 The chamber was prorogued in consequence of 
 this stormy discussion. The rupture with the na- 
 tional party was consummated, and M. de Man- 
 teuffel, whose cold and bureaucratic mind sympa- 
 
Tff^O CHANCELLORS. 63 
 
 thized in reality but very slightly with the ultras, 
 thought it nevertheless useful to strengthen the 
 government by making them some advances. Sev- 
 eral prominent posts in the civil service were con- 
 ferred on members of the extreme right : M. de 
 Kleist-Retzow, among others, held the presidency of 
 the Rhenish provinces. One could hardly dream of 
 utilizing in the same manner the talents of the former 
 referendarius of Potsdam and Greifswalde, who had 
 shown so little disposition and taste for the adminis- 
 trative career : on account of the considerations al- 
 ready mentioned, it was first thought of sending him 
 to Frankfort as first secretary of the legation, but 
 with the assurance of being made real representative 
 at the end of some time. This choice produced 
 some surprise. It was an entirely new proceeding 
 (they have become accustomed to it there and in 
 other places since) to reward a deputy with a diplo- 
 matic mission for his attitude or his vote in the 
 chamber. It was asked if the eccentric and impet- 
 uous cavalier of the Mark would be the right man in 
 the right place in the midst of such delicate circum- 
 stances. The timid and overscrupulous M. de Man- 
 teuffel was not without apprehension on this head, 
 and the very ardor with which M. de Bismarck ac- 
 cepted the position only augmented the uneasiness 
 of the president of the council. King Frederick 
 William IV., who personally had a very high regard 
 for the ardent " Percy " of the party of the cross, had 
 nevertheless some doubts. " Your majesty can try 
 me," said the aspirant for diplomacy ; " if matters go 
 wrong, your majesty will be at perfect liberty to re- 
 call me at the end of six months or even before." 
 
64 TPVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 It was only, however, at the end of eight years that 
 he was recalled by the successor of Frederick Will- 
 iam IV. And still, after the first days of his mission 
 (June, 1851) he expressed himself thus in a confiden- 
 tial letter concerning the men and the affairs he was 
 charged to deal with : " Our relations here consist in 
 distrust and mutual espionage. If we only had some- 
 thing to spy out or to hide ! But these are merely 
 silly trifles, for which these people torment their 
 minds. These diplomats who retail with an air of 
 importance their bric-A-brai, seem to me much more 
 ridiculous than a deputy of the second chamber drap- 
 ing himself in the feeling of his dignity. If exterior 
 events do not unexpectedly arise, I know from to-day 
 exactly^what we shall have done in two, three, or five 
 years, and what we can dispatch in twenty-four 
 hours, if we wish to be sincere and reasonable for 
 one day. I never doubted that all these gentlemen 
 did their cooking in water ; but a soup so watery and 
 insipid that it is impossible to find in it a trace of fat 
 
 j does not cease to astonish me I have made 
 
 I very rapid progress in the art of saying nothing with 
 many words ; I write several sheets of reports, plain 
 and round, like the leading articles, and if, after hav- 
 ing read them, Manteuffel understands a jot, he is 
 cleverer than I am. No one, not even the most ma- 
 licious of democrats can have any idea what non- 
 sense and charlatanisms diplomacy hides." 
 
 Some years later, during the complications of the 
 Orient, he wrote to his sister Malvina :" I am at a 
 session of the Bund; a very highly honored col- 
 league is reading a very stupid speech on the anar- 
 chical situation in Upper Lippe, and I think that I 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 6$ 
 
 cannot better improve this opportunity than in pour- 
 ing out before you my fraternal sentiments. These 
 knights of the round table who surround me in this, 
 ground floor of the Taxis palace are very honorable 
 men, but not at all amusing. The table, twenty 
 feet in diameter, is covered with a green cloth. 
 
 Think of X ^ and of Z in Berlin ; they are 
 
 entirely of the calibre of these gentlemen of the 
 Bundestag. I have the habit of approaching all' 
 things with a feeling of innocence which gapes. My 
 disposition of mind is that of a careless lassitude 
 after I have s.ucceeded in bringing little by little the 
 Bund to the desolating consciousness of its profound 
 nothingness. Do you remember the Lied of Heine : 
 O Bund, o chien tu lies pas sain, etc. .' Well ! that 
 Lied will soon, and by a unanimous vote, be raised 
 to the rank of national hymn of Germany." 
 
 The lassitude, the disgust as well as the contempt 
 for the ^««dnncreased from year to year. In 1858 
 he thought of- leaving the career forever. He had 
 enough of " this rigime of truffles, of dispatches and 
 of grand crosses." He spoke of withdrawing under 
 the guns of Schoenhausen," or still better of " grow- 
 ing young by ten years, and once more taking the 
 offensive position of 1848 and 1849." He wished to 
 fight, without being hindered by relations and offi- 
 cial courtesies, to throw off the uniform, and to " go 
 into politics in swimming drawers i^n politischen 
 Schwimmkosen)," 
 
 What is there astonishing in it ? Of all imagin- 
 able political men, M. de Bismarck was certainly the 
 least fitted to have a regard and liking for a deliber- 
 ative body essentially moderated and moderating, 
 5 
 
66 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 where everything was discussed in private, in elabo- 
 rated speeches, thought over at length and still more 
 freely discussed, and where the gashes and thrusts 
 actually amounted to nothing. A great congress of 
 peace could scarcely have any attraction for the 
 ardent Percys whom the smallest conference of Ban- 
 gor 1 caused, enraged, to jump out of their skins ; and 
 the Bundestag, as we have said, was a permanent 
 congress of peace called to maintain the statu quo 
 and to remove every cause for conflict. The little 
 incidents, the little manoeuvres and the little strug- 
 gles for influence were not wanting, it. is true, in this 
 company, more than in any other; they served to 
 maintain the good humor of the ordinary diplomats, 
 and were generally considered as useful stimulants 
 for the good management of affairs and good diges- 
 tion of dinners. But they must have seemed paltry 
 in the eyes of a man of action and of combat ; they 
 must have irritated, at times even exasperated him ! 
 To observe the affairs of the world from this post on 
 the Main, which allowed them to be grasped in their 
 ensemble ; to profit by abundant information, to com- 
 pose therefrom 'brilliant dispatches, fit to instruct 
 and above all to amuse an august master ; to utter 
 occasionally a very spirituel, very malicious mot, and 
 to rejoice at it ; to make others enjoy it, even to carry 
 it perfectly warm to Stuttgart, and to confide its fur- 
 ther expedition to a gracious Grand Duchess, — that 
 was an occupation which might content Prince Gort- 
 chakof, even charm the leisure hours of a man 
 educated in the school of Count Nesselrode and 
 grown old in the career. But how was it possible to 
 1 Shakspere, Henry IV. part I. act uL scene i. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 6j 
 
 make such an existence agreeable to a cavalier of the 
 Mark, improvised into a minister plenipotentiary, or 
 to shut up in such a narrow circle, though a pleasant 
 one, a "fianci of Bellona," still foaming from battles 
 delivered without cessation for four years on a re- 
 sounding stage! In order to find a fitting compen- 
 sation in the new circle in which he was placed, he 
 needed at; least some great European combination, 
 some great negotiation capable of exercising his fac- 
 ulties, and of making them known, — and they talked 
 to him of bric-cL-brac, of -Upper Lippe ! A negotia- 
 tion as insignificant as that with the poor Augus- 
 tenburg, brought to a happy end in 1852, could cer- 
 tainly not be counted among the triumphs worthy 
 of a Bismarck,^ and this was nevertheless the single 
 and pitiful " bubble of fat " which he was able to 
 discover in the soup cooked during several years 
 at Frankfort ! 
 
 1 It does not, however, fail to be interesting, and to even have a very- 
 piquant side. Still full of the conviction that they had made on Den- 
 mark a war " eminently iniquitous, frivolous, and revolutionary," the 
 Prussian plenipotentiary to the Bund labored, in 1852, very actively 
 in dissipating for the future a possible cause of perturbation, and 
 negotiated an Esau bargain with the Duke Christian-August Augus- 
 tenburg, the former upholder of Schleswig-Holsteinism, and eventual 
 pretender to the Duchies. Thanks to the intervention of M. de Bis- 
 marck, the old duke signed for the sum of one million and a half 
 rixdalers given by the government of Copenhagen, a solemn act, by 
 which he bound " himself and his family, on his princely word and 
 honor, to undertake nothing which could disturb the tranquillity of 
 the Danish monarchy." That did not prevent the son of Christian 
 from impudently insisting on his pretended rights in 1863, nor even 
 M. de Bismarck from supporting them for a certain time, up to the 
 moment when the famous syndics of the crown cast the doubt in 
 the soul of the first minister at Berlin and proved to him that the 
 Duchies, belonging by right to no one, belonged to King William by 
 the feet of conquest. 
 
68 tlVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 It is true that the question of the Orient did not 
 delay in breaking out, and 'that at first it even 
 seemed to open vast perspectives. Prussia was well 
 disposed towards Russia. The secondary States of 
 Germany showed themselves still more ardent, and 
 sometimes even went so far as to have the appear- 
 ance' of being willing to draw their swords ; so much 
 the worse for Austria if she persisted in making 
 common cause with the allies ; that might bring 
 about important territorial modifications, and all to 
 the advantage of the House of HohenzoUern ! And 
 the representative of Prussia to the Germanic Con- 
 ftederation ("his excellency the lieutenant," as he 
 was then called on account of the Landwehr uniform 
 which he liked to wear) gave a warm and firm sup- 
 port in this crisis to his colleague of Russia, who 
 had become his most intimate friend. He was not, 
 however, long in seeing that the Germanic Confeder- 
 ation would not desert its neutrality ; that the sec- 
 ondary States, in spite of all the agitations in the 
 conferences of Bamberg, would not take an active 
 part either in one sense or in the other, and that the 
 war would be localized in the Black Sea and the 
 Baltic. He conceived a profound disdain for the 
 Bund, was "conscious of its unfathomable nothing- 
 ness," and hummed over the green cloth of the Taxis 
 palace the Lied of Heine on the Diet of Frankfort. 
 In addition, he experienced on this occasion a grief, 
 which he never forgot, which he recalled many years 
 afterwards in a confidential dispatch which has be- 
 come celebrated. During the Oriental complica- 
 tions, he wrote in 1859 to M. de Schleinitz, " Aus- 
 tria overcame us at Frankfort in spite of all the 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 69 
 
 commonalty of ideas and desires which we then had 
 with the secondary States. These States, after each 
 oscillation, always indicate with the activity of the 
 magnetized needle, the same point of attraction." 
 Nothing more natural, however ; it was not from 
 the empire of the Hapsburg that Hanover and Sax- 
 ony had to dread' certain annexation, as events have 
 since proved only too clearly. But the man who 
 can one day desire the destruction of great cities, 
 as the hot-beds of revolutionary spirit, did not hesi- 
 tate to condemn in his soul and conscience the small 
 States as the inextinguishable hearths of the "Aus- 
 trian spirit." 
 
 Austria, in truth, was not slow in taking in the 
 thoughts and the resentments of the cavalier of the 
 Mark the place which the revolution had lately held, 
 there, and the ardent champion of Hapsburg in the 
 chambers of Berlin became little by little their most 
 bitter, most implacable enemy in the Bundestag} 
 Moreover, all the great men of Prussia, commencing 
 with the great elector and Frederick II., and without 
 excepting William I., have always had, as regards 
 Austria, " two souls in their breasts " like Faust, or, 
 like Rebecca, ''two children conflicting with one 
 another in her bosom ; " in a word, two principles, 
 one of which imbued them with an almost religious 
 respect for the antique and illustrious imperial house, 
 while the other urged them to conquest and spolia- 
 tion at the cost of this very house. In the month of 
 May, 1 849, the honest and poetical King Frederick 
 William IV. declared to a deputation of ministers 
 from the Germanic States,^ "that he should consider 
 
 1 The minister of Nassua, Baron Max de Gagern was at tlie head 
 of this deputation. 
 
70 two CHANCELLORS. 
 
 that day as the most happy one of his life when he 
 should hold the wash basin ( Wasckbecken) at the cor- 
 onation of a Hapsburg as Emperor of Germany ; " 
 that did not prevent him later from smiling from 
 time to time at the work of the parliament of Frank- 
 fort, and from working for the " restricted union " 
 under the auspices of General de Radowitz. And 
 even M. de Bismarck was certainly very sincere as 
 deputy of the Prussian parliament in his " Austrian 
 religion," when in the name of conservative princi- 
 ples he undertook the energetic defense of the Haps- 
 burg against the attacks of German liberalism ; but 
 he was now the representative of his government in 
 the Taxis palace^Tie" encountered Austria on its way 
 to a struggle for influence with the secondary States, 
 to a struggle of interests concerning the affairs of 
 the Orient, and he began to engage in an order of 
 ideas, at the end of which he was to take up the 
 policy of "heart blow." It was thus that on the 
 occasion of the war in the Orient and in the very 
 city of Frankfort there arose in the hearts of the 
 two future chancellors of Russia and of Germany 
 that hatred of Austria which was to have such fatal - 
 consequences, for, that the reader may not be de- 
 ceived, it was the connivance of these two political 
 men, — the fatal ideology of the Emperor Napoleon 
 III. aiding them largely, it is just to add, — which 
 rendered possible the catastrophes of which our days 
 have been the witnesses : the calamity of Sadowa, 
 and the destruction of the Bund, and the dis- 
 memberment of Denmark as well as of France! 
 With Prince Gortchakof, this sentiment of hostility 
 burst forth suddenly in consequence of an erro- 
 
riVO CHANCELLORS. 71 
 
 neous appreciation of events, but which his whole 
 nation shared with him. With M. de Bismarck, the 
 hatred of Austria had not an origin so spontaneous ; 
 it had not, for instance, as an origin, the grievances 
 of Olmiitz, which the deputy of the Mark had on the 
 contrary been able to easily overcome ; it was slow 
 in forming, it developed, consolidated itself in conse- 
 quence of a long and daily struggle in the heart of the 
 Bund, in consequence of an experience acquired at 
 the end of several years of vain attempts, and from 
 the definite conviction that Hapsburg would never 
 of its free will, abandon the secondary States, and 
 he defended them against every effort at absorp- 
 tion. Resuming the instruction which his sojourn 
 of eight years at Frankfort had given him, the repre- 
 sentative of Prussia to the Germanic Confederation 
 wrote in 1859, i"^ ^is often quoted dispatch to M. de 
 Schleinitz, those remarkable words : " I see in our 
 federal relations a fault which sooner or later we! 
 must cure ferro et igne." Ferro et igne ! that is the \ 
 first version of the received text " iron and blood," ' 
 which one day the president of the council laid 
 down in an official manner in a speech to the cham- 
 ber. 
 
 At the same time that the ancient "Austrian 
 religion " underwent with its former ardent confes- 
 sor a transformation so radical, a no less curious 
 change was wrought in his mind in regard to several 
 other articles of the credo of his party. Removed 
 from the miUe and participating no longer in the 
 parliamentary struggles, he began to observe more 
 coldly certain questions important in those times, 
 and to temper more than one antipathy of past days. 
 
72 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 Since 1852, on returning from a trip to Berlin, he 
 writes : " There is something demoralizing in the air 
 of the chamber ; the best men of the world become 
 vain there and cling to the Tribune as a woman to 
 her toilet I find parliamentary intrigues hol- 
 low and unworthy of any notice. While one lives 
 in their midst, one has illusions concerning them, 
 and attaches to them I do not know how much im- 
 portance Every time that I arrive there from 
 
 Frankfort, I experience the feelings of a temper- 
 ate man who falls among drunken people." Many 
 things in old times disgraceful and abhorred, take 
 now a less repulsive aspect to the eyes of the 
 statesmen maturing great projects for the future. 
 " The chamber and the press can become the most 
 powerful intruments of our external policy," wrote 
 in 1856 the former despiser of parliamentarism and 
 friend of M. Thadden-Triglaff, and it is thus that 
 one finds in the correspondence of these times the 
 vague idea of a national representation of the Zoll- 
 verein, even a pronounced desire for universal suf- 
 frage itself, provided that these means could become 
 the instrumenta regni. The example of the second 
 empire exercised then an influence which the histo- 
 rian should carefully bear in mind. This system of 
 absolutism tinged with popular passions, " spotted 
 with red," to employ a characteristic expression of 
 M. de Bismarck, seduced the imagination of more 
 than one aspirant for coups d'itat and coups d^Mat, 
 and the former colleague of the Doctor d'Ester 
 must have opened his cigar case more than once and 
 contemplated there the little sprig of olive plucked 
 from the tomb of Petrarch and Laura. 
 
TfVO CHANCELLORS. ■ 73 
 
 Yet the goal seemed distant, and how veiled was 
 the future, still indistinctly seen ! It was not under 
 King Frederick William IV., whose mind became 
 more and more clouded, that he was permitted to 
 think of actiqn ; even the accession of the regent, 
 the present King William, seemed at first to make 
 no change in the exterior situation. The new min- 
 isters of the regent, the ministers of the new era, as 
 was said then, were honest doctrinarians who spoke 
 of the development of conceded liberties and of the 
 strengthening of the representative rigivte. The 
 good and naif, they even allowed William I. to pro- 
 claim solemnly one day that " Prussia need only 
 make moral conquests in Germany ! " Evidently the 
 new era was not yet the era of M. de Bismarck. 
 During the years which passed after the war of the 
 Orient until his embassy in Russia, one sees the rep- 
 resentative of Prussia to the Germanic Confedera- 
 tion in constant motion, on continual journeys across 
 Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden, Courland, and 
 Upper Italy, seeking subjects for distraction, or per- 
 haps also subjects for observation, and each time re- 
 turning to Frankfort only to raise a difficulty, break 
 some bric-d-brac, and to press to the utmost the 
 nervous and bilious Count Rechberg, Austrian rep- 
 resentative and president of the Bundestag. His 
 frequent excursions to Paris caused him to have a 
 presentiment of the events which were preparing in 
 Italy ; he only became more aggressive, and there 
 was a time when his recall was considered at Frank- 
 fort as indispensable for the maintenance of peace. 
 It was at this moment that he thought of definitely 
 abandoning this career, of throwing off the uniform. 
 
74 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 and of going into politics in his "swimming drawers." 
 He consented, however, to do it in " a bear-skin and 
 with caviar," as he expressed himself in one of his 
 letters ; in other words called to exchange his post 
 at Frankfort for that at St. Petersburg. One hoped 
 thus to remove him from the burning ground, to 
 " put him on ice " (another expression of M. de Bis- 
 marck) ; as for himself, he perhaps attached other 
 hopes to this removal, and in any case found con- 
 solation in seeing his former colleague of Frankfort 
 become principal minister ■ of a great empire, and 
 with whom he was always on such good terms. 
 The 1st of April, 1859, "the anniversary of his 
 birth," M. de Bismarck arrived in the capital of 
 Russia. 
 
II. 
 
 A NATIONAL MINISTER AND A FAULT-FINDING 
 DIPLOMAT AT ST. PETERSBURG. 
 
 In the prodigious development which advanced 
 the empire of the czars after the impulse which the 
 genius of Peter the Great had given it, one can cer- 
 tainly signalize more than one Russian minister . of 
 foreign affairs whose name has a right to be com- 
 memorated by history. For instance, the mind of 
 Count Panine was not an ordinary one, who conceived 
 and caused to be accepted by different states the 
 idea of armed neutrality at sea, and this at an epoch 
 when Russia scarcely began to be reckoned among 
 the maritime powers of the second or third class. If 
 in this bold conception, as well as in the still more 
 interesting attempts of Panine to limit the absolute 
 power of the czars by aristocratic institutions, the 
 remote influence of an Italian origin could be seen 
 (the Panine descended from the Pagnini of Lucca), 
 one cannot, however, overlook the perfectly indige- 
 nous, largely au<f tfchthonal character of another famous 
 minister of the same century, that of the Chancellor 
 Bestoujef, whose figure Rulhi^re has drawn so very 
 originally. Bestoujef, who spoke perfectly, feigned 
 stammering, and had the courage to simulate this 
 defect for seventeen years. In his conversations 
 
^() TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 with foreign ambassadors he stammered in such a 
 manner as not to be understood. He also complained 
 of being deaf, of not understanding all the finesses 
 of the French language, and had the same thing re- 
 peated a thousand times. He was in the habit of 
 writing diplomatic notes with his own hand in a 
 manner perfectly illegible. They were sent back to 
 him and sometimes he could decipher their meaning. 
 Having fallen into disgrace, Bestoujef immediately 
 recovered his speech, hearing, and all the senses. 
 
 Very differgint is the type which was presented 
 during all of the first half of this century by' the im- 
 mediate predecessor of Prince Gortchakof, the chan- 
 cellor of the emperors Alexander I. and Nicholas. 
 Connected with Germany by origin and the interests 
 of his family, never even having learned to speak the 
 language of the country whose relations with other 
 powers he watched over. Count Charles Robert de 
 Nesselrode did not the less complete a long and 
 laborious career to the satisfaction of his two august 
 masters, and figured with honor in congresses and 
 conferences at the side of Talleyrand and Metternich. 
 Without having recourse to the too Asiatic subter- 
 fuges of a Bestoujef, Count Nesselrode knew and 
 practiced all the allowable tricks of the profession, 
 and few men equaled him in the art of preserving 
 an air of dignity and ease in the midst of the most 
 embarrassing situations. He knew how to change 
 his conduct without too great a change of language, 
 and among other things managed in a very delicate 
 manner the transition between the policy of the czar 
 Alexander I. (unfavorable to the Greeks) and the 
 frankly philhellenic sympathies of his successor. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. JJ 
 
 During the last Oriental crisis he placed all the re- 
 sources of a shrewd and subtle mind at the service 
 of a cause in which he saw nothing but grave dan- 
 gers, and of which he ignored the national and relig- 
 ious side completely. Differing from Bestoujef, and 
 much more European in this sense than in many 
 others, M. de Nesselrode lost in his disgrace or 
 rather in his retreat, the greater part of his faculties 
 and his virtues, and above all caused an immense 
 deception by his posthumous memoirs, composed in 
 the decline of life and of a hopeless insignificance. 
 But perhaps this was nothing but a last trait of 
 cleverness and diplomatic malice in order to deceive 
 on this point profane curiosity, and to leave behind 
 him a work as empty and uninstructive as possible 
 of a life so well filled. 
 
 Not one, however, of the Russian statesmen who 
 have just been named was a great minister in the Oc- 
 cidental acceptation of the word. No one of them 
 (in order to make comparisons in absolute mon- 
 archies only) had the position of a Duke de Choi- 
 seul in France during the last century, the authority 
 of a Prince Clement de Metternich in Austria in the 
 present century, or even the notoriety and popular- 
 ity which Prince Gortchakof actually enjoys in Rus- 
 sia itself. Bestoujef, Panine, Nesselrode were, one 
 may say, much better known abroad than in their 
 own country, and their contemporaries were far from 
 attributing to them the merit which posterity later 
 saw in them, thanks to the posthumous revela- 
 tions of the archives. No one of them was raised 
 to power by a current of opinion, nor sustained 
 in his position by public favor ; not one of them 
 
78 Tff^O CHANCELLORS. 
 
 pretended to show an individuality, to impress a per- 
 sonal direction on the affairs, which he conducted. 
 This is because since Peter the. Great to the present 
 government, the iclat of the imperial name in Russia 
 cast into the shade every other name, and instead of 
 being a favorite or a great captain, every state ser- 
 vant was only the subaltern executor of a single and 
 absolute will. The external policy, above all, was 
 then considered as the exclusive domain of the sov- 
 ereign, and the very fixity of the system rendered in 
 some degree secondary and unimportant the ques- 
 tion of the persons charged with fulfilling it. In fact, 
 from the time of Peter the Great, the Russian gov- 
 ernment has always had in its relations with Europe 
 certain traditions approved by experience, and cerr 
 tain sacred principles, from which it never deviated 
 even in a small degree. The minister -of foreign 
 affairs at St. Petersburg, whatever his name might 
 be, always had to labor to augment Russian prestige 
 among the Christian populations of the Orient, to 
 guard the maintenance of the equilibrium of power 
 between Austria and Prussia, and to extend the in- 
 fluence of his government among the secondary 
 States of Germany. To these rules, so to speak, 
 elementary and invariable, of the external Russian 
 policy, there was added from the year 1815 an inter- 
 national principle of preservation, a superior idea of 
 solidarity between the governments for the defense 
 of established order, the feeling of the duties and 
 of the common interests created in the represen- 
 tatives of the monarchical authority in opposition 
 to subversive passions sprung from the revolution, 
 and it was this ensemble of the views and convictions 
 
TIVO CHANCELLORS. 79 
 
 jof the two emperors Alexander I. and Nicholas which 
 Count Nesselrode had, during almost half a century, 
 to enforce, in all the acts and documents emanating 
 from the chancellor's office at St. Petersburg. 
 
 It has been the destiny of the successor of Count 
 Nesselrode to break little by little with all this en- 
 semble of traditions and principles, and to inaugu- 
 rate for the empire of the czars, in its external rela- 
 tions, an entirely new policy. One may dispute 
 the merit of this policy, and dispute it the more 
 widely as it is still far from having borne all its fruit. 
 What is indisputable and astonishes at first sight, is 
 that Prince Gortchakof has been able to attach his 
 name to a change of system which is marked in the 
 diplomatic annals of his country, and to create for 
 himself, as minister of foreign affairs in Russia, a 
 situation entirely personal, an important position, 
 such as none of his predecessors ever had. Alex- 
 ander Mikhaiflovitch is not only the faithful servant 
 of his august master, he is the veritable chief of his 
 department, the directing minister ; he accepts boldly 
 his part of the responsibility, and above all his share 
 of the ^clat in the different transactions of Europe. 
 An equally new phenomenon in Russia, this minister 
 not only retains the favor of his sovereign, but also 
 that of the nation. He manages the public opinion 
 of his country, he watches over it, sometimes he even 
 flatters it, and it repays him. It has had some mo- 
 ments of infatuation for Alexander Mikhaiflovitch, 
 eyen some moments of enthusiasm, — after the af- 
 fairs of Poland ; more than that, it has in a measure 
 brought forward and created him. This elevation 
 of the plenipotentiary of Vienna to the high position 
 
80 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 left vacant by Count Nesselrode in the month of 
 April, 1856, was not without its results. 
 
 In 1815, on his triumphal return from the con- 
 gress of Vienna, Alexander could select as he wished 
 from the celebrated men who then formed the ^tat- 
 major of Russian diplomacy, the least known and 
 the most humble of this illustrious body. Passing 
 over Capo d'Istria, Pozzo di Borgo, Ribeaupierre, 
 Razoumovsky, Stakelberg, d'Anstett, it was lawful 
 for him to confide the direction of the external pol- 
 icy to a German gentleman of Westphalian origin, . 
 bom at Lisbon, and Russian only by naturaliza- 
 tion. In 1856, after the congress of Paris, the 
 choice of Prince Gortchakof for the same position 
 was, we will not say imposed, but certainly indi- 
 cated to the Emperor Alexander II. by the voice 
 of the people, or, if one likes it better, by that voice 
 of the salons which did not delay at this moment in 
 taking more and more a popular tone. And since 
 his ddbut at the Hotel of the Place du Palais the 
 former pupil of Zarkoe-Zeloe distinguished himself 
 by liberal ways and advances made in a pubUc spirit, 
 which must have occasionally astonished his prede- 
 cessor, still living and in possession of the honored 
 title of chancellor. For the first time, a Russian 
 minister had mots, not only for the salons, but also 
 for the lecture halls and the bureaux of journalists, 
 words which went straight to the heart of the great 
 lady and country gentleman, the humble student 
 and proud officer of the gardes. His aphorism on 
 Austria 1 went the rounds of all the Russias. An- 
 other aphorism, taken from a circular, soon trans- 
 1 " Austria is not a state, it is only a government." 
 
TIVO CHANCELLORS. 8 1 
 
 ported the nation : the celebrated phrase, " Russia 
 does not sulk, but meditates," seemed to be dic- 
 tated by the very soul of the people, and drew from 
 it a cry of enthusiasm. It was then that one re- 
 membered the awakening of the Russian spirit after 
 a long period of compression ; the journals, the 
 thoughtful periodicals, inaugurated their joyful ^bats, 
 the authors, the literary men, began to have an im- 
 portance hitherto unknown ; Alexander Mikhaflo- 
 vitch, who always displayed a liking and sympathy 
 for Russian literature, the former fellow scholar of 
 Pouchkirie, passed for a patriotic statesman in the 
 eyes of Pogodine, Axakof, Katkof, etc. One per- 
 ceived that he had a great hatred for Austria, a pro- 
 nounced desire for the French alliance, and the 
 nation, which also shared equally and even in an 
 exaggerated manner, these two sentiments, saluted 
 in him the national minister /«r excellence. A strange 
 comparison, well made to demonstrate the inanity of 
 words and the instability of things on earth, is the 
 manner in which the most decided partisan of the 
 empire of the Hapsburg, M. de Bismarck, the future 
 conqueror of Sadowa, entered into the ccenaculum of 
 diplomats ; and at the same time it was the implaca- 
 ble enemy of the Germans and the warm friend of 
 the French whom, in 1856, the Russians exalted 
 above all in the person of their vice-chancellor, the 
 statesman who, later, by a policy of omission and 
 coriimission, was to favor as no one else did, the 
 dismemberment of France and the constitution of 
 a Germany greater, more powerful, and more for- 
 midable than the history of past centuries has ever 
 known! It is true that by the "Germans" the 
 6 
 
82 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 Russia of 1856 meant principally the Austrians,^ 
 and that in the France of that day it admired above 
 all a certain absolutism in the democratic instincts 
 which showed itself touched with the misfortunes of 
 Italy, which professed to sympathize with Rouma- 
 nia, Servia, Montenegro, and which had not yet pro- 
 nounced the fatal name of Poland. 
 
 " Calm yourself," the emperor of the French said 
 to M. de Cavour, in the month of April, 1856, after 
 the closing of the congress of Paris, — " Calm 
 yourself; I have a presentiment that the present 
 peace will not last long." ^ Prince Gortchakof had 
 without doubt the same presentiment, and perhaps 
 others more positive in this respect. The thought 
 of "making war for an idea," the thought of free- 
 ing Italy, had long been fixed in the mind of Napo- 
 leon III. ; at the moment of signing the treaty of 
 Paris "with an eagle's feather," he let his hidden 
 and dreaming glance fall on the classic plains of 
 Lombardy. Now, for the enterprise which France 
 
 1 As well as the Germans born or naturalized in Russia who en- 
 cumbered the different branches of the state service, and occupied in 
 general a very large and important position in the administration of 
 the empire. On his accession to the ministry, Alexander Mikhailo- 
 vitch loudly signified his intention of " purging " his department of 
 all these "intruders." Routine, however, and above all Sclavic idle- 
 ness (which willingly leaves to foreigners and to "intruders" all 
 work demanding perseverance and application) were not slow in tri- 
 umphing over the principle of nationality ; the palingenesis of the 
 minister, announced with so much fuss, ended in a very insignificant 
 change in ia& personnel of the lower order, and the chancellor found 
 among these Germans his two most devoted and capable aids : M. de 
 Westmann, deceased last May at Wiesbaden, and M.de Hamburger, 
 quite recently made secretary of state. 
 
 " letter of M. de Cavour to M. Castelli-Bianchi, Storia documen- 
 tata, vol. viii. p. 622. 
 
7W0 CHANCELLORS. 83 
 
 meditated against Austria, and in which it could 
 scarcely count on an angry neutrality of England, 
 it was thought useful to secure in good season the 
 friendship of Russia and Prussia. Prussia had 
 emerged from the Oriental crisis very much weak- 
 ened with its poUcy " of the free hand ; " England, 
 Austria, and Turkey had even had little desire to 
 admit it to the honors of the congress. The presi- 
 dent of the council at Berlin, M. de Manteuffel, was 
 obliged to wait long in the antechamber, while the 
 plenipotentiaries of Europe were in full deliberation, 
 and it was only at the instance of the emperor of the 
 French that the Prussian envoy was at last admitted. 
 Napoleon III. insisted absolutely, in 1856, on allow- 
 ing that Prussia to retake its position in Europe 
 which fourteen years later was to dethrone him ! As 
 for Russia, we have already spoken of the polite- 
 nesses and cordialities of which Count' Orlof was 
 the recipient from France during all the time of the 
 congress. Since then, in the successive arrange- 
 ments of the various difficulties which the execution 
 of some of the clauses of the treaty of Paris caused 
 to arise (Belgrade, Isle of Serpents, navigation of the 
 Danube, etc.), one saw the arguments or interpreta- 
 tions of the Russian plenipotentiary sustained al- 
 most constantly by the plenipotentiary of France. 
 In the different and numerous conferences and com- 
 missions which followed in these years, 1856-1859, 
 for regulating the pending questions, the distribu- 
 tion of the votes was almost invariably thus r Eng- 
 land and Austria on one side, on the other France, 
 Russia, and Prussia.^ 
 1 See, for this and all that follows concerning the relations of 
 
84 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 Although Prince Gortchakof acknowledged with 
 good grace all these attentions of the cabinet of 
 the Tuileries, he was not sufficiently complaisant to 
 follow it in a campaign of remonstrances against the 
 government of Naples, a campaign undertaken in 
 concert with the cabinet of Saint James, in conse- 
 quence of the famous letters addressed , to Lord 
 Aberdeen by M. Gladstone on the regime of Kin'g 
 Ferdinand II. A similar intermeddling in the inter- 
 nal affairs of an independent state did not seem very 
 correct in the eyes of the successor of Count Nes- 
 selrode ; but he was the more forward in seconding 
 the Emperor Napoleon III. in his generous designs 
 every time that there was a question of ameliorating 
 the lot of the Christian populations in the Ottoman 
 empire, of augmenting their autonomy, and, as was 
 said then, of reforming the Turk. " To reform the 
 Turk," maliciously thought M. Thouvenel, ambassa- 
 dor of France at Constantinople, " it is necessary to 
 begin by first impaling him ; " one commenced, how- 
 ever, by applying to him the question of hatt-houma- 
 youm, by interrogating him concerning his intentions 
 in favor of the rajahs of Bosnia, Bulgaria, and Her- 
 zegovina, and by thus annoying in a certain degree 
 the cabinets of Vienna and London. Much greater 
 was naturally the solicitude for the vassal States of 
 the good padishah, for Moldavia, Wallachia, Servia, 
 and Montenegro ; these States already had a' demi- 
 independence, they made it possible to render it 
 entire. 
 
 France and Russia in the years 1856-63, Two Negotiations of Con- 
 temporaneous Diplomacy ; the Alliances since the Congress of Paris, 
 in the Sevue des deitx Mondes, of the isth September, 1864. 
 
TfVO CHANCELLORS. 85 
 
 The little Prince of Montenegro, former proUgi 
 and servitor of the Emperor Nicholas, had come 
 to visit the sovereign of France after the peace of 
 Paris, and since his return had quarreled with the 
 sultan, in consequence of which the Alghiras and 
 L' Impitueuse appeared before Ragusa. French ves- 
 sels in the waters of the Orient to menace Turkey, 
 to the great mortification of England and Austria, 
 to the great rejoicings of Russia, all this scarcely 
 two years after the war in the Crimea ! The sight 
 was surely not wanting in originality, and prepared 
 the world for a series of surprises. At about the 
 same time, Servia expelled Prince Alexander Kara 
 Gdorgevitch, and recalled to the throne the old 
 Miloch Obrenovitch. The Porte protested, Eng- 
 land and Austria joined in this protest ; but, thanks 
 to the combined efforts of Russia and France, they 
 ended by acknowledging the right of the national 
 Servian assembly, whose principal grievance against 
 the dethroned prince was his having shown too 
 much sympathy for the allies in the war of 1853 ! 
 The question of the Danubian Principalities pre- 
 sented an aspect serious, and also piquant. France 
 and Russia had begged at the congress of Paris for 
 the complete union of Moldavia and Wallachia ; 
 the other Powers were opposed to it, and, weary of 
 war, they had agreed to accept a combination which 
 completely assimilated the administration in the two 
 countries, while maintaining their separation. It 
 was, as later in Italy, the project of confederation 
 opposed to that of unity ; but then there was also 
 given on the banks of the Danube the first example 
 of that national strategy, which was soon to show 
 
86 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 itself on a larger scale in Tuscany and Emelia. The 
 twofold election of Prince Couza was in truth the 
 first trial of that popular diplomacy, which later, in 
 Italian affairs, took pleasure in so often confounding 
 the combinations of high plenipotentiaries and high 
 contracting parties, and proclaimed in the face of 
 the world a deed accomplished by the suffrage of the 
 nation. The popular votes annulling the arrange- 
 ments of diplomacy, and the understanding of France 
 and Russia to respect these votes, these are the two 
 salient traits of the policy in the years 1 856-1 859, 
 a policy which the liberal opinion of Europe received 
 with favor without being too much astonished at 
 such a concordance of views between the cabinets 
 of the Tuileries and St. Petersburg on this very 
 ground of the Orient, still warm with the bullets of 
 the war ; on this ground, from which Russia should 
 have been, in the opinion of the allies of 1853, com- 
 pletely shut out, and where she now regained influ- 
 ence and a footing, modestly it is true, and under 
 the protecting shadow of France. 
 
 At last the Italian complications came, and the 
 government of the czar increased the testimonials 
 of his good relations with the cabinet of the Tui- 
 leries. " Our relations with France are cordial" re- 
 plied Prince Gortchakof to Lord Napier, charged by 
 his government with sounding the disposition of 
 Russia in such grave matters. England then made 
 earnest efforts to prevent the war in Italy from break- 
 ing out. Lord Cowley, sent with a certain flourish 
 on a mission to Vienna, exerted himself to discover 
 the possible bases of an accommodation, and the 
 cabinet of St. James already flattered itself with the 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 8/ 
 
 hope of having quelled the tempest, when Prince 
 Gortchakof suddenly proposed a congress, and pro- 
 nounced that fatal word which then, as so often 
 since, was only the signal for a rupture. A con-e- 
 gress ! A treaty of peace before any hostility, the 
 glory of the triumph without the peril of victory, — 
 that was the eternal hyst^ron-protdron of the Napole- 
 onic ideology, that was the chimera pursued by the 
 dreamer of Ham in the question of the Papacy, in 
 the question of Poland, and of Denmark ; and up to 
 the catastrophe of 1870, after the declaration of war, 
 it is curious to see Prince Gortchakof first suggest 
 a remedy which imperial France was yet to recom- 
 mend so often for all the chronic evils of Europe.^ 
 The chief of the English government, the old Earl 
 of Derby, complained bitterly of the horrible trick 
 which the proposition emanating from St. Peters- 
 burg had played him, and there has never been any 
 doubt in England but that it was brought about by 
 a telegram sent from Paris. Not less serviceable 
 
 1 It is true that, in a circular of the 27th May, 1859, the Russian 
 vice-chancellor took care to give a commentary to his proposition, 
 and to prove that the congress which he had planned looked to noth- 
 ing chimerical. " This congress," said he, " did not place any power in 
 preserue of the unknown : its programme had been traced in advance. 
 The fundamental idea which had presided at this combination, prej- 
 udiced no essential interest. On one side, the state of territorial pos- 
 session was maintained, and on the other there could come from the 
 congress a result which had nothing excessive or unusual in the inter- 
 national relations." It would be well to re-read this remarkable cir- 
 cular, and to weigh every word of it. One will find in it the most 
 curious and substantial criticism, made, so to speak, by anticipation, 
 of the different projects of the congress, those which later the Em- 
 peror Napoleon III. was to present to Europe, especially the eccen- 
 tric project which surprised the world in the imperial speech of the 
 5th November, 1863. 
 
86 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 for France did the Russian vice-chancellor show 
 himself in his circular of the 27th May, 1859, when 
 he endeavored to calm the warlike ardor of the 
 secondary States of Germany, and it was in this 
 celebrated dispatch that he made the judicious 
 demonstration as well as the merited praise of the 
 "combination purely and exclusively defensive" of 
 the Bund, a salutary combination which permitted 
 the localization of a war become inevitable, "in place 
 of generalizing it and giving to the struggle a char- 
 acter and proportions which escape all human fore- 
 sight." 
 
 Napoleon III. descended to the plains of Lom- 
 bardy ; Austria was vanquished at Magenta and 
 Solferino, and Russia could enjoy its first revenge 
 on the ungrateful Hapsburg, who had " betrayed " it 
 before Sebastopol. The year after, in consequence 
 of the annexation of Savoy, Lord Russell made the 
 solemn declaration to the parliament that his coun- 
 try " should not separate itself from the rest of the 
 nations of Europe ; that it should always be ready to 
 act with the different states, if it did not wish to 
 dread to-day such an annexation, and to-morrow to 
 hear another spoken of." That was the funeral ora- 
 tion of the Anglo-French alliance : four years after 
 the war of the Crimea, France had lost one and then 
 the other of its two great allies in the crisis of the 
 Orient, and Russia did not care* to complain. It 
 did not protest against the annexation of Savoy ; it 
 even declared that it only saw in it a " regular trans^ 
 action ; " but it profited by the moment to make its 
 reentry into .European politics, and bring back on 
 the tapis the question .... of the Ottoman em- 
 
riVO CHANCELLORS. 89 
 
 pire ! The 4th May, i860, Prince Gortchakof con- 
 voked in his cabinet the ambassadors of the great 
 Powers in order to examine with them the " dol- 
 orous and precarious " position of the Christians in 
 Bosnia, Herzegovina and Bulgaria, and soon a cir- 
 cular of the vice-chancellor (20th May) insisted on 
 the reunion of a conference in order to alter the stip- 
 ulations established by the treaty of Paris. " The time 
 of illusions is passed," Alexander Mikhallovitch wrote 
 in this circular ; "all hesitation every adjournment 
 will bring grave inconvenience," and he even seized 
 upon the recent liberation of Italy as an argument 
 for the future independence of the populations who 
 awakened all his solicitude : " the events accom- 
 plished in the east of Europe have resounded in all 
 the Orient like an encouragement and like a hope ! " 
 Thus, scarcely four years after the treaty of Paris, 
 Russia began anew to speak to the world of the 
 " sick man," and to do it, it did not shelter itself, as 
 in the conferences and commissions of 1856-1859, 
 under the protection and language of France ; it 
 went all alone, and took the initiative in the debate ! 
 This was not enough: in that year alone, i860, 
 the cabinet of St. Petersburg regained almost all the 
 ground lost since the war of the Crimea ; that was a 
 year of peculiar fortune for Russia, for it was a year 
 of universal distrust of France. The acquisition of 
 Savoy, the strange and profoundly immoral spectacle 
 which the negotiations of this treaty of Zurich of- 
 fered, torn up even before being signed, the Pied- 
 montese annexations in Italy, the expedition of 
 Garibaldi to Sicily, the "new right" of which the 
 official journals in France spoke, and the famous 
 
9° rH^O CHANCELLORS. 
 
 pamphlet on the " Pope and Congress," had caused 
 the alarm and awakened in the highest degree the 
 uneasiness of Europe. Lord Palmerston declared 
 " that he would only be willing to give his hand to a 
 former ally in holding the other on the buckler of 
 defense," and he armed his volunteers. Switzerland 
 was violently agitated ; the National-Verein swore 
 to die for the defense of the Rhine, and even those 
 honest and peaceful Belgians affirmed in an address 
 to the king that " if their independence was men- 
 aced, they would submit to the most severe trials." 
 Above these popular frights the cabals of the sov- 
 ereigns were agitated ; the German princes united 
 at Baden, and the emperor of the French thought 
 it opportune to surprise them in a measure in the 
 midst of their deliberations by making that " rapid 
 voyage " from which the " Moniteur " promised 
 " very happy results." " Nothing was wanting but 
 the spontaneity of a proceeding so significant," 
 added the official journal, "to put an end to this 
 unanimous concert of malicious rumors and false 
 estimations. In truth, the emperor, in explaining 
 frankly to the sovereigns united at Baden how his 
 policy never conflicted with right and justice, carried 
 to minds equally distinguished and equally exempt 
 from prejudices, the conviction which does not fail to 
 be inspired by a true sentiment expressed with loy- 
 alty." It appeared, however, that the conviction had 
 not worked completely on the prejudices, for, at the 
 close of the reunion of Baden, there was another at 
 Toeplitz, between the Emperor of Austria and the 
 Prince Regent of Prussia, where they agreed on a 
 third which was to be held at Warsaw with the Em- 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 9 1 
 
 peror of Russia, — and the czar accepted the ren- 
 dezvous. 
 
 " It is not a coalition, it is a reconciliation which 
 I am going to make at Warsaw," declared the Em- 
 peror Alexander II. to the French ambassador, the 
 Duke of Montebello, whose government was nat- 
 urally much agitated by the turn affairs were taking. 
 In truth, conciliating expressions were not wanting 
 in the dispatch by which Prince Gortchakof " invited 
 the French government to let him know in what 
 measure it thought that it would be able to second 
 the efforts which Russia was making to prevent the 
 crisis with which Europe was menaced ; " but, how- 
 ever polite these forms were, they did not hide a 
 necessity for explanation. The cabinet of the Tui- 
 leries replied by a memorandum in which it gave, 
 above all, " the categoric engagement not to give 
 any support to Piedmont in case that Austria 
 should be attacked in Venetia." The cabinets of 
 Vienna and Berlin made their remarks on several 
 points of the French memorandum, and addressed 
 them .... to the Russian vice-chancellor, who 
 transmitted them to Paris, with the request for new 
 explanations more explicit and more reassuring. 
 3um total, no positive result came from this meet- 
 ing of the three sovereigns of the North, who had 
 for a moment caused very grave apprehensions in 
 France. This was because the Emperor Alexander 
 had gone to Warsaw only in a particular interest ; 
 he did not wish to make a coalition nor a reconcilia- 
 tion there ; he simply wished to show his influence : 
 to give a demonstration of his power. He was 
 flattered at seeing these sovereigns, these Gerrnan 
 
92 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 princes, coming to the former capital of Poland to 
 deliberate there on the general situation, and to re- 
 ceive the word of command : that recalled the good 
 days of the Emperor Nicholas. On the other side, 
 Russia was very much pleased at making France 
 feel the whole price of its friendship, at making it 
 understand that its services had now a much greater 
 value, perhaps even their tariff. The clever pro- 
 ductions which emanated successively in these years 
 1 856-1 860 from the chancellor's ofi&ce at St. Peters- 
 burg, indicated in a very plastic manner the contin- 
 ually ascending advance of Russia since the peace 
 of Paris. In the first of these celebrated circulars, 
 it declared "that it did not sulk, but meditated;" 
 in the second, on the occasion of the Italian com- 
 plications, it already emerged "from the reserve 
 which it had imposed on itself since the war of the 
 Crimea." After the annexation of Savoy " its con- 
 science warned it of being any longer silent on the 
 unhappy state of the Christians in the Orient, etc." 
 At last, in the month of October, i860, it was the 
 mouth-piece of the general interests of Europe, the 
 intermediary which demanded explanations from the 
 cabinets of the Tuileries. A modest prot^g^e of 
 France, and full of " reserves " until the war in Italy, 
 it ascends in 1859 to the rank of a "precious friend," 
 to become after the interview of Warsaw the impor- 
 tant and almost indispensable ally, — an ally very 
 resolute in not accepting a secondary rdle, in guard- 
 ing its position of marked influence, in taking for 
 itself a large part in the great combinations of the 
 future. 
 
 Assuredly the desultory, undecisive, and eternally 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 93 
 
 contradictory folicy of the Emperor Napoleon III. 
 played into the hands of Russia. But it is just to 
 acknowledge that Prince Gortchakof allowed no 
 chance of fortune to escape, and that without creat- 
 ing the events, he understood admirably how to 
 profit by them. The superiority of the statesman 
 always reveals itself by the measure which he pre- 
 serves in his " cordiality 'Vand even in his vengeance, 
 by the foreseeing mind which he does not cease to 
 preserve even in the midst of the allurements of suc- 
 cess. It is not doubtful for instance that the warn- 
 ings of Russia after the battle of Solferino, the fears 
 which it then suddenly expressed of not being able 
 longer to restrain Germany in its ardor to go to 
 the rescue of Austria, contributed greatly to the 
 hasty peace of Villafranca, and, however fatal this 
 event was as regards the interests of France and 
 even of Austria, one cannot deny that Russia accom- 
 plished its purpose perfectly. In fact, the complete 
 execution of the programme " of the Alps to the Ad- 
 riatic " would have probably given an entirely differ- 
 ent turn to the Italian affairs, would certainly have 
 rendered possible in the future a sincere reconcilia- 
 tion between France and Austria, while the half 
 drawn solution by the peace of Villafranca, leaving 
 all the questions in suspense, could only embitter the 
 relations of the two belligerents, and render the 
 friendship of Russia more precious to France. On 
 the other side, this campaign of Lombardy, while 
 giving satisfaction to the Muscovite hatred sprung 
 from the war of the Orient, was still far from de- 
 stroying one of the fundamental elements of the tra- 
 ditional policy of the czars as regards Germany. In 
 
94 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 spite of the loss of Milan,- Austria preserved its posi- 
 tion intact in the centre of Europe, was a balance 
 for Prussia, and the interview of Warsaw proved that 
 the Russian influence among the Germanic States 
 had certainly not decreased. 
 
 Not less circumspect and skillful did the Russian 
 vice-chancellor show himself in not compromising too 
 far in his connivances with the Emperor Napoleon 
 III. during these years 1 856-1 860, certain general 
 principles of preservation which had made the great- 
 ness and strength of the reign of Nicholas. With- 
 out doubt, in Servia, in the Danubian Principalities, 
 Alexander MikhaJlovitch was not of a vigorous or- 
 thodoxy, and allowed popular votes to annul there 
 the arrangements stipulated by the treaties ; but 
 in comparison with those countries of the Orient 
 Russia has always allowed itself many political 
 licenses. In the affairs of the Occident, on the 
 contrary. Prince Gortchakof took care to remain 
 as far as possible in the traditions and not to over- 
 turn too much in the " new right." He let the jour- 
 nals and periodicals of Moscow and St. Petersburg 
 plume themselves at their ease on what Russia 
 boldly contributed to the deliverance of the peoples 
 and to the triumph of nationalities ; for himself, in 
 the documents dated at his office, he refrained care- 
 fully from all these neologisms and persevered in 
 the terminology consecrated by the old diplomatic 
 language. In these documents he had not spoken 
 at all of the national aspirations nor of the popular 
 votes, when Milan and Savoy changed masters ; in 
 the eyes of the Russian vice-chancellor, all these 
 were simply facts of war, "regular transactions." 
 
TIVO CHANCELLORS. 95 
 
 Still less did he care to make the revolutionary prop- 
 aganda abroad and to associate himself in the com- 
 merce of exportation which, according to a malicious 
 remark of those days, Napoleon III. had undertaken 
 with liberal ideas. He declined categorically all par- 
 ticipation in the remonstrances addressed to the 
 King of Naples, and declared in his circular of the 
 22d September, 1856, "that to wish to obtain from a 
 sovereign concessions as to the internal government 
 of his states in a comminatory manner of by men- 
 acing demonstrations, was to substitute one's self 
 violently on one's own authority, to govern in his 
 place, and to proclaim without disguise the right of 
 the strong over the weak." Lastly, in his famous 
 note to Prince Gagarin e of the loth October, i860, 
 he took up the Sardinian government roundly for its 
 conduct in Emilia, Tuscany, the Duchies of Parma 
 and Modena, and strongly opposed the deposal of 
 these princes and the annexations of those provinces, 
 which six years later he was to tolerate, even favor 
 in Germany. " It is no longer," he said in the dis- 
 patch to Prince Gagarine, " a question of Italian in- 
 terests, but of general interests, common to all gov- 
 ernments, it is a question which is directly connected 
 with those eternal laws without which, neither order, 
 peace, nor security can exist in Europe." Finally, 
 he sneered at those Jenners of politics who recom- 
 mend the vaccination of anarchy to remove from it 
 its pernicious character, and who, pretend to remove 
 the arms from the demagogy in appropriating to 
 themselves its baggage ; " the necessity in which the 
 Sardinian government pretends to be situated in 
 combating anarchy does not justify it, since it only 
 
96 ' TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 moves with the revolution to recover by it its heri- 
 tage" In a word, the Russian vice-chancellor prof- 
 ited with prodigious dexterity by the good dispo- 
 sition of France and still more by its errors, with- 
 out ever sacrificing the will, the decorum, and the 
 principles of his own government to it. He made 
 use of the Emperor Napoleon III. without using him 
 too much, and above all without ever subjecting him- 
 self to an order of ideas in which Russia could find 
 any deception. For the good of Russia, for the 
 happiness of Europe, it would have been desirable 
 for Prince Gortchakof to have observed later, in his 
 intimacy with Prussia, a little of that care and that 
 intelligent egotism which he gave proof of in such a 
 superior manner in his intimacy with France. "To 
 love, there must be two," said the great theologian of 
 the Middle Ages on the subject that those centuries 
 of faith called divine love, the relations of the human 
 soul with its heavenly Creator. The precept is as- 
 suredly much more to be recommended in the much 
 less mystical relations between the powers of the 
 earth, and the Russian vice-chancellor did not for- 
 get it during that first period of his ministry, during 
 those years of " cordiality " with the cabinet of the 
 Tuileries. It was only during the second period that 
 the heart of Alexander Mikhavlovitch began to con- 
 trol the right of the state, and that the love for M. 
 de Bismarck proved to be stronger than the world, 
 stronger even than Russia and its interests. 
 
 II. 
 
 While Prince Gortchakof thus reaped the fruits 
 of his " French " policy, among which that of ven- 
 
riVO CHANCELLORS. 97 
 
 geance on Austria was surely not the least sweet or 
 pleasant, his former colleague of Frankfort, having 
 become representative of Prussia at the court of Rus- 
 sia, was consumed at his side by the languishing 
 fever of a man of action trammeled by foolish prob- 
 ity. He had arrived at St. Petersburg in the spring 
 of the year 1859, three months after the famous 
 birthday reception given to M. de Hiibner by the 
 Emperor Napoleon III. ; the Italian complications 
 were about to break out, and the Russian vice-chan- 
 cellor lent himself to all those diplomatic tricks 
 which, according to the desire of the cabinet of the 
 Tuileries, would drive the Emperor Francis Joseph 
 to a declaration of war. The new plenipotentiary 
 of Prussia at the court of St. Petersburg had not a 
 moment of doubt concerning the bearing which his 
 government should observe in circumstances so pro- 
 pitious. It was from this time (12th May, 1859) that 
 his confidential dispatch to M. de Schleinitz dates, 
 in which he recommends the rupture with the Bund, 
 the radical proceeding by sword and fire, ferro et 
 igne. In the preceding year, during a journey to 
 Paris, he had occasion to have an interview with 
 the Emperor of the French, and to recognize his 
 good will toward Prussia, and the unqualified wishes 
 which were expressed in the Tuileries for the great- 
 ness and the prosperity of the country of Frederick 
 11. and of Bliicher. In the month of November of 
 that same year 1858, Napoleon III. had charged the 
 Marquis Pepoli, then en route for Berlin, to represent 
 to the Hohenzollem all the advantages which he 
 would find in a rupture with Austria : " In Germany," 
 the Emperor of the French had said, " Austria rep- 
 7 
 
98 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 resents the past, Prussia represents the future; in 
 linking itself to Austria, Prussia condemns itself 
 to immobility ; it cannot be thus contented; it is 
 called to a higher fortune ; it should accomplish in 
 Germany the great destinies which await it, and 
 which Germany awaits from it." ^ Thus thought the 
 future prisoner of Wilhelmshoehe on the eve of Ma- 
 genta and Solferino, and "his excellency the lieu- 
 tenant" certainly found no objections in such a 
 magnificent programme. But those good ministers 
 of the new era at Berlin unfortunately had not the 
 slightest notion of the "new right," and up to the 
 prince regent himself, they did not cease to speak 
 of conquests purely moral. They even asked one 
 another at Potsdam if they should not assist Austria, 
 and whether they did not have federal obligations 
 towards the Emperor Francis Joseph ! The Sam- 
 son of the Mark strove in vain against the ties 
 which the "Philistines of the Spree" imposed on 
 him, and the war in Italy became his Dalila : in fact, 
 it was from this epoch that the renowned boldness 
 of the present chancellor of Germany dates. 
 
 It .is interesting to study, in the confidential let- 
 ters to Malvina, the state of mind of M. de Bismarck 
 during these years 1 859-1 860. At the commence- 
 ment of hostilities, and evidently despairing of see- 
 ing his government adopt the line of conduct which 
 he had not ceased to recommend, he left his post, 
 went to Moscow to visit the Kremlin, passed an 
 agreeable day in a villa, so much more agreeable 
 " when one has the feeling of being sheltered from 
 the telegraph." The news of a great battle fought 
 
 1 Massari, // Conte Cavour, p. 268. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 99 
 
 in Lombardy (Magenta) caused him, nevertheless, to 
 return to St. Petersburg. "Perhaps there will be 
 something for the diplomats to do." At St; Peters- 
 burg, he learns of the strange desire at Berlin of 
 interceding for Austria, of mobilizing the federal 
 armies, and from it he conceived the greatest appre- 
 hensions for his country. He became ill. A very 
 grave case of hepatitis endangered his life seriously. 
 " They covered my body with innumerable cupping 
 glasses large as saucers, with mustard poultices and 
 quantities of blisters, and I was already half way to 
 a better world when I began to convince my doc- 
 tors that my nerves were disordered by eight years 
 of griefs and excitement without intermission (the 
 eight years of Frankfort !), and that by continuing to 
 weaken me, they would lead me into typhoid fever 
 or imbecility. My good constitution ended by con- 
 quering, thanks, above all, to several dozen bottles 
 of good wine." 
 
 His good disposition did not the less remain dull 
 and morose, and two months later he avowed that he 
 would not have been sorry to have ended his life 
 then. Austria was vanquished, it is true ; she had 
 lost two great battles and one of the richest prov- 
 inces ; but Prussia had not drawn any material, pal- 
 pable advantage from this disaster of the Hapsburg, 
 and the cavalier of the Mark was not the man to 
 "cherish, like his friend Alexander Mikhallovitch, a 
 purely Platonic hatred. He consoled himself, how- 
 ever, by the thought that the peace of Villafranca 
 was only a truce : " to wish in the present state of 
 affairs to seriously reconcile Austria with France, is 
 to labor at the squaring of the circle." "I shall 
 
100 TIVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 endeavor," he wrote at the approach of autumn, 
 1859, "'^o cower in my bear-skin, and to bury my- 
 self in the snow ; in the thaw of next May, I will see 
 what remains of me and our affairs ; if too little I 
 shall definitely settle with politics." The following 
 month of May brought grave events ; the annex- 
 ation of Savoy became the signal for the greatest 
 distrust in Europe, of which we have spoken above : 
 but the cabinet of Berlin persisted in its ancient 
 course, and the prince regent had, in July, an in- 
 terview with the Emperor Francis Joseph at Toep- 
 litz. " I learn," wrote the representative of Prussia 
 at the court of St. Petersburg with undisguised spite, 
 " that we have been shaved at Toeplitz, splendidly 
 shaved ; we have let ourselves be taken in by the 
 Viennese good nature. And all that for nothing, not 
 even the smallest plate of lentils." At last, in the 
 month of October, after Castelfidardo and the con- 
 quest of the kingdom of Naples, the cabinet of Ber- 
 lin addressed an energetic note to M. de Cavour, on 
 the bearing of the House of Savoy on the Italian 
 peninsula. The note established that " it is solely 
 in the legal manner of reforms, and in respecting the 
 existing rights, that a regular government is allowed 
 to realize the legitimate wishes of nations," and 
 closes by the following passage : " Called to express 
 ourselves on the acts and principles of the Sardinian 
 government, we can only deplore them profoundly, 
 and we believe that we are fulfilling a rigorous duty 
 by expressing in the most explicit and formal man- 
 ner our disapprobation, both of those principles and 
 of the application which has been thought could be 
 made of them." One can imagine what bad humor 
 
TfFO CHANCELLORS. lOI 
 
 such natvetis would cause to the future destroyer 
 of the Bund, to the future spoliator of Denmark, 
 of Hanover, and so many other states. He again 
 thought of leaving the career ; he resolved in any 
 case to "cling to the situation of an observer," as 
 regards the monstrous poUcy which was pursued at 
 Berlin. He is perfectly astonished at the scandal 
 which is caused on the banks of the Spree by the 
 publication of the posthumous journal of M. de 
 Varnhagen, a journal full of piquant revelations 
 concerning the court of Prussia. " Why be so in- 
 dignant. Is it not taken from life t Varnhagen is 
 vain and mdchant, but who is not "i Does it not all 
 depend on the manner in which nature has ripened 
 our' lives .' According to what we have suffered 
 from the bites of worms, from dampness, or from the 
 sun, behold us sweet, sour, or rotten." 
 
 That did not hinder him, however, from carefully 
 cultivating, during these years 1 859-1 860, his rela- 
 tions with the political world of St. Petersburg from 
 taking root there, and from attaching by a thousand 
 ties the fortune of his country to this friendship of 
 Russia, of which he understood all the value. The . 
 position of the representatives of Prussia has always I 
 been exceptional at St. Petersburg ; thanks to the/ 
 near relationship of the two courts, they enjoyed in! 
 the winter palace a confidence and intimacy which thd 
 envoys of other states scarcely ever obtained there.' 
 M. de Bismarck was able to add to these favorable 
 conditions the influence of his personal merit, and 
 the good reputation which he had acquired, in a Rus- 
 sian point of view, during his long sojourn at Frank- 
 fort. His former journeys in Courland had made him 
 
102 TIVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 known and liked by the German nobility of the Bal- 
 tic Provinces, by the Keyserlingk, the Uxkiill, the 
 Nolde, the Bruvern, etc., always so influential at 
 court, in the chancellor's office, and in Russian di- 
 plomacy. " The first prophets of the future greatness 
 of M. de Bismarck," says an author very au fait in the 
 society of St. Petersburg, "the first who predicted 
 the providential mission which was reserved for him 
 in Germany, were perhaps those barons of Courland 
 and Livonia with whom the present chancellor of 
 Germany had so often passed the hunting season, 
 shared their amusements, their banquets, and their 
 political conversations." ^ The representative of 
 Prussia at the court of St. Petersburg took care, 
 however, not to give himself up too much to this 
 liking for the Courlanders and Livonians ; he was 
 careful to place in his affections, or at least in his 
 demonstrations, the greatest part in Russian Russia, 
 autochthonal Muscovy (nastatastchaid). This enthu- 
 siasm for the customs and genius of the " Scythians," 
 this love for the " bear-skin and caviare," was it very 
 sincere } We may perhaps doubt it ; it is allowable 
 to suppose that the man who, in the name of his Ger- 
 manic superiority, has so often and boldly expressed 
 his disdain for the Welches and Latins, feels at bot- 
 tom a still greater contempt for that Sclavic race 
 which every good German makes rhyme with slave 
 (slave-esclave)? However that may be, never did 
 
 1 Aus der Petersiurger Geselhchaft, vol. ii. p. 90. 
 
 2 In 1862, at the moment of definitely leaving his post at St. Pe- 
 tersburg, M. de Bismarck received the visit of a colleague, a foreign 
 diplomat. They were speaking of Russia, and the future chancellor 
 of Germany said, among other things, " I am in the habit, when 
 leaving a country where I have lived long, to consecrate to it one of 
 
TIVO CHANCELLORS. I03 
 
 foreign ambassador on the banks of the Neva have 
 so much devotion as the cavalier of the Mark for the 
 polar stars, or pushed as far as he did the passion of 
 local color. He pushed it so far as to introduce into 
 his house several little bears which (as formerly the 
 foxes at Kniephof) came, at the dinner hour, bound- 
 ing into the dining hall, agreeably deranging the con- 
 vives, licking the hand of their master, and " biting 
 the calves of the servants' legs." ^ A worthy Nimrod, 
 he never missed an expedition against the black king 
 of the boreal forests ; he did not fail to don on these 
 occasions the Muscovite hunting costume, and the 
 team of horses a la Russe has remained dear to him 
 up to the present, and even in the streets of Berlin. 
 He also affected to interest himself greatly in the 
 literary movement of the country ; he had a Rus- 
 sian professor in his house, and he learned enough 
 of it to be able to give his orders to those people 
 in their native idiom, even to delightfully surprise 
 one day the Emperor Alexander with some phrases 
 pronounced in the language of Pouchkine. 
 
 The Russians could not help giving a most cordial 
 reception to a diplomat who showed himself so taken 
 with their usages and customs, with their pleasures 
 and their " peculiarities," and who, moreover, had the 
 advantage of succeeding to that good M. de Werther, 
 whose reputation, neither there nor anywhere else, 
 was exactly that of a too hilarious character. On the 
 
 my watch charms, on which I have engraved the final impression 
 which it has left me ; do you wish to know the impression which I 
 carry from St. Petersburg .' " And he showed to the puzzled diplo- 
 mat a little charm on which these words were engraved : " Russia is 
 nothingness ! " 
 
 1 M. de Bismarck has since presented these quadrupeds to the 
 zoological garden of the former free city of Frankfort. 
 
I04 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 contrary, they had never known on the banks of the 
 Neva a Prussian as gay as this excellent M. de Bis- 
 marck, as good a fellow, as good a liver, having a 
 loud laugh, coarse jests, and a witty speech. He 
 indulged in all sorts of pleasantries at the expense 
 of the " Philistines of the Spree," the " old fogies 
 of Potsdam," which gave him no small success : a 
 minister plenipotentiary slandering his own govern- 
 ment, a grumbling, fault-findiiig diplomat in the 
 very political sphere which he had the mission to 
 represent and to second, that was an originality 
 which could be appreciated by a world always on the 
 watch for \h& piquant and pleasing. He knew how 
 to please the empress-mother Helen, whose influence 
 at court was considerable, and whose warm support 
 never failed him in consequence, in the most grave 
 moments of his career as minister. The emperor 
 had conceived a great affection for him, invited him 
 regularly to his bear hunts, and did him the honor of 
 admitting him in his cortege during his journeys to 
 Warsaw and Breslau to meet the Prince Regent of 
 Prussia. As for Prince Gortchakof, he enjoyed more 
 than ever the society of his former colleague of 
 Frankfort, and the salons often repeated a malicious 
 mot, a m^chant insinuation of v^hich Austria gen- 
 erally had to bear the brunt, and the paternity of 
 which they indifferently attributed first to one then 
 to the other of these two friends, grown inseparable, 
 and whom spiteful intrigues nevertheless wished to 
 separate ! At the end of 1 859, M. de Bismarck wrote 
 in a confidential letter : " Austria and its dear con- 
 federates are intriguing at Berlin to have me recalled 
 from here : I am, however, very amiable. God's will 
 be done ! " 
 
TIVO CHANCELLORS. I OS 
 
 At Berlin, in the mean time, they began little by 
 little to glide down a declivity, which would have 
 caused Prussian politics to descend rapidly from the 
 cloudy regions of the new era upon that ground of 
 realities and of action to which the tried friend of 
 Alexander Mikhallovitch had so long invited them, 
 and, curiously enough, it was precisely the mobiliza- 
 tion of the Prussian army in 1859, the mobilization 
 so condemned by M. de Bismarck, which was the im- 
 mediate cause of this sudden revival fraught with 
 incalculable consequences. It is fashionable now in 
 France to represent the Prussian government as hav- 
 ing meditated for half a century a war of revenge and 
 conquest, slowly brightening their arms, and train- 
 ing a succession of generations for the decisive hour 
 of combat. There is nothing more false, however. 
 Neither the government of Frederick William III., 
 nor. that of Frederick William IV. ever cherished war- 
 like projects, and even the humiliation of Olmiitz was 
 not an incentive to the minister of war at Berlin. 
 The two predecessors of William I. only sacrificed to 
 the miUtary spirit just that which was necessary to 
 insure them a stand among the great Powers, to hold 
 reviews, and to be able to speak of their faithful 
 troops, and of their always valiant swords ; at bot- 
 tom, they were not far from thinking like the Grand 
 Duke Constantine, the brother of the Emperor 
 Nicholas, who one day said naitvely : " I detest war, 
 it spoils the afAries ! " The swords of Bliicher and 
 Scharnhorst were sheathed since 1815 ; even the 
 adoption of the needle gun in 1847 was only an ac- 
 cident, rather a scientific experiment; in 1848 and 
 1849, ^'^ Prussian troops did not shine with marvel- 
 
 ^'t-'t^ t^T)- '^4.4^ / 
 
I06 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 ous iclat in the war of the Duchies, and were even 
 miserably held in check by the undisciplined bands 
 of the insurrection of Posen and Baden. The brother 
 of the king, who had commanded the troops in 
 Baden, was grievously moved at the sight which his 
 soldiers then presented, and, having become regent of 
 the kingdom (October, 1858), he immediately turned 
 his attention to military reform. Nevertheless it was 
 only the mobilization attempted during the Italian 
 complications (in the summer of 1859) which opened 
 their eyes to all the grave inconveniences and inco- 
 herencies of the organization till then in force. Two 
 superior men, MM. de Moltke and de Roon, joined 
 with the prince regent in remodeling the system 
 from the very bottom. They displayed in it an in- 
 telligence, an energy, and a rapidity without equal in 
 history ; they knew how to profit by all the discover- 
 ies of science, and above all did not let the great les- 
 son escape them which a formidable civil war in 
 North America soon taught, a war so rich in experi- 
 ments and inventions of every kind. In spite of the 
 obstacles which were thrown in their way without 
 cessation from all sides, these two men, at the end 
 of six years, produced an armed force, entirely new, 
 powerful, invincible ; and " the instrument," still 
 rough and rudimentary in i860, proved its ill omened 
 " perfection " on the calamitous day of Sadowa ! Not 
 less erroneous is the opinion, very generally spread, 
 however, that the Prussian people had demanded of 
 its government victories and aggrandizement ; to 
 refute these perfectly gratuitous suppositions, it suf- 
 fices to remember that the different parliaments of 
 Berlin did not cease to oppose military reform, and 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 10/ 
 
 that they had on their side the almost unanimous 
 voice of the people. The ideas of German greatness, 
 of German power, of the German mission, haunt the 
 imagination of professors and authors much more 
 than that of the people ; they were academic themes, 
 choice morsels of rhetoric and opposition, still they 
 are much more in vogue south of the Main than 
 north of this river, — and precisely there appears the 
 astounding art of M. de Bismarck in having known 
 how, to speak with Munchausen, " to condense mists 
 into stones of size for a gigantic edifice," and to make 
 of a dream of savans a popular passion. The force 
 of will, the force of character, and in one word the 
 genius, can still, even in a century of democratic lev- 
 eling and uniform mediocrity play a role, of which 
 our poor philosophy of history scarcely had a sus- 
 picion, which drowns so skillfully all responsibility 
 and initiative in the blind fatality of the " masses," 
 and, as a Teutonic proverb says, cannot distinguish 
 the trees on account of looking at the forest. Take 
 from the most recent history of Prussia three or four 
 men who answer to the names of William I., Moltke, 
 Roon, and Bismarck, and the old Barbarossa would 
 very probably up to the present time have continued 
 his secular, sleep in the cave of the Kyffhauser. 
 
 Nature delights as well in analogies as in con- 
 trasts, and it is thus that the antecedents of this 
 prince regent, who to-day bears the name of William 
 I., Emperor of Germany, does not fail to present 
 some similarity with the past of the extraordinary 
 man, who, at the destined hour, was to forge for him, 
 ferro et igne, the imperial crown of Barbarossa. In 
 order to be enlightened concerning these antece- 
 
 *\ 
 
I08 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 dents, it is necessary to turn to the pbsthumous 
 "Journal" of M. Varnhagen von Ense, — the liberal, 
 crabbed Dangeau, compromising in the highest de- 
 gree, amiable as a whole, of the court of Berlin, — 
 the same "Journal" whose defense we have seen 
 M. de Bismarck undertake in a confidential letter, 
 •against the clamors which this publication had awak- 
 ened in the capital of Prussia. There is no doubt 
 that Prince William made an energetic opposition to 
 the liberal desires which had signaled the debuts of 
 the reign of his brother, King Frederick William IV. 
 He had begun to work out at this epoch memoirs 
 for consulting which established his right of veto in 
 every amendment of the fundamental laws of the 
 state. The rumor of a formal protest in his name 
 and in that of his descendants against every project 
 of constitution, found credit for a moment even in 
 the heart of the ministry; and under no conditions 
 would he give his consent to the feudal " charter " 
 granted by his brother the 3d of February, 1847, 
 except on the express reservation that the States 
 should not decide on the budget, and should never oc^ 
 cupy themselves with foreign affairs. And the un- 
 poplarity of the heir presumptive was great before 
 the revolution of 1848 ; during the fatal month of 
 March of that year, it was against him especially that 
 the fury of the inhabitants of Berlin was let loose, who 
 attributed to him (and wrongly) the order given to 
 the troops to fire on the people. He was then forced 
 to leave the country on a " mission " to London, and 
 the multitude did not forego the satisfaction of in- 
 scribing on the palace of the fugitive the words of 
 national property. Returned from England after the 
 
TIVO CHANCELLORS. lOg 
 
 appeasement of the revolutionary effervescence, he 
 placed himself, in 1849, ^t the head of the troops to 
 stifle in Baden a ridiculous insurrection, and feigned 
 "important military operations," which kept him in 
 the south of Germany, so as not to be present at the 
 solemn session of the 6th February, 1850, when King 
 Frederick William IV. took his oath to the definite 
 statute. 
 
 Afterwards, however, especially towards the last 
 years of the disenchanted and morose reign of his 
 brother, the Prince of Prussia commenced to relax 
 in his "reactionary" vigor, and especially made a 
 sufficiently marked opposition to the " pietist " in- 
 fluences at the court of Potsdam. Affections and 
 family considerations contributed also in creating 
 for the prince a peculiar situation. The esteem and 
 tenderness with which Frederick William IV. sur- 
 rounded his wife did not always console her for the 
 sterility with which she was afflicted, and the sight 
 of a sister-in-law a happy mother of children des- 
 tined for the throne, probably to be called some 
 day to occupy the throne, produced coolness and 
 irritation which the wife of the heir presumptive 
 sharply resented. The Princess Augusta was not 
 of a disposition to bear certain thrusts. Sprung 
 from that House of Weimar which was always dis- 
 tinguished by its taste for arts afid pleasure, she 
 early had her own acquaintances, friendships, and 
 a bearing sufficiently different from the ordinary 
 way of the court to resemble occasionally a diver- 
 gence sought after with intention. The wishes 
 of the Princess Augusta did not fail to finally ex- 
 ercise their influence on her husband, and the proj- 
 
no TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 ect, long nursed by the august couple, realized at 
 last in 1857, of uniting their eldest son with the 
 daughter of Queen Victoria, was regarded as the 
 first concession made to popular opinion. In fact, 
 courtiers were not wanting at Potsdam, the ter- 
 rible M. de Varnhagen tells us, who asked in their 
 soul and conscience if it were quite worthy of the 
 House of Hohenzollern to ally itself by blood with 
 a dynasty which was only half sovereign, and held 
 in dependence by a house of commons ! How 
 the times and customs have changed at this court 
 of Potsdam which last year saw the heiress pre- 
 sumptive of the throne of Prussia and Germany, 
 this same daughter of Queen Victoria, send affec- 
 tionate telegrams to Doctor Strauss when dying, 
 and render to the author of the " Life of Jesus " 
 an homage in extremis which transported with en- 
 thusiasm all the valiant cavaliers of the combat of 
 civilization ! 
 
 Habituated in a manner, and for several years al- 
 ready, to consider the brother of the king as recon- 
 ciled to modern ideas and favorable to the cause of 
 progress, the nation was much less astonished than 
 charmed to hear him, on his accepting the regency, 
 use liberal and constitutional language. A "new 
 era " was to commence for Prussia ; that word was 
 almost officially 'adopted to designate the change of 
 system, and in a memorable address, delivered on 
 the 8th November, 1858, to the cabinet which he 
 had formed, the prince regent sketched the pro- 
 gramme of a reparative policy. He besought his 
 councilors to bring about ameliorations in that 
 which was arbitrary or contrary to the wants of the 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. Ill 
 
 epoch. While defending himself against a danger- 
 ous laisser aller towards liberal ideas, and expressing 
 the will " to courageously hinder that which has not 
 been promised," he did not the less proclaim the 
 duty of keeping with loyalty the contracted engage- 
 ments, and of not hindering useful reforms. Tl\e 
 address ended with the phrase become celebrated, 
 and since then so frequently cited, "that Prussia 
 should make ' moral conquests in Germany^ " 
 
 The harmony between the regent and, the nation 
 was not, however, of long duration; the relations 
 were not slow in cooling and proceeding towards a 
 complete rupture, thanks especially to the projected 
 reform of the army. The prince had this reform at 
 heart : the wants of 1859 had only convinced him of 
 the absolute urgency of a measure with which his 
 mind had been occupied for many years ; but the 
 deputies of the nation refused to follow him in this 
 road, and opposed him tenaciously and firmly. They 
 did not understand the obstinacy which the prince 
 displayed in a project which answered neither to the 
 wants nor to the aspirations of the country, and 
 they laughed at those who pretended that once in 
 possession of his new " instrument," the Hohenzol- 
 lern, would do great things ! They had resisted 
 judiciously, says a German author, the temptation 
 of the parliament of Frankfort in 1849, and the 
 provocation of Olmiitz in 1850; they had let pass 
 the opportunities which the wars of 1854 and 1859 
 presented. The love of peace was absolute, there 
 was a complete absence of ambition, they were 
 perfectly resigned to the political situation which 
 they occupied, and on the other side no one wished 
 
112 riVO CHAN'CELLORS. 
 
 to admit that a kingdom so peaceable could be 
 menaced by neighbors. In such a state of affairs, 
 every aggrandizement of the army drawing after it 
 an increase of military and financial charges, already 
 heavy enough for the citizens, only seemed to the 
 country an inconceivable caprice of its rulers." ^ 
 The chambers refused the demanded credit ; the 
 government went its way and continued its expendi- 
 tures. The military question thus became a ques- 
 tion of budget, and soon transformed itself into an 
 irremediable constitutional conflict. Towards the 
 end of 1 86 1, no other remedy could be seen for the 
 situation but a coup d'etat. 
 
 Not less profound and irresistible was soon the 
 change in the ideas of the court of Potsdam, as re- 
 garded the external policy. In proportion as the 
 " instrument " perfected itself (and it perfected itself 
 rapidly), one began to ask one's self about the most 
 practical and fruitful employment for it. One did 
 not yet distinctly know what one wished, but one 
 wished it with strength, with the strength which one 
 drew from the battalions increasing without cessa- 
 tion. Assuredly one always saw nothing but moral 
 conquests in Germany, but one thought that a moral 
 in action, aided somewhat by needle gians, would 
 give excellent results. The atmosphere was charged 
 with electricity and with the principles of nationality, 
 and it was not only the professors and orators of the 
 National Verein who recommended a " united Ger- 
 many with a Prussian point {mit preussiscker Spitze)." 
 When, in the month of October, i860, the envoy of 
 
 1 Constantin Roessler, Graf Bismarck und die deutsche Nation, 
 Berlin, 187 1. 
 
TIVO CHANCELLORS. IIJ 
 
 Prussia, Count Brassier de Saint-Simon, read to 
 Count Cavour the famous note of M. de Schleinitz 
 against the Italian annexations, the president of the 
 Sardinian council listened in silence to the harangue, 
 then expressed his great regret at having displeased 
 the government of Berlin on this point, but declared 
 that he consoled himself with the thought that." Prus- 
 sia would one day, thanks to Piedmont, profit by the 
 example which he had given it." In France, the 
 journals of the democratic authority, the devoted 
 organs of the " new right," did not cease to praise 
 the " Piedmontese mission " of the House of Hohen- 
 zollern, and we have recalled above the encourage^ 
 ments which Napoleon III. sent to Berlin after 1858. 
 The visit made by King William I.^ to the Emperor 
 of the French at Compi^gne in the month of Octo- 
 ber, 1861, was in this respect a symptom more sig- 
 nificant, since none of the sovereigns of the North 
 had till then given this mark of courtesy to the 
 choice of universal suffrage. Strange rumors began 
 to spread concerning the alliance of the three courts 
 of the Tuileries, of St. Petersburg, and of Berlin, and 
 they continued up to the month of March, 1863.. 
 Publications of mysterious origin, but which denoted! 
 a very specious knowledge of political affairs, spoke 
 of the "great combination of states summing up in 
 three races, — the Roman, Germanic, and Sclavic, — 
 to which corresponded three centres of gravity, 
 France, Prussia, and Russia, and of the definite 
 establishment of the peace of the world by means 
 of a triple alliance of universal monarchies, in which 
 
 1 Frederick William IV. having died the 2d January, 1861, the 
 prince regent took from that day the name William I. 
 8 
 
114 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 their full expression {Absckluss) would not only find 
 the three principal races of the European system, 
 but also the three great Christian churches ! " ^ 
 Lord Palmerston declared at this very epoch in' par- 
 liament, with his Britannic d^sinvolture, " that the 
 situation seemed pregnant with at least half a dozen 
 respectable wars ; " and in spite of the obscurity 
 which still covers the transactions bf the years 1861- 
 1862, it is not doubtful that Napoleon III. had then 
 occasionally brought up in his scheming mind a com- 
 bination embracing at once the Orient and the Oc- 
 cident, a combination as vague as gigantic, and of 
 which Prince Gortchakof prepared to profit with his 
 tried dexterity. Whatever these shadowy projects 
 were, the Hohenzollern had only- to be satisfied with 
 his sojourn at Compi^gne, which he was to recall 
 with a certain tenderness two years later in his polite 
 reply to the invitation of the Congress. In October, 
 1 86 1, Napoleon III., at Compi^gne, probably made 
 use of no other language than that which he had 
 used in 1858 at Berlin by the mediation of the Mar- 
 quis Pepoli, the fatidical language, " on the great 
 destinies which awaited Prussia in Germany, and 
 which Germany expected from it.'' 
 
 It was thus that the difficulties from within and 
 the facilities from without, the parliamentary con- 
 flicts in the interior and the political constellations in 
 the exterior united, towards the end of 1 861, in 
 equally urging the King of Prussia to energetic reso- 
 
 1 See the remarkable pamphlet entitled Europa's Cahinete undAl- 
 lianzen, Leipzig, 1862. It is the work of m Russian diplomat, cele- 
 brated in political literature, the same whose book on the PetUarchie 
 had such a loud echo under the monarchy of July. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. IIS 
 
 lutions. A man of vigor was wanted for the vigor- 
 ous actions which were projected, and the glances 
 naturally fell on that grumbling diplomat at St. Pe- 
 tersburg, who, for so many years already, had not 
 ceased to criticise the ministers of the new era, and 
 to blame their conduct from without as well as from 
 within. In spite of the promise which he had given 
 " to confine himself to his situation as an observer," 
 M. de Bismarck had not failed from time to time 
 to give a thrust during those years i860 and 1861, 
 and to repeat without cessation the precept of Straf- 
 ford, the precept of thorough {^ outrance .'). We 
 see him during these years making very frequent 
 journeys to Germany, seeking opportunities of meet- 
 ing the head of the state, of conversing with him on 
 his ideas and presenting him various memoirs. In 
 October, 1861, on the very eve of the journey to 
 Compifegne, he submitted to him a little project, 
 from which he expected some success, and of which it 
 is not so difficult in fact to imagine the tenor, when, 
 above all, one takes care to study a confidential letter 
 written by him a few days before (i8th September, 
 1 861), and directed entirely against a political pro- 
 gramme which the conservative party in Prussia had 
 published. In this curious letter he rises with vio- 
 lence against the Bund, " the hot-bed of particular- 
 ism," demands " a {straffer) firmer concentration of 
 the armed forces of Germany, and a more natural 
 configuration of the frontiers of the States ; " but, 
 above all, he puts his party on guard against the dan- 
 gerous fiction of a solidarity which would exist be- 
 tween all the conservative interests. To triumph over 
 this " dangerous fiction " strongly rooted in certain 
 
Il6 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 ■minds, there was in truth the great difi&culty for the 
 future minister of William I., his omne tulit Jmnctum, 
 for it is not so easy in this order of things to well 
 distinguish between reality and fiction ; it is perhaps 
 even perilous to discuss them, and a Retz would cer- 
 tainly have said of the conservative interests what 
 he so finely remarked of the right of peoples and 
 of that of kings, "that they never agree so well 
 together as in silence." M. de Bismarck was once 
 more obliged to combat this "fiction" at Berlin as 
 at St. Petersburg, and if the mind as open as subtle 
 of. his friend Alexander Mikhallovitch allowed itself 
 most often to be convinced without too much assist- 
 ance, it was not the same with the Hohenzollern, 
 who, afterwards, on many an occasion, and in de- 
 cisive moments, was to feel the scruples, the shud- 
 ders, and what Falstaff calls the " tertian fevers of 
 conscience." 
 
 On the return of William I. from Compifegne, the . 
 nomination of the cavalier of the Mark to the direc- 
 tion of affairs was already a well-arranged and fixed 
 matter. M. de Bismarck soon afterwards came to 
 assist at the coronation of the king at Koenigsberg, 
 and he only returned to St. Petersburg to take leave 
 definitely. At the beginning of the month of May, 
 1862, he was again at Berlin ; at the great military pa- 
 rade which W&.S held in the capital on the occasion of 
 the unveiling of the statue of Count de Brandenburg 
 (17th May), the political men, the deputies, and the 
 high functionaries of state looked upon him already 
 as the future "Polignac" of Prussia. The fears and 
 the hopes which such, a provision excited were not, 
 however, so soon to be realized, and the world was 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. llj 
 
 somewhat perplexed in suddenly learning that M. de 
 Bismarck, was to be appointed to the post in Paris. 
 Did he still hesitate to take charge of the burden of 
 power, and did he in any case prefer to await the 
 result of the new elections which were to be held in 
 Prussia ? It is more probable that before inaugu- 
 rating his government of combat he wished to add 
 some new conversations to those which were held at 
 Compi^gne, to take once again the measure of the 
 man on whom a then universal belief made the desti- 
 nies of Europe depend, and to prepare in general the 
 minds in France for the new policy which he was 
 to inaugurate. 
 
 He only remained at Paris two months, during the 
 two delightful months of May and June, but this 
 short stay sufficed for him both to complete his stud- 
 ies and to throw light on his religion. He had more 
 than one conversation with the sovereign of France, 
 whose profound ideas every one exalted at this time, 
 commented ad infinitum on the smallest words, ad- 
 mired even his silence, and whom he, however, the 
 future conqueror of Sedan, did not hesitate in his 
 confidential effusions to define even then as "a \ 
 great unrecognized incapagity." He saw also the 
 influential men in tKe government, and in society, 
 and strove to rally them to his ideas and his proj- 
 ects. He did not conceal that his sovereign would 
 not delay to appeal to him, and he exposed with- 
 out a detour the line of conduct which he would 
 adopt on such an occurrence. What history will 
 perhaps most admire in the present chancellor of 
 Germany, will be the supreme art with which he 
 sometimes handled the truth : this man of genius 
 
Il8 TIVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 has understood how to give to frankness itself all 
 the political virtues of knavishness. Very artful 
 and very cunning as to the means, he has never- 
 theless always been, as regards the goal which he 
 pursued, of a disinvelture, of an indiscretion with- 
 out equal, and it was thus that he had at Paris in 
 1862 those astonishing and confidential conferences 
 which' only amused and which should have made 
 them reflect.^ 
 
 France, — said M. de Bismarck then and since, in 
 1862 as in 1864 and 1865, every time that he con- 
 versed with any of the political men from the banks 
 of the Seine, — France would be wrong in taking 
 umbrage at the increase in Prussian influence, and, 
 th& case occurring, at its territorial aggrandizement 
 at the cost of the small States. Of what utility, of 
 what help are then those small States, without a will, 
 without strength, without an army ? However far 
 the designs and wants of Prussia could reach,- they 
 would necessarily stop at the Main ; the line of the 
 Main is its natural frontier ; beyond that river, Aus- 
 tria will guard it, even its preponderance will in- 
 crease, and there will thus always be in Germany 
 . two powers balancing one another. Good order will 
 gain, and certainly France will lose nothing there, it 
 will even draw immense advantages for its politics, 
 for its movement in the world. In fact Prussia has 
 an unfortunate, impossible configuration ; it wants a 
 stomach on the side of Cassel and Nassau, it has a 
 dislocated shoulder on the side of Hanover, it is in 
 the air, and this painful situation necessarily con- 
 
 1 See in the Revue des deux Mondes of the ist October, 1868, Les 
 Prlliminaires de Sadowa. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. IIQ 
 
 demns it to follow entirely the policy of Vienna and 
 St. Petersburg, to turn without rest in the orbit 
 of the holy alliance. Better outlined, planted more 
 solidly, having its members complete, it would be it- 
 self again, would have freedom of movements, the 
 freedom of alliances, and what alliance more desirable 
 for it than that with the French Empire ? More than 
 one question pending to-day, and almost unsolvable 
 could have been settled then with perfect security : 
 that of Venice, that of the Orient, — who knows ? 
 perhaps even that of Poland ! Finally, if the possi- 
 ble aggrandizements of Prussia seem to be excessive, 
 and to break the balance of strength what would pre- 
 vent France from growing, from increasing itself in 
 turn ? Why should it not take Belgium, and destroy 
 there a nest of demagogy ? The cabinet of Berlin 
 would not oppose it ; suum cuique, that is the antique 
 and venerable device of the Prussian monarchy. 
 
 All that said with liveliness, with spirit, with intel- 
 ligence, accompanied by many an ingenious mali- 
 cious remark, happy mots on men and things, on 
 that chamber of lords at Berlin, for instance, com- 
 posed of respectable old fogies, and the chamber 
 of deputies, equally composed of old fogies, but not 
 respectable, and on an august personage, the most 
 respectable, but the greatest old fogy of all. M. de 
 Bismarck had at Paris during these two months 
 almost the same success which had accompanied 
 his three years' sojourn on the banks of the Neva. 
 The important men, however, were careful not to 
 overdo it ; they readily recognized in him all the 
 qualities of a man of intellect, but they could not 
 make up their minds to consider him a serious man. I 
 
120 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 In the last days of the month of June, the new 
 representative of Prussia at the court of the Tuile- 
 ries undertook a pleasure trip in the south of France. 
 He visited in turn Chambord, Bordeaux, Avignon, 
 Luchon, Toulouse, and made an excursion in the 
 Pyrenees. " The chateau of Chambord," he wrote 
 in a letter dated the 27th July, 1862, " answers, by 
 its isolation, to the destinies of its possessor. In 
 the great porticoes, in the splendid halls, in which 
 formerly the kings with their mistresses held their 
 court and their hunts, the playthings of the child of 
 the Duke of Bordeaux now form the only furniture. 
 The concierge, who served as my guide, took me for 
 a legitimist, and crushed a tear in showing me a lit- 
 tle cannon of his prince. I paid him a franc more 
 than the tariff for this tear, although I feel but 
 little desire to subsidize Carlism." At Bordeaux 
 he rejoiced in having been able to " study in the 
 original, and in the cellar of those great masters 
 called Lafitte, Mouton, Pichon, Larose, Margaux, 
 Branne, Armillac, etc.," who are generally known in 
 Germany only through bad translations. He is 
 delighted with his tour in the Pyrenees, but above 
 all the Baths of Biarritz and St. Sebastian made him 
 happy. He " devotes himself there entirely to the 
 sun and to the salt water," he forgets pohtics, and 
 knows neither journals nor dispatches. It was at 
 this moment (the end of September, 1862) that he 
 received from his sovereign the pressing call to go 
 to BerUn. The elections had given a deplorable 
 result, the immense majority of the new chamber 
 belonged to the progressionists. They had not been 
 able to decide at Berlin on the choice of the presi- 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 121 
 
 dent of the future ministry, — "a cover for the gov- 
 ernment pot," as M. de Bismarck said ; he was to 
 fill those functions in the interim by taking the 
 portfolio of foreign affairs. Burned by the sun of 
 the South and fortified by the waters of the Gulf, 
 " tanned and salted," the former aspirant for the in- 
 spectorship of dikes in a district of the Mark, started 
 for his country to fill there the first position in the 
 state. He only, so to speak, crossed Paris this 
 time, but he remained there long enough to leave a 
 characteristic mot, which summed up his entire pro- 
 gramme. " Liberalism," said the designated chief 
 of the Prussian government, in taking leave in the 
 bureaux of the Quai d'Orsay, "liberalism is only 
 nonsense which it is easy to bring to reason ; but 
 revolution. is a force, which it is necessary to know 
 how to use." 
 
III. 
 
 UNITED ACTION. 
 
 However great one wishes to make the share of 
 genius in the work of M. de Bismarck, one cannot 
 deny that a great part also comes from the unforeseen, 
 from an extraordinary combination of circumstances, 
 in one word, from that goddess Fortune whom the 
 minnesinger of the Middle Ages did not cease to 
 praise in song, whom Dante himself did not fail to 
 extol in the immortal verses, " The course always 
 luminous like a star in heaven, and the decree al- 
 ways hidden like a serpent in the grass." Without- 
 doubt, one can admire the extreme audacity with 
 which the present chancellor of Germany has so 
 often let fall from his hand the iron dice of destiny ; 
 one can even, to speak with the witty Abb6 GaUani, 
 suspect more than one cogged one in such a persist- 
 ent "pair royal of six" It is not less true that in his 
 long career as player, the president of the council at 
 Berlin has occasionally met, in the most decisive 
 moments, such marvelous luck as no human wisdom 
 could foresee, that no political subtlety could prepare, 
 and in which the hardy punter only had the merit, 
 very considerable it is true, of not letting the vein 
 exhaust itself or of using up the series. One of 
 these magnificent strokes of luck, one of these per- 
 fectly prodigious events fell to the lot of William I. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 123 
 
 on his accession to power, in the month of January, 
 1863. This event laid the first foundations of his 
 future greatness, it became the mainspring of his 
 action in Europe, the Archimedean point from 
 whence afterwards he raised up a world of daring 
 projects, and it is necessary to bear it well in mind. 
 
 The ideal which M. de Bismarck had before him 
 in taking into his hands the reins of state, was the 
 aggrandizement, " the rounding off " of the mon- 
 archy of Frederick II. He had made the premature 
 avowal of it at the time of his mission to Paris ; 
 he also declared it very frankly in the first sitting of 
 the commission of the chamber at Berlin, scarcely a 
 week after having been made minister (29th Septem- 
 ber, 1862). He certainly did not foresee in what 
 measure he should realize this ideal, to what limits 
 he could extend in Germany conquests which should 
 cease to be " moral ; " but he clearly foresaw that 
 in this attempt he would find a resolute adversary 
 in Austria, and he made up his mind to it.^ The 
 only questfon which engrossed him was the attitude 
 which the other great Powers of Europe would main- 
 tain in view of certain events. Among them, he did 
 not count England ; with his rare political sagac- 
 ity, he had early appreciated to what state of domes- 
 tication and mildness that excellent school of Man- 
 chester had reduced the leopard formerly so fierce, 
 and his conviction that proud Albion would, not 
 
 I See the celebrated circular dispatch of M. de Bismarck of the 
 24th January, 1863, in which he gives an account of the curious inter- 
 views which lie had with the ambassador of Austria, Count Karolyi, 
 in the last months of the year 1862, soon after his accession to 
 power. 
 
124 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 think oi evil, and would even allow itself to be dis- 
 graced a little, was soon to be fully justified in the 
 piteous campaign of Denmark. "England is far 
 from entering into my calculations," he said in 1862, 
 in a familiar conversation, " and do you know when 
 I ceased to count her ? From the day when she re- 
 nounced of her free will the Ionian Islands ; a Power 
 which ceases to take and begins to surrender is a 
 used-up Power." France and Russia remained, and 
 it was not forbidden to think that, skillfully managed, 
 these two states would favor to a certain degree the 
 Prussian designs, or at least would not oppose them 
 too strongly. On the banks of the Neva old grudges 
 existed, sprung from the war of the Orient, imper- 
 fectly gratified by the war of Lombardy ; the old re- 
 lations between the Gottorp and the Hohenzollern, 
 always cordial, had become more intimate than ever, 
 thanks to the recent efforts of M. de Bismarck dur- 
 ing his sojourn at St. Petersburg ; finally, there was 
 his friend Alexander Mikhallovitch, former colleague 
 of Frankfort, so prepossessed in favor of the new 
 minister of King William I., so well united with him 
 in the hatred against Austria, and also so well warned 
 against the " dangerous fiction " of a solidarity which 
 should exist between all the conservative interests. 
 On the banks of the Seine, in the Tuileries, still so 
 much dreaded, there reigned a sovereign who, by 
 dint of studying the general good of humanity, lost 
 more and more the consideration of the French 
 state, and whose vague vacillating regard it was not 
 very difficult to dazzle, especially when one mirrored 
 before him the " new right " and the affranchisement 
 of Venice. Moreover, since the congress of Paris, 
 
TfVO CHANCELLORS. 1 25 
 
 there was established between the two cabinets of 
 the Tuileries and St. Petersburg a " cordiality " which 
 increased from day to day, and in which Prussia be- 
 gan to have a very large share : was there not ground 
 to hope for the latter, in the enterprise which it med- 
 itated, a generous cooperation or at least a cordial 
 neutrality of the two Powers so friendly to one an- 
 other, and so unsympathetic towards the House of 
 Hapsburg ? 
 
 And yet such an enterprise was so profoundly 
 contrary to the well understood interests and to the 
 firmly rooted traditions of Russia as well as of 
 France, the substitution in the. centre of Europe 
 of a great military and conquering monarchy in the 
 place of a pacific confederation, and one " purely de- 
 fensive," presented such manifest inconveniences, 
 even such evident dangers for the security and equi- 
 librium of the world, that the president of the coun- 
 cil at Berlin could scarcely entertain as regards this 
 matter too flattering hopes. The bitter resentmehts 
 at the winter pcQace, and the sweet dreams at the 
 palace of the Tuileries, could not long prevail 
 against the reality of geography and the brutality of 
 facts. Unless at Paris and St. Petersburg there 
 was a complete want of statesmen with a little po- 
 litical discernment in their minds, a little national 
 history in their souls, one might wager that the two 
 governments, Russian and French, would not remain 
 indifferent spectators to such a forinidable overturn- 
 ing in the balance of the Continent. From well- 
 wishing, their neutrality would not delay in becom- 
 ing by degrees watchful and alarmed, would even 
 change to declared hostility, as the Prussian sue- 
 
126 TPVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 cesses became marked, and it was this cordiality be- 
 tween the two empires, apparently so favorable to 
 Prussia, which would then form another peril, facili- 
 tating prompt and decisive action against the Ho- 
 henzoUern. Such being the situation of Europe at 
 the beginning of the year 1863, what the new min- 
 ister of William I. could, wish for in his boldest com- 
 binations, invoke in his most golden dreams, was 
 some unforeseen incident, some extraordinary event 
 which should embroil in an irremediable manner 
 the two emperors Alexander II. and Napoleon III., 
 which should revive at St. Petersburg all the ancient 
 rancor towards Vienna, which should permit Prussia 
 to attach Russia to itself by ties stronger, more in- 
 dissoluble, while preserving its necessary good rela- 
 tions with the cabinet of the Tuileries. A chimera ! 
 the boldest constructor of hypotheses would have 
 certainly cried, before such demands ; a problem of 
 algebra and political alchemy unworthy of occupy- 
 ing a mind however frivolous ! Well ! chance, that 
 providence of the fortunate of earth, did not delay to 
 cause an event which realized to the profit of M. de 
 Bismarck all the conditions of the indicated problem, 
 which filled all the points of such a fantastic pro- 
 gramme. " If Italy did not exist, it would be nec- 
 essary to invent it," the president of the council at 
 Berlin said later in 1865 ; in the month of January, 
 1863, he certainly did not think otherwise concern- 
 ing the Polish questions. 
 
 History offers few examples of a fall so rapid, so 
 humiliating, from the sublime to the odious and to 
 the perverse, than was presented on the banks of the 
 Vistula by that lamentable drama which, after two 
 
TIVO CHANCELLORS. 12/ 
 
 years of bitter revolutions, reached its final catas- 
 trophe in this month of January, 1863, as if to cele- 
 brate the joyful accession of M. de Bismarck to 
 power. Certainly there was something very poetic 
 and very exalted in those first manifestations from 
 Warsaw, when a people so long, so cruelly tried, 
 knelt one day before the castle of the lieutenant of 
 the king in mute complaint, holding only the image 
 of Christ, and demanding only "its God and its 
 country ! " The lieutenant of the king, who was 
 no other than the old hero of Sebastopol, Prince 
 Michael Gortchakof, had a horror of a conflict so 
 unequal, so strange ; he appealed to St. Petersburg, 
 and, — miracle of divine pity, — from that place, 
 whence for thirty years only orders of blood and 
 punishment had gone forth, there came this time a 
 word of clemency and reparation. A generous spirit 
 then animated the governing and intelligent classes 
 in Russia, they were under the influence of ideas of 
 reform and emancipation, they desired the esteem of 
 Europe, the friendship of France, and they had the 
 very sincere desire to be reconciled with Poland. 
 The Emperor Alexander II. sent his brother to War- 
 saw ; a patriot of rare vigor of mind and of character 
 took in hand the civil government ; the instruction, 
 the justice, the administration received a national 
 impress ; a modest but certain autonomy was as- 
 sured for the country. The precepts of the most 
 common wisdom, the instinct of preservation, the 
 terrible lessons of the past, should have all counseled 
 the Poles to profit by this good disposition of their 
 sovereign, to put to proof the granted institutions, to 
 accept with empressement the hand stretched out to 
 
128 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 tHem. In fact everything counseled them thus, but 
 they bent to the anathema which the Holy Script- 
 ures had long before pronounced against every 
 kingdom which allows itself to be guided by women 
 and children. The women and the youth of the 
 schools resolved to continue to multiply the mani- 
 festations which had succeeded so well, and which, 
 in ceasing to be spontaneous, became theatrical and 
 sacrilegious. The European demagogy hastened to 
 transport to a ground so overturned its emblems, 
 its words of disorder, its secret societies, and its in- 
 strumenta regni ; from afar, from the midst of the 
 Palais Royal came recommendations " to leave the 
 Catholic mummeries and to make barricades." The 
 great conservative party showed itself cowardly 
 there as elsewhere, as everywhere, as always ; and, 
 in wishing to save its popularity, it lost a whole 
 population. One made a void around the brother of 
 the emperor, around the patriotic minister, and this 
 void was not slow in being filled by horror, by terror 
 and crime. The government struggled in vain 
 against a shadowy organization which enveloped it 
 on all sides ; it took contradictory and violent meas- 
 ures. The demagogy gained its cause ; it succeeded 
 in throwing into a powerless,. foolish revolt an un- 
 happy people which for a century seemed to have 
 imposed on itself the task of astonishing the world 
 by periodical resurrections, and of disheartening it 
 at the same time by suicides, alas, not less periodi- 
 cal ! 
 
 This criminal folly of a nation could only be 
 equaled by the heedlessness not less culpable with 
 which Europe encouraged and fanned it. Europe, 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 1 29 
 
 which had not dared to touch the Polish question 
 during the war of the Crimea, thought it opportune 
 to sympathize, to trifle with it in this moment, the 
 most ill-timed and the most desperate ! Lord John 
 Russell was the first to enter the lists. In 1861 
 he wrote the famous despatch to Sir J. Hudson, 
 and persuaded himself and England that by it he 
 had delivered Italy. The year afterwards, in the cel- 
 ebrated dispatch of Gotha, he conceived for Den- 
 mark a most original constitution in four parts, 
 with four parliaments, and thus gave the signal 
 for the dismemberment of the Scandinavian mon- 
 archy. This time he believed that he ought to 
 recommend parliamentary institutions for Poland ; 
 and to the observation of the Russian ambassador 
 that it wotild be difficult for the czar to favor on 
 this point his Polish subjects over his own national 
 ones, he na'fvely asked why he would not extend the 
 same benefit to all the Russias .' ^ Count Rechberg, 
 the fatal minister who then directed the external 
 affairs at Vienna, experienced on his part the desire 
 of showing himself compassionate ; he accorded him" 
 self the malicious and very costly pleasure of paying 
 the cabinet of St. Petersburg, in Polish coin, for 
 the sympathies which this latter had shown for the 
 Italian cause. As if Austria had not already suf- 
 fered enough from the imaginary grievances of the 
 Muscovites as regards the pretended " treason " 
 during the war of the Crimea, it desired to give it 
 
 1 «' Why, then, should not representative institutions be accorded 
 at the same time to the kingdom of Poland and to the empire of 
 Russia ? " — Dispatch of Lord John Russell to Lord Napier, loth 
 April, 1863. 
 
 9 
 
I30 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 very legitimate grievances by a very real " con- 
 nivance "Mn Gallicia; Gallicia became, in fact, the 
 refuge, the depot of arms, and the place of revictual- 
 ing for the insurgents of the kingdom. 
 
 It is just to acknowledge that the French govern- 
 ment had long hesitated before starting on a way so 
 perilous. From the first period of the Polish agita- 
 tion, a note published in the "Moniteur" of the 23d 
 April, 1 861, had put the press and public opinion on 
 guard against " the supposition that the government 
 of the emperor encouraged hopes which it could not 
 satisfy." 
 
 " The generous ideas of the czar," continued the 
 note of the " Moniteur," " are a certain gauge of his 
 desire of realizing the ameliorations of which the 
 state of Poland admits, and we should wish that it 
 be not hindered by irritating manifestations." The 
 French government persevered in this sensible and 
 perfectly amicable attitude towards the czar during 
 the years 1861 and 1862, in spite of the interest 
 which the Parisian press did not cease to take in the 
 "dramatic" events of Warsaw, in spite of several 
 animated debates which were held in the English 
 parliament, and which were rather addressed to 
 France than to Russia, The Britannic statesmen in 
 fact had not thought it useless during those two 
 years 1861 and 1862 to slightly embarrass the cabinet 
 of the Tuileries in its very pronounced liking for the 
 Russian alliance by the frequent and sympathetic 
 evocation of the name of Poland. Lord Palmerston 
 
 ' 1 " This connivance of Austria was not the least remarkable event 
 in the>istory of this insurrection." — Confidential dispatch of M. de 
 Tengoborski to M. d'Oubril, 4th February, 1863. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. I3I 
 
 especially, in a very witty speech on the 4th April 
 1862, exalted the Poles, praised their "indomitable, 
 inextinguishable, inexhaustible " patriotism, while 
 not neglecting to recall to them the cruel deceptions 
 which a French emperor had already caused them 
 " at another epoch." Napoleon III. always resisted 
 the unguarded emotions at home, as well as the self- 
 ish excitements from abroad. Even on the 5th 
 February, after the breaking out of the fatal revolt, 
 M. Billault, the minister-orator in the midst of the 
 legislative body, harshly qualified the Polish insur- 
 rection as the work of " revolutionary passions," and 
 insisted with force on the danger of " useless words 
 and vain protestations ; " but the noisy language 
 of the English ministers, the enigmatical attitude 
 of Austria, and lastly the military convention which 
 M. de Bismarck concluded with Russia (8th Febru- I 
 ary, 1863), and which he made public, ended by in- 
 volving him. After having done so much for seven 
 years to gain the Russian " cordiality," after having 
 sacrificed to it almost all the fruits of the war of 
 the Orient, Napoleon III. overturned brusquely a 
 scaffolding so laboriously constructed, and prepared 
 to organize against the government of the czar a 
 great European remonstrance of which the first and 
 terrible effect was naturally to increase in Poland 
 the torrent of blood and tears. The general cry at 
 Warsaw was then that the insurrection must last to 
 justify the intervention of Europe,^ that it was nec- 
 essary to let as much Polish blood flow as sympa- 
 
 1 " The Polish insurrection, on which its. duration impressed a 
 national character," the Emperor Napoleon III. said in his speech 
 of the 5th November, 1863. 
 
132 TIVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 thetic ink flowed from the chancellors' offices. One 
 knows the deplorable issue of this great diplomatic 
 campaign, which lasted nine months, and only served 
 to demonstrate the profound disagreement between 
 the Powers of the East. The foreign intermed- 
 dling wounded the pride of Russia, and impelled it 
 to undertake against the Polish nationaUty a work 
 of general, methodical, implacable extermination, and 
 one from which it has never since desisted. How- 
 ever frivolous the diplomatic tourney of the Occiden- 
 tal Powers in favor of Poland was, the Russians did 
 not the less think that they had been menaced with 
 a moment of extreme peril, and that they had only 
 escaped, thanks to the firmness of their " national " 
 minister, to his patriotic courage, to his acute, digni- 
 fied, and vigorous dispatches. Certainly the minister 
 is, humanly speaking, very excusable for not having 
 protested against a belief so flattering : he let it go, 
 he let it be said that he had repulsed a new invasion 
 and had " overcome Europe : " scripsit et salvavit ! He 
 was made chancellor, he received enthusiastic ova- 
 tions from his compatriots, he became the idol of the 
 nation by the side of M. Katkof and the sanguinary 
 Mouravief. During a whole year he did not attend 
 a single banquet in the most obscure corner of Rus- 
 sia without these three names " saviors and blessed " 
 being celebrated by speeches, feted in toasts, con- 
 gratulated by telegrams, and, whatever repugnance 
 the descendant of the Rourik and the foster child of 
 the classical humanities must have felt in his spirit- 
 ual tribunal at being thus constantly coupled with a 
 fierce journalist and with a frightful executioner, he 
 made the sacrifice to his love for his country and for 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 1 33 
 
 popularity. In his well meaning ardor to receive 
 the homage which came to him from all sides, he 
 even so far forgot himself one day as to thank with a 
 stereotyped smile the German nobility of the Baltic 
 provinces for a diploma as honorary citizen which 
 had been sent him, and the national party reproached 
 him with a certain bitterness for the " culpable de- 
 light" to which he gave way on this occasion. Alex- 
 ander Mikhallovitch had all the honors of the sad 
 campaign of 1863 ; the profits of it went to another, 
 to the former colleague of Frankfort, to the president 
 of the council at Berlin, who was to find in it a solid 
 and assured basis for all the great strategy in the 
 future. We will show how the balance sheet of the 
 situation, which created, towards the end of 1863, 
 the great European remonstrance in the affairs of 
 Poland, presented itself to the interests and the 
 hopes of Prussia : the happy quiet of England was 
 duly established ; France and Russia were from this 
 time forward embroiled, and in an irreparable man- 
 ner ; the resentment against Austria had grown 
 stronger than ever at St. Petersburg, and also the 
 Prussian minister had more than ever the right of 
 counting on the grateful friendship, on the devotion 
 to any extent, of Prince Gortchakof ; lastly, it was not 
 so difficult to foresee that after his signal check of 
 Warsaw the Caesar of the new right would hasten to 
 cast his glances on Venice, to wish to "do some- 
 thing for Italy," and would therefore favor more 
 benevolently " a young power of the North " in its 
 enterprises against the Hapsburg, to whom the Na- 
 poleonic ideology had long since assigned " a great 
 destiny in Germany." 
 
134 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 It would, however, do too much honor to human 
 genius to credit M. de Bismarck with a clear and 
 precise view at first sight of all the favorable, even 
 prodigious consequences, which the fatal insurrec- 
 tion in Poland was to bring him. Many circum- 
 stances seemed rather to indicate that, especially in 
 the beginning, the Prussian minister only groped 
 and sought his way in unfrequented paths. A curi- 
 ous matter, and which perhaps might give cause for 
 reflection even to-day, M. de Bismarck, , who had 
 certainly studied Russia well, who had lived there 
 for several years, and had just left it, seems to have, 
 very seriously doubted the strength of this empire in 
 1863, and dc^ubted it so far that he did not even 
 think it capable of conquering in that miserable af- 
 fray with the unhappy Polish youth ! He expressed 
 his fears on this point before the plenipotentiaries of 
 England and Austria,^ and went so far one day as 
 to become, very confidential on this subject to the 
 vice-president of the Prussian chamber, M. Behrend. 
 " This question," said the minister of William I., to- 
 wards the middle of the month of February, " can be 
 
 1 " On former occasions, M. de Bismarck always spoke to me 
 of the probability that the Russian army would be too weak to sup- 
 press the insurrection." — Dispatch of Sir A. Buch,anan, 21st Febru- 
 ary, 1863. He uses the same language to the Austrian minister, 
 Count Kavolyi. On his part, the director of the diplomatic chan- 
 cellor's office of the Grand Buke Constantine wrote on the 4th of 
 February, at the first news of the envoy of the Prussian generals for 
 the conclusion of a military convention : " While recognizing the 
 courtesy of the mission of these gentlemen, we cannot give an exact 
 account of what has influenced it. There is no pericolo (sic !] in mora, 
 
 and we have no need of it for the cooperation of foreign troops 
 
 The Prussian government paints the Devil much blacker than he 
 really is. — Confidential dispatch of M. de Tengoborski to M. d'Oub- 
 ril, Russian minister at Berlin, 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 1 35 
 
 solved in two ways : it is either necessary to stifle 
 the insurrection promptly in concert with Russia, 
 and to come before the Eastern Powers with an ac- 
 complished fact, or one can let the situation develop 
 and aggravate itself ; wait till the Russians are 
 driven from the kingdom, or reduced to invoke aid, 
 and then proceed boldly and occupy the kingdom for 
 Prussia; at the end of three years all of it will 
 
 be Germanized But that is a ball-room plan 
 
 which you propose to me, cried out the stupefied 
 vice-president (the conversation took place at a 
 court ball). No, was the answer : I am speaking 
 seriously of serious things. The Russians are tired 
 of the kingdom, the Emperor Alexander himself 
 told me at St. Petersburg." ^ This thought of re- 
 covering the line of the Vistula, lost since Jena, 
 haunted more than once the mind of M. de Bis- 
 marck during the year 1863 : let it be well under- 
 stood, he did not wish to obtain the " rectification 
 of the frontier " except with the consent of the Em- 
 peror Alexander II., but he did not neglect the 
 means which could force to a slight extent such a 
 solution. One of the most intimate confidants of 
 the minister, and now the representative of Ger- 
 many to the court of King Victor Emmanuel, M. de 
 Keudell, proprietor of vast domains in the kingdom 
 of Poland, profited by his relations with the promi- 
 nent men of the unhappy country to advise them on 
 several occasions to look to Berlin for help, to de- 
 mand there, for instance, a temporary Prussian occu- 
 
 1 The German papers at this time published this interview after 
 the narration of M. Behrend, who did not deny it. See, among others, 
 the Cologne Gazette of the 22d February, 1863. 
 
136 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 pation which would render them not liable to Rus- 
 sian duty ! In looking carefully into the history of 
 this fatal insurrection, one will perhaps find there 
 other Prussian agents, much more obscure, but also 
 much more compromising than M. de Keudell. Did 
 the president of the council at Berlin seriously hope 
 to obtain so much from the " lassitude " of the Em- 
 peror Alexander and the friendship of the Prince 
 Gortchakbf ? 
 
 Whatever these hopes or arriere-pensees were, M. 
 de Bismarck used a restless ardor in making evi- 
 dent from the time of his d^but his absolute solid- 
 arity with the Russian vice-chancellor as opposed to 
 the East. He offered him a military convention in 
 the most spontaneous, even impetuous manner ; he 
 undertook his defense on every occasion, and did 
 not cease to aid him faithfully, ardently, in passages 
 of diplomatic arms with the cabinets of England, 
 France, and Austria, experiencing with pleasure the 
 first .fire of the notes of M. Drouyn de Lhuys, sup- 
 porting with joy the universal clamors of the press, 
 responding with haughtiness to the interpellations of 
 his pariiament. The great men of the progressionist 
 party understood nothing, on this occasion as on so 
 many others, of the policy of their "Polignac;" 
 they thought it inopportune, perilous, and demanded 
 where the German interest was in all that? To 
 which the Polignac replied one day in the chamber 
 with this veiled and yet very significant image, that, 
 "Placed before the chess-board of diplomacy, the 
 profane spectator beUeves the game ended at every 
 new piece that he sees advanced, and can even fall 
 into the. illusion that the player is changing his 
 objective point." 
 
riVO CHANCELLORS. 1 37 
 
 Certainly M. de Bismarck did not change his 
 objective point at all, and always had in mind the 
 aggrandizement of Prussia ; but it is evident that up 
 to the autumn of that year, 1863, he had no well- 
 fixed plan ; he " moved his pieces " in different 
 directions, and awaited the inspiration of chance to 
 know from what side he should strike " the blow," 
 — from the Main, from the Vistula, or from the Elbe ? 
 He had aimed at Cassel for a moment, and had 
 thrown himself with some bluster into the constitu- 
 tional conflict of this country with the elector ; he 
 had even given on this occasion the pleasing spec- 
 tacle of a minister intervening in a neighboring state 
 to force the prince there to the most strict observa- 
 tion of parliamentary rule, while himself governing 
 without regard for the constitution, and by means 
 of taxes levied contrary to the vote of the cham- 
 ber. Without speaking of the adventurous projects 
 which were cherished at Berlin touching a possible 
 rectification of frontier from the side of the Vistula, 
 on the banks of the Elbe there was the old, ever- 
 lasting question of the Duchies, a question hushed 
 up since the treaty of London, but reawakened anew 
 in 1859 in consequence of the events in Italy, and 
 become even more dangerous since a famous dis- 
 patch, mortal for Denmark, which Lord John Rus- 
 sell, in a moment of inconceivable thoughtlessness, 
 had issued from Gotha, the 24th September, 1862, 
 — precisely the day of M. de Bismarck's accession 
 to the ministry! The secondary States, the Diet 
 of Frankfort, and M. de Rechberg himself, had 
 become very ardent, and vied with each other in 
 German patriotism in this cause of Schleswig-Hol- 
 
138 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 stein, a cause which at bottom they thought to be 
 chimerical, and by which they only wished to embar- 
 rass Prussia, to convince it of " national lukewarm- 
 ness." The temptation became great to take at 
 their word the secondary States, the Diet of Frank- 
 fort, even Austria, to unite them against Denmark in 
 a war which would give Prussia the magnificent port 
 of Kiel, and would permit it, moreover, to try the 
 "instrument" which King William I. " had been 
 perfecting " for four years, .... provided that the 
 war could be localized, and that the European Pow- 
 ers would not put themselves in the way as in 
 1848 1 The president of the council at Berlin did 
 not entirely despair of succeeding by patient and 
 wise manoeuvres. He counted on the friendship of 
 Prince Gortchakof, on different political constella- 
 tions, finally on the strange confusion, and, to speak 
 with Montaigne, on " the great hubbub of brains " 
 which certain principles of the new right and of 
 nationality had introduced into each chancellor's 
 office of the Continent. He said to himself occa- 
 sionally, that in this grave enterprise he would cer- 
 tainly have for a determined adversary only that 
 good Lord Russell, who, after his fatal dispatch of 
 Gotha, had again altered his mind, had even consti- 
 tuted himself the advocate, the protector, and the 
 mentor of the unfortunate government of Copen- 
 hagen : such a partner did not greatly frighten the 
 bold cavalier of the Mark. 
 
 At first, however, and as long as the negotiations 
 on Poland lasted, the cavalier of the Mark thought 
 that he ought to use prudence and simulate to the 
 cabinet of Saint James extreme indifference on the 
 
TIVO CHANCELLORS. 1 39 
 
 subject of this "vexatious" affair of the Duchies. 
 Nothing is more instructive than to follow in the 
 state papers, as well as in the documents communi- 
 cated to the Rigsraad, the intimate and almost daily, 
 effusions by which M. de Bismarck had been able to 
 persuade, up to the last hour, not only Lord Russell 
 and his envoy Sir A. Buchanan, but also M. de 
 Quade, the Danish minister at the court of Berlin, 
 that this question of Schleswig-Holstein was a hobby 
 of the secondary' States and of Austria, that Prussia 
 was far from sharing those Teutonic effervescences 
 and concupiscences, and that it would do all that lay 
 in its power to calm, to allay them. The 14th Octo- 
 ber, 1863, two weeks after the Diet of Frankfort had 
 decreed the federal execution in Holstein, M. de Bis- 
 marck stipulated in a conversation with the envoy of 
 Great Britain; Sir A. Buchanan, to prevent this ex- 
 ecution, if Denmark accepted the English mediation. ^ 
 Denmark accepted it, and Lord Russell could at last 
 breathe. Moreover, on the 6th November, 1863, M. 
 Quade wrote from Berlin to his government : " The 
 first minister of Prussia, be it on account of his per- 
 sonal views, or on account of the attitude taken by 
 England, has put the affair in a position that exceeds 
 greatly all that one could have hoped. I am not cer- 
 tain whether the question is regarded at Vienna with 
 the same clearness and the same warmth (warmth 
 for the interests of Denmark !) as it is here." Thus 
 Sir A. Buchanan and M. Quade still judged the 
 situation on the 6th November. But they were not 
 
 1 Dispatch of M. Buchanan of the 17th October, 1863. Inclosure. 
 Minute of conversation between M. de Bismarck and Sir A. Bu- 
 chanan. 
 
140 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 slow in being brusquely awakened from their illu- 
 sions by a despairing dispatch from the principal 
 secretary of state, dated the 9th November, and 
 couched in these terms : " If the information which 
 reaches me is exact, M. de Bismarck no longer offers 
 any objection {n'opfose plus aucune objection) to the 
 federal execution in Holstein ; the government of 
 her majesty can only leave to Germany the respon- 
 sibility of exposing Europe to a general war." The 
 information was unfortunately only' too correct, and 
 the vexations of the good Johnny commenced. 
 
 Two important facts had taken place in the in- 
 terval of three weeks which had passed since the 
 conversation of the 14th October; in this interval, 
 the cabinet of Saint James had abandoned to the 
 Russian government the affairs of Poland, and the 
 Emperor Napoleon III. had launched into the world 
 a fantastic project of a congress for the arrange- 
 ment of all the pending questions! Charmed in 
 the highest degree with the aid which M. de Bis- 
 marck lent him in this month of October in the 
 Danish difficulties, the principal secretary of state 
 had at last decided to make him the sacrifice so 
 often demanded, of the Polish question, even to re- 
 call by telegraph a courier, bearer of a very com- 
 minatory note addressed to the government at St. 
 Petersburg, and to replace this missive by a most 
 humble dispatch, which renounced all ulterior con- 
 troversy on this subject (20th October).^ On his 
 
 1 Seeking an issue, however dishonorable to the campaign so fool- 
 ishly undertaken, the chief of the foreign office had decided towards 
 the end of September (after the speech of Blairgowrie) to declare the 
 Emperor Alexander deprived of his rights over Poland, " for not hav- 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. I4I 
 
 part, the Emperor of the French, kept informed of 
 these intrigues, profoundly vexed at this abandon- 
 ment by England, and not being able to resolve to 
 accept his check, nor, above all, to make the avowal 
 of it without ceremony before the legislative body, 
 had thought (5 th November) of that call for a gen- 
 eral congress which only increased the uneasiness 
 of Europe, and especially inspired the chief of the 
 foreign office with unspeakable fears. Not content 
 with replying to the invitation of the cabinet of the 
 Tuileries by a most bitter and offensive note. Lord 
 
 ing fulfilled the conditions in virtue of which Russia obtained this 
 kingdom in 18 15." France was to make an analogous declaration, 
 but M. Drouyn de Lhuys, become prudent, and with reason would 
 not send his note until after that of England had reached Prince Gort- 
 chakoff. Lord Russell then wrote his dispatch ; it was read at the 
 council, approved by Lord Palmerston, and a copy of it was given to 
 the minister of foreign affairs of France. Lord Napier had already 
 been advised to inform Prince Gortchakof of an " important commu- 
 nication " which he would soon have the honor to transmit to him, 
 and the Duke of Montebello was also instructed by the French gov 
 ernment to support his colleague of Great Britain in his solemn 
 declaration ; already the debated document had left for its destina- 
 tion, and was on its way to St. Petersburg, .... when suddenly, and 
 to the unspeakable astonishment of the persons initiated, a telegram 
 brusquely stopped in Germany the bearer of the note ; another tele- 
 gram informed Lord Napier that no further attention should be given 
 to the " important communication." For during the interval Count 
 Bemstorff had read at the foreign office a Prussian dispatch in which 
 M. de Bismarck advised the principal secretary of state to take care 
 how he proceeded, — for, if the czar were declared deprived of his 
 rights over Poland for his violation of the treaty of Vienna, the Ger- 
 man governments could also declare on their part the King of Den- 
 mark deprived of his sovereignty over the Duchies of the Elbe for 
 not having fulfilled all the engagements of the treaty of London. 
 Lord John Russell recalled the courier and tore up the note. — Vide 
 in the Revue des deux Mondes of the ist January, 1863, " Two Nego- 
 tiations of Contemporaneous Diplomacy ; M. de Bismarck and the 
 Northern Alliance." 
 
142 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 John Russell bestirred himself to preserve the for- 
 eign courts from the contagion of the French idea ; 
 he almost entirely lost from view the dangers of Den- 
 mark, and only cared to combat the project of Napo- 
 leon III., a project assuredly without vitality, and 
 which, in order to die its natural death, had no need 
 of such a display of British forces. The president 
 of the Prussian council thought that the moment had 
 come to begin his game." The last shadow of an East- 
 ern understanding disappeared ; only the alliance of 
 Russia and Prussia remained intact, unshaken, in 
 the midst of the general disorder of the cabinets. 
 No European concerted action for the protection of 
 Denmark was to be feared. M. de Bismarck could 
 now " no longer have any objection " to the federal 
 execution in Holstein ; and soon an unhoped-for 
 event, one of those magnificent strokes of fortune, 
 such as the minister of William I. has so often met 
 with in his marvelous career, proved that he was 
 decidedly in luck. The sudden death of King Fred- 
 erick VII. (iSth November, 1863) has something so 
 tragical, so fatal to the destinies of Denmark, that it 
 makes one think of one of the most disconsolate say- 
 ings that antiquity has bequeathed to us, that mourn- 
 ful cry of the historian : "Non esse cures dels securita- 
 tem nostram, esse ultionem." 
 
 This death gave in truth an entirely new turn to 
 the Teutonic demands towards the unfortunate Scan- 
 dinavian monarchy. Germany did not content itself 
 with a federal execution in Holstein ; it pretended 
 not to recognize the sovereignty of the new king, 
 Christian IX., in the Duchies, and wished to en- 
 throne there that intriguing and treacherous family 
 
TtVO CHANCELLORS. 1 43 
 
 of Augustenburg from whom M. de Bismarck him- 
 self had lately obtained the retraxit for one million 
 and a half rixdalers paid by the government of Co- 
 penhagen. And it was only from this moment that 
 the plans of the minister of William I. seemed to be 
 finally settled ; decidedly it was from the side of the 
 Elbe that Prussia was to begin to " round itself " and 
 complete its unity ! The resolution once made, M. 
 de Bismarck carried it out with ardor, with audac- 
 ity, with incomparable acuteness. This trial stroke 
 was a master stroke ; and the great Machiavelli would 
 certainly have found a " divine " pleasure in contem- 
 plating the address, or, as he would have said, the 
 virtu with which the cavalier of the Mark knew how, 
 in the space of some weeks, to engross the attention 
 of this poor Lord Russell ; to encircle the Emperor 
 Napoleon ; to involve Austria in a distant expedition 
 equally unjust and foolish ; to make use of and at the 
 same time oust the Bund; to strike the secondary 
 States with terror and throw off Xheir prot^g^ ; lastly, 
 to take into his own hands the holy cause of the 
 German country, and, according to the word of the 
 Apostle, make himself all things to all men ! 
 
 The spectacle which Europe presented at the be- 
 ginning of the year 1864, was certainly one of the 
 strangest and most painful that history has known. 
 Two great Powers, jealous of one another, and even 
 destined to soon fight in mortal combat for the spoils 
 torn from their victim, — two great Powers, at once 
 incited and cried down by a whole league of princes 
 and peoples of Germany, attacked a feeble state, but 
 nevertheless an old and glorious monarchy, and one 
 whose existence was proclaimed by all the cabinets 
 
144 TfVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 to be necessary to the balance of nations ; they at- 
 tacked it under the most futile pretext, in the name 
 of a cause which the very chief of the coalition had 
 formerly qualified as " eminently iniquitous, frivolous, 
 disastrous, and revolutionary." It was, moreover, to 
 punish King Christian IX. for his disobedience to 
 the Bund that Prussia and Austria had charged 
 themselves with this work of "justice;" and this 
 work they inagurated with a formal declaration of 
 their own disobedience to the same Bund; they 
 acted " as proxies for Germany," and entire Ger- 
 many protested against the usurpation of the man- 
 date ! All these monstrous things Europe saw and 
 let pass, this same fiurope which, in 1848 at the 
 time of the first German aggression against the 
 Scandinavian monarchy, had not failed in its duty, 
 and had fulfilled it nobly in spite of the great revo- 
 lutionary tempest which might have served it as an 
 excuse. The Powers were then unanimous in de- 
 fending the weak against the oppressor ; the Em- 
 peror Nicholas was in accord on this point with the 
 Republic of General Cavaignac, and it was only 
 the diplomats improvised by the " surprise " of Feb- 
 ruary who had not shown at this time a sufficient 
 knowledge of the conditions necessary for the equi- 
 librium of the world. It has been reserved for the 
 most tried statesmen, for chancellors grown old in 
 the tradition and respect for treaties, for the rep- 
 resentatives of regular and strong monarchies, to 
 allow the consummation of a revolutionary wofk 
 which the Bastide and Petetin would have thought 
 their duty not to admit ! ^ Without doubt it is, above 
 
 1 "In 1848 Denmark had demanded the protection of France; 
 
rtrO CHANCELLORS. I45 
 
 ail, England who will bear before posterity the shame 
 of the ruin of Denmark, for she it was who had taken 
 in hand the cause of the Scandinavian kingdom, who 
 had counseled, guided, reprimanded up to the last 
 day, and who had solemnly declared that in the mo- 
 ment of danger it {Denmark) should not fight alone ; 
 it would, however, be unjust to pretend to completely 
 exonerate the rest of the European Powers. More 
 than one thoughtful and honest mind assigned at 
 that time to this dismemberment of a monarchy in 
 the nineteenth century all the import that another 
 dismemberment had had in the preceding century, 
 and foresaw from it with anxiety great overtiirnings 
 and formidable catastrophes in the future. The natfs,. 
 or, to speak with M. de Bismarck, the profane, could 
 alone believe the game finished after this first stroke 
 dealt to the right of nations, after this first exploit 
 also of the marvelous " instrument " which the Prus- 
 sian government had employed so many years and 
 so much time to "perfect." 
 
 The cannon of Missunde was for the cavalier of 
 the Mark what the cannon of Toulon had formerly 
 been for a certain officer of Corsica, and this short 
 campaign of the Duchies revealed many things tO' 
 the future conqueror of Europe. He learned there 
 that legitimate rights, sacred treaties, stipulated 
 minutes, the sworn faith and many other old-fash- 
 ioned things reputed inassailable were much' more 
 
 M. Bastide, then minister of ■foreign affairs under the republic, took 
 its part warmly, and there was even an idea of sending 10,000 
 men to assist the Danes in the defense of their country." — Dis- 
 patch of Lord Cowley of the 13th February, 1864. See also the cu- 
 rious dispatches of M. Petetin, then envoy of the republic at Han- 
 over. 
 
 10 
 
146 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 feeble and decaying than the poor fortresses erected 
 ,by the Danes in the preceding ages, and, if Moltke 
 and Roon made in this war a perfectly satisfactory 
 J trial of their needle gun, he could for his part prove 
 /the precious, unalterable qualities of his own in- 
 strument. It must be plainly said that during the 
 whole of this expedition against Denmark, Prince 
 Gortchakof did not cease to favor the Prussian min- 
 ister by all means, to tender him with ardor, and 
 very often privately, a helping hand at each new 
 difficulty. His aid was absolute and the more effica- 
 cious since it took the appearance of a busy neu- 
 trality in search of a pacific arrangement. It was 
 thus that he aided the president of the fcouncil at 
 Berlin in forcing into the stubborn head of Lord 
 Russell the equally specious and pleasing reasoning, 
 that the occupation of Holstein by the federal troops 
 ■would become a title of validity in the hands of the 
 new King of Denmark. " M. de Bismarck told me," 
 Sir A. Buchanan wrote on the 28th November, " that 
 a federal execution would prevent any revblutionary 
 movement in Holstein, and would be at the same 
 time to a certain degree an indirect recognition of 
 King Christian IX. as Duke of Holstein on the part 
 of the Diet of Frankfort. His excellency affirmed 
 that the alarming state of Germany forced him to 
 proceed at once to the execution ; but he could 
 not or would not explain to me how such an execu- 
 tion could be a recognition of the sovereignty of 
 King Christian, and could avoid the appearance 
 of an occupation." Three days afterwards, the ist 
 December, Lord Napier wrote on his part from St. 
 Petersburg : " The language of Prince Gortchakof 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. I47 
 
 makes me believe that he is persuaded that M. de 
 Bismarck has moderate views in this question. The 
 vice-chancellor is disposed to consider a federal 
 execution, if it is well conducted, as a preservative 
 measure. In his opinion, the federal troops, acting 
 according to judicious instructions, will assure order 
 and maintain the necessary distinction between 
 the legislative and the dynastic question." " / de- 
 spoil, then I recognize!" said M. de Bismarck by a 
 logic belonging to him alone.^ but which Prince 
 Gortchakof shared at this moment, and which the 
 two friends soon tried to apply also to Schleswig, 
 after the chief of the foreign ofifice had resigned him- 
 self to it in Holstein. " This morning the Russian 
 vice-chancellor suggested to me," again wrote Lord 
 Napier from St. Petersburg under date of the nth 
 January, " that one should bind Denmark to admit 
 the occupation of Schleswig by the forces of Austria 
 and Prussia under title of a guarantee given to these 
 two Powers as regards the German population of 
 the Duchy." Thus the state papers and the docu- 
 ments communicated to the Rigsraad continue to 
 instruct and edify us ; one does not find there a sin- 
 gle insinuation or " suggestion " sent from the banks 
 of the Spree against Denmark which was not at once 
 reverberated on the banks of the Neva. And yet 
 Denmark has always been the friend and the prot^g^ 
 of the empire of the czars ! More than any other 
 Power in the world, Russia was interested in preserv- 
 
 1 The official journals of Berlin have renewed this reasoning in 
 their recent discussions on the laws of guarantee accorded to the 
 Holy See. The Pope, they argue, cannot be treated as a sovereign, 
 as reprisals cannot be exercised against him by seizing his states. 
 
148 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 ing the liberty of the Baltic, in not letting the port 
 of Kiel fall into the hands of Germany ; more than 
 any other Power, also, it was interested in remem- 
 Nbering that Courland and Livonia talked German 
 much more purely and harmoniously than Schles- 
 wig ! Lastly, it was certainly the cause of the revo- 
 lution against that of legitimate sovereignty which 
 was engaged" in this debate on the Eider ; the old 
 Nesselrode had declared so in a celebrated circular, 
 and what would the Emperor Nicholas have said of 
 such complacency for revolution on the part of a 
 Russian chancellor ? Alexander Mikhallovitch will 
 yet cause the astonishment of history by the im- 
 mensity of his gratitude towards M. de Bismarck. 
 
 II. 
 
 Thus was inaugurated, concerning Poland and 
 Denmark, that common action of the two ministers 
 of Russia and Prussia, which was to continue for so 
 many years, and have such a considerable, such a 
 disastrous influence on the affairs of the Continent. 
 With this year 1863 the second period of the min- 
 istry of Prince Gortchakof commences, his second 
 term, which was assuredly much less open to dis- 
 cussion. To the French " cordiality," properly dosed 
 and taken in fact as a tonic, which had prevailed till 
 then, the Prussian friendship, undeniably too pas- 
 sionate and too absorbing, succeeded. In fact, in 
 this second period, Alexander Mikhaitlovitch no 
 longer preserved that calm and reserved mind, and 
 that intelligent egotism which made his fortune at 
 the time of his intimacy with the Emperor Napoleon 
 III. ; he embraced all the opinions, every cause of 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. I49 
 
 his formidable friend at Berlin, unfortunately without 
 possessing his astonishing flexibility of mind, his 
 marvelous art of turning and twisting. Nothing, for 
 instance, equals the address with which M. de Bis- 
 marck can, if necessary, forget a disagreeable past, 
 and, above all, be unable to remember his wrong-do- 
 ings toward others ; in fact, he has a charming euphe- 
 mism, he calls them misunderstandings. • More than 
 once, from the height of the tribune, he has adorned 
 with this name his long and outrageous conflict 
 against parliament which he sustained up to the 
 war of 1866 against Austria (a little misunderstand- 
 ing which cost 40,000 men their lives !). And how 
 can one help admiring the affection, the enthusiasm, 
 which he has inspired in that excellent Lord Rus- 
 sell, certainly the statesman whom he ridiculed and 
 ill-treated the most in 1863, during the Danish con- 
 tention ? As for his Polish quarrels with the East- 
 ern Powers in the same year (1863), he was the- 
 more ready to forget them as those very Powers felt 
 that a great act of folly had been committed. He 
 dictated to King William a most polite reply, full of 
 tender souvenirs of Compi^gne, in answer to the 
 letter of Napoleon III. concerning the congress, and 
 toward the end of the year he was already in touch- 
 ing accord with the cabinet of the Tuileries con- 
 cerning the treaty of London, a treaty which guar- 
 anteed the entireness of the Danish monarchy, and 
 which a circular of M. Drouyn de Lhuys now quali- 
 fied as an impotent work ! As regards Austria, he 
 soon granted it full indulgence for its Polish error in 
 the spring, and even forgave the very reprehensible 
 enterprise which it attempted in the month of Au- 
 
ISO TIVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 gUst at Frankfort, on the day of the princes. In the 
 month of November he had already made it his com- 
 panion and accomplice in the wars of the Duchies. 
 Prince Gortchakof appeared in a very different light; 
 he was never willing to pardon France and Austria 
 for their intermeddling in the affairs of Poland, and 
 remained immovable to every attempt at reconcilia- 
 tion. He knew no intimacy except with the cabinet 
 of Berlin, and his former colleague of Frankfort be- 
 came his only confidant and ally. The famous 
 aphorism of 1856 then underwent an important 
 modification ; beginning with 1863, the Russian 
 chancellor began to sulk while continuing to medi- 
 tate, and the Acheans have paid dearly for this spite 
 of Achilles. The "sulks" of Alexander Mikhallo- 
 vitch have been almost as fatal for Europe as the 
 dreams of Napoleon III. 
 
 This Napoleonic policy regarding the affairs of 
 Germany, at once reasonable and chimerical, in- 
 genious and ingenuous, which he sincerely thought 
 would work good, and which only accumulated dis- 
 asters and ruin, seemed like a dream, a real summer 
 nights dream. One day they had a sublime vision 
 at the Tuileries : Italy was completed in its unity, 
 Austria reexalted, Prussia rendered more homogene- 
 ous, Germany more satisfied, Europe regenerated, 
 and France consolidated and glorious. All this only 
 depended on a single hypothesis, but a hypothesis 
 which did not exist, on a battle fought and won by 
 the brave Kaiserliks always inured against this Prus- 
 sian Landwehr which for half a century had not 
 smelt powder, and it was on this frail skiff, on this 
 "nut-shell," as the Puck of Midsummer Night's 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 1$! 
 
 Dream had said, that the fortune of Caesar and that 
 of France was embarked ! In fact, at this moment, 
 all the world believed in the incomparable military 
 superiority of Austria over its bold rival in Ger- 
 many ; no one admitted the possibility of a Prussian 
 victory, still less a victory as decisive, as startling 
 as that at Sadowa. " That was," M. Rouher said 
 later, in a memorable session of the legislative body, 
 — " that was an event which Austria, which France, 
 which the military man, which the simple citizen 
 had all considered as unlikely ; for there was an 
 universal presumption that Austria would be vic- 
 torious and that Prussia would pay, and pay dearly, 
 the price of its imprudence." This presumption, 
 very real and universal at that time, remained the 
 "sole excuse of Napoleon III. before history, for that 
 lamentable phantasmagoria which was announced to 
 the world by the speech of Auxerre in the month of 
 May, 1 866, but whose origin goes back as far as the 
 convention of September and the first journey of M. 
 de Bismarck to France after his campaign in Den- 
 marck in the autumn of 1864.^ 
 
 " I have at least one superiority over my con- 
 queror," the Emperor of Austria, Francis I., said to 
 M. de Talleyrand, the negotiator of the peace of 
 Presburg, with a dignity not without keenness ; 
 " I can reenter my capital after such a disaster, 
 while it would be difificult for your master, in spite 
 of all his genius, to do the same thing in a similar 
 situation." This curious mot displayed in a striking 
 
 1 See the SeTnte des deux Mondes of the 1st October, 1868, Les 
 PrlUminaires de Sadowa, as well as the instructive work of General 
 La Marmora, Unfifiii diluce, Firenze, 1873. 
 
152 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 manner the profound, incurable vice of all Csesarism. 
 No more than the conqueror of Austerlitz, could 
 Napoleon III. accept a check ; he was obliged to do 
 great things, condemned to success and prestige. 
 Soon after the misadventures and the miscalcula- 
 tions in the affairs of Poland, of Denmark, and of 
 the congress, he was forced to look out for a revenge, 
 he cast his glances from north to south, " struck an 
 attitude " by means of the convention of September, 
 which seemed to be the preface of a new and great 
 work. He was isolated in Europe, incensed against 
 England, very much embarrassed in regard to Russia, 
 more than cool with Austria, and it was with a cer- 
 tain inward trepidation that one saw M. de Bismarck 
 hasten to France (October, 1864) at the first news of 
 the convention concluded with the cabinet of Turin. 
 Evidently " something was to be done for Italy ; " 
 without rancor, as without prejudices, the president 
 of the Prussian council came to renew the conver- 
 sations broken off two years before at the time of 
 his short mission to Paris. 
 
 He added nothing to the truth ; he only affirmed 
 that his alliance with the Hapsburg in the war 
 against Denmark had been a simple incident, and 
 he allowed to be clearly seen his desire to keep for 
 Prussia the countries recently conquered on the Elbe 
 in the name of the Germanic Confederation. For 
 the rest, he only varied the ancient theme on the 
 inevitable imminent duel between Berlin and Vienna, 
 on the advantages which Italy might gather from it, 
 on the advantage that would accrue to France, hav- 
 ing Prussia, with a better defined and firmer outline, 
 as its natural, unfailing ally in all the questions of 
 
rtVO CHANCELLORS. 153 
 
 civilization zxA progress. Such expressions, coming 
 from a minister who had shown his character in the 
 campaign of the Duchies, now met an auditory much 
 more, attentive than that of 1 862. Without yet tak- 
 ing him for a perfectly serious man, they began to 
 recognize in him the qualities of a useful man, of a 
 man of the future, whom Italy should cultivate with 
 care, whom France, for its part, should watch care- 
 fully, encourage, and manage. The leaders of the im- 
 perial democracy. Prince Napoleon first of all, showed 
 themselves especially taken with the prospectives 
 which were opened to them. A distinguished mem- 
 ber of this group, a diplomat reputed to be acute 
 above all, and whose name even allied him to the 
 Italian cause, was sought out in his retreat and 
 placed at the head of the mission at Berlin, elevated 
 now to an embassy. Another member of the " party 
 of action," equally unattached for some time, a for- 
 mer ambassador at Rome, was not long in being 
 recalled into the councils of the empire : by the side 
 of M. Rouher, he was destined to form there a use- 
 ful counterpoise to the slightly " antiquated " ideas 
 of M. Drouyn de Lhuys. Finally, on the other side 
 of the Alps, at Turin, a general, well known for 
 his " Prussomania," had taken in hand the direction 
 of political affairs on the 23d September. Each of 
 these personages, — M. Benedetti, M. de La Valette, 
 General La Marmora, — will have his rdle and his 
 day in the great drama of 1 866. 
 
 At this time, however, in the autumn of 1864, 
 no plan was fixed or even discussed : one had only 
 come as yet to simple confidences, to vague and 
 fleeting conversations, to that which, in diplomatic 
 
154 TfVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 language, one had not even dared to call an exchange 
 of ideas ; but the impression which the Prussian 
 minister obtained from this rapid journey to France 
 was sufficiently encouraging for him soon to launch 
 that circular of the 24th December, 1864, which be- 
 came the point of departure for his action against 
 Austria. It was in this circular, in fact, that M. de 
 Bismarck broached for the first time the question of 
 the countries of the Elbe, which he well knew to be 
 a question of war. Six months before, in the peremp- 
 tory declaration made the 28th May, 1864, in the 
 midst of the conference of London, Austria and 
 Prussia had demanded the " reunion of the Duchies 
 of Schleswig and of Holstein in a single state under 
 the sovereignty of the hereditary Prince of Augus- 
 tenburg," and the cabinet of Berlin took care to add 
 then that this prince had, " in the eyes of Germany, 
 the greatest right to the succession ; that his recog- 
 nition by the Bund was consequently assured, and 
 that, moreover, he would reunite the indubitable suf- 
 frages of the great majority of the population of this 
 country." Quite different were the sentiments of the 
 Prussian minister towards the end of the same year, 
 some time after his return from Paris. In a circular 
 dispatch addressed to the German courts, the pres- 
 ident of the council of Berlin declared now (24th 
 December, 1864) that grave doubts assailed his mind 
 touching the titles of the Duke of Augustenburg, 
 that several serious competitors, such as the Princes 
 of Oldenburg and Hesse, had arisen in the interval ; ^ 
 
 1 It is not useless to mention, en passant, the circumstances in the 
 midst of which these new candidatures were produced. Summoned by 
 the conference of London to present his pretensions, M. de Bismarck 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 1 55 
 
 that in the midst of such multiplied and such con* 
 fused claims he was perplexed ; that his conscience 
 was not sufficiently enlightened on this point of 
 right ; that he felt the need of meditating and of 
 " consulting the legists ! " 
 
 The world knows the magnificent decree which the 
 " legists " — the syndics of the crown — did not delay 
 in pronouncing, as well as the conclusions which the 
 scrupulous minister conscientiously drew from them. 
 There were judges at Berlin, and they proved it in 
 overruling all parties, in declaring them all badly 
 grounded in their pretensions : Hesse, Oldenburg, 
 Brandenburg, Sonderburg, Augustenburg, none of 
 them had the right of succession to Schleswig-Hol- 
 stein. The King of Denmark alone had the titles! 
 But as the King of Denmark had been forced by the 
 war to abandon the provinces of the Elbe to the sov- 
 ereigns of Prussia and Austria, M. de Bismarck 
 concluded therefrom that the two monarchs could 
 dispose of their " property " as they wished, without 
 any intervention of the Bund, and he demanded of 
 the Emperor Francis Joseph the cession of his part 
 
 (28th May, 1864) could not do otherwise than to follow Austria, 
 and to pronounce himself for the Duke of Augustenburg. The 2d 
 June, at the reunion succeeding the conference (the telegraph had had 
 time to work), the Russian plenipotentiary declared unexpectedly 
 that the emperor, his august master, " desiring to facilitate as far as 
 he could the arrangements to be concluded," had ceded his eventual 
 
 rights, as chief of the House Holstein-Gottorp, to his relative 
 
 the Grand Duke of Oldenburg ! The l8th June, another relative of 
 the Emperor Alexander II., Prince Frederick William of Hesse, also 
 asserted his rights to the succession at the conference of London. 
 This is an example of the numerous and discreet services which 
 Prince Gortchakof knew how to render to his friend of Berlin in 
 the sad campaign of the Duchies. 
 
IS6 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 of the conquest for ready cash. The Prussian min- 
 ister made this impudent demand in an arrogant 
 dispatch, full of menaces, dated the nth July, 
 1865, from Carlsbad, from the very place where the 
 old King William had come to enjoy the Austrian 
 hospitality during the season. The alarm was great 
 for some weeks. M. de Bismarck made no mystery 
 of the negotiations which he entered upon with 
 Italy ; he said to M. de Gramont " that far from 
 dreading the war, he desired it by all means ; " some 
 days after, he even declared to M. de Pfordten, pres- 
 ident of the council of Bavaria, " that Austria could 
 not sustain a campaign, that it would suffice to 
 strike a single blow, to fight a single and great 
 battle from the side of Silesia to obtain satisfaction 
 of the Hapsburg." In reality, he only wished to 
 sound the ground and to make a careful examina- 
 tion. At this moment he was not yet sufficiently 
 .sure of the disposition of the Emperor Napoleon to 
 dare to risk the great cast ; he also wanted time to 
 persuade the pious Hohenzollern to pronounce the 
 " God wills it ! " of a fratricidal war. He had to con- 
 tent himself with that convention of Gastein (14th 
 August, 1865) which was only a provisional arrange- 
 ment, yet the first breach made in the rights of the 
 Bund, and like an indirect consecration of the con- 
 clusions which he had pretended. to draw from the 
 decree pronounced by the famous syndics of the 
 crown. 
 
 The very day on which he signed this equivocal 
 transaction at Gastein, M. de Bismarck wrote his 
 wife a short note as follows : " For several days I have 
 not found a moment of leisure to write you. Count 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 157 
 
 Blorae is again here, and we are doing our best to 
 preserve peace and stop up the crevices of the build- 
 ing. Day before yesterday I devoted an entire day 
 to hunting. I think that I wrote you that I re- 
 turned disgusted from my first expedition ; this time 
 I at least killed a roe, but I saw nothing else during 
 the three hours that I devoted without cessation to 
 experiments on all sorts of insects, and the noisy 
 activity of the cascade below me drew from my 
 heart the cry : ' Little brook, leave there thy mur- 
 mur' ^ After all, it was a very good shot made 
 across the precipice. The animal, killed instantly, 
 fell with its four feet in the air from a height of sev- 
 eral church steeples into the torrent at my feet." 
 After all, he no more missed the shot than when he 
 slew, in order that he might no longer be the cher- 
 ished candidate of the Bund, the poor Augustenburg, 
 and made the little Duchy of Lauenberg fall into 
 the Prussian game-bag ! This fact of the chase and 
 of diplomacy even had an extraordinary reecho in 
 Germany, in France, and even as far as Lord Rus- 
 sell, who experienced the shock. The principal sec- 
 retary of state insisted on the honor of associating 
 himself with M. Drouyn de Lhuys in a very elo- 
 quent protest against the arrangements made at 
 Gastein, and the iron-clad squadron of England, 
 which had not appeared in the Baltic since the war 
 of Denmark, came this time at least to pay a courte- 
 ous visit to the French fleet at Cherbourg. There, 
 however, the demonstration of the two Powers of 
 the East limited itself ; M. de Bismarck could enjoy 
 in peace his triumph and the title of count which 
 the fortunate campaign of 1865 brought him. 
 
 I Verse of a German song. 
 
IS8 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 Is it admissible to depart from the gravity of his- 
 tory to describe still another incident of Gastein, 
 a little genre picture of manners which was much 
 talked of at this epoch, and even became the object 
 of confidential explanations between the president 
 of the Prussian council and a devoted friend, all ex- 
 tremely devout ? And why not, since the letter of 
 M. de Bismarck to M. Andr6 (de Roman) concerning 
 Mile. Pauline Lucca is one of the most curious pages 
 of his familiar correspondence, if it throws light in a 
 very picturesque manner on that vast and bald fore- 
 head on which the hand of King William had just 
 placed the coronet of a count . Well, in the midst 
 of those political negotiations and the deer hunts, 
 M. de Bismarck found time at Gastein to be photo- 
 graphed in a romantic attitude with Mile. Lucca, first 
 cantatrice of the royal opera at Berlin. The photo- 
 graphs caused a certain scandal on the banks of the 
 Spree ; the leaders of the party of the cross were 
 especially moved at the thermal license which the 
 former Levite of the tabernacle, the fervent disciple 
 of MM. Stahl and de Gerlach, took. M. Andrd (de 
 Roman) was perfectly willing to accept the rdle of 
 Nathan in the Bible, and, in a sermon written in en- 
 tire confidence, he did not limit himself to talking 
 of the Bethsabea of the opera ; he also spoke some 
 well-chosen words touching the reparation by arms 
 which the first minister of Prussia had but lately 
 wished to impose on the good Doctor Virchow, the 
 very learned and very peaceful discoverer of trichina. 
 M. Andr6 found that that was not the conduct of 
 a true Christian ; he did not conceal that his old 
 friends sighed at not seeing their Eliakim assist at 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 1 59 
 
 divine service, and even began to be rather uneasy 
 at the state of his soul. It was to such a sermon 
 that M. de Bismarck replied by the confidential let- 
 ter which follows, and which a lucky indiscretion 
 has since given to the public, a letter assuredly very 
 characteristic, and which makes one think once more 
 of Cromwell, whose memory has been so often called 
 forth in the course of this study : — 
 
 " Dear Andre,' — Although my time is very much 
 restricted, I cannot, however, refuse to reply to a sum- 
 mons addressed to me by an upright heart, and in the 
 name of Christ. I am profoundly pained at scandalizing 
 Christians who have faith, but I have the certainty that 
 it is an inevitable circumstance in my position. I will 
 not yet speak of the parties who are necessarily opposed 
 to me in politics, and who not the less count in their 
 midst a great number of Christians, who have far pre- 
 ceded me in the way of salvation, and with whom, never- 
 theless, I am obliged to be in conflict on account of 
 matters which, in my estimation as well as theirs, are 
 terrestrial ; I appeal only to what you yourself said : 
 ' That nothing that is omitted or committed in the ele- 
 vated regions remains hidden.' Where is the man who, 
 in a similar situation, would not cause scandal, rightly or 
 wrongly ? I will grant you much more still, for your ex- 
 pression ' does not remain hidden ' is not exact. Would 
 to God that apart from the sin the world knows I had 
 not upon my soul others which remain unknown, and 
 for which I can only hope for pardon in my faith in 
 the blood of Christ ! As a statesman, I even think that 
 I use far too much consideration ; according to my idea 
 I am rather cowardly, and that perhaps because it is not 
 
 1 We have taken care to preserve in the translation the character 
 of edifying obscurity which distinguishes the original. 
 
i6o 
 
 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 so easy in the questions which come before me to arrive 
 always at that clearness at the bottom of which con- 
 fidence in God exists. He who reproaches me with 
 being a political man without conscience, wrongs me ; 
 he should first commence by himself testing his con- 
 science on the field of battle. As regards the matter of 
 Virchow, I have long since passed the age in which, on 
 similar questions, one seeks counsel from flesh and blood. 
 If I expose my life for a cause, I do it not only in this 
 faith which I have fortified by a long and painful com- 
 bat, but also by fervent and humble prayer before God ; 
 this faith, the word of man cannot shake, not even the 
 word of a friend in the Lord, and of a servant of the 
 church. It is not true that I have never attended a 
 church. For just seven months, I have been either ab- 
 sent from Berlin or ill ; who then can have made the ob- 
 servation on my negligence ? I willingly agree that it 
 has often happened, much less for want of time than for 
 considerations of health, especially in the winter ; I am 
 always ready to give more detailed explanations to all 
 those who consider it their vocation to be my judges in 
 this matter : as for you, you will believe me without other 
 details of medicine. As to the Lucca photograph, you 
 would probably judge less severely, if you knew to what 
 chance it owes its origin. Besides, Mile. Lucca, although 
 a cantatrice, is a lady whom the world has never, any more 
 than it has me, reproached with illicit relations. Never- 
 theless, I would, have certainly taken care to keep away 
 from the glass pointed at us, if I had in a tranquil mo- 
 ment reflected on the scandal which so many faithful 
 friends would find in this jest. You see by the details 
 into which I enter that I consider your letter as well 
 meant, and that I do not dream in any way of placing 
 myself above the judgment of those who share with me 
 the same faith ; but I expect from your friendship and 
 
TIVO CHANCELLORS. l6l 
 
 from your Christian knowledge which you commend to 
 others, in future circumstances, more indulgence and 
 charity in their judgments : all of us«have need of them. 
 I am of the great number of sinners to whom the glory 
 of God is wanting ; I do not hope the less with them that 
 in His mercy, He will not withdraw from me the staff of 
 the humble faith by the aid of which I seek to find my 
 way in the midst of the doubts and dangers of my posi- 
 tion ; this confidence, however, should not render me deaf 
 to the reproaches of friends, nor impatient at proud and 
 harsh judgments." 
 
 Let us lock up the hair shirt with the discipline ; 
 let us only think of the diplomat in tunic and helmet, 
 of the " iron count " {der eiseme Graf), as his people 
 soon calfed him, and let us look at the disposition of 
 France towards him at the moment when, after hav- 
 ing left the rugged valley of Gastein, he prepared to 
 visit the delightful region of Biarritz, to salute, inter- 
 rogate, divine, and .... cast down the sphinx ! 
 
 In the councils of the empire the debates had be- 
 come from day to day sharper between the ancients 
 and the moderns, between those zealous for the new 
 right and the partisans of a more circumspect and 
 traditional policy, in proportion as the Austro-Prus- 
 sian conflict had grown more bitter and aggravated. 
 The ardent ones would have willingly concluded an 
 offensive and defensive alliance with Prussia. They 
 showed the irresistible movement which was drawing 
 Germany towards unity, and the advantages which 
 France would reap by favoring this evolution in 
 place of opposing it, by attaching to itself by the 
 ties of an eternal recognition the Piedmont of Ger- 
 many, as it had already done with that of the penin- 
 
1 62 TfVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 sula. Passionate friends of Italy, and still more 
 violent adversaries of Austria, this bulwark of the 
 reaction, of legitimacy and of temporal power, they 
 cherished in the kingdom of Frederick the Great 
 the incontestable representative of. civilization, and 
 trembled at seeing it going toward certain defeat in 
 an unequal contest with the Kaiserliks. To hear 
 them, the united action of France, Italy, and Prussia 
 was not too much to preserve the cause of progress 
 and to place Europe on new and immovable bases. 
 Why, however, should not Belgium be the legitimate 
 recompense of the French efforts in favor of Ger- 
 many, as Savoy had been in consequence of the 
 constitution of the kingdom of Italy, and how de- 
 cline a combination in which each of the three na- 
 tions representing par excellence modern ideas on 
 the Continent was called to complete its respective 
 unity ? 
 
 Very different was in this respect the sentiment 
 of the "ancients," the statesmen of the old school, 
 of a whole political group of which M. Drouyn de 
 Lhuys was in the cabinet the most authorized and 
 clearsighted, if not the firmest. First casting aside 
 all desire for Belgium, as a certain cause of a for- 
 midable conflict with England, they asserted the ab- 
 solute impossibility of finding for France a compen- 
 sation, however small it might be, in proportion to 
 the injury which the unification of Germany would 
 cause it. Without misunderstanding the Germanic 
 aspirations for a federal reform, for a more homoge- 
 neous and united constitution, they asked what obli- 
 gation France was under to hasten such a work, and 
 if in any case it were not more desirable that such a 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 1 63 
 
 transformation should be accomplished by the en- 
 lightened and pacific classes, by the federal diet, even 
 by Austria, — always respecting acquired rights and 
 particular sovereignties, — rather than by a power 
 peculiarly military, bureaucratic, and centralistic ? 
 Was not that also the almost general wish of the 
 other side of the Rhine, of the dynasties as well as 
 of the chambers, of the princes as well as of the 
 peoples, and had not the pretension of Prussia, 
 among others, of confiscating for its own profit the 
 conquest of Denmark aroused the consciences of all 
 of them? Only the press of France and Italy which 
 persisted in speaking of " the Piedmontese mission " 
 of the HohenzoUern ; on the banks of the Main and 
 Elbe, every one rejected this pretended mission, and 
 even the National- Verein, brought into contempt 
 some time before while demanding " a united Ger- 
 many with a Prussian point," did not the less repu- 
 diate M. de Bismarck, and declared him unworthy 
 of taking in hand so holy a cause. As to the danger 
 of seeing Prussia succumb in the conflict, and thus 
 reader the Hapsburg all powerful in Germany, there 
 was a very simple means of preventing such an 
 eventuality, that was to refuse the government of 
 Berlin any aid in the enterprise which it meditated. 
 However bold in truth M. de Bismarck was, it was 
 not doubtful that he would never dare to defy 
 Austria and its allies of the Bund in the face of a 
 formal veto of France, which at the same time 
 would take from him all hope of aid from Italy.^ 
 
 1 " What can one say now, if France had shown itself opposed to 
 these proceedings (the treaty of Italy with Prussia), we could not 
 run the risk of finding ourselves face to face with an Austro- Franco 
 
164 TfVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 The plan to follow in such events seemed then as 
 clearly indicated as singularly easy. Without mix- 
 ing directly in German affairs, without wounding at 
 all the Teutonic susceptibilities, one could oppose 
 an insuperable barrier to Prussian ambition ; one 
 had only to maintain the statu quo. Such a policy 
 would inevitably have the warm support of England, 
 and would encourage the resistance of Austria and 
 the secondary States. Without doubt, the Venetian 
 question would be thus warded off; but, besides 
 that, the peace of Europe and the greatness of 
 France were well worth "the pearl of the Adriatic;" 
 it was not forbidden to have great hopes for the city 
 of lagoons from the progress of time, and from the 
 good relations preserved and augmented between 
 France and Austria. 
 
 Generally silent in the midst of these contradic- 
 tory debates, loving, moreover, to plan beneath the 
 passions and agitations of his surrounding counsel- 
 ors in the serenity of a calm and meditative intelli- 
 gence, the Emperor Napoleon III. slowly ripened a 
 project which seemed to him to sufficiently take ipto 
 consideration the different arguments of the two 
 sides, and which, moreover, well answered the rec- 
 ommendation made by him at about the same time 
 to his minister of foreign affairs, inertia sapientia ! 
 
 alliance. Prussia was as solicitous as we, perhaps even more, 
 with the attitude which France would take in case of a war of 
 Prussia and Italy against Austria." — La Marmora, UnfSpiU diluce, 
 p. 80. Three days before the signing of the secret treaty with Italy, 
 M. de Bismarck said to General Govone : " All this, let it be well 
 understood, if France ■wishes it, for, if she shows ill will, then nothing 
 can be done." — Dispatch of General Govone to General de la Mar- 
 mora of the 5th April, 1866. Ibid. p. 139. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 1 65 
 
 Italy naturally was of more real interest to him than 
 to M. Drouyn de Lhuys ; that was a passion, per- 
 haps indeed a youthful contract, and it was even so 
 with the Empress Eugenie, who had become ardent 
 for the affrahchisement of Venice since the entry of 
 M. de La Valette to the ministry, also since the day 
 when M. the Cavalier Nigra had turned some coup- 
 lets full of graceful allusions to a gondola which 
 she had had made for the lake of Fontainbleau. 
 Not less inveterate, but much more fatal, was Louis 
 Napoleon's liking for the country of Bliicher and 
 Scharnhorst ; the " great destinies " of the monarchy 
 of Brandenburg in Germany formed one of the arti- 
 cles of his cosmopolitan faith. " The geographical 
 position of Prussia is badly defined!" as he cried 
 out the following year, at a solemn moment, and 
 in a document too much forgotten.^ He certainly 
 did not intend to destroy the empire of Haps- 
 burg, and allow the Hohenzollern to rule from the 
 . Sound to the Adriatic, as such a course would have 
 readily recognized the intransigeans and the know- 
 nothings of the principle of nationality. A strong 
 appreciator of logic in the affairs of states, and in 
 that (in that alone, perhaps !) truly French spirit, the 
 former prisoner of Ham would have willingly con- | 
 structed an essentially Protestant Prussia opposed 
 to a traditionally Catholic Austria in the centre of 
 Germany, leaving for the secondary States an inter- 
 mediary and fluctuating situation in a religious as 
 well as in a political point of view. An augmented 
 
 I Letter of the emperor to M. Drouyn de Lhuys of the nth June, 
 1866. It is from this letter, solemnly presented to the legislative 
 body, that the quotations which follow are taken. 
 
1 66 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 and rounded Prussia on the Elbe and the Baltic, and 
 thus rendered " stronger and more homogeneous in 
 the North," seemed to him a useful combination, al- 
 most indispensable, counterbalancing Russia, and it 
 was perfectly just that in exchange for new and vast 
 Protestant territories, which it would acquire, the 
 monarchy of Frederick II. should lose Silesia, a 
 Catholic country and former patrimony of Haps- 
 burg, that it should also renounce the Catholic prov- 
 inces of the Rhine, situated too far outside of its 
 natural orbit. " One would thus maintain for Austria 
 its great position in Germany," above all its position 
 as a great Catholic state, and the return of Silesia 
 would be for the Emperor Francis Joseph an ample 
 compensation for the Venetian province which he 
 would cede to King Victor Emmanuel. For the sec- 
 ondary States of the Confederation, one would medi- 
 atize for their profit several of the little unimportant 
 princes ; one would add to them, perhaps, as a new 
 member of the Bund, a new State composed entirely 
 of Rhenish provinces taken from Prussia; one would 
 assure for them, in any case, " a closer union, a more 
 powerful organization, a more important r6le" which 
 the great leaders of thfe party of Wiirzburg, the ad- 
 vocates of the triad, MM. de Beust, de Pfordten, and 
 de Dalwigk, did not cease to demand. A curious 
 fact, in these vast projects which embraced the world 
 and which tended to determine and to satisfy the 
 "legitimate wants" of Italy, Prussia, Austria, the 
 Germanic Confederation, the only obscure question, 
 and never decided in the mind of the French sov- 
 ereign, was that of the compensations which, in the 
 presence of this universal alteration, he could claim 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 1 67 
 
 for his own country. He did not dare to touch the 
 problem of Belgium ; it would be, he declared very 
 honestly, " an act of brigandage." ^ Neither did he 
 deceive himself on the impossibility of annexing im- 
 portant Germanic territories ; generally he stopped 
 at the idea of a simple rectification of frontiers on 
 the side of the Saar and the Palatinate, and of the 
 neutralization of the German line of fortresses on 
 the Rhine. Even reduced to these modest propor- 
 tions, the end did not seem to him to be less worthy 
 of being ardently pursued, in view of the very great 
 and moral satisfaction France would find in the 
 achievement of its work in Italy, and in the rational 
 ordering of affairs in Germany. 
 
 Moreover, that which, in the situation in which he 
 was engaged, especially flattered his instincts, gener- 
 ous at bottom and vaguely humanitarian, was that he 
 hoped to reap considerable advantages for his own 
 country, for the entire universe, without any neces- 
 sity of drawing the sword, without spilling a drop of 
 blood, " by moral force only," by the ascendancy of 
 the name of France. He was resolved to " remain 
 in a watchful neutraUty," not to leave it except in 
 the extreme case of the too complete victories of 
 one of the belligerents menacing "the overthrow of 
 the equilibrium and the modification of the map of 
 Europe for the benefit of a single Power." He pro- 
 claimed it very loudly, on all occasions, and gloried 
 
 1 He used this expression more than once, and in a very con- 
 vincing tone, in the council of ministers before 1866. It was not 
 till later, after Sadowa and the affair at Luxemburg, that he at times 
 seemed to yield to the "party of action" in his views concerning 
 Belgium, without, however, ever giving his full acquiescence. 
 
1 68 ■" TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 in such " disinterested " policy, — a very strange pol- 
 icy, however, and which, according to the very judi- 
 cious mot of Prince Napoleon, declared itself in ad- 
 vance hostile to the conqueror. " You have changed 
 the address of your letter," said with fine raillery the 
 conqueror of Austerlitz to the Prussian envoy who 
 brought him the congratulations of his sovereign; 
 the nephew of Napoleon I. acted in such a manner 
 that he could not change the address, alienating in 
 advance the still unknown conqueror. It is true that 
 he believed he knewhim, that, with alt the world, 
 he saw him. in the. Emperor of Ausffia, and that 
 he counted on making with him preventive arrang- 
 ments. Moreover, even should the army of William 
 I. show itself much superior to the general opinion 
 one had of it, — and, more perspicacious in that than 
 his followers, he fully admitted such an eventuaUty, 
 — still he only saw in this case a long and fatiguing 
 conflict which would exhaust the two parties and 
 would allow him more easily to intervene as judge of 
 the combat and as protector of the right. He thus 
 hoped, in any case, at his time and at his conven- 
 ience, to be able to pronounce a word of peace, of 
 equity, and of equilibrium, and he was convinced 
 that " this word would be heard." It was important 
 for the moment that Prussia should begin the com- 
 bat, and to decide it in its favor it would be neces- 
 sary for it to procure the alliance of Italy. It was 
 also necessary to carefully avoid with the court of 
 Berlin an untimely debate on the combinations and 
 compensations to come ; the least insistence on this 
 delicate point might wound the patriotic feelings of 
 William I., cool his warlike ardor, destroy in the 
 
TfVO CHANCELLORS. 169 
 
 embryo a world of great things, novus rerum ordo ! 
 It was better to ask nothing, to promise nothing, 
 to compromise nothing. Moreover, what use in de- 
 manding notes of a bankrupt, taking sureties from 
 one whose fate seemed so little assured, and whom, 
 according to all probabilities, one would soon have to 
 protect, to defend against too hard conditions which 
 its Austrian conqueror would wish to impose on it ? 
 So complicated and specious as was the strategy 
 planned by the Emperor of the French, there is no 
 doubt that M. de Bismarck penetrated it from the 
 beginning, that he divined it, foresaw it in some way, 
 even before it was completely fixed in the mind of its 
 author, and we have on this subject a most striking 
 proof. In the month of August, 1865, at the time 
 when the first conferences were held between the 
 two governments of Prussia and Italy against Aus- 
 tria, which were soon to interrupt the brusque con- 
 clusion of the armistice of Gastein, M. Nigra wrote 
 to General La Marmora, being evidently inspired by 
 the observations of his Prussian colleague at Paris, 
 Count Goltz : " The cabinet of Berlin would not wish 
 that, war once declared and begun, France should 
 come, like the Neptune of Virgil, to dictate peace, lay 
 down conditions, or convoke a congress at Paris." ^ 
 Thus all is foreseen in those few lines written long 
 before Biarritz, all up to that congress which a Na- 
 poleon III. would naturally not fail to extol one day 
 or another, and which he in fact was to advance in 
 the month of May, 1866. "The difficulty consists, 
 then," continues M. Nigra in his dispatch, "in ob- 
 
 1 Dispatch of M. Nigra of the 8th August, 1865. La Marmora, 
 p. 45. 
 
170 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 taining from France a promise of absolute neu- 
 trality. Will, or can, the Emperor Napoleon make 
 this promise ? Will he give it in writing as Prus- 
 sia wishes it ? " This promise of absolute neutrality 
 M. de Bismarck certainly did not obtain at Biarritz 
 (October, 1865), still less was there a question of 
 any engagement in writing ; but he learned there 
 from august lips that Italy was right in wishing to 
 " complete its unity," that it should not fail to profit 
 by the first favorable occasion, — that France, for its 
 part, was resolved to respect Germany, not to con- 
 tradict on the other side of the Rhine the " national 
 aspirations." Unless the map of Europe was to be 
 modified to its detriment, France would preserve the 
 neutrality, and this neutrality would not be other 
 than " favorable " to a combination in which the in- 
 terests of Italy were engaged. It is allowable to 
 recall a reminiscence which is like a fragment of the 
 conversations of Biarritz in this curious declaration, 
 made six months afterwards by the president of the 
 council of Prussia to General Govone,^ " that apart 
 from the profit which he might find in it, and with 
 no regard for principles, the Emperor of the French 
 would sooner approve the great war for the Ger- 
 man nationality than the war for the Duchies of 
 the Elbe!" 
 
 What, during his sojourn at Biarritz, could hardly 
 have escaped a sagacious observer like M. de Bis- 
 marck, was the hold which his profound attachment 
 for the country of Cavour and Manin had on the mind 
 of Louis Napoleon ; there was the key to the posi- 
 
 1 Dispatch of General Govone of the 17th March, 1866. La Mar- 
 mora, p. go. 
 
TIVO CHANCELLORS. IJl 
 
 tion, the real word of the Sphinx, and that certainty 
 acquired, compensated in the eyes of the Prussian 
 minister for many still disquieting doubts, made him 
 pass over many a reticence of the august, taciturn 
 man.^ For certain reasons, he could even congratu- 
 late himself on the reserve which he preserved to- 
 wards, him, on the care which he took to avoid a 
 discussion in detail ; that released him on his part 
 from any precise engagement, from any premature 
 offer; it allowed him to confine himself to gener- 
 alities, to make fantastic journeys over spaces and 
 centuries, — and he neglected nothing. He spoke of 
 Belgium and a part of Switzerland as the necessary 
 and legitimate complement of French unity, — of 
 the common action of France and Germany for the 
 cause of progress and humanity, — of a future ac- 
 cord between Paris, Berlin, and Florence, even Lon- 
 don and Washington, to conduct the destinies of 
 Europe, to regulate those of the entire world, to lead, 
 for instance, Russia to its real vocation in Asia and 
 Austria to its civilizing mission on the Danube. 
 How many times was seen on this henceforward 
 historical coast of the Gulf of Biscay, the Emperor 
 Napoleon slowly walking and leaning on the arm of 
 Prosper M6rim6e, while the president of the Prus- 
 sian council followed him at a respectful distance, 
 haranguing, gesticulating, and generally receiving 
 for reply only a dull and slightly incredulous look, 
 and how the thought remains to-day sadly fixed on 
 this strange group of the romantic Caesar, the ro- 
 
 1 It was on his return from Biarritz that M. de Bismarck said to 
 the Chevalier Nigra, these significant words : " If Italy did not exist, 
 it would have to be invented." La Marmora, p. 59. 
 
172 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 mancing Cesarean and the terrible realist who, very 
 obsequious at this moment towards his imperial 
 host, four years later was to harshly assign him 
 the prison of Wilhelmshoehe ! From time to time 
 Napoleon III. caused the author of " Colomba " to 
 understand by a furtive pressure of the arm how 
 amusing he found this diplomat with the futile im- 
 agination, this representative of a more than prob- 
 lematical Power, who so cleverly dismembered 
 Europe and distributed the kingdoms. " He is 
 crazy ! " he even whispered one day in the ear of his 
 companion ; but, before recriminating a remark so 
 cruelly expiated since, one can well recall the fol- 
 lowing passage of a dispatch which General Govone 
 wrote the year after : " In speaking to me of Count 
 Bismarck, M. Benedetti told me that he was, so to 
 speak, a maniacal diplomat," ^ and M. Benedetti took 
 care to add that he had long known his man, that he 
 had "followed " him for nearly fifteen years ! 
 
 Is it not necessary in fact to be a little maniacal, 
 to have that " little grain of folly " which Moli^re 
 attributes to all great men, and which Boerhaave 
 beUeves he finds in every great genius,^ to launch 
 the monarchy of Brandenburg into an adventure so 
 eminently perilous as that of 1866? The minister of 
 William I. remarked correctly, however, at Paris, 
 that he would perhaps meet a second Olmiitz, and 
 his biographers quote a characteristic speech of his,- 
 " that death on the scaffold is under certain circum- 
 stances neither the most dishonorable nor the worst 
 
 1 Dispatch of General Govone, of the 6th April, 1866. La Mar- 
 mora, p. 139. 
 ' Est_^iquid delirii in omni magna ingenio. — Boerhaave. 
 
TIVO CHANCELLORS. 173 
 
 of deaths." In a diplomatic point of view, his only- 
 assurance was the profound love of Napoleon III. 
 for the Italian cause, and after as before Biarritz the 
 " Neptune of Virgil " arose, always menacing, free to 
 pronounce his quos ego : the war once declared and 
 begun, France could always dictate peace, lay down 
 the conditions or convoke a congress. The whole 
 point, then, was not to allow the benevolent neutral- 
 ity of Napoleon III. the time to work those infallible 
 changes ; all that was necessary was to act quickly 
 and well, to strike a blow at the beginning which 
 should dictate peace to Vienna and respect to Paris ; 
 victory was only possible at this price ! But, how- 
 ever, there has always been luck and misfortune in 
 the aifairs of this world, — "the all powerful God isj 
 capricious," according to the singular expression of 
 M. de Bismarck at one of the most solemn mo- 
 ments,^ — how far could one count on an army 
 formed only a few years before, and which, as well 
 as its chiefs, had never gone through a great cam- 
 paign .' An extraordinary circumstance in truth, and 
 one which will never cease to be an astonishing fact 
 in history, of the two eminent men who took upon 
 themselves more especially the terrible responsibil- 
 ity of commencing the combat, neither of them had 
 had a superior command, or had made his name illus- 
 trious on a historical field of battle ! Before 1864, 
 the only campaign in which General Moltke had 
 ever assisted was that of Syria between the Turks 
 and the Egyptians ; in 1864 he had borne arms 
 against his own country in that invasion of Den- 
 
 1 At the moment when hostilities commenced ; dispatch of M. de 
 Barral of the 15th June) 1866. La Marmora, p. 332. 
 
174 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 mark which was certainly not calculated to produce 
 Turennes and Bonapartes. General de Roon had 
 formed a part in 1832 of a " corps of observation " 
 which watched the French beseiging Antwerp, and 
 had only distinguished himself since by books of 
 military geography. " After all that we have heard 
 said of these officers," General Govone wrote from 
 Berlin on the 2d April, 1866, "the army is not 
 enthusiastic for the war against Austria ; there is 
 rather in its ranks sympathy for the Austrian army. 
 I know well that the war, once declared, the army 
 will be electrified, and will do its duty bravely ; 
 but it is neither a spur nor a support for the 
 policy which Count de Bismarck wishes to make 
 prevail." ^ 
 
 As to public opinion in Germany, as to the na- 
 tional sentiment of the blond children of Arminius, 
 far from finding there a "spur and support," the 
 Prussian minister only met with repugnance and 
 imprecations. All the Napoleonic ideology was nec- 
 essary to see in the conflict which was preparing 
 " the great war for German nationality," all the 
 blindness of the authoritative and democratic press 
 in France was necessary to assimilate the enterprise 
 of M. de Bismarck on the other side of the Rhine to 
 the work of Cavour in the peninsula. The German 
 nationality was neither oppressed nor threatened 
 from any quarter ; none of the States of the Bund 
 groaned under a foreign dominion ; the ruling 
 houses in Hanover, Saxony, Wiirtemberg, Bavaria, 
 etc., were indigenous, antique and glorious, popular 
 
 1 Dispatch of General Govone of the 2d April, 1866. La Mar- 
 mora, p. 131. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 1/5 
 
 and liberal dynasties ; the larger part of these coun- 
 tries enjoyed a constitutional and parliamentary sys- 
 tem unknown at Berlin ; the cities of Frankfort, 
 Hamburg, Lubeck, Bremen were even republics ! 
 To-day, when success has obscured the conscience 
 and even the memory of contemporary generations, 
 and when a sad philosophy of history is always on 
 the point of justifying the present by falsifying the 
 past, one is prepared to recognize the " providential," 
 irresistible movement which drew Germany towards 
 Prussian unity, and to almost call with M. de Bis- 
 marck the campaign of 1866 "a simple misunder- 
 standing." The truth is that this campaign was a 
 civil war, a fratricidal combat, and it was not only 
 the Prussian people which repudiated the thought 
 and even cursed its author on the eve of Sadowa. On 
 the eve of Sadowa, the principal cities of the king- 
 dom, Cologne, Magdeburg, Stittin, Minden, etc., sent 
 addresses to the sovereign in favor of peace and 
 against " a baleful policy of the cabinet," the great 
 corporation of merchants of Koenigsberg, the city 
 of Kant, even decided to no longer celebrate the 
 king's birthday. On his arrival at Berlin, General 
 Govone wrote : " Not only the upper classes, but 
 even the middle classes are against or unfavorable 
 to the war. This aversion shows itself in the pop- 
 ular journals ; there is no hatred of Austria. More 
 than that, although the chamber has neither great 
 prestige nor great popularity, the debates still create 
 adversaries for Count de Bismarck." Two months 
 later, and at the approach of hostilities, he wrote : 
 " Unfortunately the public mind in Prussia does not 
 awaken in a perceptible manner, even face to face 
 
176 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 with a situation so decisive, so vital for the coun- 
 try." 1 
 
 It is true that none of these obstacles were of 
 a nature to disturb the president of the council at 
 Berlin in his resolutions, nor to retard the course 
 which was traced out. On the contrary there were 
 quite other difficulties and falterings against which 
 he stumbled in the court itself, with the old fogies 
 of Potsdam, especially with his sovereign, and in 
 many a circumstance the "iron count" could well 
 say, like a certain cardinal, " that the cabinet of the 
 king and his /^/zV-c^mc-^i??' embarrassed him more than 
 all Europe." In spite of the faith of William I. in 
 his "mission from above," in spite of the equally 
 strong resolution to preserve at any price his good 
 port of Kiel, he did not the less look upon an open 
 conflict with the Emperor of Austria, an act of hos- 
 tility declared against this German sovereign who 
 bore the venerated name of Hapsburg, as the last of 
 extremities, and he did not wish to have recourse to 
 it until after having exhausted all the means of an 
 amiable settlement. For the extreme case, and in 
 opposition to Napoleon III, he also greatly preferred- 
 the little war for the Duchies to " the great war for 
 German nationality ; " but what he disliked above all 
 things, was the idea of a compact with Italy, a veri- 
 table compact, offensive and defensive, in place of a 
 " generic " treaty with a vague declaration of alliance 
 and friendship, and only destined, as one had per- 
 suaded him from the first, to make Austria reflect 
 and bring it to an adjustment. He, the loyal Ho- 
 
 ^ Dispatches of General Govone of the 2d April and 22d May 
 1866. La Marmora, pp. 131 and 245. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 1 77 
 
 henzollern, to make war on a Hapsburg on joint 
 and equal terms with a Welche, — he, the Lord's 
 anointed, the old combatant of the holy alliance, to 
 become the brother in arms of a Victor Emnianuel, 
 that representative of revolution, that usurper who 
 had overthrown so many legitimate princes, besieged 
 and dethroned his own nephew, and made Garibaldi 
 in a red shirt sit near him, in the coach of the king ! 
 The faltering and compunctions on this point were 
 very sincere^,^ Notwithstanding what has been said, 
 nothing less than the marvelous art of M. de Bismarck 
 was necessary to triumph in the end over these " syn- 
 copes" of the mission, to operate on these tumors of 
 the conscience. " There is my doctor ! " said the old 
 monarch of Prussia one day to a Russian princess 
 who congratulated him on his good health, pointing 
 to his first minister.^ The difficulty of gaining over 
 the king, of triumphing over his superstitions, over 
 the old ideas, over his legitimist scruples, — these 
 words were continually on the lips of M. de Bis- 
 marck in the confidential interviews of the spring of 
 1866, which the valuable reports of General Govone 
 have so fortunately preserved for p6sterity. Assur- 
 edly, in studying those reports, as well as the other 
 dispatches which M. le Marquis La Marmora wished 
 very much to deliver to the public, one can enjoy the 
 spectacle of a comedy in five different acts, all doing 
 little honor to human nature ; one can ask who bears 
 away the palm in duplicity of language, and in ces 
 triplex of the forehead, the grandsons of MachiavelU 
 or the heirs of the Teutonic order ; one can admire 
 there how, to use an ingenuous expression of the 
 
 1 George Hesekiel, iii. p. 271. 
 12 
 
178 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 Italian negotiator, the Southern viper attempts to bite 
 the charlatan of the North, and the charlatan puts 
 his foot on the viper.^ What, however, is the most 
 curious and the most instructive in these documents 
 is the quantity of matters which the president of the 
 Prussian council succeeded in this short space of 
 some months in teaching, his august master, a still 
 greater quantity than he had made him forget. 
 Without doubt, one of the most remarkable of these 
 forgetfulnesses is a certain word of honor given in 
 June, 1866, by a very august personage to the Em- 
 peror Fralncis Joseph, that there was no treaty signed 
 with Italy? when that treaty, a treaty of offensive 
 and defensive alliance in good and due form, already 
 counted at this moment two months of existence, 
 which had been signed at Berlin the 8th April by 
 the respective plenipotentiaries, ratified by the King 
 of Italy at Florence on the 14th, and then ratified 
 on the 20th by the King of Prussia at Berlin. 
 
 By the side of official Italy, the minister of Will- 
 iam I. had taken care to equally attach discontented 
 Italy, which murmured in the shallows of the young 
 monarchy, and General La Marmora complains on 
 several occasions, in his interesting book, " of the 
 intimate and cordial relations which the minister of 
 Prussia at Florence, Count d'Usedom, entertained 
 with some members of the party of action," and 
 
 "^ E la vipera avrh morsicato il ciarlatano. Dispatch pf General 
 Govone of the 15th March, 1866. La Marmora, p. 88. 
 
 ' It was the Queen Augusta who affirmed it in a letter to the Em- 
 peror 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, i865, as well as the telegram of General La 
 Marmora of the same day. La Marmora, pp. 305 and 310. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 1 79 
 
 whose untoward advice it followed only too often-. 
 On his part, the consul of Prussia at Bucharest held 
 in hand (February, 1866) the thread of a conspiracy 
 which was to bring about the fall of the Prince 
 Cbuza, and make a considerable difference in the 
 action of the government at Berlin. " Liberalism 
 is childishness which it is easy to bring to reason ; 
 but revolution is a force of which it is necessary to 
 know how to avail one's self," the cavalier of the 
 Mirk one day said at Paris, and he did not delay to 
 prove the two truths of his aphorism. It is known 
 that his relations with Mazzini were kept up a long 
 time even after Sadowa,^ and the engagements con- 
 tracted in 1866 towards Prussia by the Magyar 
 chiefs have since influenced, influence still at the 
 present time, and much more than is generally 
 thought, the external policy of the empire of the 
 Hapsburg. It was also in the conventicles of the 
 men of the European revolution where the fan- 
 tastic plan of campaign was worked out, which M. 
 d'Usedom wished to force on General La Marmora 
 in his famous dispatch of the 17th June ;^ in it he 
 recommended making war thoroughly, to overturn 
 the quadrilateral, to march along the Adriatic, to 
 penetrate into Hungary, which would at once rise at 
 the name of Garibaldi : " we will thus strike Aus- 
 
 1 After the death of the great Italian agitator, the journals of Flor- 
 ence 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. 
 
 2 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. 
 
l80 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 tria, not at the extremities, but at the heart ! " As 
 to the endeavor to form, under the orders of the refu- 
 gee General Klapka, a legion composed of deserters 
 from the Austrian army, the president of the Prus- 
 sian council greatly wished to affirm before the 
 chambers of Berlin, in his celebrated speech of the 
 i6th January, 1874, that he had rejected with energy 
 ■all those projects at the beginning of ike war. " It 
 was not until after the battle of Sadowa, at the. mo- 
 ment when the Emperor Napoleon III., by a tele- 
 graphic dispatch, had caused the possibility of his 
 intervention to be seen, — it was not till then, and 
 as an act of legitimate defense, that I did not order 
 but only tolerated the formation of this Hungarian 
 legion." Unfortunately, the dates are not quite in 
 accord with the declarations of the present chancel- 
 lor of Germany. The battle of Sadowa was fought 
 the 3d July ; but on the 12th June, M. de Bismarck 
 let the Italian government know that it had definitely 
 accepted the aid of the Sclavic and Hungarian de- 
 fections,^ and it is established by evidence that, long 
 before Sadowa, even before any beginning of war, 
 the Prussian government had had recourse to a 
 means which, accoi-ding to the chancellor's own ex- 
 pressions, " would excite to revolt and treason the 
 Magyar and Dalmatian regiments of the Austrian 
 army." Let us not forget, however, that, while 
 treating with Mazzini and M. Klapka, the minister 
 of William I. was not sparing in denouncing to Eu- 
 rope the Jacobin spirit of the House of Hapsburg : 
 
 1 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. 
 
riVO CHANCELLORS. l8l 
 
 "The king, our august master," said a Prussian dis- 
 patch of the 26th January, 1866, "is grievously af- 
 fected at seeing in the Duchies of the Elbe, and 
 under the aegis of the Austrian eagle, revolutionary 
 tendencies, hostile to all thrones. If at Vienna they 
 believe that they can tranquilly assist in this trans- 
 formation of a race distinguished up to the present 
 time by its conservative sentiments into a hotbed of 
 revolutionary agitations, we cannot do it for our 
 part, and we are decided not to do it." 
 
 It was in the midst of silth dark intrigues, and 
 of negotiations more or less regular, of preparations 
 for war and a continual exchange of notes, of parlia- 
 mentary conflicts and of almost continual daily com- 
 bats with the " old fogies " of the court, that the 
 first six months of the year 1866 passed for the 
 president of the council at Berlin, and rarely has a 
 statesman lived through a more troubled or disturbed 
 period. The waves of events first cast him ashore, 
 then threw him back again, and seemed to remove 
 him farther than ever from his goal. The revolution 
 in Roumania, and the election of Prince Hohenzol- 
 lern by the people of Bucharest, was, for instance, a 
 great stroke of fortune, for this incident brusquely 
 shut a door through which, in the opinion of more 
 than one politician at that time, the Venetian ques- 
 tion might have resulted in peace,-* and it was through 
 
 1 In a dispatch of the ist March, 1866, M. Nigra informs General 
 La Marmora that, conformably with his authorization, he endeav- 
 ored to broach the question of the exchange of the Danubian Prin- 
 cipalities 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 accom- 
 plished. The minister adds that the Emperor Napoleon III. was 
 itruck with this idea. La Marmora, p. 119. 
 
1 82 TIVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 efforts of the French, who had contributed to the 
 installation of the young Prussian prince on the 
 banks of the Danube ! However, immediately after, 
 M. de Bismarck was again aroused from his security 
 by vague rumors of conferences between Austria 
 and France, touching the city of Saint Mark. He, at 
 least, profited by them to persuade the king to sign 
 the secret treaty of the 8th April with the govern- 
 ment of Florence ; but soon the offer of disarming, 
 made by the cabinet of Vienna, the debates in the 
 midst of the legislative body, and the manifestations 
 of public opinion in France, more and more favor- 
 able to the cause of peace, produced a despairing lull, 
 and again gaye courage to the numerous partisans of 
 Austria at the court of William I. The Emperor 
 Napoleon HI. then rendered to the Prussian minis- 
 ter the signal service of again putting in motion the 
 great political machine which began to slacken. He 
 made the speech of Auxerre (6th May), and defied, 
 with scorn, the treaties of 1815. That did not, how- 
 ever, prevent him from immediately bafHing all the 
 plans of M. de Bismarck, by the sudden proposition 
 of a congress, and, at this new occurrence, which 
 seemed to compromise everything, the president of 
 the council at Berlin spoke for the first time of com- 
 pensations for France. " I am much less German 
 than Prussian," he said to General Govone ; " I would 
 not have any difficulty in ceding to France the whole 
 country comprised between the Rhine and Mosel, 
 but the king would have very grave scruples." ^ Let 
 it be well understood, he would in return demand of 
 
 1 Dispatch of General Govone of the 3d June, 1866. La Marmorai 
 P- 27S- 
 
TfVO CHANCELLORS. 1 83 
 
 the French government an active cooperation in the 
 war. But what did not enter at all into the views of 
 Napoleon III. was, that the state of opinion in 
 France did not even permit it to be thought of. In 
 the interim, he learned that new negotiations had 
 just been entered on between Austria and France 
 concerning Venice, and that on the other side the 
 king was making, without his knowledge, proposi- 
 tions to the Emperor Francis Joseph for an amicable 
 arrangement : William I. always preferred the little 
 question of the Duchies to the great war for the 
 German nationality! One can surmise what must 
 have been at this moment the state of mind of the 
 minister who, for so many months, complained be- 
 fore the Count de Barral, Italian plenipotentiary at 
 Berlin, of being betrayed by his agents at London, 
 at Florence, and at Paris. Moreover, he considered 
 his life in danger since an attack made on his person 
 the 7th May ; he was not without uneasiness about 
 his sojourn at Paris during the congress in which 
 he was going to take part, and which he dreaded 
 for so many other reasons. " He does not go out 
 unaccompanied," wrote the Count de Barral, the ist 
 June, "and agents of French police will come as far 
 as the frontier to follow him during the whole jour- 
 ney." 1 
 
 The journey did not take place, as is known ; 
 Prussia, in the words of M. d'Usedom, was " rescued 
 from the congress," and Prince Gortchakof contrib- 
 uted largely to this work of salvation. Always a 
 ready friend, he was the first to think that the pro- 
 
 ' Telegrams of Count de Barral of the 7th April and the 1st June, 
 1866. La Marmora, pp. 141 and 266. 
 
"1 84 rWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 jepted conference had no "practical, aim" with the 
 reservations which j^ustria wished to bring to it/ 
 and thus gave the signal for the general overthrow. 
 From that time M. de Bismarck set himself to " work 
 on the mind of his royal master," and he ended by 
 freeing him from all scruples. " His majesty," Count 
 de Barral telegraphed even on the 23d May from 
 Berlin, " was very much moved at the situation, of 
 which he spoke with great tears in his eyes." Two 
 weeks later, the 8th June, the king wept no longer, 
 but " he still had in his voice something sad, indicat- 
 ing clearly the decision of a resigned man, who be- 
 lieved that he could not act dififerently. His majesty 
 told me that he had full confidence in the justice of 
 his cause. I have a clear conscience," he added, 
 with a moved air, and placing his hand on his heart j 
 " for a long time I have been accused of wishing war 
 for ambitious views, but now the whole world knows 
 who is the aggressor." ^ 
 
 "I will return via Vienna or Munich, or I will 
 charge with the last squadron, which will never re- 
 turn," M. de Bismarck said to a foreign ambassador, 
 at the moment of leaving Berlin for the head-quar- 
 ters, the 30th June, 1866. Two days later he was 
 already at Jitschin, on the field still smoking, from 
 a great battle which had just been fought there. 1 " I 
 have just arrived," he wrote to his wife from Jit- 
 schin ; " the ground is still heaped up with corpses, 
 
 1 Telegram of M. de Launay, from St. Petersburg, of the ist 
 June, 1866. La Marmora, p. 266. One can see in the same work 
 with what empressement M. de Bismarck used this opinion of the 
 Russian chancellor, and transmitted it by telegraph to the different 
 cabinets. 
 
 ° Telegrams of M. de Barral. La Marmora, pp. 248 and 294. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 1 85 
 
 horses, and arms. Our victories are much greater 
 
 than we thought Send me some French 
 
 romances to read, but not more than one at a time. 
 May God keep you ! " This was written the 2d 
 July, 1866 ; the next day the battle of Sadowa was 
 fought ; the next day Germany was at the feet of 
 this singular lover of French romances ; and the 
 Emperor Napoleon III. was sadly awakened from 
 his own romance, from his long humanitarian dream. 
 Like the Titania of the " Midsummer Night's 
 Dream," imperial France saw all at once that, in a 
 state of inconceivable hallucination, she had caressed 
 a monster. 
 
 And while so many events were taking place on the 
 world's stage, great, marvelous, and terrible events, 
 Russia continued to sulk and meditate ; it meditated 
 in the perpetual adoration of Prussia. One seeks in 
 vain for a trace of its action in the events which, 
 nevertheless, concerned in so high a degree its 
 interests, its family alliances, its secular traditions. 
 " Since I have been in Russia," wrote M. Benedetti 
 to his chief in the spring of the year 1866, " let me 
 mention that I have always remarked, not without 
 surprise, the indifference with which the cabinet of 
 St. Petersburg seems to me, from the beginning, to 
 watch the pretensions of Prussia and the eventuality 
 of a conflict between the two great Germanic Pow- 
 ers ; and what I have not been less struck with is 
 the constant security in which I have found M. de 
 Bismarck as to the attitude and the intentions of the 
 Empire of the North." Russia was silent in 1865 
 during the crisis of Gastein ; in the month of May, 
 1866, it only accepted the invitation to the con- 
 
l86 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 gress to make them despair and to discourage the 
 other Powers from it; it was absent from the de- 
 liberations of Nikolsburg and of Prague ; it left to 
 France the care of making efforts for the South of 
 Germany, for Saxony ; it even left it the honor of 
 stipulating a clause in favor of unhappy Denmark, 
 the country of the future empress ! One moment, 
 it is true, M. d'Oubril, the Russian ambassador at 
 Berlin, a diplomat of the old school, had shown him- 
 self very much alarmed at the victories and con- 
 quests of the Hohenzollern ; he was ordered in all 
 haste to St. Petersburg, and " returned from there in 
 a few weeks entirely reassured, and affecting a satis- 
 faction which was not disturbed a single instant 
 either by the reverses of the German princes allied 
 with the House of Russia, or by the developments 
 which Prussia made in its military power." ^ Prince 
 Gortchakof did not sacrifice to the old idols of the 
 right of nations and of the balance of power ; he did 
 not share certain prejudices touching the " solidarity 
 which should exist among all the conservative inter- 
 ests ; " and he had too lofty a soul to be jealous of a 
 good neighbor. Moreover, had he not too "van- 
 quished Europe," three years previously, in the 
 memorable campaign of Poland ? Some august per- 
 sonages some princesses and grand duchesses, had 
 said in vain, with the women of the Bible, that Saul 
 killed his thousands, but David tens of thousands ; 
 they had in vain showed their despoiled relations 
 and their confiscated patrimonies ; Alexander Mik- ■ 
 haYlovitch did not envy the young laurels of his 
 former colleague of Frankfort, become Chancellor 
 
 ' Benedetti, Ma Mission en Pnisse, pp. 99 and 254. 
 
TIVO CHANCELLORS. 1 87 
 
 of the Confederation of the North. He rejoiced in 
 seeing Austria severely punished and France well 
 mortified ; for the rest, he thought that nothing was 
 changed, and that there was only one more great 
 chancellor in this century. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE ECLIPSE OF EUROPE. 
 
 In the little salon of the house Jess6, 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 illustrious speakers, whose move- 
 ments 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," ^ M. de Bismarck had 
 asked M. Thiers for permission to smoke a cigar, 
 while he rested from the negotiations pursued dur- 
 ing 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 de- 
 ceived in supposing that the man who since the at- 
 
 1 This detail, as well as those which follow, are taken from the 
 narration made by M. Thiers himself, some days later, to the diocese 
 of Orleans, and gathered together by M. A. Boucher in his interest- 
 ing Story of the Invasion (Orleans, 1871), pp. 318-325. 
 
TfVO CHANCELLORS. 189 
 
 tack of Blind had not ceased to show a very nervous 
 solicitude for his person/ attributed here in this 
 circumstance, and surely very ungenerously, to the 
 unhappy monarch sentiments which were far from 
 his mind. However that may be, the Prussian min- 
 ister took pleasure during whole hours in the rem- 
 iniscences and stories in which he showed all his 
 brilliancy of mind ; and on his part M. Thiers, scarce- 
 ly returned from that journey of forty days, during 
 which he had twice crossed Europe and negotiated 
 with so many sovereigns and ministers, was not be- 
 hind 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 Bis- 
 marck, — 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, al- 
 lowed at last to plead his cause anew, did not the 
 less find the old " iron count " in the affable and 
 
 1 " He (M. de Bismarck) only goes out accompanied, and agents 
 of French police will come as far as the frontier to follow him during 
 the whole journey," announced M. de Barral from Berlin, the 1st 
 June, 1866, three days after the assault by Blind. M. Jules Favre 
 {History of the Government of the National Defense, vol. i. p. 163- 
 164) speaks of the uneasiness manifested by the minister of William 
 I. at the interview at the castle of Haute-Maison, at Montry : " We 
 are very badly off here ; your Pranc-Ureurs can take aim at me 
 through the windows." One can also recall the language of the 
 German chancellor in the Prussian chambers concerning the assault 
 by Kulmann. 
 
IQO TIVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 fluent talker of a few moments before : the arts had 
 decidedly in no respect softened the political man- 
 ners of the savage. Then M. Thiers remembered the 
 favorable disposition which he had found in Russia, 
 and he thought it useftil 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 im- 
 perial family. Prince Gortchakof, and the other dig- 
 nitaries as well as with that of Russian .society in 
 general. The emperor and his chancellor had ex- 
 pressed 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 con- 
 sequence, 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." ^ 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 irri- 
 
 1 According to the analysis of Lord Lyons, to whom M. de Chaa- 
 dordy communicated this telegram. — Dispatch • of Lord Lyons, of 
 the 6th October, 1870. It is curious to compare with this singular 
 telegram of M. Thiers the opinion expressed by Prince Gortchakof 
 before the English ambassador, " that the conditions indicated in the 
 circular of M. de Bismarck of the i6th September could only be 
 modified by military events, and that nothing authorized such a con- 
 jecture." — Dispatch of Sir A. Buchanan of the 17th October. Now 
 the conditions indicated in the Prussian circular of the i6th Septem- 
 ber were already Alsace and Mete. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. igi 
 
 tated. 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. Theirs did not fail to profit by the 
 permission : he read, he understood, and he was dis- 
 abused. 
 
 Yet, it would not have been difficult for the illus- 
 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 con- 
 sult 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. Bene- 
 detti 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 ex- 
 traordinary circumstances which had accompanied 
 this understanding. Let us briefly recall here those 
 circumstances, endeavoring to free them as much as 
 possible from certain obscurities with which the in- 
 terested 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 com- 
 binations 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, 
 
192 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 " None of the questions which touch us can be 
 solved without the consent of France," the Emperor 
 Napoleon III. had declared the nth June, 1866, in 
 a solemn document 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 vic- 
 tory of the 3d July, 1866, Prussia intended chang- 
 ing the map to its exclusive profit. In place of 
 " maintaining for Austria its great position in Ger- 
 many," as the imperial letter of the nth June had 
 demanded, Prussia demanded that the empire of the 
 Hapsburg should be totally excluded from the Ger- 
 manic Confederation ; in place of according to the 
 secondary States "a more important rS/e, a more 
 powerful organization," it aspired to the complete 
 hegemony over all Germany, and furthermore wished 
 to complete large annexations in the countries occu- 
 pied 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 af- 
 franchisement of Venice, and the equitable settle- 
 ment 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 Napo- 
 leon, in the judgment of his minister of foreign af- 
 fairs, 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 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 193. 
 
 legislative body, to send to the frontier of the East 
 an army of observation of 80,000 men whom Mar- 
 shal 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 de- 
 mands towards the vanquished, and if it realized ter- 
 ritorial acquisitions of a nature to destroy the equi- 
 librium of Europe. 
 
 Assuredly, 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 in- 
 tact ; that in a week Austria could bring back from: 
 ■ Italy 1 20,000 or 1 30,000 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 ambassador o£ 
 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, andi 
 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 demonstra- 
 tion, 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 confi- 
 dential letters addressed by M. de Bismarck to his 
 wife during this campaign, there are some traces of 
 anxiety which at this moment assailed his mind, es- 
 13 
 
194 TfVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 pecially of his efforts to talk sense to the over-eX- 
 cited, " to the good people who do not see farther 
 than their noses, and swim, at their ease on the foam- 
 ing 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 passed 
 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. Unfor- 
 tunately we are as quick to get drunk as to despaii", 
 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 i6tb January, 
 1874, in the Reichstag, the chancellor of Germany, 
 in speaking of those decisive days, made the im- 
 portant avowal, that, " if France had then had only 
 a few available troops, a small body of French troops 
 would have sufificed to make quite a respectable 
 army by joining the numerous corps of South Ger- 
 many, which on their part could furnish excellent 
 materials whose organization alone was defective. 
 Such an army would h.2i.Ye 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 efTervescent against the " fratri- 
 cidal" policy of Prussia, that the proceedings and 
 the exactions of Generals Vogel de Falkenstein and 
 ManteufEel had exasperated the minds of all on 
 
TWO VHANCELLORS. igj 
 
 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 i " Sire," said to the Emperor Na- 
 poleon 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 pass, 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 circum-* 
 stances so imperiously demanded. The needle gun 
 was also a revelation which, by turns, exalted or de^ 
 predated • 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, favoredy 
 provoked the greatest European complications with- 
 out even asking if, at the critical and foreseen mo- 
 ment of thg 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 
 diance to praise Prussia as the powerful agent of 
 
196 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 civilization and progress, to rise against the tenden- 
 cies, always Austrian, of the bureaux of the Quai 
 d'Orsay, and to recommend more than ever an alli- 
 ance 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 recrimina- 
 tions ; he showed the officious and culpable zeal 
 which had been used in order to incite war, the con- 
 sequences 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 ac- 
 quired 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 forliim." It was certainly 
 the least that could be asked, he thought, that they 
 should allow him to obtain, on the other hand, com- 
 pensations, French this '. time, which alone could jus- 
 tify before the nation the kindnesses shown to Prus- 
 sia. 
 
riVO CHANCELLORS. I97 
 
 The debates were long and very violent for sev- 
 eral days, and difEerent influences worked in the 
 most oppjOsite directions. The party of the Palais 
 Royal was not the only one, however, to preach the 
 abandonment of the conqueror of Sadowa ; in a cer- 
 tain 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 in- 
 spires to-day that interest, so near to indifference, 
 which one feels for the strong become weak through 
 their fault, not having foreseen or prepared them- 
 selves. Up to the present time, all is for the best" ^ 
 While M. Magne thus pronounced the vcs 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 Wiirtem- 
 berg, 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 dur- 
 ing 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 
 
 1 Confidential note of M. Magne for the emperor. — Papers and 
 Correspotulence of the Imperial Family, vol. i. p. 240. 
 
198 ttVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 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 powei,ful Italy. 
 The dynasty is menaced, and it will suffer the conse- 
 quences. 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 slaugh- 
 tered 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.^ Napoleon HI. was 
 very ill at this epoch, struggling against the first ad- 
 vances of a cruel disease which never forsook him, 
 — in consequence less than ever inclined to vigor- 
 ous resolutions ; and, on the loth 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 in- 
 terfere in the conflict through its diplomats. 
 
 Yet there was something more efficacious, more 
 loyal in any case, in trying only a vain isolated me- 
 diation, full of perilous reticence and selfish cal- 
 culations : 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 
 
 , 1 The letter addressed to the minister of France at the Hague and 
 placed under the eyes of the emperor, was re-found at the Tuileries 
 after the 4th September. — Papers and Correspondence of the impe- 
 rial Family, vol. i. p. 14. • ■ ' 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. I99 
 
 have been listened to," to borrow an expression from 
 the imperial letter of the i ith June, for it was Prince 
 Gortchakof himself who spoke at this moment of the 
 necessity of a general congress.^ Threatened with 
 the first and violent commotion caused by the sud- 
 den 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 
 Mikhaflovitch had not yet sufficiently cast aside the 
 old Adam, the attacM of the suite of Count Nessel- 
 rode at the reunions of Laybach and Verona, to 
 admit in a trice that such a considerable transfor- 
 mation 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 em- 
 barrassed in asking before the areopagus of the 
 Powers for the almost complete abolition of the 
 treaties of 18 15, the dethronement of the old House 
 
 1 This, however, was only a short desire on the part of Prince 
 Gortchakof, a design without consequence, and of which we find the 
 only authentic trace in an obscure phrase of a dispatch of the French 
 ambassador at Berlin. Vide Benedetti, My Mission in Prussia, p. 
 226. 
 
200 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 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 passed all his reign in propos- 
 ing congresses, in invoking them at the most inop- 
 portune moments, under the least propitious circum- 
 stances, 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 suprising 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 space 
 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 Mikhallovitch ; 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 illumin- 
 ated Paris ! As always, they clung to the prestige, 
 to the glory of appearing as the " Neptune of Virgil," 
 in the eyes of the profane, arid they hoped more 
 than ever to obtain some good God-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 
 
riVO CHANCELLORS. 20I 
 
 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 ambassador 
 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 Briinn : the son of Frederick William III., con- 
 quered 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. Bene- 
 detti on the isth July, "that the reverses of Austria 
 allowed France and Prussia to modify their terri- 
 torial 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 po- 
 sition 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 obli- 
 
202 TfVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 gation 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 for- 
 tune along the Meuse and the Escaut. " I do not 
 tell your excellency anything new," wrote M. Bene- 
 detti 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 Rhipe, not, for in- 
 stance, 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 Ba- 
 varia. 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 Ger- 
 many, and constituted 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 de- 
 clared that the emperor, his august master, " had not 
 wished to complicate the difficulties of a work of 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 203 
 
 European interest in treating prematurely with Prusr 
 sia 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 lOth July, — " the king 
 cares less for the constitution of a political northern 
 confederation, and above all desires annexatiojts ; he 
 would rather abdicate than return without an impor- 
 tant territorial acquisition." ^ 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, Cassel, Hanover, even Saxr 
 ony, 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 con- 
 gress of Vienna, at the "execrated" treaties of 1815, 
 — and how is it possible not to acknowledge that 
 France played a rdle 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 Eng- 
 lish humorist, to profit by the eruption of Vesuvius 
 to boil an egg ! M. de Bismarck uttered at this mo- 
 ment a cruel mot, but which was not entirely unmer- 
 
 1 Dispatch in cipher intercepted by the Austrians and published in 
 connection with the war of 1866 by the Austrian staft 
 
204 TIVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 ited. " France," said he to a former minister of the 
 Germanic Confederation, — "Yx^xxco. follows a Trink- 
 geld 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 Tui- 
 leries,^ makes us see the strange illusions which the 
 French government then cherished, and the am- 
 bassador of Prussia at Paris did his best to sustain. 
 " M. de Goltz finds our pretension legitimate in prin- 
 ciple," wrote the minister of state ; " he considers 
 that satisfaction ought to be given to the only wish 
 of our country to constitute between France and 
 Prussia a necessary and fruitful alliance." The em- 
 barrassment is solely to determine the sum of the 
 demands that should be put forward. "The em- 
 press 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 offi- 
 cially, Prussia consents that we retake the frontiers 
 of 1 8 14, and thus efface the consequences of Water- 
 loo." 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, 
 
 1 Papers and Corresfondence of the Imperial Family, vol. ii. pp. 225, 
 228. The editors pretend that this letter was addressed to M. de 
 Moustier, which is entirely erroneous, M. de Moustier being then at 
 Constantinople. We are inclined to believe that the receiver was 
 M. Conti, who had accompanied the emperor to Vichy. It will be 
 remembered that Napoleon III., very unwell and suffering during this 
 whole epoch, had gone the 27th July to Vichy, where M. Drouyn de 
 Lhuys went to see him for a short time ; the chief of the state could 
 not, however, prolong his sojourn in the watering-place, and returned 
 to Paris on the 8th August. 
 
T-fVO CHANCELLORS. 205 
 
 new facts must develop in order that new preten- 
 sions arise, but these facts will certainly be devel- 
 oped. Germany is only in the first of those numer- 
 ous 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, es- 
 pecially, 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 covetous- 
 ness 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 fa- 
 mous name of three fragments, and to declare, mar- 
 velously reassuring for France, they already waited 
 for an opportunity to abandon this combination, and 
 to traffic for it " at a reasonable price ! " 
 
 How naive to think that after Sadowa and Nikols- 
 burg, the ruin of Austria consummated, Germany 
 completely subjected, all intervention of Europe 
 checked, and the military weakness of France pro- 
 claimed to all the winds,^ that one would find Prus- 
 sia 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 
 
 1 " For some time it lias been too often said that France is not ready." 
 Confidential note of M. Magne of the 20th July (Papers and Corre- 
 spondence of the Imperial Family, vol. i. p. 241). M. de Goltz had early 
 discovered this secret, and had not ceased to recommend to M. de Bis- 
 marck a firm attitude as regarded France. 
 
2o6 rrv'o chancellors. 
 
 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 opin-. 
 ion in Prussia in regard to France : " The appre^ 
 hensions 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 hum- 
 ble 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 con- 
 vinced 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." ^ And it was the same diplomat who had? 
 so appreciated the situation before the campaign 
 of Bohemia, it was this same ambassador who now 
 took upon himself to present to M. de Bismarck 
 the demands of the cabinet of the Tuileries, whp- 
 even submitted to him on the Sth August a proj- 
 ect for a secret treaty, implying the abandonment 
 to France of all the left bank of the Rhine, withr. 
 out excepting the great fortress of Mayence ! " In 
 
 1 My Mission in Prussia, pp. 171-172. M. Drouyn de Lhuys, whp^ 
 had already obtained from Austria the cession, in any case, of Vene- 
 tia, insisted at this moment more strongly than ever that they should' 
 also take pledges in advance from Prussia, " the most formidable, 
 the most active of the parties." M. Benedetti did not cease to op- 
 pose such a proceeding, fearing that Prussia would renounce in this, 
 case all idea of war against Austria, and this dispatch of the 8th July 
 was in reality only a new plea in favor of the laisser-aller withou^ 
 conditions which should be granted to M. de Bismarck. ,, 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 207 
 
 view of the important acquisitions which the peace 
 assures to the Prussian government," said M. Ben- 
 edetti, " I was of the opinion that a territorial re- 
 modeling would hereafter be necessary for our se- 
 curity ; 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 attitude resolute." Was firmness wanting, 
 or was too much of it shown ? In any case, M. de 
 Bismarck asserts that he replied in a tone which 
 certainly showed no irresolution. "Very well," he 
 replied to the pressing entreaties of the ambassador, 
 " 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 dy- 
 nasties would prove to be much more firmly estab- 
 lished than that of Napoleon." ^ 
 
 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 ambassador, 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 
 
 1 Benedetti, My Mission in Prussia, pp. 177 and 178. Monitcwr 
 prussien (Reichsameiger) of the 21st October, 1871. 
 
208 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 king his august master, — and what alhance more 
 desirable, in a point of view of progress and of civil- 
 ization, than that with the French empire? He 
 thus returned to his recent effusions of Briinn and 
 Nikolsburg ; he insinuated " that other arrangements 
 could be made which would satisfy the respective 
 interests of the two countries,"^ and he strength- 
 ened 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 ambassador of Prussia, M. de Goltz, ably 
 seconded by the f arty of action, to which the arrival 
 of M. Benedetti (nth August) brought considerable 
 support. M. Drouyn de Lhuys was not at all sur- 
 prised at the Prussian ingratitude, as M. Benedetti 
 had expressed it in one of his last dispatches,'^ but, 
 
 1 My Mission in Prussia, p. l8l. This assertion of M. Benedetti 
 is fully confirmed by the note found among the papers of the 
 Tuileries, of which we will speak farther on. 
 
 ' " Prussia will disregard what justice and foresight demand, and 
 will give us at the same time the measure of its ingratitude, if it re- 
 fuses us the guarantees which the extension of its frontiers obliges us 
 to claim." — Dispatch of M. Benedetti, the 5th August, 1866, found 
 at the castle of Ceryay among the papers of M. Rouher, and pub- 
 lished in the Moniteur prussien of the 21st October, 1871. Towards 
 the same epoch, they spoke also of the ingratitude of Italy. " The 
 unjustifiable ingratitude of Italy irritates the calmest minds," wrote 
 M. Magne in his confidential note by order of the emperor, dated the 
 20th July. The cabinet of Florence in truth created in France at this 
 moment unheard of embarrassments by susceptibilities and demands 
 which, to say the least, were very ill-timed. After having been beaten 
 on land and sea, at Custozza and at Lissa, and having received as a 
 recompense the magnificent gift: of Venetia, the Italians made pre- 
 tensions to Tyrol ! There was even an instant when the emperor 
 thought " of renouncing the fatal gifl made him, and of declaring, 
 by an official act, that he gave back to Austria its parole." See the 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 209 
 
 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 5 th 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 sud- 
 denly 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 HI. 
 to the minister of the interior, " that we will have 
 all Germany against us for a small profit ; it is im- 
 portant not to let public opinion be mistaken on 
 this point." The misfortune was only that the im- 
 perial government allowed itself at this moment to 
 be misled on a very dangerous point, and that Bel- 
 gium 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 
 
 curious note of M. Rouher written by order of the emperor, Papers 
 and Correspondence of the Imperial Family, ii. pp. 229 and 23. 
 14 
 
210 TH^O CHANCELLORS. 
 
 Meuse and the Escaut, is a truth which to-day can- 
 not be doubted, the authentic documents 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." 1 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 brig- 
 andage '' by the chief of the state, they had to await 
 that hour of patriotic anguish which marked the ar- 
 rival of Benedetti, to be at last taken into serious 
 consideration. 
 
 Certainly the ambassador 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 passion, 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 
 
 1 La Marmora, Un pi piil di luce, p. 117, Report of General 
 Govone, 3d June, 1866, Ibid. p. 275. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 211 
 
 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 at- 
 tempt of this kind, and to lay stress upon the fierce, 
 intractable, and suspicious patriotism of the House 
 of HohenzoUern, even to the point of being some- 
 times suspected at the H6tel 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 territo- 
 rial remodeling was henceforth necessary to the se- 
 curity of France." This remodeling he had flat- 
 tered 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 ingratitude," he was never- 
 theless soon given to hope what the minister of 
 William I. had insinuated to him, " that other proper 
 arrangements could be made to satisfy the respec- 
 tive 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 
 
212 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 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," ^ 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 Briinn, 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 curi- 
 ous note found among the papers of the Tuileries, 
 and which incontestably sums up the ideas of the 
 party of action at this epoch,* "it is necessary to 
 establish now that there exists no Belgian national- 
 
 ^ "All the efforts which he (M. de Bismarck) has without cessa- 
 tion made to bring about an agreement with us prove sufficiently that, 
 in his opinion, it was essential to indemnify France." — My Mission 
 in Prussia, p. 192. Thus thought the ex-ambassador of France, 
 even in 1871 ! 
 
 ^ Papers and Correspondence of the Imperial Family, i. pp. 16, 17. 
 The editors thought that they recognized in this note the handwrit- 
 ing of M. Conti, chief of the emperor's cabinet. ' 
 
TH^O CHANCELLORS. 213 
 
 ity, 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 arrange- 
 ments 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 per- 
 fectly sure guarantee, it would have the double advan- 
 tage of compromising Prussia, and would be for it a 
 gage of the sincerity of the policy or of the inten- 
 tions of the Emperor To be certain of find- 
 ing 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 neces- 
 sary, 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 gov- 
 ernment will not oppose our aggrandizement in the 
 North." 
 
 III. 
 
 It was with the mission of negotiating a secret 
 act, binding the two parties in the sense indicated 
 by the note which we have just given, that M. 
 Benedetti left Paris towards the end of the month 
 of August. The act was to provide for an of- 
 fensive and defensive alliance between the two 
 states, and, in exchange for the recognition of the 
 
214 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 changes already accomplished or still to be accom- 
 plished in Germany, to assure to Napoleon III. the 
 diplomatic aid of Prussia for the acquisition of Lux- 
 emburg, and its armed aid at the moment when 
 France should judge it opportune to annex Bel- 
 gium. Immediately on his arrival at his post the 
 French ambassador went resolutely to work : he 
 carried on the negotiation without the knowledge of 
 his immediate chief, and only referred to the em- 
 peror and the minister of state.^ He .begged the 
 
 1 " On my departure from Paris, towards the middle of August," 
 says M. Benedetti, in his book. My Mission in Prussia, p. 194, " M. 
 Drouyn de Lhuys had offered his resignation, and I supposed that his 
 successor would be M. Moustier, who was then ambassador at Con- 
 stantinople. At this moment there was no minister of foreign affairs. 
 In this state of things, I thought it proper to address to the minister 
 of state, M. Rouher, the letter in which I announced my interview with 
 M. de Bismarck, and which accompanied the plan of treaty relative 
 to Belgium." M. Drouyn de Lhuys had not tendered his resignation 
 towards the middle of August ; right or wrong, he believed at this 
 epoch that he was " doing an act of honesty and disinterestedness in 
 remaining," and his portfolio was not taken from him till ist Sep- 
 tember, 1866. Up to that date M. Drouyn de Lhuys had not ceased 
 to direct the department; the ambassador himself quotes in his book 
 several dispatches exchanged with him, on grave questions, dated 
 2ist and 25th August (pp. 204, 223), and M. Benedetti has singular 
 ideas on the hierarchical duties, believing that it is proper for an 
 agent to evade the control of his immediate chief in view of his near 
 retirement. The conclusion of the passage quoted in the book of M. 
 Benedetti is not less curious : *' M. Rouher," says he, " has not laid 
 before the ministry, having never taken the direction of it, the corre- 
 spondence which I, during several days, exchanged with him. If I 
 gave it here, I should not know how to refer the reader, that he 
 might verify the text of it, to the depot of the archives, as I am 
 authorized to do with all the documents which I put before his eyes." 
 What of that ? Once decided to make revelations, M. Benedetti^ 
 could have well produced this correspondence with M. Rouher on 
 such a disputed subject, while conscientiously warning the reader 
 that he could not find the originals at the ■ depot of the archives. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 21$ 
 
 president of the council of Prussia to regard the 
 propositions of the 5th August, those relative to the 
 left bank of the Rhine, as null and void, as a joke of 
 M. Drouyn de Lhuys during the sickness of his 
 august master, and submitted to him a new project 
 in five articles concerning Belgium. It matters lit- 
 tle that the ambassador of France had with him the 
 minute of it which he had written in the cabinet of 
 the Prussian minister, at his request, and, " in some 
 measure at his dictation ; " it is certain that Bene- 
 detti acted according to the instructions from Paris,^ 
 and that M. de Bismarck on his part did not decline 
 such overtures. He had even made observations on 
 some of the terms employed in the draft, and in- 
 sisted on introducing several changes in the text. 
 The project thus amended was sent to Paris, and 
 returned anew to Berlin with rectiiications made by 
 the emperor and M. Rouher. On the banks of the 
 
 (It is known that the originals were seized by the Prussians, with a 
 great number of other important documents, in the castle of M. 
 Rouher, at Cer9ay.) While throwing "a little more light" on all 
 the unnatural obscurities, let us also observe that it is wrongfully, 
 but with a design easy to divine, that the celebrated circular of M. 
 de Bismarck, of the 29th July, 1870 (at the beginning of the war), 
 had assigned to this plan of the secret treaty concerning Belgium 
 A much later date, the year 1867, the epoch after the arrangement 
 of the affair of Luxemburg. This allegation does not withstand a 
 first examination and a simple comparison of the parts delivered to 
 the public. The shadowy negotiation on the subject of Belgium was 
 held in the second half of the month of August, 1866, as M. Benedetti 
 says. 
 
 1 The Moniteur prussien of the 21st October, 1871, gives (from the 
 documents seized at Cer5ay) extracts from the instructions sent from 
 Paris the l6th August to M. Benedetti concerning the secret treaty. 
 A passage from these instructions contains " the designation of the 
 persons to whom this negotiation was to be confined." 
 
2l6 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 Seine, in the councils of the small number initiated 
 in the secret, they were full of expectation and cheer- 
 fulness ; they debated the question of the successor 
 of M. Drouyn de Lhuys, and the opinions were 
 divided between M. La Valette and M. Benedetti ; 
 they exchanged ideas which were soon expressed in 
 a sadly celebrated document, and they rejoiced at 
 seeing "the treaties of 1815 destroyed, the coali- 
 tion of the three Powers of the North broken, and 
 Prussia made sufficiently independent and suffi- 
 ciently compact to ignore its former traditions." ^ 
 All of a sudden a discouraging dispatch from the 
 ambassador of France at the court of Berlin (29th 
 August) troubled their minds, and they had again 
 some apprehensions on the subject of the "neces- 
 sary and fruitful alliance " which they flattered them- 
 selves with having established. 
 
 The conferences had continued up to the last days 
 of the month of August, and M. de Bismarck had 
 lent himself with good grace to the dilatory negotia- 
 tions. In the mean time, the peace of Prague, the 
 definite peace with Austria, was signed (26th August); 
 the States of the South had adhered one after the 
 other to the stipulations of Nikolsburg, and solemnly 
 recognized the confederation of the North, as well as 
 the territorial acquisitions of Prussia. The secret 
 act concerning Belgium was in the hands of the 
 minister of William I., and only needed to be fairly 
 copied and signed, but at this moment M. Benedetti 
 suddenly met with strange inconceivable distrusts 
 which did not fail to wound him deeply. M. de 
 
 1 Quoted from the circular of M. de La Valette of the i6th Sep- 
 tember, 1862. 
 
TH^O CHANCELLORS. 21/ 
 
 Bismarck hesitated, spoke to him of his fears " that 
 the Emperor Napoleon would wish to make use of 
 such a negotiatioa to create suspicion between Prus- 
 sia and England." The stupefaction of the French 
 ambassador was extreme. " What degree of confi- 
 dence can we on our side accord to those open to 
 such suspicions } " he asked in his dispatch of 
 the 29th August.^ The proceeding seemed to him 
 unjustifiable, and, in order not to be tempted to 
 qualify it, he judged it opportune " to go for a fort- 
 night to Carlsbad where he would hold himself ready 
 to return to Berlin on receipt of the first telegram 
 which M. de Bismarck should address to him." 
 Slightly moved at this circumstance, the court of the 
 Tuileries was not the less obstinate in believing in 
 the secret act which was preparing at Berlin ; it dis- 
 missed M. Drouyn de Lhuys, and long before the 
 arrival of his successor from Constantinople, M. de 
 Moustier, they hastened to publish that famous circu- 
 lar of the 1 6th September, which bore the signature 
 of the minister of the interior, M. de La Valette, 
 and was one more pledge given to the conqueror of 
 Sadowa. The manifest praised the theory of com- 
 binations and affirmed that "Prussia, enlarged, free 
 henceforth from any solidarity, would assure the 
 independence of Germany ; " as to the most ser 
 cret hopes, scarcely an allusion was made to them : 
 " France can only desire territorial aggrandizements 
 which do not alter its powerful cohesion." Nothing 
 happened, however, and M. Benedetti waited in vain 
 
 ^ These details, as well as those which follow, are taken from the 
 papers seized at Ceryay and published in the Moniteur prussien of 
 the 2ist October, 1871. 
 
21 8 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 under the elms and the beautiful firs of Carlsbad .• 
 M. de Bismarck gave no sign of life. He had gone 
 to Varzin, from whence he did not return until the 
 month of December. The dilatory negotiations had 
 borne all their fruit in the month of August, and the 
 French government would have been too happy if 
 all those shadowy intrigues had remained for it only 
 a simple deception : they became its chastisement. 
 
 M. de Benedetti had, however, pretended to know 
 his man, to have followed him for fifteen years ! 
 He had followed him in any case during the negotia^* 
 tions of the spring which brought about the treaty 
 between Prussia and Italy ; he had then contem- 
 plated the magnificent tilt between the viper and the 
 charlatan, and himself very judiciously judged a sit- 
 uation in which the plenipotentiaries of the two 
 countries had surpassed one another in miracles of 
 the true Punic faith. " M. de Bismarck and General 
 Govone distrusted and still distrust one another," M. 
 Benedetti wrote in his dispatch of the 27th of March, 
 1866. " It is feared at Florence that, finding itself 
 in possession of an act which places Italy in a cer- 
 tain degree at its discretion, Prussia will make known 
 the stipulations of it at Vienna and will persuade 
 the Austrian cabinet, by intimidation, to peacefully 
 make the coveted concessions. At Berlin, they fear 
 that Italy, if they promised to negotiate on these 
 bases, will directly inform Austria before concluding 
 any treaty, and will thus try to obtain from it the 
 abandonment of Venice." After a similar experience 
 in anima vili, how could M. Benedetti have left on 
 the table of the president of the council of Berlin his 
 compromising autograph on the subject of Belgium, 
 
TWO CItANCELLORS. 219 
 
 an act which in a certain degree placed France at the 
 mercy of Prussia f How could he be astonished at 
 seeing his interlocutor " open to certain suspicion," 
 and did he not on the contrary make the same cal- 
 culations for his own account and profit ? It was, 
 however, very foolish to suppose that M. de Bis- 
 marck had the will to do unto others that which' he 
 declared he did not wish others to do unto him ! 
 And the ambassador of France would have scarcely 
 been wrong in crediting this charitable thought to 
 his interlocutor, however unevangelical, for the 
 amusing or rather the sad part of the affair, — the 
 true humor of all this imbroglio, as the Bardolph of 
 Shakspere would say, — is that the cavalier of the 
 Mark had already executed precisely the manoeuvre, 
 indifferently chivalric surely, of which he pretended 
 to suspect Napoleon III., and that the thing was 
 done at the moment when he demanded if they had 
 nothing in their hands and pockets. They had left 
 in his hands two very secret and dangerous docu- 
 ments, the two plans of the treaties on the Rhine and 
 Belgium,^ and he took care not to avail himself of 
 them immediately at the expense of the interested 
 parties, whom he had every interest to attach to 
 himself. 
 
 1 The two plans of the treaties have since been published by the 
 Prussian journals of the 29th July and 8th August, 1870. The Prus- 
 sian government is now in possession of two French autographs of the 
 plan concerning Belgium ; the one which M. Benedetti left with M. 
 de Bismarck in the month of August, 1866, the other likewise from the 
 hand of M. Benedetti, with marginal notes by Napoleon III. and M. 
 Rouher ; this latter document was seized at Cer5ay. For the descrip- 
 tion and other details, see the Moniteur prussien of the 21st October, 
 1871, and the article from the North German Gazette on the subject 
 of the affair La Marmora. 
 
220 TJVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 The preliminaries of Nikolsburg, the reader will 
 remember, had stipulated that the States of the 
 South should remain outside of the new confedera- 
 tion directed by Prussia, and that they should form 
 among themselves a restricted union. That was the 
 great success obtained by the French mediation, the 
 salutary combination of the three fragments, much 
 more favorable to the interests of France, according 
 to its opinion, than that of the former Bund, the 
 ill-omened creation of 1815. It is true that among 
 the persons initiated in the secret of Benedetti's mis- 
 sion, " this group of confederates " was only regarded 
 as " a matter of business for a reasonable profit ; " 
 in waiting, however, they "saved" the South, and 
 M. Drouyn de'Lhuys honestly exerted himself, in 
 this month of August, 1866, to aid the unhappy plen- 
 ipotentiaries of Bavaria, of Wiirtemberg, of Hesse, 
 etc., who had gone to seek a definite peace at Berlin. 
 M. de Bismarck had first frightened them by his fis- 
 cal and territorial demands ; they had invoked and 
 obtained the support of the emperor, and in the Tui- 
 leries they flattered themselves with having in truth 
 persuaded the minister of William I. to more equi- 
 table sentiments. Still, on the 24th August, M. 
 Drouyn de Lhuys wrote to his agent in Bavaria : " I 
 am happy to think that our last step has not been 
 without influence on the result of a negotiation 
 which is ending in a more satisfactory manner than 
 the cabinet of Munich had at first thought possi- 
 ble ; " and it was not only M. Benedetti who took 
 to himself in this matter the credit of playing the 
 fine rdle of moderator.^ The truth is, that if M. de 
 
 1 Private letter from M. Benedetti to the Duke of Gramont, dated 
 22d August, 1866. My Mission in Prussia, p. 192. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 221 
 
 Bismarck ended by becoming more moderate and 
 even amicable towards the Southern States, he had 
 very different motives than the desire of being agree- 
 able to the cabinet of the Tuileries. He had simply 
 shown to " the group of confederates " the project of 
 the treaty of _the 5 th August ; he had made them see 
 that the French government, at the same time when 
 it seemed to protect, sought to extend itself together 
 with Prussia at their expense, and demanded por- 
 tions of the Palatinate and of Hesse. In place of 
 demanding from them the sacrifices which they 
 feared, the minister of William I. offered to defend 
 them against the "hereditary enemy." There was 
 no hesitation : the States of the South surrendered, 
 and Prussia concluded with them (from the 17th to 
 the 23d August) secret treaties of offensive and de- 
 fensive alliance. The contracting parties guaranteed 
 reciprocally the integrity of their respective territo- 
 ries, and the States of the South engaged to place, 
 in case of war, all their military forces at the dis- 
 posal of the King of Prussia. The " matter of busi- 
 ness," on which M. Rouher had counted, was hence- 
 forward out of the market ; the line of the Main 
 found itself free before it had been traced on the 
 official map of Europe, and from the month of Au- 
 gust, 1866, M. de Bismarck could count on the armed 
 cooperation of all Germany.^ 
 
 The military conventions with the States of the 
 South were kept rigorously secret for a long time, 
 and it was not till the spring of the following year 
 that M. de Bismarck found it convenient to give 
 
 * Albert Sorel, Diplomatic History of the Franco- German War, 
 vol. I. pp. 29, 30. 
 
222 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 them a crafty publicity in reply to the speech of the 
 minister of state on the three fragments. Up to 
 that time M. Benedetti had been ignorant of them, 
 like other mortals, but he had shown himself more 
 clear-sighted as regards another very grave event, 
 contemporary with these conventions concluded 
 with the South, and he recognized from the begin- 
 ning the ominous bearing of the mission of Gen- 
 eral Manteuffel to St. Petersburg in the month of 
 August, 1866. It must not be forgotten that at 
 the bottom of the " new policy " which during this 
 month they were flattering themselves with having 
 inaugurated at the Tuileries by a cordial understand- 
 ing with the court of Berlin, a Russian problem was 
 agitating. Would the monarchy of Brandenburg, 
 "rendered sufficiently independent and sufficiently 
 compact to loosen itself from its traditions, free 
 henceforward from all solidarity," decide to break 
 its secular and hitherto unrelaxed ties with the em- 
 pire of the czars .' That was the true and vital ques- 
 tion of the future. " Prussia must have an alliance 
 with a great Power," the minister of William I. did 
 not cease to reiterate at this epoch ; but, as Austria 
 was destroyed, and England had long since con- 
 demned itself to widowhood, only France and Rus^ 
 sia remained, between whom the lucky conqueror of 
 Sadowa had then the position of the Don Juan of 
 Mozart, between Dona Anna and Dona Elvira. Sur- 
 prised in the darkness, imposed upon in a moment 
 of deplorable misunderstanding, the proud and pas- 
 sionate Dofia Anna occasionally cast glances of de- 
 fiance and venganza, oftener, alas ! looks still ardent 
 from the last embrace, and betraying the secret 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 223 
 
 flame, which even said very plainly, that she would 
 go still farther, provided there was reparation, pro- 
 vided that a marriage followed, if it was only a 
 •clandestine marriage. Russia was Dona Elvira, the 
 former, the legitimate ally a little vexed at recent 
 neglect, even very gravely injured in family inter- 
 ests, but always loving, always fascinated, and only 
 waiting for a kind word to forget all and to throw 
 herself into the arms of the fickle one. We only 
 speak briefly of Zerline, of Italy, a cunning and 
 lively soubrette, intruding herself everywhere, in 
 love, she also, the poor little thing, with the irre- 
 sistible seducer, and often treated very cavalierly, 
 happy, nevertheless, to be pinched privately, and 
 to say that she also was " protected by a great 
 lord." 
 
 Such being the situation in this decisive month, 
 the ambassador of France to the court of Berlin ex- 
 perienced a violent shock in learning one day of the 
 sudden departure for St. Petersburg of General 
 Manteuffel, the general - diplomat, more diplomat 
 than general, the confidant, par excellence, of King 
 WiUiam, and always the man for private missions. 
 " I have asked M. de Bismarck," M. Benedetti has- 
 tened to write to Paris, " what I should think of this 
 mission, confided to a general commanding troops 
 in the campaign. After having pretended that he 
 thought he had informed me of it, M. de Bismarck 
 assured me that he had told M. de Goltz, in order 
 that he might instruct you." Strictly speaking, one 
 finds it natural that the king wished to plead before 
 his imperial nephew the extenuating circumstances 
 of a painful situation, which forced him to take 
 
224 TfVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 the goods and the crowns of several very near rela- 
 tions of the House of Romanoff ; but the French 
 ambassador was above, all struck by the circum- 
 stance that the journey of M. de Manteuffel had* 
 been decided the day after he had delivered his 
 project of the treaty. " I asked the president of the 
 council," he continues in the same dispatch, " if this 
 general officer had been informed of our overture ; 
 he answered that he had had no occasion to make 
 him a party to it, but that he could not guarantee to 
 me that the king had not told him the substance. I 
 should add, as I have told you by telegraph, that I 
 gave a copy of our project to M. de Bismarck on 
 Sunday morning, and that General Manteuffel, who 
 had scarcely removed his head-quarters to* Frank- 
 fort, was called to Berlin in the following night." 
 Towards the end of the month of August, when M. 
 de Bismarck for the first time showed his hesitation 
 in signing the secret act concerning Belgium, M. 
 Benedetti wrote, in a letter to M. Rouher, concern- 
 ing the mission that M. de Manteuffel continued 
 to fill at St. Petersburg. "They have elsewhere 
 obtained assurances which dispense with our aid," 
 said he ; " if they decline our alliance, it is because 
 they are already provided, or on the eve of being." ^ 
 General Manteuffel remained several weeks at St. 
 Petersburg ; he stayed there long enough to dissi- 
 pate a certain sadness caused by the recent mis- 
 fortunes of the Houses of Hanover, Cassel, Nassau, 
 etc., all aUied by blood to the imperial family of 
 Russia, also long enough to communicate such proj- 
 
 1 Papers seized at Cerfay, Moniteur prussien of the 2ist October, 
 1871. 
 
riVO CHANCELLORS. 22$ 
 
 ects and show autographs by which they had treach- 
 erously endeavored to turn the Hohenzollern from 
 his loyal, unalterable affection for his relative of the 
 North. Thanks to all these proceedings, and all these 
 attentions, the good harmony between the two courts 
 became greater than ever ; they easily explained the 
 past, and arranged for the future, and the ambas- 
 sador of France at the court of Berlin was not de- 
 ceived in designating, from this moment, the " bear," 
 whose skin the general-diplomat had gone to sell 
 on the banks of the Neva. To speak in the words 
 of the Marquis La Marmora, it was a bear of the 
 Balkans, which had not been well for a long time, 
 and which the Emperor Nicholas had declared sick 
 twenty 'years before. One will see in the sequel 
 that Alexander Mikhallovitch did not the less miss 
 the deer at the general hunt in 1870, that he scarcely 
 succeeded in getting for himself a handful of hai* 
 well fitted to adorn his helmet ; that takes nothing 
 from the merit of the perspicacity which the un- 
 fortunate negotiator of the secret act concerning 
 Belgium had given proof of on this occasion. M. 
 Benedetti early foresaw the desolating truth, which, 
 for M. Thiers, was not visible until very late, at 
 the bottom of this Russian box which M. de Bis- 
 marck allowed him one evening, at Versailles, to 
 rummage with a liberality which was certainly not 
 free from malice. 
 
 In endeavoring, after the great disaster of the 
 campaign of Bohemia, to obtain from Prussia com- 
 pensations first on the Rhine, then on the Meuse, 
 the Emperor Napoleon III., in those months of July 
 and August, 1866, had only facilitated for M. de 
 IS 
 
226 TH^O CHANCELLORS. 
 
 Bismarck the two great political combinations which 
 were since, in 1870, of such prodigious use: the 
 armed cooperation of the Southern States, and the 
 moral aid of Russia in case of a war with France. 
 The chief fault, however, of the Napoleonic policy 
 the day after Sadowa, was to have so well served 
 Prussia in its desire to escape from all control on 
 the part of Europe, and to have given its sanction 
 from the very first to such an immense derange- 
 ment of the equilibrium of the world, without the 
 cause being brought before the areopagus of nations. 
 This forgetfulness of the duties towards the great 
 Christian family of states was only too quickly and 
 too cruelly avenged, alas ! and Prince Gortchakof, in 
 1870, only followed a recent and lamentable example 
 in allowing France and Germany to decide their 
 quarrel in the lists, in hindering all common action 
 of the Ppwers, all European concert. " I see no 
 Europe!" cried M. de Beust, in 1870, in a cele- 
 brated dispatch, and no one thought of disputing 
 this dolorous affirmation. A few only observed 
 with sadness that the eclipse had already lasted 
 several years, that it dated from the preliminaries 
 of Nikolsburg and from the treaty of Prague. 
 
V. 
 
 ORIENT AND OCCIDENT. 
 
 I. 
 
 " They have provided themselves elsewhere," the 
 French ambassador at the court of William I. sadly 
 wrote, in the last days of the month of August, 1866, 
 on seeing Prussia so brusquely break o£E the dilatory 
 negotiations concerning Belgium ; and it is just to 
 add that he has never since ceased to clearly ap- 
 preciate the situation, and to keep his country con- 
 stantly on its guard as regards the confidential har- 
 mony and absolute agreement between the two 
 courts of Berlin and St. Petersburg after the mis- 
 sion of General Manteuffel. If he nevertheless 
 endeavored for some time to obtain a compensa- 
 tion for his country, — a very modest one, it is true, 
 and consonant with the new fortune of France, — 
 if, during the first months of the year 1867, he 
 particularly flattered himself with obtaining from 
 the kindness of M. de Bismarck the permission to 
 buy Luxemburg from the King of Holland, if he 
 even once went so far, during a hasty journey to 
 Paris, as to affirm, in a confidential conversation, 
 that he already had the fortress of Alzette " in his 
 pocket," it was not that he thought it possible to 
 return to the beautiful dream of the head-quarters 
 of Briinn, and to effect that "necessary and fruitful 
 
228 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 alliance with Prussia " with which at a certain mo- 
 ment some sanguine minds on the banks of the 
 Seine had been deluded. He was only persuaded 
 that the conqueror of Sadowa would not envy 
 France this paltry atonement of Luxemburg, that 
 he would even find it worth while to " indemnify " 
 the Emperor Napoleon III. so cheaply, so that, in 
 the words of the poet, " the lion would 'only, gape 
 before such a little morsel."' The lion roared, how- 
 ever, shook his mane with fury, and signified harshly 
 that it had done forever with sxiy foUtiqiie de four- 
 hoire. But even this only confirmed M. Benedetti 
 in the opinion that they had provided themselves 
 elsewhere, and that henceforward they were on the 
 verge of great trouble. He thought rightly that M. 
 de Bismarck must be very sure of the support, in 
 any case, of his former colleague of Frankfort, to 
 refuse to France even this moderate prize (aubaine), 
 and to give it on this occasion " tiie measure of its 
 ingratitude." 
 
 At the same time with the affair of Luxemburg, 
 the events in Crete showed in their turn to the cabi'- 
 nets of Vienna and the Tuileries how far Prince 
 Gortchakof was already pledged to M. de Bismarck, 
 and how resolved to sacrifice to his friendship with 
 Prussia the most brilliant prospects. Whoever reads 
 attentively the curious exchange of notes which the 
 troubles of Crete had caused, will see that, during 
 the entire epoch from the month of November, 1866, 
 to the month of March, 1867, the two governments 
 of Austria and France had sought to sound the 
 designs of the court of St. Petersburg, and to make 
 very significant advances tq it. The insurrection of 
 
TUrO CHANCELLORS. 229 
 
 the Candiots, one will remember, in the autumn of 
 1866, surprised and moved Europe, scarcely re- 
 covered from the violent shock of Sadowa. Im- 
 moderately exaggerated by the journalists, who were 
 more or less interested, after having excited lively 
 sympathy in Russia, the insurrection ended by se- 
 riously occupying the attention of the chancellors, 
 and seemed for a moment destined to bring before 
 the cabinets the whole question of the Orient in its 
 appalling ensemble. Certain cabinets did not even 
 seem greatly dismayed at the contingency : instead 
 of conforming with the constant traditions of diplo- 
 macy in the Ottoman affairs, instead of quelling the 
 disturbance and lessening as much as possible its; 
 proportions and bearings, M. de Moustier thought 
 that he ought " to find means to pacify the Orient," 
 and busied himself "in convoking a sort of consultch 
 tion of doctors to learn the opinion of each one con- 
 cerning the remedy to be applied to the evil." ^ Still 
 more astonishing was the language used by the gov- 
 ernment of Vienna, by the Power which up to that 
 time and always had contented' itself with sustaining 
 TxxxV&y perfas et nefas, without demanding anything 
 from it, no more for the immediate subjects of the 
 sultan than for the tributary provinces. Resolutely 
 breaking with these habits of the past, M. de Beust, 
 who had at this time just undertaken the direction 
 of affairs in Austria, wrote on the loth November, 
 1 866, to his ambassador at Paris that, while desiring 
 to preserve the throne of the sultan, " Austria could 
 not refuse its sympathies and its support in a certain 
 
 1 Dispatch of Count de MiiUnen to Baron de Beast, 30th Decem- 
 ber, 1866. 
 
230 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 degree to the Christian peoples of Turkey who have 
 at times just demands to make, and who are con- 
 nected with some of the peoples of the Austrian em- 
 pire by close ties of blood and religion." Questioned 
 some days later (28th November) by the envoy of 
 Russia at the court of Vienna, the Austrian minister 
 did not hesitate to reply that he was disposed to favor 
 amongst the Christians of the Orient " the develop- 
 ment of their autonomy and the establishment of a 
 limited self-government by a bond of vassalage." 
 Lastly, in a remarkable dispatch addressed to Prince 
 Metternich and dated the ist January, 1867, M. de 
 Beust proposed " a revision of the treaty of Paris of 
 the 30th March, 1856, and subsequent acts," announc- 
 ing in advance his desire to make over, in the ar- 
 rangement to intervene, the greater part to Russia. 
 He had no trouble in showing that " the remedies 
 through which they had sought, in the course of the 
 last few years, to maintain the statu quo in the Orient, 
 had shown themselves insufficient to subdue the diffi- 
 culties which grew with each day." " The physiog- 
 nomy of the Orient taken as a whole," continued the 
 dispatch, "shows itself to-day under an essentially dif- 
 ferent aspect from that which it had in 1856, and the 
 stipulations of that epoch, exceeded as they are on 
 more than one important point by after events, no 
 longer answer to the necessities of the actual situa- 
 tion." In a word, M. de Beust looked to nothing 
 less than to a joint intervention of the European 
 Powers in the affairs of Turkey, without concealing 
 that in such a situation, " there would be an oppor- 
 tunity to take into consideration, in a fitting degree, 
 the natural r6le which the commonalty of religious 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 231 
 
 institutions would secure for Russia in the Orient," 
 and clearly showing the necessity of relieving the 
 empire of the czars of the onerous conditions which 
 were imposed upon it in the Black Sea, " in order to 
 secure for himself by a conciliating attitude the sin- 
 cere cooperation of this Power in the questions of 
 the Levant." 
 
 It was truly a bold plan ; it did not even fail to 
 violently shock the French feelings. Was it not in 
 truth to erase with a single stroke a past of ten 
 years, to lose all the fruit of the Crimean war .' 
 They had some repugnance in avowing to them- 
 selves that the treaty of 1856 had not existed for a 
 long time, alas ! since the day when the French 
 government had broken by its gratuitous kindness 
 towards Russia this cluster of the three great Occi- 
 dental Powelfs which alone could assure its effica- 
 cious execution. Since then the act had gradually 
 become void, had been violated in the majority of the: 
 stipulations ; and the conference of Paris, charged 
 nominally with watching over the observance of the 
 treaty, was always restricted, as the Austrian dis- 
 patch observed, " in giving its sanction to facts ac- 
 complished outside of its sphere of action, and which 
 were not in harmony with the agreements placed 
 under its protection." However, on the day after 
 Sadowa, Prince Gortchakof did not fail to seize the 
 first opportunity to begin to prepare the epitaph of 
 the treaty of Paris. " Our august master," said the 
 Russian chancellor in a document dated the 20th 
 August, 1866, and marked by fine irony, — " our au- 
 gust master does not intend to insist on the general 
 engagements of the treaties which have no value 
 
23^ TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 except by reason of the accord existing between the great 
 Powers in order to make them respected, and which 
 to-day have received, by the want of this joint will, 
 too frequent and too severe blows not to be rendered 
 invalid'.' It was exactly this collective will which 
 M. de Beust expected to revive and strengthen in 
 projecting the revision of the act of 1856. Accord- 
 ing to his opiniony the treaty of Paris had not at- 
 tained its purpose, which was to insure the entire- 
 ness and the vitality of the Ottoman empire. On 
 one side the Occidental Powers have imposed on 
 Russia on the banks of the Euxine a restriction of 
 its rights of sovereignty which a great empire could 
 not definitely accept, and from which sooner or later 
 it would seek to free itself. On the other side, and as 
 regards the Christian population of the !Levant, they 
 contented themselves with promulgating a firman 
 promising reforms, and leaving Turkey to itself, in- 
 stead of reserving for Europe the right to watch over 
 the Ottoman government with a gentle but continued 
 vigilance, so that it should fulfill its duties toward 
 the rajahs, and by a wise and honest administration 
 become independent and strong. The treaty of Paris 
 had only, thought the Austrian minister, given to 
 Russia what the Crimean war ought to have refused 
 it above all, — the monopoly of influence over the 
 rajahs ; this monopoly it continued to exercise as in 
 the past, |n a hidden manner, it is true, but so much 
 the more dangerously as it recognised no competition. 
 M. de Beust vyished to reestablish the competition, 
 or rather he wished to establish a general agreement 
 " to make the Christian populations of the sultan tjke 
 debtors of all Eun^e, in giving thena, by the care of 
 
TIVO CHANCELLORS. 233 
 
 all the guaranteeing courts, autonomous institutions 
 according to the diversity of religions and races," ^ 
 and he hesitated the less to make to this vast con- 
 ception the sacrifice of the article of the treaty of 
 Paris touching the neutralization of the Black Sea 
 which Austria had combated from the beginning, 
 and to which it had only given its adherence at the 
 last moment to humor the Occidental Powers and 
 put an end to the Crimean war, the events of which 
 had since demonstrated its complete ineffica'cy. It 
 was under the influence of the disaster of Sinopa 
 that France and England had hoped to restrain the 
 naval forces of the czar in the Euxine. They had 
 thus thought to shelter Constantinople from a blow 
 from the Russian hand ; but on this point, as on 
 so many others, the physiognomy of the Orient 
 had essentially changed. Russia no longer medir 
 tated a coup de main : it advanced more slowly, but 
 much more surely, towards its goal. The pacifica- 
 tion of the Caucasus ^ the irremediable weakness of 
 the Porte and the daily increasing discontent of the 
 rajahs, as impatient of the Turkish yoke as they were 
 devoted to their sole protector, the czar, were worth 
 to it all the vessels of the Black Sea. *' However, 
 have they really freed Constantinople, from all dan- 
 ger on that side ? " asked the Austrian minister. 
 
 1 Dispatch of M. de Beust to Baron de Prokesch at Constantino- 
 ple, January 22, 1867. 
 
 2 " What alarms me the most, is the considerable change which the 
 pacification of the provinces of the Caucasus has given to the situa- 
 tion of Russia. I have no doubt that in future possibilities the most 
 serious attacks of the Russians will be directed against our provinces 
 of Asia Minor." Thus Fuad-Pacha expresses himself at the begin- 
 ning of 1869 in his politick testament sidressed to the sultan. 
 
234 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 " Supposing that Russia decides to construct vessels 
 in the Sea of Asoph, will war be declared to hinder 
 it ?" And the cabinet of Vienna concluded by these 
 characteristic words : " The question of amour-propr^ 
 should not be decisive in view of the immense inter- 
 ests which are at stake to-day." In fact, they could 
 not insist too much on this truth : the clause on the 
 subject of the Euxine had been for a long time only 
 a "question of amour-propre" between the Occidental 
 Powers and Russia ; nor could one deny that M. de 
 Beust saw far and justly in his dispatch of the 1st 
 January, 1867. On the day after Sadowa, he sought 
 to reconstitute Europe, to regain it, if we are allowed 
 to express ourselves thus, and he knew how to fix 
 the price of it. 
 
 In a different direction, France exerted itself on 
 its part to accede to the views of the cabinet of St. 
 Petersburg in concentrating its efforts principally on 
 the question of the hour, on this Candian insurrec- 
 tion, of which public opinion in Russia had so ar- 
 dently espoused the cause. M. de Moustier pro- 
 posed to Prince Gortchakof "an understanding on 
 the eventualities which might arise in the Orient," 
 and, after having already spoken of a " consultation 
 of doctors," in a dispatch addressed to the ambas- 
 sador of France at Constantinople (7th December, 
 1866) he even pronounced the words " heroic reme- 
 dies." By this always medical euphemism, one un- 
 derstood, at Paris, the annexation of the isle of 
 Crete to Greece, "the only possible issue," Prince 
 Gortchakof had affirmed, the i6th November, 1866, 
 " if the Powers will leave expedients and palliatives, 
 which up to the present time have only increased 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 235 
 
 for the future the present difficulties." The mar- 
 riage of the young King of the Greeks, George I., 
 with the Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna, was 
 then a decided matter, and at the Tuileries one de- 
 manded nothing better than to make the isle of Crete 
 the " dowry " of the Russian princess. In fact they 
 would not have felt any inconvenience, it seems, in 
 increasing this dowry with Epirus and Thessaly : 
 that was going very far, much farther even than 
 could be desired by Russia, which had no interest 
 in " allowing such an extension of Greece that it. 
 might become a powerful state." ^ It was the recon- 
 ciliation between France and Russia that gave birth 
 to the plan of a common proceeding to demand of 
 the Turkish government the realization of the inter- 
 nal reforms, and the cession of Crete, disguised 
 under the proposition of a plebiscite, a proceeding 
 which was effectively realized in the month of March, 
 1867, and to which Austria, Prussia, and Italy ral- 
 lied. Without doubt there was still a great deal 
 of vagueness, and above all of desultoriness in the 
 situation which began to take a form at this mo- 
 ment, and it was to be regretted that France and 
 Austria had not previously agreed to be of one mind 
 on the nature of the offers which they intended 
 to make to Russia ; but the offers were very real 
 and very great, we cannot deny that ; and it only 
 depended on the successor of Count Nesselrode to 
 arrange, to adjust, and to turn them to the profit and 
 
 ^ Remarks of the Emperor Nicholas to Sir Hamilton Seymour. 
 For the rumors concerning Thessaly and Epirus, see especially the 
 dispatch of Fuad-Facha to the ambassadors at Paris and London, 
 27th February, 1867. 
 
236 TIVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 the glory of his august master. England could not 
 oppose serious obstacles to the joint will of France, 
 Russia, and Austria, in the affairs of the Levant ; 
 it was already resigned, and certainly the fruit which. 
 Prince Gortchakof saw ripening in the spring of 
 1867, although not having all the attraction of for- 
 bidden fruit, was nevertheless good and savory, very 
 different from that which, four years later, he was 
 to pick up in the ashes of Sedan. 
 
 It is true that the governments of France and 
 Austria did not mean to make a gratuitous gift ; it 
 was understood that, in exchange for these very 
 large concessions in the Orient, they should obtain 
 the support of the cabinet of St. Petersburg in the 
 menacing complications of the Occident, and many 
 circumstances seemed to plead in favor of such a 
 combination. After all, and exclusive of the ven- 
 geance taken on "the ungrateful" empire of the 
 Hapsburg, Russia could not greatly rejoice at the 
 work of M. de Bismarck. Without mentioning sev- 
 eral relations of the imperial family whom the Ho- 
 henzollern dethroned and despoiled with firmness 
 tempered with a few tears, there was in general in 
 the proceedings and principles inaugurated on the 
 Elbe and the Main a strong revolutionary taint 
 which could hardly please a court which did not 
 cease to protect the shadow of Nicholas. The grav- 
 est, however, was that the victory of Sadowa had 
 just brusquely disturbed .and even threatened to ruin 
 entirely the secular system of the Russian policy in 
 regard to the affairs of Germany. 
 
 In fact, since Peter the Great, especially since 
 Catherine II., Russia had always labored to obtain a 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 23/ 
 
 preponderant influence among the different German 
 courts : its czars have more than once acted with 
 a high hand and used high words in the Teutonic 
 troubles. " The Romanof enjoys with us a birthright 
 acknowledged by his brothers, our sovereigns of the 
 Bund" a celebrated publicist of the other side of 
 the Rhine exclaimed with bitterness one day, and 
 the attitude of the secondary States during the Cri- 
 mean war truly did not weaken the justice of this ex- 
 pression. But it was this work of several reigns, 
 and of a thought hitherto immutable, that Russia 
 saw placed in question by the foreseen results of the 
 campaign of Bohemia. The North of Germany was 
 already escaping its influence, and the " naif" ones 
 alone could deceive themselves on the fortune re- 
 served for the South in a very near future. " From 
 the month of September, 1866, the cabinet of Berlin 
 had, in a circular which was designedly made public, 
 claimed for the confederation of the North and the 
 States of the South alone, to the exclusion of all the 
 other Powers, without excepting Austria, the right 
 to bind their relations as closely as they wished, 
 thus giving to Article IV. of the treaty of Prague, 
 an interpretation of which it did not admit. In 
 the speeches which he had delivered at the open- 
 ing of the Prussian chambers and of the Northern 
 parliament, the king himself, while addressing them 
 to Germany, to the brotherly peoples, to the country 
 which the Alps and the Baltic bound, had given utter- 
 ance to allusions which made, according to the ex- 
 pression of the official journals, the hearts of all 
 patriots tremble." ^ On his part, M. de Bismarck had 
 1 Benedetti, My Mission in Prussia, p. 249. 
 
238 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 cried out in the midst of the same parliament, using 
 these gambling terms which are so common in his 
 language and so characteristic of his temperament : 
 " Our stake has become greater in consequence of 
 our victories ; we have now more to lose, but the 
 game is still far from being completely won ! " By 
 means of a combined and resolute action of Europe) 
 the absorption of all Germany by Prussia was only a 
 question of time and of management ; Russia, even 
 less than France, would find its reward in it. France 
 only saw uniting in a more compact and menacing 
 body a confederation of kingdoms and principalities 
 which already before had been either hostile, or at 
 least opposed to it. Russia, on the contrary, lost an 
 entire league of states, whose' fidelity and devotion 
 had never wavered, who formed for it a sort of con- 
 tinuous enceinte on the side of an occasionally un- 
 sympathic Occident ; in their place was to arise a 
 formidable Power, restless and invading from the 
 very start, called sooner or later by the necessity of 
 history, by the fatality of race, to represent and to 
 oppose the Germanic to the Sclavic idea. At every 
 other epoch of the empire of the czars, in the good 
 old time of Count Nesselrode, for instance, — when, 
 in place of a policy of spite and propaganda, on the 
 banks of the Neva, they maintained a policy of con- 
 servation and equilibrium, — the conduct of a Rus- 
 sian chancellor in such an occurrence would not have 
 been doubtful : a coalition of Russia, of France, and 
 of Austria would have been formed on the day after 
 Sadowa for the safety of Europe, and it is not saying 
 too much to affirm that, in the spring of the year 
 1867, Alexander Mikhaflovitch held in his hands the 
 destinies of the world. 
 
TIVO CHANCELLORS. 239 
 
 Thus compelled to make his choice, Prince Gort- 
 chakof was unwilling to decline the French and 
 Austrian advances in the question of the Orient ; on 
 the contrary, he hastened to echo them loudly, and 
 sometimes even rose on this occasion to a lyricism 
 not often heard in the chancellors' offices. He was 
 charmed with the new minister of Austria, and filled 
 all the country with a rather forced enthusiasm. " M. 
 de Beust," be wrote to his ambassador in London, 
 " inaugurates a new era in the policy of Austria, an 
 era of large and elevated views ; he is the first 
 statesman of this country and of our epoch who 
 courageously endeavors to leave the ground of petty 
 rivalries." As regards France, he endeavored espe- 
 cially to indicate plainly that the initiative came from 
 it, and " while begging the Emperor Napoleon III. to 
 recall the interviews which the Emperor Alexander 
 had had with him at Stuttgart " (in i860), he seemed 
 to wish to assign to the present conferences an ex- 
 traordinary character of gravity and generality. " His 
 imperial majesty," continued the Russian chancel- 
 lor, in his dispatch of the i6th November, 1866, to 
 M. de Budberg, " has received with satisfaction the 
 overtures which M. le Marquis de Moustier has 
 made us in view of an understanding between the 
 French cabinet and ours on the eventualities which 
 might arise in the Orient. The general principles 
 which the French minister of foreign affairs has 
 propounded, the assurances which he has given us, 
 have in the eyes of our august master a very es- 
 pecial value, since they emanate from the direct 
 thought of the Emperor Napoleon, and since it was 
 by the express order of his majesty that M. le Mar- 
 
240 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 quis de Moustier has broached these questions." The 
 animation and spirits of Alexander Mikhallovitch in- 
 crease daily : he even ended by talking Latin and by 
 confounding the poor Turkish envoy with a classical 
 quotation. " Here," he wrote in the month of Feb- 
 ruary, 1867, "is what I have said to Comnenos-Bey : 
 the isle of Crete is lost to you ; after six months of 
 such a bitter struggle, reconciliation is no longer 
 possible. Even admitting that you succeeded in re- 
 establishing there for some time the authority of the 
 sultan, it would only be on a heap of ruins and a 
 mountain of corpses. Tacitus long ago told us of 
 the danger there is in this reign of silence which 
 succeeds devastation : Solitudinem faciunt, pacem 
 appellant." 
 
 Unfortunately it did not take long to see that 
 while holding out hopes to France and Austria for 
 the success of their Oriental movement, and even 
 endeavoring to compromise them in this direction 
 as much as possible,^ the Russian chancellor was ex- 
 tremely careful to maintain his intimate accord with 
 his former colleague of Frankfort, and not to op- 
 pose him in his ideas in the affairs of the Occident. 
 Very ardent for the cause of the plebiscite in Crete, 
 he showed on the contrary an absolute indifference 
 on the subject of an analogous cause on the Eider, 
 otherwise legitimate, however, guaranteed by solemn 
 
 1 " I wish very much that you would send your carriage before my 
 door, but on the condition that you get in at my house," one of the 
 predecessors of M. de Moustier said wittily to M. de Budberg, at 
 the hStel of the Quay d'Orsay, some years before, but in the same 
 way in which Russia encouraged the advances of the cabinet of the 
 Tuileries, at the same time that it carefully avoided any positive 
 engagement with it. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 24I 
 
 treaties,^ and which interested to such a high de- 
 gree the noble and unfortunate country of the future 
 empress. He preserved a not less significant silence 
 as regarded the publication made in the month of 
 March, 1867, by M. de Bismarck, of the conventions 
 with the Southern States, conventions which bound 
 to Prussia the military forces of Germany, and abol- 
 ished, in fact, "the international independent sit- 
 uation " which the preliminaries of Nikolsburg had 
 stipulated for Bavaria and Wiirtemburg.^ Alexan- 
 der Mikhaflovitch held Wiirtemberg as cheaply as 
 Denmark, the throne of Queen Olga, as the cradle 
 of the Princess Dagmar. In the mean time the 
 affair of Luxemburg arose, and the French govern- 
 ment could measure the degree of benevolence with 
 which it had succeeded in inspiring the cabinet of 
 St. Petersburg by its " heroic remedies " as regards 
 Turkey. The Russian chancellor was surely right 
 and very sincere in his desire for peace, but he had 
 not for the position of France the regards which 
 England itself thought just to show it ; he seemed, 
 above all, engaged in not giving umbrage to his il- 
 lustrious friend of Berlin. While also glorifying M. 
 de Beust for his "courageous endeavor to have 
 
 1 The preliminaries of Nikolsburg as well as the treaty of Prague 
 had stipulated the retrocession to Denmark of the northern districts 
 of Schleswig after a popular vote. One knows that Prussia up to 
 the present has evaded the execution of this engagement. 
 
 " M. de Beust wrote concerning these military conventions with a 
 resigned^««jj« ; " An alliance established between two states, one of 
 which is weak, the other strong ; an alliance which has no particular 
 text, but which should be permanently maintained for all the eventu- 
 alities of war, is not of a nature to create a belief in an international, 
 independent existence of the weak state." — Dispatch to Count Wim- 
 pffen, at Berlin, 28th March, 1867. 
 16 
 
242 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 done with petty rivalries," the Russian government 
 did not fail to encourage at the same time, in the 
 most dangerous and provoking manner, the violent 
 Sclavic opposition in the empire of the Hapsburg by 
 means of that famous congress of Moscow, of which 
 we shall speak later. Other deceptions still, less 
 known to the public, but not less sharp, probably 
 added to all these disappointments, for Austria as 
 well as France did not delay in making their retreat 
 from this shifting ground of the Orient and joining 
 in with England in thenceforward firmly maintaining 
 the rights of the sultan. The " consultation of doc- 
 tors " had a final end, and the legendary sick man 
 was none the worse for it ; but all was then decided 
 for the terrible eventualities of the future. 
 • " There exists an understanding between St. Pe- 
 tersburg and Berlin," M. Benedetti again avowed in 
 the year after (Sth January, 1868), while speaking of 
 the so often mentioned mission of General Manteuf- 
 fel as the point of departure of this agreement which 
 did not cease to harass him. " Was it not, in fact, 
 from this moment," he asked, " that the two courts in- 
 dicate more plainly their policy, Russia in the Orient 
 and in the Sclavic Provinces of Austria, Prussia in 
 Germany, without even a cloud arising between them .' 
 Firmly united on all questions, they have, each for 
 itself, pursued their designs with a coniidence which 
 proves that they have stipulated mutual guarantees." 
 And the ambassador adds that this conviction be- 
 gins to impress itself on many minds, especially on 
 Lord Loftus, his English colleague, for a long time 
 very incredulous on this matter. "His manner of 
 seeing is sensibly modified, and he is not less per- 
 
TfVO CHANCELLORS. 243 
 
 suaded than other members of the diplomatic corps 
 that final arrangements had been made between the 
 two governments of King William and the Emperor 
 Alexander. I have, for my part, found the perma- 
 nent demonstration of it, if I may so express my- 
 self, in the firmly fixed resolution, which has never 
 changed, of the cabinet of Berlin, to inaugurate Ger- 
 man unity for its own especial benefit, without allow- 
 ing itself to be moved for an instant by the possibil- 
 ity of a conflict with France. I have also seen the 
 proof of it in the care with which M. de Bismarck 
 avoids explaining himself on the question of the 
 Orient. When one asks him, he replies that he 
 never reads the correspondence of the ministers of 
 the king at Constantinople ; and your excellency will 
 not have forgotten with what complaisance he has 
 always lent himself to the views of Prince Gortcha- 
 kof." M. Benedetti also notices " the new impulse 
 given since last summer to the Pan-Slavic propa- 
 ganda ; " he shows very clearly the vast designs and 
 far-reaching hopes of the cabinet of St. Petersburg, 
 in its connivance with Prussia, and gives a higher 
 and juster idea in general of the Russian policy at 
 this epoch than certain ill-advised panegyrists of our 
 day, who, to prove that Prince Gortchakof has filled 
 his rdle as completely as possible, and with all desir- 
 able success, can devise nothing better than to lessen 
 and depreciate this part. 
 
 II. 
 
 It is the characteristic of all conventional praise 
 to exaggerate not only the tone, but even to deceive 
 itself sometimes in the amount; there is perfume 
 
244 TIVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 and ashes in incense, said the ancients, and there 
 is something equivocal also in the usual manner of 
 congratulating the Russian chancellor on his " tri- 
 umph" in the question of ,the Euxine. To pretend 
 that Prince Gortchakof did not favor the audacious 
 designs of Prussia in order to free Russia from its 
 bonds in the Black Sea, that he delivered Europe 
 in advance to Prince Bismarck in the sole hope of 
 some day repudiating to his advantage the act of 
 1856, is in truth to pay as little honor to his genius 
 as to his patriotism. Certainly the eminent states- 
 man whose " prophetic glance '' the grandchildren 
 of Washington ^ celebrated at St. Petersburg . in the 
 year of Sadowa, supplicating the eternal God, " who 
 had made the sun stand still for Joshua," also to 
 suspend the course of life for Alexander Mikhado- 
 vitch, " so that the eyes of the world might long 
 remain fixed on him," ^ the consummate diplomat 
 who, in the spring of 1867, slighted the important 
 advances made by the cabinets of Vienna and the 
 Tuileries, — certainly this minister did not fail at 
 this moment to put aside with a disdainful smile, the 
 petty hypothesis, that in the approaching and fore- 
 seen overturning of Europe, there would be assigned 
 to Russia as its sole victory and conquest, the aboli- 
 tion of any wounding article of a treaty which events 
 had long before rendered " invalid." It was not for 
 such a " plate of lentils," to use the language of M. 
 de Bismarck, that Prince Gortchakof intended to 
 cede to the Hohenzollern the fixed birthright of the 
 
 1 See Appendix. 
 
 " Speech of the assistant secretary of state, Mr. Fox, at the ban- 
 quet given by the English Club of St. Petersburg to the mission ex- 
 traordinary from the United States in 1866. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 245 
 
 Romanof ; he did not think of abandoning the Oc- 
 cident for such a ridiculous price : he looked higher, 
 and expected to have the lion's share in the quarry- 
 to come. Fortune has deceived his hopes, defeated 
 his calculations, and forced him to bend to many un- 
 foreseen necessities ; but, if it is puerile to allow him 
 to have made virtues of all these vexatious neces- 
 sities, and to form for him a sort of aureole of hght- 
 nings and thunderbolts of the war of 1870, history, 
 in its impartiality, must not the less take into con- 
 sideration the intentions of Prince Gortchakof, which 
 were as great as the events themselves, and, without 
 denying his defeat, nevertheless accord him the full 
 benefit in magnis voluisse. , 
 
 They cherished, in fact, great, gigantic projects 
 on the banks of the Moskova and the Neva, in all 
 this agitated and feverish epoch which separated 
 Sedan from Sadowa ; they deluded themselves with 
 enchanting dreams ; they divided the world between 
 Sclavians and Germans, and the "national" minister 
 responded to the ardent wishes of the entire nation 
 in making the Prussian alliance the pivot of its pol- 
 icy, in seeing in it the absolute condition and the 
 sure pledge of a future of glory and prosperity for 
 Russia. We must look back on the universal mental 
 agitation in consequence of the equally prodigious 
 and unforeseen victory of Prussia in 1866, on the 
 innumerable fantastic plans which were then sud- 
 denly formed for the reconstruction of empires and 
 races ; it is necessary to recall this endless flight of 
 Minervas all armed, whom the blow of the German 
 Vulcan's hammer caused to spring forth from so 
 many cracked heads who thought themselves Olym- 
 
246 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 pian, — the general remoulding which our poor phi- 
 losophy of history, at once so cutting and so mal- 
 leable, undergoes in the twinkling of an eye, — to 
 appreciate justly the current of strange and impet- 
 uous ideas which then seized the people of Peter the 
 Great and of Catherine II. " An irresistible power 
 forces the people to reunite in great masses, making 
 the secondary States disappear, and this tendency is 
 perhaps inspired by a sort of providential prevision 
 of the destinies of the world." This, on the day 
 after Sadowa, was the expression of an official docu- 
 ment of incontestable authority, a diplomatic mani- 
 fest which announced urbi et orbi the profoundest 
 thoughts of the imperial government of France.^ 
 How can one be astonished, then, that the children 
 of Rourik followed the same reasoning, and asked 
 themselves with candor if the battle of Koenigsgraetz 
 did not entirely deliver Central Europe to the Ho- 
 henzoUern and Oriental Europe to the Romanpf } 
 After some moments of hesitation and surprise, 
 Muscovite patriotism resolved therefore, to take no 
 umbrage at the ambition of King William I., but it 
 immediately proclaimed that Russia also had a mis- 
 sion to fulfill, an " idea " to realize, and that the sun 
 of national unities and grand combinations shone for 
 all the world. 
 
 There was in the old capital of the czars a cele- 
 brated journal whose power has since greatly de- 
 clined, and which, although now an ordinary paper 
 only, but still important, then exercised a preponder- 
 ant, tyrannic influence, from the Dwina to the Ural : 
 it was occasionally called, and without malice, " the 
 1 Circular of M. de La Valette, i6th September, 1866. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 247 
 
 first power in the state after the emperor." From 
 the time of the fatal insurrections of Poland, the 
 " Gazette of Moscow " was in truth the monitor of 
 the popular passions of Holy Russia, the office from 
 whence the word of command for public opinion went 
 forth into the vast empire of the North, and it often 
 issued formal instructions for the directing ministers 
 at St. Petersburg. Even at this time the all-powerful 
 organ of M. Katkof made itself the mouth-piece of 
 the nation, and imperiously traced the programme of 
 the policy of the future. Only a short time after the 
 conclusion of the peace of Prague, the journal of 
 Moscow laid down " as an, incontestable truth, that 
 the march of events has produced interests which in- 
 vite the two Powers of Russia and Prussia to ally 
 themselves still more actively than in the past ; " it 
 affirmed, moreover, that overtures on this point had 
 been made by M. de Bismarck, " overtures the more 
 acceptable as Prussia has no interests in the Orient ; 
 on this question, the cabinet of Berlin could take, in 
 concert with Russia, such an attitude as suited it." 
 The theme was again taken up and developed under 
 many a form and in many an article, until a leader of 
 the 17th February, 1867, impressed on it the great 
 consecration of a speculative and humanitarian prin- 
 ciple. 
 
 "The new era is at last sketched," one reads there, 
 " and for us Russians it has a peculiar bearing. This 
 era is truly ours ; it calls to life a new world kept 
 until now in the shadow and expectation of its des- 
 tinies, the Graeco-Sclavic world. After centuries 
 passed in resignation and servitude, this world at 
 last reaches the moment of renovation ; what has so 
 
248 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 long been forgotten and down-trodden, comes back 
 to the light and prepares for action. The present 
 generations will see great changes, great facts, and 
 great formations. Already on the peninsula of the 
 Balkan, and under the worm-eaten couch of Ottoman 
 tyranny, three groups of lively and strong nationali- 
 ties are being formed, the Hellenic, Sclavic, and Rou- 
 manian groups. Closely bound among themselves by 
 the commonalty of their faith and their historical des- 
 tinies, these three groups are equally connected with 
 Russia by all the ties of religion and national life. 
 These three groups of nations once reconstructed, 
 Russia will reveal itself in an entirely different light. 
 It will no longer be alone in the world ; in place of 
 a sombre, Asiatic power, as it now seems to be, it 
 will become a moral force indispensable to Europe, 
 a Grseco-Sclavic civilization completing the Latin- 
 German civilization, which without it would remain 
 imperfect and inert in its sterile exclusiveness." 
 Soon after descending from thesfe rather abstract 
 heights to the more practical ground of ways and 
 means, the fiery apostle of the new era exclaimed 
 on the 7th April : " If France sustains by arms and 
 by its political influence the renaissance of the Latin 
 races, if Prussia acts in the same manner vis-d-vis to 
 Germany, why, then, should not Russia, the only in- 
 dependent Sclavic Power, sustain the Sclavic races, 
 and should it not prevent foreign Powers from plac- 
 ing obstacles in the way of their political develop- 
 ment ? Russia should employ all its powers to 
 introduce in its neighbors of the South a transfor- 
 mation similar to that which took place in Central 
 and Occidental Europe ; vis-A-vis the Sclavians it 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 249 
 
 should take, with6ut the least hesitation, the rdle 
 which France has taken in regard to the Latin 
 races and Prussia vis-A-vis the German world. The 
 task is a noble one, for it is exempt from egotism : it 
 is beneficial, for it will achieve the triumph of the 
 principle of nationalities, and will give a solid basis 
 to the modern equilibrium of Europe ; it is worthy 
 of Russia and of its greatness ; it is immense, and 
 we have the firm conviction that Russia will fulfill 
 it." 
 
 It was under the stimulant of such theories, hopes, 
 and passions, that, in the spring of the year 1867, the 
 strange ethnological exposition of Moscow ^ was insti- 
 tuted, which soon became the pretext for a great 
 demonstration from without, sufficiently inoffensive 
 in appearance to remove all diplomatic embarrass- 
 ment, well calculated, however, to produce its effect 
 on naif and inflammable minds, to fascinate unfor- 
 tunate, disinherited people, richer in imagination than 
 in culture. Certainly, true science would draw very 
 little profit from this projected reunion in the manage 
 of Moscow of all the Sclavic " types " with their cos- 
 tumes, their arms, their domestic utensils, and their 
 flora ; but the undertaking was considered not the less 
 worthy of the most august protection. The emperor 
 and the empress offered considerable sums to defray 
 the costs of the work, the Grand Duke Vladimir ac- 
 cepted the honorary presidency of it, the high digni- 
 taries of the court and the church charged themselves 
 with its direction. Warm appeals were addressed to 
 the Sclavians of Austria and Turkey, to their differ- 
 
 1 See the Remit des deux Mondes of the ist September, 1867 : " The 
 Congress of Moscow and the Pan-Sclavic Propaganda." 
 
250 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 ent historical, geographical, or othfer learned societies, 
 to add by numerous contributions to the magnifi- 
 cence of the exposition, and a cloud of emissaries 
 collected in the countries of the Danube and of the 
 Balkan in search of adhesion, samples, and " types." 
 Committees were formed in different parts of the 
 empire, in order to worthily prepare the reception of 
 the " Sclavic guests," who did not fail to swarm to 
 the " national jubilee," and soon a congress was spoken 
 of, in which should be discussed the wants and the 
 interests of so many "brother peoples," the hopes 
 and the griefs of the great common country, of the 
 ideal country. It was the moment, it is necessary 
 to recall it, when the Cretan insurrection, always 
 persistent, stirred up by Greece, and exaggerated by 
 the journals too little or too well informed, kept the 
 Christian populations of Turkey in alarm and on their 
 guard ; the moment, also, when the Czechen of Bo- 
 hemia; urging on inconsequence almost all the Scla- 
 vians of Austria, protested against the Cisleithan 
 constitution, "and refused to sit in the representative 
 chambers of the empire. The Kremlin thus became 
 the mons'sacer of the intransigeans of the two banks 
 of the Leitha, the congress of Moscow had all the ap- 
 pearance of an opposition parliament opposed to the 
 Reichsrath of Vienna, and the language held by the 
 authorized organs of the cabinet of St. Petersburg 
 was not calculated to calm the susceptibilities of 
 the interested governments, nor to dissuade vexa- 
 tious manifestations. Speaking of the pious pilgrims 
 of Turkey and Austria who were preparing to visit 
 Moscow, "that holy Mecca of the Sclavians," the 
 " Correspondance Russe," the ministerial journal /«;• 
 
Tff^O CHANCELLORS. 251 
 
 excellence} thus expressed itself in the month of 
 April, 1867 : " One cannot reasonably demand of us 
 that we abjure our past. We will let, then, our 
 guests believe that they have come to a sister nation 
 from whom they have everything to expect and noth- 
 ing to fear; we will listen to their grievances, and the 
 recital of their evils can only tighten the ties which 
 unite us with them. If now they intend to establish 
 a comparison between their political state and ours, 
 we will ftot be foolish enough to prove to them that 
 they are in the most favorable conditions of Sclavic 
 development. These conditions, we believe, on the 
 contrary, to be bad ; we have said so a hundred times, 
 and we can well say so again." 
 
 Without doubt the Russian intrigues in the coun- 
 tries of the Danube and the Balkan were not of 
 very recent invention ; they even dated back very 
 far in the past, from the reign of the great Cath- 
 erine. Underhandedly and secretly, the Pan-Sclavic 
 propaganda had been encouraged or protected for 
 nearly a century ; but it was for the first time, in 
 this summer of 1867, that the government of St. 
 Petersburg thus loftily assumed the responsibility of 
 such a propaganda, and unfurled in its states the 
 flags of Saints Cyrille and Methode. In an empire 
 where all is watched, regulated, and commanded from 
 the throne, where nothing is done spontaneously, 
 where all is arranged and devised, "foreign Sclavi- 
 ans," subjects of two neighboring and "friendly" 
 Powers, were admitted, encouraged to come to ex- 
 
 1 It emanated directly from the ministry of the interior, was writ- 
 ten in French, and destined to " enlighten " foreign opinion on the 
 facts and deeds of the Russian government. 
 
2S2 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 pose their grievances, to bring complaints against 
 their respective governments, to demand assistance 
 and deliverance in the name of a new right of na- 
 tions, of a principle lately discovered of great combi- 
 nations and national unities. They were not foolish 
 enough to dismiss these foreign " deputies," to coun- 
 sel reason and resignation to them ; on the contrary 
 they spoke to them of a "better and approaching 
 condition," they took them through all the cities 
 of the empire amidst enthusiastic manifestations 
 directed by the colonels and archimandrites, they 
 overwhelmed them with testimonies of sympathy, 
 ovations and demonstrations, in which the army, the 
 magistrates, and all thfe higher official world took 
 part. Generals, admirals, and ministers presided at 
 banquets where the disaster of Sadowa was cele^ 
 brated as a providential and happy event by the sub- 
 jects of the Emperor Francis Joseph, where appeals 
 were addressed to the czar " to revenge the secular 
 outrages of the White Mountain and of Kossovo, 
 and to plant the Russian banner on the Dardanelles, 
 and on the basilica of St. Sophia." The shock given 
 by such demonstrations to a whole race, to a whole 
 religious world, was profound and prolonged, and 
 certainly the contemporaneous annals have rarely 
 known a period as incorrect in point of view of inter- 
 national right and of the usages of the chancellors' 
 offices as that which had for its starting point the 
 congress of Moscow and for its end the conference 
 of Paris on the subject of Greece. It was a strange 
 one in truth, this epoch, with such presidents of 
 the council as Ratazzi, Bratiano, Koumondouros, 
 with generalissimos like Garibaldi, P6tropoulaki, and 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 253 
 
 " Philip the Bulgarian ; " with these expeditions of 
 Mentana, of Sistow, of the Arcadion and Enosis ; 
 with these agitations, to mention all, German, Italian, 
 Czech, Croatian, Roumanian, Servian, Bulgarian, 
 Grecian, and Pan-Sclavic. Without entering farther 
 into the tiresome history of these complex and not 
 yet explained events, it suffices, in order to appre- 
 ciate the general character of them and to compre- 
 hend their close ties, to re-read with all the attention 
 which it merits the report, already mentioned, of the 
 ambassador of France to the court of Berlin, dated 
 the Sth January, 1868. "M. de Bismarck must 
 have," wrote M. Benedetti, " a disturbed Italy, in 
 permanent disagreement with France, to constrain 
 us to maintain forces more or less considerable in 
 the States of the Holy See, to be able, if necessary, 
 to excite, by the aid of the revolutionary party, a 
 violent rupture between the government of the em- 
 peror and that of King Victor Emmanuel, to neutral- 
 ize, in a word, our liberty on the Rhine And 
 
 I would not be surprised if M. de Bismarck were 
 the instigator of the new impulse given since last 
 summer to the Pan-Sclavic propaganda ; he finds in 
 it the immediate advantage of disturbing Austria by 
 Russia. Russia will assuredly show itself less enter- 
 prising, and Prussia pn its part will not encourage it 
 (Russia) to renew the question of the Orient, for the 
 simple reason that it itself (Prussia) would gain no 
 advantage in it, if it did not think it indispensable to 
 pay with this price for the liberty which it claims in 
 Germany, The uncertainty of the situation only 
 tightens every day the ties which unite Prussia with 
 Russia and solidifies the ambitions of the one in 
 Germany with those of the other in the Orient." 
 
254 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 A permanent committee for the interests of Sclavic 
 unity was formed on the day after the congress of 
 Moscow, under the auspices of a grand duke, and 
 his action was not slow in making itself felt among 
 the Ruthenes, the Czechen, the Croatians of Aus- 
 tria ; but it was especially in the tributary or subject 
 provinces of the Ottoman Porte that the agitation 
 became as chronic as it was perilous. The unfortu- 
 nate Turk was assailed on all sides : one day it 
 was the Vladika of Montenegro who demanded of 
 him in a menacing tone some port of the Adriatic, 
 another day the Prince of Servia demanded the 
 evacuation of some fortress, enforcing his request 
 with extraordinary armaments. Numerous convoys 
 of arms arrived from Russia in the Danubian Prov- 
 inces under the false designation of material for 
 the construction of railroads,^ while the Greek ships 
 of war did not cease to wish to rekindle with all 
 their strength in the isle of Crete an insurrection 
 about to be extinguished and which, in truth, never 
 was of very great extent. It was the epoch of 
 " committees of aid " and " liberating bands " now 
 overrunning the States of the Pope with the cry 
 " Roma Morte ! " now making incursions in Thes- 
 saly to revenge " the outraged manes of Phocion 
 and Philopoemon," or again freeing five times in the 
 space of a year the Danube from the side of Rou- 
 mania only to awaken in the Balkans " the lion with 
 the golden mane ! " " To-day it is our duty, brothers, 
 to prove to European diplomacy that descendants of 
 
 1 See, on this subject, the English, French, and Austrian parliamen- 
 tary documents of the year i868, and especially the reports of the 
 agents of Austria at lassy and Bucharest. 
 
TIVO CHANCELLORS. 2$$ 
 
 the terrible Krum still exist ; the lion with the 
 golden mane and the trumpet of war call you." 
 Thus read in the month of August, 1868, a procla- 
 mation dated from the " Balkans," and signed " Pro- 
 visional GovemmenV.' ^ " It is a fact," wrote on the 
 6th February, 1868, in a curious report addressed to 
 Count de Beust by the agent of Austria in the Princi- 
 palities, Baron d'Eder, — " it is a fact that at Bucha- 
 rest, as in the different cities on the banks of the Dan- 
 ube, there exist Bulgarian committees ; their object is 
 to provoke troubles in Bulgaria, to aid them, to give 
 them more extended proportions than those of the 
 past year. Only quite lately they were persuaded 
 here that on the return of pleasant weather serious 
 complications would break out in Occidental Europe 
 which would permit Russia to declare war against 
 Turkey, and, foreseeing these events, they have 
 made preparations to influence with energy the Bul- 
 garian rising. Although the government of the 
 Principalities is in the hands of a party (radi- 
 cal) traditionally hostile to Russia, it has neverthe- 
 less for some time inclined towards this Power, 
 and expects from it the realization of its efforts and 
 its hopes. The journals of the opposition (conserva- 
 tive) combat these Russophile tendencies of the gov- 
 ernment ; they reproach it with acting in concert 
 with Prussia and with preparing difficulties for Aus- 
 tria in case of a conflict between France and Prussia. 
 The journals of the government reply by saying that 
 the national party is from principle the adversary of 
 no Power, and that there is no reason for combating 
 
 1 Appendix to the dispatch of the Consul de Knappitsch to Baron 
 de Prokesch at Constantinople, Ibraila, 14th August, 1868. 
 
2S6 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 Russia trom the moment that this Power defends 
 the cause of right and of oppressed nationahties." 
 
 Assuredly it would be unjust to throw on the 
 Russian government the responsibility of all the dis- 
 orderly agitations of this epoch in the Sclavic-Grae- 
 co-Roumanian world, but it is not the less true that 
 it did nothing to stop or even disown them. In look- 
 ing over the parliamentary documents of this time, 
 — . the different blue, red, green, and yellow books of 
 the years 1867— 1869, — one is struck at meeting at 
 every step repeated and energetic representations, ad- 
 dressed by the cabinets of London, of the Tuileries, 
 and of Vienna to Servia, Roumania, and to Greece 
 concerning their military preparations, the clandes- 
 tine shipments of arms and marauding bands, while 
 the cabinets of St Petersburg and Berlin carefully ab- 
 stained from any proceeding of this sort By a piq- 
 uant change of things here below, which must have 
 astonished the Nesselrode and the Kamptz in their 
 heavenly abode, the Occidental "Powers now, Eng- 
 land and France, to whom also Austria joined itself, 
 denounced to the world the revolutionary practices 
 of the European demagogic party, while Prussia kept 
 silent, and Russia refused to deny the fact or to pl^ad 
 extenuating circumstances for it. The excuses for 
 the government of Athens Prince Gortchakof kindly 
 found in the Hellenic constitution : " This constitu- 
 tion," said he, "gives to all Greeks full liberty to 
 leave their own country and to take part in any 
 conflict such as existed in Crete ; " ^ and that was 
 truly an original spectacle, that of a minister of an 
 
 1 Dispatch of Sir A. Buchanan to the Earl of Clarendon, 19th 
 December, 1868. 
 
TfVO CHANCELLORS. 25T 
 
 autocracy displaying before an old whig like Lord 
 Clarendon the inexorable conditions of a parliamen- 
 tary and legal regime. The Porte, it will be remem- 
 bered, wished to know nothing of a legality which 
 destroyed it ; it ended by losing patience, by address- 
 ing an ultimatum to the government of Athens, and 
 a conference assembled at Paris " to seek for means 
 to smooth over the difference between Turkey and 
 Greece." Some good people apprehended an em- 
 barrassed attitude on the part of the Russian chan- 
 cellor before such areopagus, they even believed him 
 capable of trammeling the labors of this reunion: 
 this was to ignore the resources of a mind as crafty 
 as cultivated, and which profited by the occasion tO' 
 venture his famous mot on Saturn. " I remember," 
 he wrote to Baron Brunnow, at London, 13 th Jan- 
 uary, 1869, " that there are some persons who ac- 
 cuse Russia of wishing to render the conference 
 abortive. One is not ignorant that the conference 
 emanates from the mind of the emperor. The fable 
 of Saturn has no application in the wanderings of 
 the policy of the imperial cabinet." Alexander Mik- 
 ha'dovitch was not at the end of his boldness ; he 
 became bitter, almost aggressive ; he spoke of the 
 "excitement from without," of a "process of prog- 
 ress," of the " distrust which was attached to every 
 step of Russia," and went so far as to denounce a 
 great conspiracy contrived by the Occidental Pow- 
 ers against the peace of the Levant. " It is impos- 
 sible for us not to remark," he said, in a dispatch to 
 Baron de Brunnow, of the 17th December, 1868, 
 " that this discordant note is not the only one which 
 has come to disturb the echoes of the Orient. It is 
 17 
 
25 8 TM^O CHANCELLORS. 
 
 thus that we have first seen Servia become the end 
 in view of an agitation which, originated with the 
 press, ended by gaining over diplomacy ; Prince Mi- 
 chael Obrenovitch was suspected, and nothing less 
 than his tragic end was necessary to disarm the hos- 
 tilities directed against him. Soon after, accusa- 
 tions were directed against the government of the 
 united Principalities : the Bulgarian bands became 
 a motive for incrimination, it was reproached with 
 having tolerated them, it was accused with having 
 encouraged them. This complication was scarcely 
 removed, before a new crisis arose in the relations of 
 Turkey with Greece, a crisis still more grave and 
 more dangerous to the general peace." Decidedly, in 
 absence of the " fable of Saturn," that of the wolf and 
 the lamb had its application in the wanderings of 
 the policy of the imperial cabinet of St. Petersburg. 
 
 The conference of Paris succeeded, nevertheless, 
 in its efforts; the Grseco-Turkish difference was 
 smoothed over, and with the spring of the year 
 1869 the cold wind of the propaganda whistled less 
 strongly in the valleys of the Danube and the gorges 
 of the Balkan. There was a sort of lull ; but the 
 combustible matters still remained heaped up, ready 
 to catch fire from . the first spark. The radicals of 
 Roumania were not the only ones to foresee an offen- 
 sive action of Russia in the Orient as soon as serious 
 complications should break out in Occidental Eu- 
 rope ; that was an almost universal conviction, and 
 one which the children of Rourik shared the very 
 first. The end of the year 1869 was signaled by an 
 incident which did not fail to gravely impress all 
 serious minds. They celebrated at St. Petersburg 
 
TfVO CHANCELLORS. 259 
 
 the centennial of the institution of the Order of St. 
 George, the great military order of Russia, and of 
 which the first class is only conferred on him who 
 gains a brilliant victory. The Emperor Alexander 
 II. sent this distinction to King William I., to the 
 conqueror of Sadowa and the former champion of 
 18 14. "Accept it," he telegraphed him, "as a new 
 proof of the friendship which unites us, a friendship 
 founded on the souvenir of that great epoch when 
 our united armies fought for a sacred cause which 
 was common to us." And the King of Prussia soon 
 replied by telegraph : " Profoundly touched, and with 
 tears in my eyes, I thank you for the honor which 
 you have done me, and which I did not expect ; but 
 what pleases me still more are the expressions by 
 which you have announced it to me. I see, in truth, 
 in these expressions a new proof of your friendship 
 and your remembrance of the great epoch when our 
 united armies fought for the same sacred cause." ^ 
 
 At the commencement of the same year, and while 
 the conference of Paris was still sitting, there died at 
 Nice a faithful servant of the sultan's, one of the 
 last great statesmen of Turkey. Before descending 
 into the tomb, Fuad-Pacha traced with a faltering 
 hand a memorial for his august master, which he 
 said was his political testament. The document was 
 to remain secret, and, in fact,' only came to light 
 quite recently.^ " When this writing is placed before 
 the eyes of your majesty," one reads in it, " I will no 
 
 I Official journal of the Russian empire, 12th December, 1869. 
 
 « One can read this remarkable document, which bears the date of 
 the 3d January, 1869, in the interesting pamphlet of M. J. Lewis Far- 
 ley, The Decline of Dtriey, London, 1875, pp. 27-36. 
 
260 TIVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 longer be in this world. You can therefore listen to 
 me without distrust, and you should imbue yourself 
 with this great and grievous truth, that the Empire 
 of the Osmanlis is in danger'.' And after having re- 
 viewed the different states of the Continent, and 
 marked out the conflict more or less near, but inev- 
 itable, between France and Prussia, Fuad-Pacha con- 
 cluded by these words : " An intestine dissension in 
 Europe, and a Bismarck in Russia, and the face of 
 the world will be changed." 
 
 in. 
 
 God alone could contemplate his finished work, 
 and say " that it was good ; " our poor human- 
 ity rarely tastes such a pure enjoyment, and the 
 party of action in the councils of the second empire 
 scarcely experienced it in consequence of the events 
 of 1866, which it had so powerfully contributed to 
 create. The ambassador of France at the court of 
 Berlin was among the number of the disabused ; 
 the achievement of Italian unity only consoled him, 
 very imperfectly in truth, for the profound blow 
 which the calamity of Sadowa had given his own 
 country. His disenchantment was great ; but there 
 is nothing like a great and grievous deception to 
 sharpen and refine a mind naturally sagacious ; and 
 if Pascal has spoken of a second ignorance, that 
 which comes after knowledge, there is also for cer- 
 tain diplomats a second knowledge, and like a second 
 sight after a passing blindness. One cannot praise 
 too highly the eminent qualities of observation and 
 of judgment which M. Benedetti showed during the 
 last four years of his embassy at Berlin, and, for this 
 
riVO CHANCELLORS. 26 1 
 
 epoch of 1867 to 1870, history will fully confirm the 
 testimony which he once thought proper to. testify of 
 himself, while protesting before his chief,^ that dur- 
 ing his mission in Prussia he had been " an active, 
 correct, and far-seeing agent." 
 
 From 1867, in fact, the ambassador worked with 
 patriotic zeal to enlighten his government on the 
 state of affairs in Europe, and to advise it to make 
 a strong resolution, either to resign itself frankly 
 to the inevitable, or to prepare in good time for a 
 conflict very imminent and full of great perils. 
 He represented Prussia as working without cessa- 
 tion to unite all Germany, at the risk of provok- 
 ing a conflict with France, inclining only too often 
 to consider such a conflict as the surest and most 
 direct means of arriving at its ends. In such a case, 
 he guarded against giving them the least hope from 
 ihQ particularists oi th& South. "At the beginning 
 of a national war," he said, " the most obstinate 
 among them will only be extinguished by the masses 
 who will regard the struggle, whatever may be the 
 circumstances in the midst of which it will break 
 out, as a war of aggression of France against their 
 country ; and if the fortune of arms were favorable 
 to them, their demands would know no limits." He 
 also noticed " the most active propaganda " which 
 M. de Bismarck maintained in the countries the 
 other side of the Main : " With the exception of 
 some journals in the pay of the governments (of Mu- 
 nich and Stuttgart), or belonging to the ultra-radi- 
 cal party, the press seconds him in all the Southern 
 States." He also sent word to Paris that the min- 
 
 1 Private letter to the Count Daru, 27th January, 1870. 
 
262 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 ister of William I. continued his negotiations with 
 the revolutionary party in Italy ; that he received 
 agents of Garibaldi, unknown to the regular govern- 
 ment of King Victor Emmanuel, the personal friend 
 of the Emperor Napoleon III., who, at the time of 
 the complications of Mentana, had only sounded 
 Prussia in order to know " in what measure it could 
 lend it its aid." ^ He was also the first to give warn- 
 ing concerning the shadowy practices with Prim 
 and the Spanish candidature of the HohenzoUern. 
 Lastly, one has already seen that he had recognized 
 from the beginning the alarming character and true 
 bearing of the mission of General Manteuffel to 
 Russia. 
 
 " However difficult it may be for a great country 
 like France to trace in advance its line of conduct 
 in the actual state of things," said M. Benedetti to 
 his government at the beginning of the year 1868, 
 " and however great may be the part which it ex- 
 pects to take in unforeseen contingencies, the union 
 of Germany under a military government strongly 
 organized, and which in certain respects has of par- 
 liamentary regime only external forms, constitutes, 
 however, a fact which touches too closely our na- 
 tional security to allow us to dispense with prepara- 
 tions, and to solve, without longer delay, the follow- 
 ing question : Would such an event endanger the 
 independence or the position of France in Europe, 
 
 ' See, on this subject, the curious dispatch of the loth November, 
 1867. The correspondence of Mazzini with M. de Bismarck during 
 the years 1868 and 1869, suggesting the plan of overthrowing Victor 
 Emmanuel if this latter became the ally of the Emperor Napoleon 
 III., has been brought to light only very recently, after the death of 
 the celebrated Italian agitator. 
 
Tlf^O CHANCELLORS. 263 
 
 and would not this danger be conjured up only by 
 war ? If the government of the emperor thinks that 
 France has nothing to fear from such a radical alter- 
 ation in the relations of the states situated in the 
 centre of the Continent, it will be desirable, in my 
 opinion, in the interest of the maintenance of peace 
 and public prosperity, to shape entirely and without 
 reserve our attitude according to this conviction. 
 If the contrary opinion is entertained, let us prepare 
 for war without cessation, and let us be well assured 
 in advance of what aid Austria can be to us ; let us 
 shape our conduct so as to solve one after the other 
 the questions of the Orient and that of Italy ; all our 
 united forces will not be too great to render us vic- 
 torious on the Rhine." 
 
 Especially in his manner of judging of the accord 
 established between the two courts of Berlin and St. 
 Petersburg, M. Benedetti showed a justness and su- 
 periority of judgment truly remarkable. He had the 
 merit of foreseeing the understanding from the first 
 moment, and of positively believing in it until the 
 last. In the month of September, 1869, the Em- 
 peror of the French had thought of appointing as 
 ambassador to the czar one of his most intimate 
 friends, one of his most devoted cooperators of the 
 2d December, a general renowned for his bravery 
 and intelligence, a grand equerry. It was sufficient 
 to indicate that they wished to enter into relations 
 as intimate and direct as possible, and in spite of the 
 exchange of telegrams at the festival of St. George, 
 they were already, at the beginning of the year 1870, 
 full of hope ; they believed that the affair was pro- 
 
264 riVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 gressing of itself.^ The French general, an able 
 man, however, was very quickly taken to the bear 
 hunts, to journeys on sledges, and shown many other 
 marks of august kindness, which he had the mod- 
 esty to credit to the policy of his master, in place of 
 attributing them with much more reason to his very 
 real and in truth very fascinating personal charms. 
 The conviction of the grand equerry was shared by 
 those surrounding him, especially by his aides-de- 
 camp, who did not delay to praise in their confiden- 
 tial letters addressed to Paris, " the great results ob- 
 tained " by their chief, and to speak of " his growing 
 favor with the Emperor of all the Russias," in terms 
 very strong and much more military than diplo- 
 matic.2 Without being imposed upon by all these 
 tecitals, full of cheerfulness, M. Benedetti did not 
 the less persist in his well founded conviction ; even 
 on the 30th June, 1870, on the very eve of the war, he 
 expressed it in a lucid dispatch, from which we will 
 have more than one instructive passage to quote. 
 Speaking of the recent interview (ist-4th June) of 
 the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia 
 at Ems, the ambassador supposes that M. de Bis- 
 marck had shown himself then, as generally, on one 
 side favorable to the policy of the cabinet of St. Pe- 
 tersburg in the Orient, and that on the other he en- 
 
 i Confidential letter of M. de Verdiire, St Petersburg, 3d Febru- 
 ary, 1870. Papers and Correspondence of the Imperial Family, vol. i. 
 p. 129. 
 
 s " The Emperor of Russia has taken the general in great favor j 
 he takes him continually on bear hunts, and makes him travel with 
 him on a f ... in his one-seated sleigh. That is the height of favor, 
 and I think that politics are in a good condition." — Confidential let- 
 ter of M. de Verdi^re, asth January, 1870. Papers and Correspond- 
 ence, vol. i.-p. 127. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 265 
 
 deavored to excite the susceptibility of the czar in 
 the questions which agitate the national sentiment in 
 Russia as regards Austria, Galicia, etc. " While the 
 minister will have undertaken to reassure the em- 
 peror on the first of these two pbints and to alarm 
 him on the other, the king will have displayed that 
 good grace of which he has always known how to 
 make such a marvelous use to capture the sympa- 
 thies of his august nephew, and I do not doubt, for 
 my part, that they have left impressions in confomi- 
 ity with his desire. But whatever may have been 
 the means which they employed, their object must 
 have been to strengthen the emperor in the senti- 
 ments which they have been able to inspire in him, 
 and they have attained it more or less." 
 
 M. Benedetti was, however, far from admitting an 
 official arrangement drawn up in due form between 
 the two courts, and above all far from believing that 
 the minister of Prussia had in all sincerity and candor 
 made the cession and abandonment of the Oriental 
 heritage to the hands of his former colleague of 
 Frankfort, and it is precisely in such, estimates that 
 the uncommon perspicacity of the French diplomat 
 shows itself. M. de Bismarck could for the neces- 
 sities of the moment, simulate indifference regarding 
 the affairs of the Levant, affirm that he " never read 
 the correspondence of Constantinople," and even 
 consider the pretensions of Russia " to introduce a 
 certain unity in the intellectual development of the 
 Sclavians, legitimate ; " ^ but the extreme care which 
 
 1 Expressions of the North German Gazette (principal organ of M. 
 de Bismarck) of tlie 20th July, 1867, on the occasion of the congress 
 of Moscow. 
 
266 Tff^o CHANCELLORS. 
 
 he used at the same time to maintain the most in- 
 timate relations with the Hungarians, his allies of 
 1866, should have already enlightened the zealots of 
 Moscow concerning the inanity of their dream of a 
 division of the world between the sons of Taut and 
 those of Rourik. "The Hungarians regard us, us 
 Prussians, as their mediate protectors against Vienna 
 in the future," wrote, in a confidential dispatch, 
 Baron de Werther in the month of June, 1867, , on 
 his return from the coronation of Buda, to reassure 
 the cabinet of Berlin on the recent enthusiasm of 
 the Magyars reconciled with their " king ; " it is not 
 only against Vienna, it is still much more against 
 Moscow and St. Petersburg, against any Sclavic 
 preponderance on the banks of the Danube, that 
 the children of Arpad will in the future have aid 
 from the Hohenzollem. " Prussia has no rightful 
 interests in the Orient," M. de Bismarck was pleased 
 to say in the years 1 867-1 870, and the organ of M. 
 de Katkof did not cease to repeat this remark so 
 often commented on ; but from the day when Prussia 
 identified itself with Germany, or rather incorpo- 
 rated itself in it, it remained charged, under pain of 
 forfeiture, with the Germanic interests and influ- 
 ences in the countries of the Danube and of the 
 Balkan, and the interest then became greater, much 
 greater, than that of France and England. 
 
 All this was very well understood by the ambas- 
 sador of France to the court of Berlin, and from 
 time to time keenly exposed in the dispatches 
 which he addressed to his government during the 
 last years of his mission in Prussia. Writing, in 
 his report of the sth January, 1868, of the com- 
 
rpf^O CHANCELLORS. 26/ 
 
 plaisance with which the chancellor of the confed- 
 eration of the North always lent himself to the 
 views of Prince Gortchakof, M. Benedetti added, 
 however : " He (M. de Bismarck) persuades himself 
 without doubt that other Powers have an interest of 
 the first order in preserving the Ottoman empire 
 from the covetousness of Russia, and he abandons 
 the care of it to them ; he knows, moreover, that 
 nothing can be definitely accomplished there without 
 the aid or the adhesion of Germany, if Germany is 
 united and strong ; he believes, then, that he can, 
 for the present, and without peril, himself sharpen 
 the ambition of the cabinet of St. Petersburg, pro- 
 vided that he obtains in return for this condescen- 
 sion a kind withdrawal from everything which he 
 undertakes in Germany." 
 
 " In the Orient," wrote the ambassador some time 
 after (4th February, 1868), "M. de Bismarck is care- 
 ful to preserve a position which does not bind him 
 in any way, and permits him, according to the ne- 
 cessities of his own designs, to give the hand to 
 Russia, or to ally himself with Occidental Powers ; 
 but he can only preserve this position by abstaining 
 from any proceeding which would compromise him 
 with the friends or the adversaries of Turkey." 
 This reasoning was not long in being fully justi- 
 fied by the attitude of Prussia, during the conference 
 of Paris, on the subject of Greece (January, 1869). 
 The cabinet of Berlin did not share in the ardor of 
 Alexander Mikhallovitch ; it did not defend, as he 
 did, persecuted innocence in the person of " the 
 young Roumania," and of the Servian Omladina, 
 and above all was careful to denounce the great 
 
268 TJVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 conspiracy of England, France, and Austria against 
 the peace of the Levant. In reality the minister of 
 Prussia did not wish the death of the just Osmanli, 
 still less the collapse of Hungary, the advance guard 
 of the Germanic " mission '' in the East ; ^ and his 
 sympathies for a " certain ideal unity " of the Scla- 
 vians grew cold in proportion as the hour of the real 
 unity of Germany approached. " Any conflict in the 
 Orient will put it under the influence of Russia," 
 wrote the French diplomat the 27th January, 1870, 
 " and he will seek to excite it ; he tried it last year 
 at the beginning of the Graeco-Turkish trouble. Rus- 
 sia is a card in his game for the eventualities which 
 Miay arise on the Rhine, and ke is particularly care- 
 ful not to change the rdles, not to become himself a 
 card in the game of the cabinet of St. Petersburg." 
 
 Some months after, on the very eve of the war 
 with France (30th June, 1870), M. Benedetti, while 
 thinking that the ties between Russia and Prussia 
 could only have been drawn closer in the recent in- 
 terview of Ems, concluded by the following observa- 
 tions : " It must not be supposed, however, that M. 
 de Bismarck thinks it opportune to connect his pol- 
 icy closely with that of the Russian cabinet. In my 
 opinion, he has not contracted and is not disposed 
 to make any engagement which might, while com- 
 promising Prussia in the complications of which 
 Turkey will become the scene, draw France and 
 England closer together, and create difficulties for 
 him or weaken him on the Rhine. The kind feel- 
 ings of the chancellor of the confederation of the 
 North for Russia will never be of a nature to limit 
 * Drang tiach Ostm. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 269 
 
 his liberty of action ; he promises in fact more than 
 he means to do, or, in other words, he seeks the alli- 
 ance with the cabinet of St. Petersburg to gain for 
 himself the benefit of it in case of a conflict in the 
 Occident, but with the well-fixed resolution never to 
 engage the resources or the forces of Germany in 
 the Orient. I have also always been persuaded that 
 no official arrangement has been concluded between 
 the two courts, and we can certainly believe that 
 they did not consider that at Ems." 
 
 Everything, in fact, leads us to believe that neither 
 a treaty was signed there, nor conditions discussed ; 
 the commonalty of views and the harmony of hearts 
 dispensed with a fatiguing discussion of details. 
 Moreover, it would have been very difficult, in all 
 the useless cases, to make stipulations en rkgle for 
 the eventualities, the time of whose appearance is not 
 known, of which it is impossible to calculate the dis- 
 tant consequences, or even the immediate effects. 
 They contented themselves with the conviction that 
 they had no opposite interests ; that, on the contrary, 
 they were congenial and sympathetic, and that it was 
 understood that at the propitious moment each one 
 would be for himself and God for all. It must also 
 be acknowledged that the Russians, in their views con- 
 cerning the Orient, are not exempt from certain mi- 
 rages. Europe credits them with much more method 
 than they have in reality : the sentiment is profound 
 and tenacious, but the plans are as wavering as they 
 are different and vague. One might say that this 
 great people suffer in this regard rather from a fasci- 
 nation and almost a fatality which prevents them from 
 pursuing a systematic conquest ; it advances on the 
 
270 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 phantom which possesses it only to make it recoil. 
 It is a matter worthy of notice that Russia is never 
 so far removed from the goal as when it undertakes to 
 force the d^noAment. In 1829, a few halting places 
 only separated its armies from Constantinople, and 
 they turned back. It lost, in 1854, all the fruit of its 
 campaign in Hungary, and of its ascendency in con- 
 sequence of the catastrophe of February, while its 
 prospects were never as brilliant as on the day when 
 the treaty of Paris expected to close the Black Sea 
 to it. It lost Sebastopol, but it gained the Caucasus 
 and a whole world on the banks of the Amour and 
 the Syr-Daria. The temptation became then very 
 natural in presence of the formidable conflict which 
 since 1867 was preparing in the centre of Europe, 
 rather to await events than to wish to regulate them 
 and to prescribe their course. In a war between the 
 two strongest Powers of the Continent, which prom- 
 ised to be as long as desperate, and which in the end 
 might well equally exhaust the two adversaries and 
 draw several other states into the lists, Russia — 
 thus they surely thought on the banks of the Neva 
 — would always find the opportunity and the means 
 of saying its word and securing its booty. Such a 
 line of conduct seemed entirely marked out for a 
 chancellor to whom so much good fortune had al- 
 ready come while " meditating ; " it recommended 
 itself to a policy which only measured the infinity of 
 its aspirations by the uncertainty of possible events. 
 The infinity of desires accommodates itself in case 
 one can do nothing better with the indefinite in the 
 designs, and nothing at times gives such a false im- 
 pression of depth as emptiness. 
 
TIVO CHANCELLORS. 2/ 1 
 
 It was cruelly ironic of the founder of German 
 unity to choose in each of his successive enterprises 
 an accomplice who was to become his victim in the 
 following undertaking ; but he showed, also, his great 
 superiority in having had each time a very clear aim, 
 a well-defined object marked out, and, so to speak, 
 tangible, while his partners allowed themselves to be 
 drawn in, one after the other, in the perilous game, 
 under the impulse of abstract principles, vague de- 
 sires, and cloudy combinations. At the time of the 
 invasion of the Duchies and his first attempt against 
 the equilibrium of Europe, M. de Bismarck was cer- 
 tainly not at a loss to show his aim : the prey was in 
 reach of his hands, and the roadstead of Kiel spread 
 itself in all its splendor before whoever had eyes to 
 see ; but M. de Rechberg is still seeking for it to- 
 day, and to make the motives of his cooperation in 
 this work of iniquity acceptable. " He tried to master 
 the demagogic passions, to gain the ascendency over 
 the revolution," — these are the pompous and sono- 
 rous phrases taken from the " doctrine " with which 
 later the former Austrian minister was to seek to 
 cover up before the Austro-Hungarian delegations 
 his fatal and pitiful policy of 1 863. At Biarritz, the 
 president of the Prussian council demanded in very 
 clear terms the line of the Main for his country, while 
 the dreamer of Ham recommended " the great war 
 for the German nationality," and let his undecided 
 glance fall first on the right bank of the Rhine and 
 Mayence, then on the limits of 18 14, and only fixed 
 it on the winged lion of St. Mark. From 1867 to 
 1870, the chancellor of the Northern Confederation 
 resolutely made preparations for the unification of 
 
272 rfFO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 Germany and the conquest of Alsace and Lorraine, 
 leaving to his former colleague of Frankfort perfect 
 leisure " to awaken the echoes of the Orient," and to 
 demand of them the key to the approaching destinies 
 of Russia. In each of these fatidical circumstances, 
 the same great realist is always leading the ideolo- 
 gists to different degrees and to different titles : it 
 is always the same Fortinbras of Shakspere, — the 
 fort en bras of Germany, — proclaiming his dominion 
 where the doctrinary, melancholy, or word-making 
 Hamlets have only lost their way in chimerical and 
 puerile machinations, and, before a " murder which 
 cries out to heaven," find no other words than, — the 
 time is out of joint ! 
 
 "Russia cannot feel any alarm at the power of 
 Prussia," ^ said Prince Gortchakof, in reply to the 
 representations which were made him from the be- 
 ginning of the HohenzoUern afiair on " the danger 
 which would result to Russia from the aggrandize- 
 ment of Prussia, and from the extension of its influ- 
 ence in Europe." As to the Spanish candidature of 
 the Prussian prince, the chancellor recalled that 
 " when Prince Charles of HohenzoUern became (in 
 1866) sovereign of Roumania, with the support of 
 France and in spite of Russia, this latter "had limited 
 itself to remonstrances, and had then accepted the 
 fact, he did not see why to-day Prussia could be more 
 
 1 Dispatch of Sir A. Buchanan, St. Petersburg, 9th July, 1870. 
 For the details of these years, 1870-71, we can only refer the reader 
 to the very instructive work of M. A. Sorel, Diplomatic History of the 
 Franco-German War, Paris, Plon, 1875, zvols. We have only two 
 reservations to make in regard to a book written with as much sin- 
 cerity of investigation as loftiness of mind. The author shows a pro- 
 nounced weakness for " the diplomacy of Tours," and limits in much 
 too great a degree the original views of Prince Gortchakof in his con- 
 nivance with Prussia since 1867. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 273 
 
 responsible for the election of another member of the 
 ■royal family to the throne of Spain." Thus spoke the 
 minister of the czar at the very beginning of the con- 
 flict, the 8th July, 1870, before the renunciation of 
 Prince Anthony, before any exhibition of anger on 
 the part of the cabinet of the Tuileries, and at the 
 moment when Europe still thought well of the legit- 
 imate susceptibilities of France. However, when the 
 hour of blindness and giddiness came, and when the 
 government of Napoleon III. lost all the profit of a 
 great diplomatic success by its provoking language 
 before the legislative body, by its demands of Ems, 
 and its fatal declaration of war (15 th July), illusions 
 could no longer be cherished concerning the true 
 sentiments of the cabinet of St. Petersburg. " With 
 all due deference to General Fleury," wrote with hu- 
 mor M. de Beust to Prince de Metternich, the 20th 
 July, " Russia perseveres in its alliance with Prussia 
 so far, that in certain eventualities . the intervention 
 of the Muscovite arms must be looked upon not as 
 probable, but as certain." Soon after the declarations 
 of war of the iSth July, the Russian government had 
 addressed to Vienna the very clear and categorical 
 notice that it would not allow Austria to make com- 
 mon cause with France. General Fleury was even 
 soon to think himself lucky with having at least 
 made sure that this invalida.ting clause touching the 
 empire of the Hapsburg was not explicitly mentioned 
 in the declaration of neutraUty which the Emperor 
 Alexander II. published the 23d July.^ 
 
 1 Dispatches of Sir A. Buchanan of the 20th and 23d July. Val- 
 frey. History of the Diplomacy of the Government of National De- 
 fense, vol. i. p. 18. 
 
 18 
 
274 TWO CBTANCELLORS. 
 
 " Russia has done us much harm," said the Duke 
 de Gramont, in regard to this interdictirig command 
 to Austria.^ It weighed equally on the court of Co- 
 penhagen and forced it to neutrality, in spite of all 
 the enthusiasm of the unfortunate Scandinavian 
 people for an alliance with which was connected a 
 French plan of a landing in the North, an enterprise 
 of the greatest strategical interest. General Trochu 
 said, who was to have taken part in it. " Russia," 
 thought with an official journal of the country, the 
 rambas^Sor-of the United States at St. Petersburg, 
 " has contributed more to the neutrality than any 
 other nation ; by its menaces it has forced Austria 
 not to move, and it has succeeded, by the influence 
 of the emperor and the hereditary prince, in hinder- 
 ing Denmark from taking part with France." ^ Eng- 
 land, it is just to add, powerfully seconded in all this 
 the Russian chancellor. It was more prejudiced 
 than ever against France, thanks to the recent and 
 terrible revelations of M. de Bismarck concerning 
 the dilatory negotiations in August, 1866, on the 
 subject of Belgium. It was evident that for the 
 pleasure of Prince Gortchakof the conflagration came 
 much too soon. The military preparations of Russia 
 were not made; even the perfectly "moral" action 
 on the Sclavic world had undergone a rest since the 
 conference on the subject of Greece. M. de Bis- 
 marck had not exactly consulted the convenience of 
 his colleague on the Neva. As M. Benedetti had 
 predicted, he had taken care not to invert the rdles 
 
 1 France and Prussia, p. 348. 
 
 2 Dispatch of Mr. Schuyler to Mr. Fish, St. Petersburg, 26th Au- 
 gust. General Trochu, Pour la veriti, p. 90. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 275 
 
 and thought only of his own convenience and oppor- 
 tunities ; but Alexander Mikhaitlovitch did not the 
 less apply himself to play his rdle according to his 
 strength. A sagacious observer, the ambassador of 
 the United States, already mentioned, wrote about 
 this time from St. Petersburg to his government : 
 " The general opinion here seems to be that, if Rus- 
 sia were ready, it would declare war and try to gain 
 
 certain advantages from it The government 
 
 is making great efforts to prepare for future events. 
 The cartridge factories work night and day. An or- 
 der for a hundred Gattling cannon has just been sent 
 to America." They armed, they deterred or intim- 
 idated the probable allies of France, thinking thus to 
 equalize for the moment the chances between the two 
 belligerents,^ and they still hoped to find more than 
 one favorable opportunity in the midst of the numer- 
 ous events of a war which Napoleon III. himself pro- 
 claimed must be " long and difficult." 
 
 The terrible disasters of France in the beginning 
 of the campaign suddenly arrested the imaginations 
 in their flight and dissipated the sublime vision of 
 a "new Graeco-Sclavic world," which since 1867 had 
 haunted the minds of those on the banks of the 
 Moscova and the Neva. With the marvelous polit- 
 ical and realistic aptitude which distinguishes it, the 
 Russian nation soon understood that for the moment 
 
 1 Prince Gortchakof was far from having at the beginning abso- 
 lute confidence in the victory of Prussia ; he told M. Thiers more 
 than one piquant detail on this subject. Deposition of M. Thiers be- 
 fore the commission of inquiry, p. 12. In an interview, towards the 
 end of July, with a political personage whom he knew to be in rela- 
 tion with Napoleon III., he even let these words fall: "Tell the 
 Emperor of the French to be moderate." Valfrey, i. 79. 
 
276 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 any crusade in the Orient was impossible, that the 
 destiny of the world was being decided at the foot 
 of the Vosges, and that it must attend to the most 
 urgent and reasonable claims. A curious phenom- 
 enon, the peninsula of the Balkan was never as rel- 
 atively quiet, as little tormented by the " great idea " 
 as during these years 1870-1871, during this " intes- 
 tine . dissension in Europe " which Fuad-Pacha when 
 dying had so feared for the empire of the Osmanlis. 
 Towards the end of the month of August, still before 
 the catastrophe of Sedan, public opinion in Russia 
 cared only for the displeasing article of the treaty of 
 Paris on the subject of the Euxine. " Russia," said 
 an influential journal of St. Petersburg,^ "has not 
 hindered the forced unification of Germany, and, in 
 its turn, it does not dream of the forced unification 
 of the Sclavians ; but it has the right to demand that 
 its position on the Black Sea and the banks of the 
 Danube be ameliorated. We hope that its legitimate 
 demands will be taken into consideration in the Eu- 
 ropean congress which will probably follow the pres- 
 ent war." A European congress ! that was in truth 
 the only logical issue, however unreassuring in such 
 grave events, disturbers of the equilibrium of the 
 world ; and it must render this justice to the greater 
 part of the Russias, that they have the true appreci- 
 ation of the situation, and aspire to a rdle as legiti- 
 mate as honorable. They wish to attain a satisfac- 
 tion of amour-propre ; but they did not wish to 
 sacrifice France and the general interests of the 
 Continent to it ; the little question was in their eyes 
 only the corollary of the great. At Constantinople 
 1 The Golos, quoted in the dispatch of Mr. Schuyler, 27th August. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 277 
 
 one did not augur otherwise from the line of con- 
 duct which the cabinet of St. Petersburg undoubt- 
 edly pursued, although dreading it. On the 2d 
 September, Mr. Joy Morris, minister of the United 
 States to the Porte, wrote to his government that 
 the general conviction on the Bosphorus was that 
 Russia would profit by the crisis to bring about the 
 revision-of the treaty of 1856. " It would be strange 
 if it. did not succeed in it," added the "Yankee" dip- 
 lomat, " seeking, as it will, to obtain honorable condi- 
 tions of peace for France, and exercising a dominat- 
 ing influence on the regulations of the terms of 
 peace." Unfortunately, and for the first time in his 
 long and popular reign at the chancellor's palace, the 
 "national minister" divorced himself on this occa- 
 sion from the sentiment of the nation, and in place 
 of acting as "a good European," according to the 
 favorite expression of M. de Talleyrand, he sought 
 above all to show himself the good friend of his for- 
 mer colleague of Frankfort. He took care to re- 
 nounce the question of the Black Sea, — he owed his 
 country this little consolation after such great mis- 
 takes, — but he resolved to separate two causes which 
 public opinion in Russia demanded to have united ; 
 and it demanded it with an idea much more politic 
 than generous, in an instinct much more sensible for 
 the vital interests of the future than for the satisfac- 
 tion more or less lively of the present moment. He 
 thought that he could not better serve the Russian 
 cause on the Euxine, than in injuring as much 
 as possible the cause of Europe in Alsace and Lor- 
 raine, and he endeavored above all to let France 
 and Prussia fight out their quarrel in single combat. 
 
278 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 Immediately after the first French disasters, he 
 seized with empressement the ingeniously perfidious 
 idea of the league of neutrals, originally an Italian 
 idea, naturalized in England by Earl Granville, and 
 soon became in the hands of the Russian chancel- 
 lor, as was very acutely remarked, the most effica- 
 cious means to " organize impotence in Europe." 
 M. de Beust had vainly essayed, while adopting the 
 principle of the English proposition (19th August) 
 to change the character of it, to make it the point of 
 departure of a concerted intervention ; he demanded 
 "efforts not separated, but common in view of a 
 mediation," in place of a ridiculous conception 
 which only "leagued" the states to prevent any 
 collective proceeding. " The combination which the 
 minister of Austria then suggested," wrote on this 
 subject a judicious historian, " was repeated again 
 and again by him during the whole duration of the 
 war. If it had been adopted, it would have changed 
 the course of things. One can say that it is for this 
 reason that Europe did not adopt it." ^ 
 
 It is for this reason that Prince Gortchakof es- 
 pecially opposed it from the first day to the last. 
 There was a moment when England itself felt some 
 qualms of conscience and showed a wish for media- 
 tion. That was at the beginning of the month of 
 October, after a circular of M. de Bismarck had an- 
 
 1 A. Sorel, Diplomatic History, vol. i. p. 254. Let us quote the 
 passage from another dispatch of M. de Beust, dated the 29th Sep- 
 tember, and destined for London : " Let us not fear to say it : what 
 to-da^ serves powerfully to prolong the conflict to the extreme hor- 
 rors of a war of extermination, is, on one side illusions and false 
 hopes, on the other indifference and contempt for Europe, spectator 
 of the combat." 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 279 
 
 nounced to Europe the conditions of peace of Ger- 
 many, which were Alsace and Lorraine. " The am- 
 bassador of Prussia communicated this circular to 
 the Russian government, and Prince Gortchakof ab- 
 stained from making his impressions known. Sir 
 A. Buchanan said to him then, that at London they 
 were disposed to be governed in a certain measure 
 by what was done at St. Petersburg. The chan- 
 cellor replied simply that Prussia, not having asked 
 of him his opinion, he had not given it.^ Earl Gran- 
 ville had the, for him, extraordinary courage to re- 
 turn again to the charge, and Sir A. Buchanan read 
 to the Russian chancellor a memorandum timidly 
 asking " if it it would not be possible for England 
 and Russia to arrive at an agreement concerning the 
 conditions under which peace could be concluded, 
 and then to make, with the other neutral Powers, 
 an appeal to the humanity of the King of Prussia, 
 also recommending moderation to the French gov- 
 ernment." Prince Gortchakof gave to those over- 
 tures a dry and disdainful reception. Prussia, said 
 he, has indicated its conditions of peace ; a victory 
 alone can modify them, and this victory is not prob- 
 able. Confidential conversations between England 
 and Russia will be then without object ; common 
 representations would always have a more or less 
 menacing character. Isolated action of each of the 
 neutral Powers before the King of Prussia is pref- 
 erable.^ Isolated action ! Alexander Mikhailovitch 
 was not moved, and for Russia this action was 
 summed up in several personal letters addressed 
 
 1 A. Sorel, Diplomatic History, vol. i. p. 402. 
 
 2 Report of Sir A. Buchanan of the 17th October. 
 
280 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 by the august nephew to his royal uncle, very charm- 
 ing letters, which recommended peace, justice, hu- 
 manity, and moderation, and to which the conqueror 
 of Sedan always replied affectionately, with a moved 
 heart and with tears in his eyes, pleading his duties 
 to his allies, his armies, his people, and his frontiers.^ 
 It was this " policy of euphemism," as the historian 
 has so well called it, which they did not cease to 
 practice, during the entire war, on the banks of the 
 Neva, towards General Fleury as well as towards 
 M. Thiers and M. de Gabriac, and the last word as 
 well as the first thought of " action " of Prince 
 Gortchakof was to leave France alone with its con- 
 queror, alone till exhaustion, usque ad finem. It is 
 known in what terms this end was announced at 
 St. Petersburg. " It is with inexpressible feeling 
 and returning thanks to God," the Emperor of Ger- 
 many telegraphed from Versailles to the Emperor of 
 Russia, on the 26th February, 1 871, " that I an- 
 nounce to you that the preliminaries of peace have 
 just been signed. Prussia will never forget that it 
 owes to you that the war has not taken extreme 
 dimensions. May God bless you for it. Your grate- 
 ful friend for life." 
 
 " Long and disastrous " was this war, alas ! as the 
 unhappy Caesar had well predicted, long enough at 
 least to let Europe measure all the depth of its 
 
 1 It was only the simple recommendation of an armistice, with no 
 other design of influencing what might be the conditions of peace, 
 that Prince Gortchakof declined to make common cause. M. d'Ou- 
 bril, his minister at Berlin, found himself at the last moment without* 
 instructions on this subject. " It is singular enough," wrote Lord 
 Loftus, on the 26th October, " that Russia, after having in many cir- 
 cumstances, proved its desire for peace, thus stands aside and prefers 
 isolated to common action." 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 28 1 
 
 abasement, and " to give it all the time to blush at 
 nothing," according to the strong expression of the 
 poet. Still more humiliating, perhaps, than this 
 abasement, is the thought of the perfect similarity 
 of the two terrible catastrophes which succeeded 
 one another in the interval of scarcely four years ; 
 in producing its second tragedy so soon after the 
 first, destiny was sufficiently disdainful to our gen- 
 eration not to even change the procedure or bestow 
 any care on the imagination. The work of 1870 
 was only the exact copy of that of 1866. You will 
 take the Orient, M. de Bismarck said at St. Peters- 
 burg, through General Manteuffel, as on the shore 
 of Biarritz he had told the Emperor Napoleon III. 
 to take Belgium, always making the same gift of the 
 property which did not belong to him, the same 
 gracious gift of the fruit defended by the dragon. 
 The dreamers of Moscow believed in a new -era, in 
 a new " Graeco-Sclavic-Roumanian world," as Napo- 
 leon III. had thought of a Europe remodeled after 
 the principle of nationalities. " Russia will not feel 
 any alarm at the power of Prussia," Prince Gort- 
 chakof declared at the beginning of the Hohenzol- 
 lern affair, exactly as tbe zealots of the new right 
 had affirmed of France on the eve of the campaign 
 of Bohemia. In both of the terrible years they had 
 counted on the events and opportunities of a war, 
 slow and of divers fortunes ; they had even made it 
 a study to derisively equalize the chances of the bel- 
 ligerents, and the surprise and the fright were not 
 less great at St. Petersburg after Reichshoffen and 
 Sedan than it had been at Paris after Nahod and 
 Sadowa. The military preparations were wanting in 
 
282 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 Russia in 1870, as in France in 1866, and after the 
 one as after the other of the calamities which des- 
 olated and overturned the world, they had only- 
 egotistical and petty thoughts ; they prevented de- 
 signedly any collective intervention, they aided Prus- 
 sia in freeing itself from all European control ; in a 
 word they sacrificed the policy of justice, preserva- 
 tion, and equilibrium to a calculation as false as sor- 
 did, and which the great humorist of Varzin had one 
 day called "Cos. politique de pour-boire. 
 
 The Russian chancellor, it is just to acknowledge, 
 was happier after Sedan than Napoleon III. had 
 been after Sadowa : he had his Luxemburg, he could 
 proclaim the. abrogation of Article II. of the treaty 
 of Paris, "the abrogation of a theoretical principle 
 without immediate application," as he himself said 
 in an official document.^ One knows the judgment 
 which at that time the cabinets gave on this " con- 
 quest " purely nominal in reality, and extremely small 
 in any case in proportion to all those which Alex- 
 ander Mikhaflovitch had allowed to his former C0I7 
 league of Frankfort. He succeeded, but not by le- 
 gitimate means, by that action of iclat and equity 
 which one had hoped for in Russia, dreaded at Con- 
 stantinople ; he did not provoke the revision of the 
 treaty of 1856, in " seeking to obtain honorable con- 
 ditions of peace for France and in exercising a 
 dominating influence on the regulation of the terms 
 of peace." ^ He chose precisely " the psychological 
 moment " of the defeats of France, of the disorder of 
 
 1 Dispatch of Prince Gortchakof to Baron Brunnow at London, 
 November 20, 1870. 
 * Dispatch of Mr. Joy Morris of the 2d September, quoted above. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 283 
 
 Europe and of the gloomy shock to pubUc right, to 
 give it in his turn a humiliating blow, a telum imbelle, 
 but not sine ictu. He freed himself and his own 
 chief from an engagement contracted with the Pow- 
 ers, as he had freed his friend of Berlin from any 
 control of Europe. " The procedure of Russia," 
 said Earl Granville, in his remarkable dispatch of the 
 loth November to Sir A. Buchanan, " breaks all the 
 treaties : the object of a treaty is to bind the con- 
 tracting parties one to the other ; according to the 
 Russian doctrine, each party submits all to his own 
 authority, and holds himself bound only to him- 
 self." 
 
 At the beginning of the year 1868; an eminent 
 man whom the disasters of his country were soon to 
 restore to the political life which the second empire 
 closed to him, rose even here ^ with passionate elo- 
 quence against "the growing mistrust of this ele- 
 mentary right which honor and good public sense 
 have called the faith of treaties." " We see," said 
 he, " creating itself every day under our eyes, a fruit- 
 ful jurisprudence whose rapid development does not 
 astonish those who know what force false principles 
 borrow from and lend in turn to the passions which 
 they favor. Only a few years ago they imposed on 
 this unilateral resilition of reciprocal treaties some 
 conditions which made the usage of them more 
 legitimate, or at least more rare and less perilous. 
 They still wished greatly to admit that, in case one 
 state should want to repudiate a treaty signed by 
 
 1 See the Revue des deux Mondes of the ist February, 1868 (" The 
 Diplomacy and the Principles of the French Revolution," by M. le 
 Prince Albert de Broglie). 
 
284 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 representatives regularly accredited, it should be nec- 
 essary that in its interior one of those great overturn- 
 ings of institutions, persons, and things should be ef- 
 fected which is called a revolution. A revolution was 
 a sheriff's summons by which a nation made known 
 to whom it should concern its intention to put itself 
 into bankruptcy and to no longer pay its debts. 
 This was, it seems to me, a sufficiently great facility, 
 but the last form of new right does not find it suffi- 
 cient to its taste. The formality of a revolution is 
 embarrassing and costly tp carry out. A change of 
 ministry, or, better still, a vote of parliament causes 
 less inconvenience. Nothing more will be necessary 
 henceforward in order that a convention in which 
 God, honor, and conscience have been taken to wit- 
 ness the past year be trampled under foot the follow- 
 ing year." 
 
 Well ! we have lived through enough, since the time 
 when an honest conscience uttered this cry of alarm, 
 to see foreign jurisprudence arise without even the 
 formality of a revolution, of a change of ministry or 
 a vote of parliament, to hear it proclaimed by the 
 minister of a regular absolute monarchy, by a Rus- 
 sian chancellor. It is true that the Italians also 
 then hastened to profit by the misfortunes of France, 
 to break in their turn a solemn engagement made 
 with it in a public document, that in 1870 they had 
 even anticipated Prince Gortchakof in a proceeding 
 well known to them ; but it was not from a govern- 
 ment born yesterday that the successor of Count Nes- 
 selrode should have borrowed the procedures. There 
 was a day when Alexander Mikhallovitch reproached 
 this very government with moving with the revolu- 
 
TfVO CHANCELLORS. 285 
 
 tton to reap the heritage of it?- Since then he has 
 also moved with the revolution, — with one of the 
 most audacious, most violent revolutions which has 
 ever overturned thrones and kingdoms ; he has 
 reaped no heritage from it, it is true (it is only too 
 often so in life, as one knows), he only accepted 
 from it a gracious legacy, a legitimate donation, a 
 modest gift in fact, and out of proportion to services 
 rendered, but which was not the less suUied with 
 undue influences, and which injured the right of the 
 third parties, the right of nations. 
 
 How otherwise great and glorious might have been 
 the " conquests " of Alexander Mikhallovitch, if, in- 
 spiring himself, in the month of October, 1 870, with 
 the legitimate ambition of the Russian people, the 
 " national minister " had brought about a concerted 
 action of Europe in order to produce peace between 
 France and Germany, and to regulate the troubled 
 affairs of the Continent ! " We have always been of 
 the opinion," wrote M. de Beust, on the loth Sep- 
 tember, to St. Petersburg, " that it is for Russia to 
 take the initiative." Its great influence abroad, its 
 security in the interior, its good relations with the 
 conqueror, assigned to it in truth such an initiative, 
 and certainly neither Austria, Italy, nor England 
 would have hesitated to range themselves under its 
 banner. There was no necessity for a menacing in- 
 tervention, nor even for that armed neutrality which 
 M. Disraeli recommended : ^ the wish firmly ex- 
 pressed by all the Powers of the Continent would 
 have fully sufficed. They could have thus limited 
 
 1 Note to Prince Gagarine at Turin, loth October, i860. 
 * Speech on the ist August, in the House of Commons. 
 
286 TfVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 the losses of France, given to Germany a less for- 
 midable organization, more in harmony with the as- 
 pirations and Uberal occupations of our century, — 
 the great vassals of the new emperor would not have 
 failed to lend their aid to it, — a general disarmament 
 would have given to a generation cruelly tried, and 
 which now cannot even rest in its sterility, a repara- 
 tive and a fruitful work. And who would dare to 
 doubt that after such services Russia would not have 
 obtained of Europe the grateful abrogation of that 
 onerous article of the treaty of 1856? France would 
 certainly not have thought of opposing it ; Austria 
 would not have maintained a clause which it had 
 combated from the beginning, and which, four years 
 before, it had solemnly declared to be " only a ques- 
 tion of amour propre" whose gravest interests de- 
 manded the sacrifice ; as to England, it is well known 
 that in course of time it accommodates itself to 
 everything. How much such a benefit procured for 
 humanity by a monarchical government, absolute 
 indeed, would have given force to the cause of order 
 and preservation, of rejuvenation of monarchical 
 principles ! with what prestige it would have sur- 
 rounded the Russian people; what imperishable 
 splendor it would have attached to the name of 
 Alexander II ! The call of destiny was very man- 
 ifest ; the rdle as plain as easy : the successor of 
 Count Nesselrode shrunk from it. It was only a 
 sin of omission, if you will, but of that sort which 
 the sublime lover of justice Alighieri did not pardon 
 when they were committed against his ideal of jus- 
 titia et pax. On such a sin he inflicted the name 
 of il gran rifiuto. 
 
VI. 
 
 TEN YEARS OF ASSOCIATION. 
 
 On the 9th January, 1873, Napoleon III. passed 
 sadly away from the land of exile at Chiselhurst, and 
 a short time after, the 27th March, William I. entered 
 on the sixty-sixth year of a life in which assuredly 
 the most extraordinary favors of fortune have not 
 been wanting. Germany celebrated the fete of its 
 new emperor with transports of joy, the more noisy 
 and sincere since the monarch had waited for this 
 anniversary to ratify a last convention with the gov- 
 ernment of Versailles, a convention which assured 
 the anticipated payment of the fifth milliard of the 
 French ransom, and the very early return of the 
 troops of occupation from the other side of the 
 Vosges. The great accounts with the hereditary 
 enemy thus definitely settled, the conqueror of Sedan 
 thought, on his part, of acquitting himself of a little 
 debt of the heart : he resolved to carry to the Em- 
 peror Alexander II. the expression of his lively grat- 
 itude for the loyal aid which he had lent him during 
 a memorable period of trials and combats. Long 
 foreseen, from time to time announced and put off, 
 the journey to St. Petersburg was at length un- 
 dertaken at the beginning of pleasant weather, and 
 M. de Bismarck took care to state precisely on this 
 occasion the date as well as the character of the close 
 
288 riVO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 association of interests established between Russia 
 and Prussia, and which became so fatal to the Occi- 
 dent. " The commonalty of views," — thus the official 
 organ of the German chancellor expressed itself,^ — 
 " which brought about the alliance of Prussia and 
 Russia in 1.863, ^t the time of the Polish insurrec- 
 tion, was the point of departure for this present pol- 
 icy of the two states, which, on the occasion of the 
 great events of the last years, has affirmed its power. 
 Since the attitude of Russia in the question of 
 Schleswig-Holstein, up to the important proofs of 
 sympathy given to Germany by the Emperor Alex- 
 ander during the last war, all has concurred to render 
 this alliance still more firm." 
 
 By a sort of historical fiction which confounds the 
 reason not a little, but which a sovereign will im- 
 poses on acts and even public monuments in Russia, 
 the campaign of 1870 did not cease to be exalted 
 in the official spheres of the empire of the czars as 
 the continuation of the work of 18 14, as the final 
 episode of " that great epoch when the united armies 
 of Russia and Prussia fought for a sacred cause 
 which was common to them both." ^ At the Krem- 
 lim, in the splendid hall consecrated by the Emperor 
 Nicholas to the military glories of the country, and 
 which is the arc dc I'Etoile of Holy Russia, the 
 
 1 Provincial Correspotidance of the 1st May, 1873. 
 
 " Telegram from the czar to King William I. of the gth December, 
 1869. Quite recently, at the last banquet of St. George, the Emperor 
 Alexander II. said : " I am happy to be able to state that the close 
 alliance between our three empires and our three armies, founded by 
 our august predecessors for the defense of the same cause, exists in- 
 tact at the present moment." Official journal of the Russian empire 
 of the I2th December, 1875. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS, 289 
 
 'foreign tourist is astonished to see glittering now in 
 letters of gold on the marble the names of Moltke, of 
 Roon, and other captains of Germany who shone in 
 the last war against France.^ And the conqueror 
 of Sedan might imagine that he was still in the 
 midst of his subjects in traversing in 1873 the vast 
 Muscovite plains : from the frontier to the Gulf of 
 Finland the journey was an uninterrupted succession 
 of triumphs and ovations. At each depot where the 
 imperial train stopped a guard of honor was in wait- 
 ing, and played the German national song ; the czar 
 came to meet his august guest to Gatchina, and the 
 27th April the two sovereigns entered the capital of 
 Peter the Great. The skies were gloomy and cold,, 
 and the sun refused to lighten " the city of wet 
 streets and dry hearts," as one of its poets has called 
 it ; but human industry did all that was possible to 
 supply the place of nature, and make amends for the 
 irreparable outrage of the climate. " All the green- 
 houses of the capital, without excepting those of the 
 imperial gardens," says an eye-witness,^ "were lit- 
 erally devastated to improvise around the gates and 
 windows a spring which, retarded in our North, only- 
 arrived with summer," and the rich carpets suspended 
 from the ledges or stretched along the edifices gave 
 to the boreal city the joyous aspect of the city of 
 lagoons. "The perspective of Izmailovsky, the 
 perspective of Voznessensky, the Grande-Morskaifa, 
 formed a sort of continuous alley of draperies of the 
 
 1 Count Tarnowski, •' A Visit to Moscow," Revtte de Cracovie, No- 
 vember, 1785. 
 
 2 Ausder Petersburger Gesellschaji. The other descriptions are 
 taken from the Jottrnal de St. Petersburg, and L'Invalide Susse .of 
 that time. 
 
290 TPf^O CHANCELLORS. 
 
 Russian, German, and Prussian colors. On a great 
 number of balconies, one saw in the midst of the ver- 
 dure and .the flowers the busts of- the two monarchs 
 crowned with laurel. The fagade of the great stable 
 •Prdobrajensky was ornamented with a number of 
 standards surrounding a colossal cross of that mili- 
 tary order of Saint George of which his majesty 
 the Emperor William is the oldest knight and thp 
 only grand ribbon." The crowd pressed close to the 
 passage of the guests from Berlin ; the unreserved 
 Prince de Bismarck and the taciturn Count de 
 Moltke especially attracted the eyes of the spec- 
 tators. 
 
 For twelve days there was an endless succession 
 of reviews, parades, tatoos, illuminations, balls, 
 raouts, banquets, concerts, and gala representations. 
 Among the latter, the chroniclers mention the two 
 splendid ballets of the " Roi Candaule " and " Don 
 Quixotte." The people had also their part in the re- 
 joicings, especially on the evening of the 29th April, 
 at the gigantic festival of the Place du Palais. The 
 two sovereigns were present at the immense balcony 
 concert above the piazza of the castle. " On their 
 arrival, five electric suns all at once lighted the 
 square with such intensity that one could distinguish 
 the features of all the spectators, and the orchestra 
 struck up the national Prussian hymn. The total 
 number of musicians was 1,550, in addition to 600 
 trumpets and 350 drums. After the hymn the 
 "March of King Frederick William III." was played; 
 then came a whole series of military marches, the 
 " March of Steinmetz," the " Watch on the Rhine," 
 the " March of the Garde of 1808," to the music of 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 29I 
 
 which the Russian regiments returned to St. Peters- 
 burg after the campaign of Eylau, and the " March of 
 Paris," which the allied armies heard in olden times 
 at the time of their triumphal entry into the capital 
 of France. The military prayer, "God is great in 
 Zion," also produced an immense effect." One can 
 hardly explain how, in the midst of music entirely 
 consecrated to the gods Mars and Vulcan, the sweet 
 romance of Weber, entitled "The Praise of Tears,"- 
 could be introduced, unless it was a discreet homage 
 rendered to the well known sensibility of the old 
 HohenzoUern, and of which many speeches, letters, 
 or telegrams bear in history authentic traces. This 
 easily impressionable character of the sovereign of 
 Germany was visible as far as was necessary at St. 
 Petersburg; it showed itself especially at the mo- 
 ment when the two monarchs made their adieux in 
 the imperial salons of the depot of Gatchina. In 
 order not to succumb to his emotion, William I. had 
 to leave the salon brusquely ; his head bent forward, 
 his features contracted, he went out with hasty steps 
 and reached the car without turning round'' 
 
 However, if during this sojourn of the Prussian 
 guests on the banks of the Neva all the honors were 
 for the uncle of the czar, the curiosity of the pub- 
 lic, panting and almost feverish, willingly turned, 
 one may be sure, to the extraordinary minister 
 whose uniform of the white curassiers set off his im- 
 posing stature — to this chancellor of Germany who, 
 in the short space of a lustrum, had founded an em- 
 pire on the ruins of two others. One had not had 
 time to forget at St. Petersburg the grumbling diplo- 
 mat, who from 1859 to 1862 astonished and amused 
 
292 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 the Russian society by his slanders against his own 
 court, by his pleasantries on the " old fogies of Pots- 
 dam " and the " Philistines of the Spree," and who 
 occasionally repeated the famous mot of M. Prud- 
 homme — the mot : "If T were the government ! " — 
 he who was to laugh at it the first. He was" the 
 government at this time, he was even the master 
 of Europe ; and his star had dimmed the star of a 
 Hapsburg, of a Napoleon ! The subjec!t gave rise to 
 more than one touching reconciliation, to many a 
 piquant reminiscence, and there was room also for 
 futile remarks for the plerisque vana mirantibus of 
 which the immortal historian speaks in presence 
 of any prodigious change of fortune. In presence of 
 the man of the five milliards, thegreat ladies at the 
 Winter palace remembered a certain ambassadress 
 ten years before, who one day boldly declared that 
 she could not pay forty silver roubles for early as- 
 paragus, who another day avowed in all candor that 
 she owed her new diamond ear-rings only to the ex- 
 change of a valuable snufE-box, an old gift of the 
 Prince of Darmstadt.^ The ambassadress was the 
 wife of Prince de Bismarck, then baron, prince to- 
 day, a good prince too, and having lost nothing 
 of his former affability. He was easy, playful, ear- 
 nest, as at the time of his mission in Russia ; he 
 inquired for friends, acquaintances, small or great 
 people whom he had known formerly, and seemed to, 
 renew relations and conversations as if interrupted 
 only yesterday. The statesman disappeared entirely, 
 to show only the courtier and the man of the world, 
 and it was only in his relations with Prince Gortcha- 
 
 1 Aus der Peteriburger Gesellsckaft^ytA. ii. p. 89. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 293, 
 
 kof, a sagacious observer tells us, that he laid aside 
 the foreign minister, and only appeared as the com- 
 ganion, almost as the compatriot. He showed him 
 the deference of an affectionate friend towards his 
 elder, — ^ of a disciple towards the master, said the 
 flatterers, without thinking of evil, without thinking, 
 above all, ^ on the discipulus stifrOi naagistrum of 
 whom Alexiander Mikhallovitch, a good Latinist 
 himself, perhaps thought. 
 
 They often appeared thus in public, at numerous 
 fetes and receptions, side by side, the one towering 
 above the crowd with his strongly-marked head, the 
 other also easily recognizable by his fine, spirituel, 
 and rather sharp features. According to that in- 
 genious court etiquette of which the good Homer 
 has given the first precept, in. making Diomede and 
 Glaucus exchange their brilliant armor, the Rus- 
 sian minister wore the insignia of the black Eagle 
 of Prussia, and the Prussian minister the insignia 
 of St. Andrew of Russia,, — and this exchange of 
 ribbons involuntarily recalled the commonalty of 
 ties which had for so long united these illustrious 
 diplomats. Such a cordial, unalterable understand- 
 ing between two statesmen directing two different 
 empires, was assuredly a rare phenomenon, well cal- 
 CHlated to excite attention, and which, during the 
 pompous solemnities of St. Petersburg, did not 
 cease, in fact, to occupy reflective minds. They 
 sought in vain in the past for the example of a 
 harmony of action as constant and glowing: cer- 
 tain political friendships celebrated in history, those 
 among others of Choiseul and Kaunitz, of Dubois 
 and Stanhope, or yet of Mazarin and Cromwell, were 
 
294 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 only evoked an instant to be immediately recognized 
 as deceptive souvenirs, apparent analogies only. No 
 one, however, disregarded the considerable, decisive 
 influence which the accord between the two chancel- 
 lors has had on the recent destinies of Europe ; nor 
 did any one doubt the prodigious benefit which M. 
 de Bismarck has been able to draw from* this junc- 
 ture in his bold enterprises : the opinions began to 
 differ only when there was a question of settling 
 the accounts of Russia, of fixing well the profits 
 brought to the empire of the czars by this associa- 
 tion of ten years, the most turbulent ten years 
 which the Continent has known since the day of 
 Waterloo. 
 
 According to the ideas of some, there was only 
 advantage and gain for the people of Rourik, in the 
 situation created by the immense events of Sadowa 
 and Sedan. They showed the humiliating treaty of 
 1856 torn up, Austria punished for its " treason" at 
 the time of the Crimean war, France sunken and 
 weakened, England a resigned spectator of the prog- 
 ress of General Kaufman at Bokhara, and Russia re- 
 covering its ancient prestige, tasting in all quiet the 
 vengeance, that pleasure of the gods and of the great 
 favorites of the gods like Alexander Mikhaflovitch. 
 Is there not in truth, was said, a marvelous fortune, 
 an imposing unity in the career of this minister 
 who, at the conference of Vienna, had sworn to take 
 revenge for the abasement of his country, and who 
 has so well kept his word ? Is there not a grand 
 Nemesis in the successive chastisement of these 
 proud "allies" who, in 1853, had undertaken the 
 defense of the crescent against the cross of St. 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 295 
 
 Andrew, who, ten years later, had dared to raise the 
 .-qiiestiOn of Poland ? At the present time Austria 
 and France are rivals in fla1:tering, obsequious con- 
 duct before the so decried " barbarian of the North," 
 "England solicits of him a modus vivendi in central 
 Asia ; and this enviable and glorious position Russia 
 has obtained without conflict, without sacrifices, only 
 \yj meditating, developing its interior prosperity, and 
 letting its neighbor act alone, its secular, tried 
 friend, whose devotion has never been doubted. It 
 is only just that Prussia should reap the fruits of its 
 valor and its fidelity, and the well known sentiments 
 of the Emperor William towards the czar, the family 
 •ties which have so long united the two courts ; lastly, 
 the destinies, so distinct and yet so connected, of the 
 two states, are certain gages of a future, permanent, 
 and immovable understanding. How many times 
 has Prussia solemnly declared that it has no interest 
 in the Oriental question. The day when the question 
 of the succession of the Osmanli arises, the Hohen- 
 zollern will prove his gratitude to the Romanof. The 
 little jealousies and the little rivalries have had their 
 day, like the little states and the little artifices of in- 
 fluence and of the balance of power : the future is 
 for a rational policy based on the nature of things, 
 the reality of geography, the homogeneity of races ; 
 and this policy assigns to Russia and Germany their 
 respective rdles and corollaries. In point of view of 
 general principles, we can only re'joice that the scep- 
 tre of the Occident has escaped a turbulent, vol- 
 canic nation now making Jacobin, now ultramontane 
 propaganda, but always revolutionary, to pass into 
 the hands of a well-ordered, hierarchical, and disci- 
 
296 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 plined state, as it is. Lastly, Sadowa and Sedan 
 were Protestant victories over the first two Catholic 
 Powers, and the contest in which M. de Bismarck 
 engaged agajnst the Roman Curia is only the log- 
 ical consequence of this great fact of history ; but 
 without even sharing certain ideas, widely spread 
 however, of a possible fusion of the Protestant and 
 Orthodox beliefs, it is not for the church of Photius, 
 in any case, to take umbrage at the mortal blow 
 given to the Vatican. 
 
 To such justifications, in which neither convinc- 
 ing arguments nor sharp touches were wanting, 
 those dissenting opposed objections inspired by a 
 patriotism equally sincere, but much less hopeful.- 
 Also admiring the facility and promptitude with 
 which Russia has arisen from its great disaster of the 
 Crimea, they pretended only that this great result 
 had been obtained long before the advent of M. de 
 Bismarck, long before any association with him, and 
 that from the year i860 the empire of the Rourik 
 had retaken the great position which it deserved in 
 Europe, when the sovereigns of Austria, Prussia, 
 and so many of the princes of Germany had come 
 to salute the czar at Warsaw, to recognize his moral 
 supremity, and that Napoleon III. on his part sought 
 his friendship and accepted his arbitration. The 
 great abiUty with which Prince Gortchakof used 
 the " French cordiality " for the good of Russia, 
 without giving up any essential interests, and with- 
 out compromising the conservative and traditional 
 principles of his government, always remained one 
 of his greatest claims to the gratitude of his country, 
 and it would have been desirable had he preserved 
 
TfVO CHANCELLORS. 297 
 
 the same moderation, the same reserve, later in this 
 intimacy with Prussia, which on the occasion of the 
 Pohsh insurrection had replaced the former under- 
 standing with the Tuileries. The successor of Nes- 
 sglrode exaggerated, without doubt, the bearing and 
 the danger of the famous remonstrances on the sub- 
 ject of Poland, as well as the nature of the services, 
 very selfish as a whole, which his friend of Berlin 
 then rendered him ; in any case, that was certainly 
 not a reason to pout at Europe after the affair had 
 turned out to the striking advantage of the Rus- 
 sian government, to pout at it during long years, 
 to wish no other ally than Prussia, and to persist, 
 in respect to this last Power, in the constant policy 
 of let-go, let-do, and let-take. 
 
 This was in general the profound misfortune of 
 the fifteen or twenty last years, — thought these en- 
 lightened patriots, — that rancor and bad humor 
 had played such a great rdle in the grave affairs of 
 the world : sad sentiments surely, and from which 
 the present chancellor of Germany has alone been 
 able to preserve himself ! It was through anger at 
 the conduct of the cabinet of St. Petersburg in the 
 Italian question, that Austria took under its protec- 
 tion the insurgents of Poland ; it was through bad 
 humor towards England in the question of the con- 
 gress that Napoleon III. abandoned the cause of 
 Denmark, and Alexander Mikhallovitch yielded to 
 such motives more than to any others ; he was the 
 first to practice this "policy of spite" with his imag- 
 inary grievances against Austria in the war of the 
 Orient, as he was also not the last to cherish a cer- 
 tain "policy de pour-boire " with his league of the neU' 
 
298 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 trials which hindered any concerted action of the 
 Powers. What happy opportunities for the preserva- 
 tion of Europe, for the glory of his nation and the 
 splendor of his august master, has not the Russian 
 chancellor let pass through love for Prussia : in the 
 spring of 1867, when France and Austria offered 
 him such large concessions in the Orient; in the 
 autumn of 1870, when England and Austria solic- 
 ited him to take the initiative in the work of peace ! 
 What illusions also in that belief, that Prince Gort- 
 chakof has sacrificed nothing during those ten years 
 of association with his formidable colleague ! Was 
 the port of Kiel, the key of the Baltic, delivered 
 into the hands of the Germans, nothing ? Was that 
 nothing, the dismemberment of the Danish mon- 
 archy, the country of the future empress ? Was the 
 vassalage of Queen Olga nothing ? The overturning 
 and spoliation of so many reigning families allied by 
 blood to the House of Romanof, the loss of the in- 
 dependence of these secondary States always so de- 
 voted and so faithful to Russia ? Lastly, was this 
 profound overturning of the ancient European equi- 
 librium, and the unmeasured, gigantic aggrandize- 
 ment of a neighboring Power, nothing ? 
 
 "Greatness is a relative thing, and a country can 
 be diminished, while remaining the same, when new 
 forces accumulate around it." ^ These words, which 
 Napoleon III. heard on the day after Sadowa, Rus- 
 sia could well apply to itself, since the day of Sedan, 
 for assuredly no one would wish to pretend that the 
 abolition of Article III. of the treaty of Paris is the 
 
 1 Confidential note of M. Magne, 20th July, 1866. Papers and 
 Correspondence of the Imperial Family, vol. i. p. 241. 
 
Tff^O CHANCELLORS. 299 
 
 equivalent of the forces accumulated by Prussia in 
 the centre of Europe. As to the hopes in the Orient, 
 they are very contingent, like every speculation of 
 heritage : the sick man has already so many times 
 deceived the expectations of his doctors, one can no 
 longer count the mortal crises which should have 
 carried him off, and perhaps it is not Russia that 
 should complain of this prolongation of the agony. 
 It is still a question in truth if Russia is now in a 
 position to take care of the succession, if it is suffi- 
 ciently supplied with implements for such a vast es- 
 tablishment ; if, in a word, it has all its military and 
 financial strength, as well as 'all the administrative 
 personnel indispensable to advantageously occupy 
 the domains as various as extended. It cannot take 
 possession of European provinces like the countries 
 along the Amour and Syr-Daria ; it runs the risk of 
 finding more than one ungovernable Poland among 
 those peoples of the Danube and the Balkan ; and 
 the unity of the law, the uniformity of the svod, will 
 not be so easy to establish in the countries where, 
 side by side, the most incongruous institutions have 
 flourished from the rigime of the cimeter to that 
 of the parliament. Will not the transformation of 
 Turkey transform, however, in turn the Muscovite 
 people, and will not history on this occasion be care- 
 ful to repeat the great and pathetic lessons of Grcecia 
 capta f Will Russia still be Russia the day when it 
 rules the Oriental peninsula, and can an empire 
 bathed by the blue waves of the Bosphorus preserve 
 its capital on the icy banks of Finland } Grave 
 and obscure problems before which it is allowable to 
 stop, to conceive apprehensions and doubts. What 
 
300 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 is, not, doubtful, on the .contrary, is that at the des- 
 tined hour Prussia will make its conditions and will 
 stipulate its. compensations. It will not be a debt 
 of gratitude which it will think of paying then, it 
 will be a new bargain which it will make. Will it 
 demand as the price of its consent, Holland, Jutland, 
 or the German territories of Austria ? the frontier 
 of the Vistula, or the provinces of the Baltic .' 
 
 But who knows if this prolonged drama of Turkish 
 decadence is not yet destined to receive a d^no&ment 
 little or not at all foreseen, yet very original and 
 nothing less than illogical. The publicists and the 
 patriots of Berlin do not speak to-day of the mission 
 of Austria in the countries of the Danube and the 
 Bosphorus, which they say is called by Providence 
 to strengthen in these countries German interests, 
 to bring there " German culture." Since the great 
 day of Sedan, especially, exhortations and summons 
 are not wanting to this Power " to seek its centre 
 of gravity elsewhere than at Vienna," in short, to 
 justify its secular name of Ostreich, and to become 
 an empire of the East, in the true meaning of the 
 word. A monarchy constantly menaced with the 
 early loss of its Germanic possessions on the Leitha 
 may at kngth be brought to try the experiment, 
 when, above all, care is taken to present to it this 
 experiment as a necessity and as a virtue ; a state 
 which has never been strongly centralized, and which 
 has always oscillated between dualism and a federal 
 system more or less definite, will even have a great 
 chance to appear to Europe as the most proper out- 
 line of this medley of races, of religions, of institu- 
 tions, which stretches from the Iron Gates to the 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 3OI 
 
 Golden Horn. An empire of the East of Germanic 
 traditions and influences on the Bosphorus, more ^o 
 the South a kingdom of Greece enlarged by Thessaly 
 and Epirus, lastly, in the North a Germany com- 
 pleted in its unity by the Cisleithan provinces, — that 
 will be something to fully content the world, not 
 excepting England. We must acknowledge, one 
 solution of the formidable Ottoman question is like 
 another, and every hypothesis, every fantasy, has 
 the right to appear, when one touches this fantastic 
 <world of the Orient, and that world not less myste- 
 rious and terrible which the great recluse of Varzin 
 carries in his head. 
 
 What, in any case, is not within the domain of hy- 
 pothesis and fantasy, what unfortunately is only a 
 too evident and palpable reality, is, that in place of 
 this "combination purely and exclusively defensive," 
 as Prince Gortchakof one day so justly called the old 
 Bund, — in place of a league of peaceful states, all 
 devoted friends of Russia, and forming for it a con- 
 tinual succession of ramparts, — the empire of Alex- 
 ander II. now sees before it, firmly, settled all along 
 its frontier, a formidable Power, the strongest Power 
 of the Continent, ambitious, avaricious, enterprising, 
 and having henceforward the undoubted mission of 
 defending against it what. they have agreed to call 
 the interests of the Occident. This Power can always 
 excite the Polish question, if it wishes to, accord- 
 ing to its wants, and quite differently than the cabi- 
 nets of Paris and London would do it : has not the 
 argument for such a "coup au cceur" been very 
 warmly sustained in ,1871, by certain Hungarian 
 statesmen in the confidence of the Prussian min- 
 
302 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 ister ? The conduct of the government of Berlin 
 at the time of the last insurrection of Warsaw did 
 not injure it in the future : the passionate speeches 
 of M. de Bismarck in 1849 against the revolt of the 
 Magyars did not prevent him from arming, many 
 years later, the legions of General Klapka. We can- 
 not at least deny the Prussian plans in 1863 on the 
 left bank of the Vistula, " the natural frontier ; " 
 now, do not the friends of Berlin occasionally insin- 
 uate that this would be the most efficacious means to 
 end the spirit of Polonism ? They do not speak of 
 the provinces of the Baltic, as before Sadowa they 
 repudiated all thoughts of ever wishing to free the 
 Main ; but the Teutonic effervescence from Cour- 
 land and Livonia goes on increasing, and to what 
 grievous sacrifices will the HohenzoUern not resign 
 himself when he thinks that he hears a voice from 
 above, the voice of " German brothers ? " 
 
 Certainly it would have made the prince regent 
 tremble in 1858, if any one had spoken to him then 
 of a war against a Hapsburg, and of a companion in 
 arms named Garibaldi; he ended, however, by ac- 
 cepting the hard necessity, and he gave the signal fot 
 a fratricidal combat, with grief in his soul and tears 
 in his eyes. Is it not puerile, however, to measure 
 the destinies of nations by the life, more or less long, 
 of this or that sovereign ? An emperor can reign in 
 Germany who has neither affection for, nor the re- 
 membrance of Alexander II. ; he can raise up "a Pha:- 
 raoh who knows not Joseph," to speak with Holy 
 Writ, and then there is something stronger in the 
 world than czar and emperor : the necessity of his- 
 tory, the fatality of race. A formidable race that of 
 
TfVO CHANCELLORS. 303 
 
 these conquerors of Sadowa and Sedan, whose invad- 
 ing and conquering minds have from the beginning 
 survived all transformations and accommodated them- 
 selves to all disguises! Humble, and at the same 
 time presumptuous, temperate and prolific, expansive 
 and tenacious, practicing with persistence their old 
 proverb, ubi bene, ibi patria, and nevertheless always 
 preserving a rough attachment for the mother coun- 
 try, the Germans infiltrate every country, penetrate 
 all regions, disdain no corner of the habitable world. 
 They have their friends and relations on all the 
 thrones and in all the offices of the world ; they 
 people the industrial centres of Europe and the soli- 
 tudes of the far West ; they decide the presidential 
 elections in the United States; they furnish the 
 largest contingent of the high administrative /^rj^w- 
 nel in the empire of the czars, and the remembrance 
 is still recent of that statistic of the Russian army, 
 which, in 100 superior officers, counts eighty of Ger- 
 man origin.^ So Germany appeared before the great 
 strokes of fortune of 1866 and of 1870, before the 
 era of iron and blood, before M. de Bismarck had 
 awakened in it the secret of its strength, had said to 
 it the magic word, tu regere imperio populos ! Is it 
 necessary to recall now the hatred which the Ger- 
 mans have always borne against the Sclavic name, 
 the extermination which they lately vowed on the 
 
 1 The Golos, several years ago, advanced these curious statistics, the 
 effect of which was profound at tlie time. The name of Kozlof had 
 a moment of celebrity in Russia : hearing it pronounced at the end 
 of a long list of purely Teutonic names, at the presentation of the 
 officers of a grand army corps, the czarovich cried out, " At last I 
 thank God." Fr. J. Celestin, Russland seit Avfheburg der Leibeigen- 
 sckaft, Laibach, 1875, p. 334. 
 
304 TH^O CHANCELLORS. 
 
 Elbe and the Oder ; and does not the mind recoil 
 in terror before a new conflict of the two races, to- 
 day more probable than ever ? It is allowable to 
 treat all these apprehensions as boyish dreams, hol- 
 low thoughts of literati and professors ; but the emi- 
 nent men, the serious men, the augures and aruspices 
 of politics, have they in our day treated otherwise 
 many a formidable problem ? Have they not used 
 the same language on the question of Schleswig- 
 Holstein and the German pretensions to Alsace, 
 in regard to the unity of Italy and the plans of the 
 National Verein ? That would be a curious chapter 
 of contemporaneous history to write, that of the 
 Diplomats and Professors, and which could well 
 show that of these two respectable bodies the most 
 pedantic and the most ideological is hot exactly the 
 one which a vain people thinks. 
 
 Is there not, — the same persons continue, more 
 careful of the interests of the present and the future 
 than of the unseasonable reminiscences of the past, 
 — is there not ideological force, for instance, in the 
 manner of assimilating the two epochs of 1814 and 
 1870, and of saluting in Field Marshal Moltke the 
 continuator of the work of Koutouzof ? At the time 
 of the memorable war of which the burning of Mos- 
 cow had given the heroic signal, it was all Europe 
 that arose against an insolent master and bore deliv- 
 erance to states trodden and ground down by a uni- 
 versal dominion. Was it the same in the last con- ' 
 flagration } and can one not rather say that it was 
 France, on the contrary, that fought at this moment 
 for the equilibrium of the world and the independ- 
 ence of kingdoms, trying to repair by a tardy and 
 
TIVO CHANCELLORS. 3OS 
 
 badly conceived effort a series of culpable errors, but 
 from which it was not the only one to suffer ? - Dif- 
 ferent in their motives, the two epochs scarcely re- 
 semble each other more as to ways and means. It 
 was " a war by means of revolutions" that the Prus- 
 sian minister had early announced to M. Benedetti, 
 and he has kept his word ; he had regards, attenua- 
 tions, comprehensions for the commune difificult to jus- 
 tify ; now he openly protects the Republican regime 
 in France against any attempt at restoration, thus 
 sacrificing the monarchical principle and the high- 
 est considerations of European order to a purely 
 selfish and vindictive calculation. That is not the 
 spirit which animated the allies of 18 14; the mag- 
 nanimous Alexander I. especially understood differ- 
 ently the duties of sovereigns and the solidarity of 
 conservative interests. And what a severe judg- 
 ment would the Emperor Nicholas have given on 
 every ensemble of the policy of Berlin, on that re- 
 generation of Germany which has not ceased to be 
 the revolution from above, from the federal execution 
 in Holstein up to the arrest of the syndics of the 
 crown ; from the destruction of the Bund up to the 
 overturning of the dynasty of the Guelphs ; from 
 the formation of the Hungarian legions and the 
 close relations with Mazzini to the Kulturkampf 
 against the Catholic Church ! 
 
 That we may not be deceived in fact, we can 
 still say it is the revolution alone which finds its 
 profit in the war made to-day in Germany on Cathol- 
 icism, and very great, very natve is the illusion of 
 those who flatter themselves with seeing Protestant 
 or Orthodox ideas, the religious spirit in general, 
 
306 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 benefited by the losses of Papacy. It suffices to 
 , cast a glance on the great battalions of the Kul- 
 turkampf to recognize their God ; they bear on their 
 banners very clearly the sign under whose name 
 they expect to conquer. Are these sincere Protest- 
 ants, these evangelical men for whom the Gospel is 
 a truth, who first rush to the assault or who only 
 follow it with their wishes and their prayers } As- 
 suredly not ; all those who from the Reformation 
 have not kept the name in vain, but the strong doc- 
 trine, openly repudiate this dissension, while sighing 
 in their souls. They have the just feeling that in 
 our epoch, so overturned, so profoundly disturbed 
 by the genius of negation, religious interests are 
 conjointly responsible between them just as well as 
 conservative interests. Those eager for the combat, 
 the zealots " filled with the divine spirit," are pre- 
 cisely those who admit neither divinity nor spirit, 
 who have no other positive religion than positivism ; 
 and it is not in them surely that Luther resuscitated 
 would wish to recognize his children. The great 
 adversary of Rome in the sixteenth century held on 
 to the revelation, he held on to his Bible, to his 
 dogma of pardon : are not all these things very " old- 
 fashioned," and very laughable in the eyes of the 
 disciples of Strauss and Darwin .' The apostle of 
 Wittemberg believed in justification through faith ; 
 the apostles of Berlin believe in justification through 
 success. 
 
 It is a grave matter, — at length conclude these 
 men, alarmed in their patriotism and in their conser- 
 vative sentiments, — an extremely perilous matter 
 for a great state to abandon, in its relations with the 
 
TfVO CHANCELLORS. 307 
 
 Powers, certain established maxims, certain rules of 
 conduct tried by long experience, become in a man- 
 ner the arcana imperii, and Napoleon III. has just 
 paid dearly for such a rupture with the ancient 
 traditions in the exterior policy of France. Russia 
 had also, in regard to Europe, sacred traditions, 
 which have made the greatness and the strength of 
 the preceding reigns ; under these reigns, they were 
 jealous in defending the liberty of the Baltic, they 
 watched over the maintenance of the equilibrium of 
 strength between Austria and Prussia, they appreci- 
 ated the friendship and the devotion of the second- 
 ary States of Germany, and they caused the mon- 
 archical principle to be everywhere respected as 
 opposed to revolution. Then Russia never had to 
 repent at having turned aside from the ways hol- 
 lowed out by the triumphal car of Peter the Great, 
 of Catherine II., of Alexander I., and of Nicholas ! 
 
 Thus spoke the independent minds on the banks 
 of the Neva while the official world there displayed 
 all the northern magnificence in honor of William the 
 Conqueror : however, they only lent a reasoning and 
 touching language to a vague, but intense and pro- 
 found sentiment which agitated the very soul of 
 Russia. With that habit of obedience and discipline 
 that one can often accuse of a servile instinct, but 
 which with this people is also sometimes a great and 
 admirable patriotic instinct, the children of Rourik 
 were careful not to cross the government in the 
 brilliant reception which it gave the Prussian ; they 
 limited themselves to remaining impassible witnesses 
 of a spectacle which did not appeal to their inmost 
 feelings. The press showed itself abstemious of de- 
 
308 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 scriptions, more sparing still in reflections during 
 these days oifites and festivals ; the officials of Ber- 
 lin only praised them with having maintained a dec- 
 orous tone. Such was also the tone of Russian so- 
 ciety taken as a whole ; the beautiful perspectives of 
 the imperial residence appealed to the moral as well 
 as to the physical man ; flowers from hot-houses on 
 the first floor, ice under foot ! The guests were not 
 the last to see the contrast : with the exquisite per- 
 fumes of exotic plants, they breathed from time to 
 time the sharp air of the country, the rough North 
 wind, and it was not M. de Bismarck himself who 
 did not seem to feel the circumambient atmosphere. 
 One found in him more vivacity and enjoyment than 
 of dash and warmth ; his words preserved a meas- 
 uredness which was not usual with him, and seemed 
 to designedly avoid all ^clat and all light. A curious 
 matter, during this sojourn of two weeks in the capi- 
 tal of Russia, the former grumbling diplomat did not 
 let any of his sallies and jokes escape, of which he is 
 generally so prodigal, — none of those amazing in- 
 discretions which are at once the amusement and 
 the horror of the salons and the chancellors' offices. 
 They only gleaned a single sensational expression 
 fallen from those lips which have so often pronounced 
 the decree of destiny, the expression " that he could 
 not even admit the thought of being hostile to Rus- 
 sia." The declaration seemed explicit and reassur- 
 ing, and like a discreet reply to an apprehension 
 which did not dare to show itself openly. The in- 
 credulous or fretful souls could not, however, desist 
 from observing that only ten years before such an 
 assurance given to the empire of the czars by a 
 
TWO CHANCELLORS. 309 
 
 minister of Prussia, would have seemed very super- 
 fluous, would have even provoked smiles. 
 
 Here ends the task which was imposed on us in 
 undertaking this study. The meeting of the two 
 chancellors in the capital of Peter the Great, in the 
 spring of 1873, was like the epilogue of a common 
 action which has lasted ten years, and which has 
 contributed so much to change the face of the world. 
 Since this epoch, Europe has known no tempest, al- 
 though occasionally menacing and threatening clouds 
 have not ceased to traverse its still obscured horizon. 
 There were even glimmerings and indications that 
 the old and fatal agreement between the cabinets of 
 Berlin and St. Petersburg was no longer as absolute 
 as in the past, that it admitted certain intermissions, 
 or at least certain differences of opinions and appre- 
 ciations. It is thus that the government of the czar 
 refused to follow the chancellor of Germany in his 
 Spanish campaign, in his feverish adhesion to the 
 presidency of Marshal Serrano, and it did not seem 
 doubtful that the personal intervention of Alexander 
 II., strongly supported by England in the past year, 
 turned from France an iniquitous aggression and a 
 terrible calamity. Since that epoch, also, the adhesion 
 of Austria to the official policy of the two North- 
 ern states has come — we cannot emphasize it too 
 much — either to complete or to complicate an asso- 
 ciation in which it becomes difficult to discover any 
 common interests, and which, up to this day at least, 
 has only found harmony in silence. The future 
 alone can unveil the importance and the virtue of 
 this extolled alliance of three empires, as badly 
 
310 TWO CHANCELLORS. 
 
 known as it is badly conceived, perhaps ; but one 
 will scarcely be deceived in supposing that to-day, 
 in this double and troubled household, it is M. de 
 Bismarck who can think himself the happiest of the 
 three. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 LETTER FROM M. BENEDETTI TO THE EDITOR OF 
 THE " REVUE DES DEUX MONDES." REPLY OF 
 M. KLACZKO. 
 
 Paris, 24M September, 1875. 
 
 To THE Editor, — You published in the last number 
 of the " Revue des deux Mondes," an article by M. 
 Klaczko, which forces me to ask you for an opportunity 
 for a short explanation. I surely would not wish to con- 
 test with any one the right of estimating the events of 
 which this author has undertaken the anecdotal history, 
 and of judging, as best one can, of the part which I took 
 in them ; I call, on the contrary, with all my heart, in my 
 own interest as well as in that of the government which 
 I have had the honor to serve, for the examination and 
 the discussion ; for it, as for me, I can only be satisfied 
 with the light which already flashes from it, and with the 
 errors which have been dissipated ; but the discussion is 
 serious and useful only if it is loyal, and it is loyal only 
 when recounting fixed and undeniable facts. 
 
 Now, here is what I read in the article of M. Klaczko : 
 " Certainly the ambassador of France at the court of Ber- 
 lin had, in this year 1866 a very difficult and painful po- 
 sition, we had almost said a pathetic one. He had 
 worked with ardor, with passion, to bring about this con- 
 nubio of Italy and Prussia, which seemed to him to be an 
 immense good fortune for the imperial policy, a brilliant 
 
312 APPENDIX. 
 
 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 com- 
 pensations and preventive engagements, he had not ceased 
 to dissuade yivS) government from any attempt of this kind." 
 Pp. 210, 211. Already, at p. 206, in a note, M. Klaczko 
 had said : " M. Drouyn de Lhuys, who had already ob- 
 tained from Austria the cession, in any case, of Venetia, 
 insisted at this moment more strongly than ever, that 
 they should also take pledges in advance from Prussia, 
 ' the most formidable, the most active of the parties.' 
 M. Benedetti did not cease to oppose such a proceeding, 
 fearjng that Prussia would renounce in this case all idea 
 of war against Austria." 
 
 Now, these allegations have no meaning, or they sig- 
 nify that I was the real inspirer, if not the negotiator, 
 without the knowledge of my government, of the treaty 
 of alliance concluded in 1866 between Prussia and Italy; 
 that I, moreover, turned, by incessant efforts, M. Drouyn 
 de Lhuys from his intention of demanding of the Berlin 
 government, before the war against Austria, the pledges 
 eventually necessary for the security of France. 
 
 M. Klaczko neither corroborates these assertions by 
 any known fact, nor by the extract from an official docu- 
 ment ; he gives no proof of them in any degree or in any 
 way. 
 
 As to what concerns the Prusso-Italian treaty, he was 
 informed, however, since he continually quotes the pub- 
 lication which I made in 1871, under the title, "My 
 Mission in Prussia," that I repudiated any participation 
 in this act ; he knew that I had claimed to have shown 
 it, and it is not sufficient to contradict me ; in such a case 
 it is necessary to prove the contrary, to establish that, far 
 from having remained ignorant, as I maintained, of the 
 
APPENDIX 313 
 
 accord between Prussia and Italy, I had been the prin- 
 cipal instigator of it. 
 
 It is of importance to me that the readers of the " Re- 
 vue des deux Mondes " be enlightened ; they have seen 
 the article of M. Klaczko, it is just to place under their 
 eyes some words only from the dispatches which I pub- 
 lished I wrote on the 14th March, 1866 : " The 
 
 early arrival of an Italian officer, General Govone, is 
 announced, who comes to Berlin charged with an im- 
 portant mission ; this news .... has caused consider- 
 able emotion. If it is confirmed, one will not fail to be- 
 lieve that Prussia and Italy are negotiating a treaty of 
 alliance." 
 
 The third day after, I added : " General Govone ar- 
 rived day before yesterday at Berlin. According to 
 Count Bismarck and the Italian minister, he is charged 
 with a military mission, and his journey will have simply 
 for its object the study of the perfection arrived at in the 
 instruments of war." 
 
 Two days later, I was in a position to inform my gov- 
 ernment exactly, and I said : " I wrote you, announcing 
 the arrival of General Govone, that, according to M. de 
 Bismarck and the Italian minister, this envoy of the cab- 
 inet of Florence was simply charged with studying the 
 military condition of Prussia. Forgetting, without doubt, 
 what he had told me on this point, M. de Bismarck in- 
 formed me yesterday that General Govone was author- 
 ized to conclude arrangements with the Prussian govern- 
 ment. The communications which he has made to the 
 president of the council substantiate this." In closing 
 this dispatch, I added: "The legation of Italy observes 
 toward me absolute reserve. I do not know whether to 
 regret it. The confidences of M. de Bismarck, which I 
 cannot, however, decline, already place me in a suifi- 
 ciently delicate position." 
 
314 APPENDIX. 
 
 At last, on the 27th March, when the plenipotentiaries 
 had already held several conferences, I wrote to M. 
 Drouyn de Lhuys : " (M. de Bismarck) has spoken to me 
 of his conferences with General Govone and the Italian 
 minister, .... and I am so much the better in a posi- 
 tion to inform you that M. de Barral, Italian minister, 
 has AT LAST decided on his part not to hide from me en- 
 tirely his proceedings and the intentions of his government." 
 
 One of two things, either M. Klaczko admits that my 
 correspondence was sincere, or he supposes that it was 
 drawh up with the design of dissimulating my conduct 
 and the part which I clandestinely took in the negotia- 
 tion. In the first case, no one will conceive how he can 
 pretend that I labored with ardor and with passion to 
 bring about this connubio of Italy and Prussia. In the 
 second hypothesis matters are changed, and I shall ex- 
 pect that M. Klaczko will be explained as far as he goes 
 by the expression of my opinion. 
 
 For the moment, I will invoke the only testimony that 
 no one can suspect, that of the Italian plenipotentiary. 
 The correspondence of General Govone was published 
 after his death and subsequently to " My Misi^ion in 
 Prussia," through the efforts of General La Marmora, 
 who has omitted nothing. In this correspondence, 
 where all is told in detail, my name is quoted twice, the 
 first time in a telegram of the 28th March, twelve days 
 after the arrival of the Italian plenipotentiary at Berlin, 
 and here is what he says as regards me : " I think that I 
 ought to announce to you that the president (M. de Bis- 
 marck) keeps M. Benedetti exactly advised." 
 
 In the letter in which my name appears for the second 
 and last time, dated the 6th April, on the very eve of the 
 signing of the treaty (the dates are valuable, and it is 
 well, to retain them). General Govone mentions a visit 
 which he paid me, the first since his arrival at Berlin ; 
 
APPENDIX. 3 1 5 
 
 and what did I say to him concerning these negotia- 
 tions ? I quote literally : " Yesterday, after my visit to M. 
 de Bismarck, I saw M. Benedetti ; he thought that it was 
 preferable for us to sign no treaty, but only to have a 
 project all discussed and ready to sign when the mobil- 
 ization of Prussia should be achieved." 
 
 Do these two extracts, Mr. Editor, authorize the belief 
 that I was the confidant and the counselor of the Italian 
 envoy ? Do they not confirm, on the contrary, from 
 point to point the sincerity of my correspondence ? 
 In what has M. Klaczko sought, where has he seen that 
 I labored for the accord between Italy and Prussia? 
 Should he not have told us before making such a grave 
 assertion ? Does he think to reproach me for having en- 
 deavored to keep myself informed as to what was passing, 
 and for having instructed my government exactly ? 
 
 As to the assertion of M. Klaczko, twice repeated in 
 his article, that I did not cease, before the war, to dis- 
 suade M. Drouyn de Lhuys from speaking at Berlin of 
 eventual compensations and preventive engagements, from 
 fear of seeing Prussia give up the combat with Austria, I 
 will reply by the following extract firom a letter which M. 
 Drouyn de Lhuys himself addressed to me on the 31st 
 March, during the negotiation opened between the two 
 cabinets of Berlin and Florence : " I have read with 
 pleasure," said he to me, " the private- letters which you 
 have written to me during the present month. I beg 
 leave to express to you all my thanks for them. If I 
 have received them without replying immediately, it was 
 because I had nothing to modify in the instructions which 
 I have given you on different occasions. We are still of 
 the same opinions. While recognizing the gravity of the 
 new crisis in which we participate, we see, in the conten- 
 tion which presents itself to-day, no sufficient motive for 
 us to depart from our attitude of neutrality. We have 
 
3l6 APPENDIX. 
 
 explained ourselves frankly to the court of Prussia. 
 When we have been asked by the cabinet of Vienna, we 
 have firmly declared to it, that we wish to remain neu- 
 tral, although it has observed to us that our neutrality 
 was more favorable to Prussia than to Austria. We 
 await, then, the armed conflict, if it must break out, in the 
 attitude in which we really are. The king himself has 
 acknowledged that the present circumstances do not 
 offer the bases of accord that his majesty desires. The 
 course of events, the nature and the bearing of the in- 
 terests which are involved, and the dimensions which the 
 war will take, as well as the questions which it will give 
 rise to, will then determine the elements of the under- 
 standing which can exist between Prussia and us." 
 
 In this same letter, the whole of which can be read 
 on page 77 of " My Mission in Prussia," M. Drouyn de 
 Lhuys wished moreover to indicate to me the considera- 
 tion which obliged us to observe a reserved attitude in 
 view of the efforts made by Prussia, and by Italy, to act 
 in concert, and he added at the close : " That is the 
 whole truth concerning our opinions. I approve, how- 
 ever, completely of your attitude and your language, and 
 I trust that you will continue to keep me equally well 
 informed of all the details of this crisis." 
 
 Would M. Drouyn de Lhuys have acknowledged the 
 receipt of my correspondence in these terms, if it was 
 intended to deter him from any plan of contracting 
 eventual engagements with Prussia, if there had existed 
 between the minister and the ambassador the disagree- 
 ment the whole responsibility of which M. Klaczko' 
 wishes to throw on me ? I dwell no longer on this 
 subject, leaving to the penetration of your readers the 
 task of seeing things more clearly ; I only wish you to 
 remark that, if M. Klaczko, as I suppose, has seen that 
 letter before writing his article, it becomes impossible to 
 explain the errors of it. 
 
APPENDIX. 317 
 
 I regret to say, however, that I should have to criticise 
 almost all his work, if I wished to correct the defective 
 parts of it j but I do not intend to abuse my right of 
 reply, and I will go no farther. I will rectify, however, 
 another error on account of its particular importance. 
 Replying to a telgraphic question of M. Drouyn de 
 Lhuys, I wrote him on the 8th June, 1866, that no one 
 in Prussia, from the king to the most humble of his sub- 
 jects, with the exception of M. de Bismarck, would con- 
 sent, in my opinion, to abandon to us any part of the 
 German territory on the Rhine. After having quoted 
 an extract from my dispatch, M. Klaczko adds : " And 
 this is the same diplomat who had so well appreci- 
 ated the situation before the campaign of Bohemia, it is 
 the same ambassador who now undertakes to present to 
 M. de Bismarck the demands of the cabinet of the Tui- 
 leries, who went so far as to submit to him, on the sth 
 August, a plan of a secret treaty implying the abandon- 
 ment to France of the whole left bank of the Rhine, 
 without excepting the great fortress of Mayence ! " 
 
 M. Klaczko mistakes. I did not take upon myself to 
 make this communication, and his allegation, deprived, 
 moreover, of all proof, astonishes me the more as he 
 could have seen in "My Mission in Prussia," that affairs 
 were not conducted in that manner; that, on the con- 
 trary, while pointing out the serious and new difficulties 
 which seemed to oppose this project, I demanded time 
 to previously go to Paris to confer with the government, 
 and that I was ordered to proceed. Did I do well or 
 badly in obeying? That is another question; but M. 
 Klaczko should all the more abstain from presenting 
 this incident in such a manner as to emphasize the con- 
 sequences of it, which have been grave and gloomy, as 
 he is careful to remember. 
 If it is thus that M. Klaczko understands the duties 
 
3l8 APPENDIX. 
 
 of the historian, I can only express my surprise at it. 
 He, doubtless, did not perceive that party spirit and 
 personal sympathies have suggestions which loyalty dis- 
 avows. I regret it for a publicist who had accustomed 
 the readers of the " Revue des deux Mondes " to better 
 prepared and more impartially written studies. As far 
 as I am concerned, you will understand, Mr. Editor, that 
 I could not sanction by my silence assertions so desti- 
 tute of foundation, and that M. Klaczko has forced me 
 to protest in spite of my very sincere desire to avoid 
 any polemics, and t6 maintain a reserve from which it is 
 painful for me to depart. This letter, however, has no 
 other object, and while asking you to insert it in the 
 next number of the " Revue,'' I beg you to accept the 
 assurance of my highest regard. Benedetti. 
 
 M. Benedetti's letter was communicated to M. Julian 
 Klaczko, who returned it to us with the following ob- 
 servations : — 
 
 " M. le Comte Benedetti confounds two very different 
 negotiations which have been spoken of in our work, as 
 well as the two very distinct estimations of which they 
 have been the object on our part. It was only in the 
 affair concerning the treaty on Belgium, in the month of 
 August, 1866, that the conduct of M. Benedetti toward 
 his minister seemed incorrect to us ; we have not passed 
 the same judgment on his attitude in the months of 
 March and April of the same year, as regards the secret 
 treaty negotiated between M. de Bismarck and General 
 Govone ; still less have we reproached him with having 
 been the inspirer of this treaty without the knowledge of his 
 government. We have only affirmed that his dispatches 
 at that time were of a nature to deter the French gov- 
 ernment from any attempt at a prior engagement .with 
 Prussia in view of the eventualities of the war. 
 
APPENDIX. 319 
 
 M. Benedetti in truth did not cease to represent the 
 court of Berlin as inaccessible to any overture of this 
 sort. Even on the 8th June, 1866, on the eve of the war, 
 he wrote : " The apprehensions which France inspires 
 everywhere in Germany still exist, and they will re- 
 awaken unanimously and violently at the slightest in- 
 dication which could reveal our intention to extend 
 
 ourselves toward the East The king, like the 
 
 most humble of his subjects, would not listen at this 
 moment to the possibility of a sacrifice (on the Rhine). 
 The crown prince, profoundly sensible 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 the cession of the little county of 
 Glatz." " My Mission in Prussia," pp. 171-172. In his 
 other reports, as well as throughout his whole book, 
 M. Benedetti always returns to this circumstance, that 
 he never " encouraged hopes " on this side, and that he 
 " suificiently indicated that one would not obtain in any 
 case, with the consent of Prussia, territorial concessions 
 on the frontier of the East." " My Mission," p. 176. 
 
 That Was, however, not the sentiment of the Italian 
 negotiators at the court of Berlin. M. de Barral, in 
 a telegram addressed the 6th May to General La Mar- 
 mora, thus expressed himself : " They are busily occu- 
 pied with negotiations, we are assured, which are taking 
 place between France and Austria to indemnify Italy, 
 and which will have gone as far as the line of the Rhine 
 to France. To the observation which I made on the 
 danger of such an offer by a German Power, Bismarck 
 replied to me by shrugging his shoulders, indicating very 
 clearly that, should the case occur, he would not recoil 
 from this means of aggrandizement 1 " On his side, Gen- 
 eral Govone, in his very minute report of the 7th May, 
 relates the same incident in a fuller and much more 
 
320 APPENDIX. 
 
 . explicit manner. " M. de Bismarck wishes to know the 
 intentions and desires of the emperor ; he has spoken of 
 them to M. de Barral ; he told him to try to learn some- 
 thing about them through M. Nigra ; he has even given 
 them cause to believe that he will be disposed to aban- 
 don to him the banks of the Rhine, having been informed 
 by his agents that the emperor was negotiating with Aus- 
 tria, and that Austria would cede to him, so he believes, 
 Venetia, and would even invite him to take possession of 
 the left bank of the Rhine." M. de Barral, to whom he 
 spoke, cried out : " But Austria should not thus com- 
 promise itself with Germany while sacrificing countries 
 which belong to the confederation ! " M. de Bismarck 
 made a gesture which seemed to say : "I too would cede 
 them." Lastly, in his report of the 3d June, five days be- 
 fore the dispatch of M. Benedetti concerning " the king 
 and the most humble of his subjects," General Govone 
 quotes the following reply of M. de Bismarck to his de- 
 mand whether one could not find "some geographical 
 line " to indemnify France ? There will be the Mosel (said 
 M. de Bismarck). I am, he added, much less German 
 than Prussian, and I would have no difficulty in conced- 
 ing to France the cession of all the country between the 
 Mosel and the Rhine : the Palatinate, Oldenburg, a part 
 of the Prussian territory, etc. But the king will have 
 great scruples, and can only decide in a supreme moment 
 when it is a question of losing or winning all. At any 
 rate, to bring the mind of the • king to any arrangement 
 with France, it will be necessary to know the minimum («7 
 limine minimo) of the pretensions of this Power." La 
 Marmora, "Un p6 pih di luce," p. 211, 221, 275. 
 
 Thus the Italian negotiators differed notably from M. 
 Benedetti in their opinion on this very grave point ; in 
 all the confidential and evidently sincere relations which 
 they had with their own government, they considered a 
 
APPENDIX. 321 
 
 territorial and previous arrangement between France and 
 Prussia as a very difficult thing, without doubt, but not 
 impossible. We have not discussed in our work the 
 question whether it was General Govone or M. Benedetti 
 who had judged the situation best ; we have not even 
 mentioned this divergence of opinions : we have only- 
 asked how M. Benedetti could have believed that after 
 Sadowa and Nikolsburg he would find Prussia accessible 
 to arrangements which it had not wished to accept before 
 its immense victories and in the midst of an extremely 
 perilous crisis ? How could he have undertaken on this 
 5th August' to demand of M. de Bismarck for France 
 all the left bank of the Rhine without excepting the 
 great fortress of Mayence, when on the 8th June he 
 was persuaded that one could not obtain from Prussia 
 even a territory of the value of the county of Glatz ? We 
 have given the only possible explanation of this contradic- 
 tion, the only one, we dare affirm, which has presented 
 itself to the minds of all those who have studied these 
 events. Before the campaign of Bohemia, we said, M. 
 Benedetti did not think it possible to obtain territorial 
 concessions from Prussia, and had shown all the more 
 plainly the difficulties of such a demand which he feared 
 to see Prussia refuse and thus render its connubio with 
 Italy abortive, if they insisted prematurely, too firmly on 
 the point of compensations. He desired rather to count 
 on the military events to procure advantages for his 
 
 1 We have said : " How could he undertake to present to M. de 
 Bismarck the demands of the cabinet of the Tuileries 1 " and M. Bene- 
 detti sees in the word undertake the insinuation of an initiative. We 
 have, however, very explicitly said, The demands of the cabinet of the 
 Tuileries, and we immediately added M. Benedetti's own expressions f 
 " I have frmjoked nothing, still less have I guaranteed the success; 
 I have only allowed myself to hope for it." None of our readers could 
 mistake the meaning of our words, nor, above all, see therein the 
 insinuation which M. Benedetti gratuitously credits us with. 
 21 
 
322 APPENDIX. 
 
 country, on " the necessities to which the war might re- 
 duce the Prussian government ("My Mission," p. 172), 
 for he did not expect any more than the most ordinary 
 of mortals the startling blow of Sadowa. After Sadowa 
 he was dismayed at the success of the HohenzoUern j 
 patriotic anguish for France succeeded in his heart to 
 the generous sympathies for Italy, and, as he himself 
 says, " in view of the important acquisitions of Prussia 
 he was of the opinion that a territorial remodeling was 
 henceforward necessary for the securjty of France." " My 
 Mission," p. 177. This remodeling he had a/yfrr/ hoped 
 to find on the Rhine, " provided that the language of his 
 government was firm and its attitude resolute " (p. 178) ; 
 he had then sought it on the Meuse and the Escaut, 
 and had allowed himself to be drawn into that secret 
 tiegotiation on Belguim which was to be so fatal to 
 France. 
 
 It was probably not i!a& patriotic anguish attributed by 
 us to M. Benedetti on the day after Sadowa, that could 
 have wounded his feelings. Could it be the Italian sym- 
 pathies with which we have credited him that awakened 
 his susceptibilities ? But the pronounced liking for the 
 country and the cause of M. de Cavour has been the prin- 
 cipal and marked characteristic of the political life of the 
 former ambassador of France to the court of Berlin ; in 
 sight, and with the knowledge, of every one, M. Benedetti 
 has always been reckoned among the most distinguished 
 members of a party which had great influence in the coun- 
 cils of the second empire, a party which considered Ital- 
 ian unity as the most glorious work of the reign, the most 
 useful for France, and, in its eyes, the connubio of Italy 
 and Prussia seemed an immense good fortune for the im- 
 perial policy, a brilliant victory gained over the old order 
 of things, to the profit of the " new right " and Napo- 
 leonic ideas ! The diplomatic career of M. Benedetti, 
 
APPENDIX. 323 
 
 even presents in this respect a character of unity and 
 indivisibility which will arouse the eternal admiration of 
 all Italian patriots. In i860 he had negotiated and 
 brought to a successful end the treaty on Savoy and 
 Nice, in exchange for which the imperial government 
 tore up the treaty of Zurich, and sanctioned implicitly 
 the annexations of Tuscany and Emilia. In 1861 he was 
 made minister plenipotentiary of France to Turin, as if 
 to console Italy for the recent death of M. de Cavour, 
 to reestablish in any case beyond the Alps the friendly 
 relations which the invasion of the kingdom of Naples 
 had for a moment strongly compromised. In the summer 
 of the following year (August, 1862), the harmony be- 
 tween France and Italy was again troubled in conse- 
 quence of Aspromonte, and of the circular of General 
 Durahdo, of the loth September, which demanded the 
 evacuation of Rome. M. Thouvenel was then obliged 
 to leave the hotel of the Quai d'Orsay, giving place to 
 M. Drouyn de Lhuys ; and M. Benedetti, as well as his 
 colleague of Rome, M. de La Valette, hastened to give 
 his resignation, in order to mark with iclat his disap- 
 probation as regarded a system become less favorable to 
 the aspirations of Italy. He did not reenter the career 
 until two years later, the 7th October, 1864, after the 
 convention of the 15th September had given satisfaction 
 to the wishes of the cabinet of Turin concerning Rome, 
 also after M. de Bismarck had passed by Paris and had 
 placed there the first beacons of the great combination 
 against Austria. The post at Berlin was then raised to 
 an embassy, and M. Benedetti became the holder of it. 
 His former colleagfue of Rome, M. de La Valette, did 
 not delay to sit in the councils of the empire, and at the 
 same moment General La Marmora, well known for his 
 Prussomania, undertook the direction of affairs at Turin. 
 And from the beginning of the year 1865, M. de Bis- 
 
324 APPENDIX. 
 
 marck engaged in his first campaign against Austria con- 
 cerning the Duchies, and made his first proceedings at 
 Florence to combine an understanding with Italy. The 
 connubio was not definitely consummated until Aprils 
 1866, under the eyes of M. Benedetti. 
 
 No one that we know (and we less than any one) has 
 reproached M. Benedetti with having favored this connu- 
 bio without the knowledge of his government ; but M. Ben- 
 edetti will doubtless not pretend that this understanding 
 between Italy and Prussia did not have all his sympa- 
 thies. General Govone had no confidences for him at 
 Berlin, perhaps ; it was M. Benedetti, on the contrary, 
 who made the Italian negotiator precious confidences, — 
 that one among others, " that M. de Bismarck was a sort 
 of maniac, whom he (Benedetti) knew and had followed 
 for nearly fifteen years." ^ He had advised him, also, 
 " not to sign any treaty, but only to have a project thor- 
 oughly discussed and ready to sign when the mobiliza- 
 tion of Prussia should be achieved." Would M. Bene- 
 detti seek to persuade that by this advice he had wished 
 to hinder the connubio 1 No, assuredly, by such advice 
 M. Benedetti told General Govone to act only in ear- 
 nest. It was good counsel that he gave him. Now one 
 does not give good counsel for an affair which one wishes 
 to see go under. Moreover, it was not the Italians that 
 it was necessary to render favorable to the connubio ; they 
 inclined to it naturally : the important part was to gain 
 over the court of Berlin, to triumph over its scruples, to 
 reassure it, above all, as to the intentions of France. 
 " I think that I should announce to you," the Italian 
 negotiator telegraphed on the 28th March to General La 
 Marmora, "that the president (M. de Bismarck) keeps 
 
 I "Del Conte Bismarck dice (M. de Benedetti ) cheiun diplomatico 
 fer cosl dire M aniaco ; che da quindici anni eke to (onosce e lo SEGUE." 
 — Report of General Govone, 6th April, 1866. La Marmora, p. 139. 
 
APPENDIX. 325 
 
 M. Benedetti exactly informed." * M. de Bismarck would 
 certainly not have thought of keeping M. Benedetti so 
 exactly informed, if he had credited him with an aversion 
 or even a lukewarmness for the Italian marriage. Then, 
 as since, in France as well as abroad, in the eyes of the 
 publicists as well as in the eyes of his own chiefs (as we 
 are going to prove immediately), the former ambassador 
 of France to the court of Berlin has always passed for 
 the agent of the imperial government who wished most 
 ardently for the success of the Italo-Prussian combina- 
 tion, and the book, " My Mission in Prussia," has not 
 succeeded at all in shaking a conviction which we do not 
 fear to call general. 
 
 We would never have thought of intruding in such an 
 important debate our obscure person and our humble 
 writings ; but, since M. Benedetti has kindly wished to 
 recognize in the works previously published by us in the 
 " Revue des deux Mondes," " studies better prepared 
 and more impartially written," we feel less hesitation in 
 quoting one of those pages which we consecrated even 
 here seven years ago to that pathetic episode of contem- 
 poraneous history. Speaking in our " Preliminaries of 
 Sadowa," of the treaty negotiated between M. de Bis- 
 marck and General Govone in the spring of 1866, we 
 expressed ourselves as follows : " There was only one 
 strong mind like M. de Bismarck to enter into a compact 
 with this secretary of the dreaded kingdom who assisted 
 his colleague the Count de Barral ; in the depths M. 
 Benedetti appeared from time to time. In this respect, 
 we involuntarily stretch our hand toward that volume 
 of Machiavelli ; we are seized with a desire to re-read a 
 chapter from the "Legazioni." How happy he would 
 have been, the great Florentine, to contemplate his three 
 compatriots fighting with a barbarian I At Paris, one 
 1 La Marmora, p. no. 
 
326 APPENDIX. 
 
 only saw (in this treaty) the single, prodigious fact of ^, 
 pact concluded between a monarch by the grace of God, 
 and a king of the national will, and one went into ecsta- 
 cies over the skill of M. Benedetti. There was only one 
 diplomat of the new school who could perform such a 
 miracle ! " Lastly, at the beginning of the same study, 
 in relating the circumstances which in 1864 had brought 
 on the political stage those formerly disgraced by the 
 affair Durando, we said: "Without doubt it cost M. 
 Drouyn de Lhuys something to accept as a colleague M. 
 de La Valette, who made no secret of his desire to take 
 his department from him ; it cost him still more, proba- 
 bly, to allow such an open adversary as M. Benedetti to 
 be imposed on him as principal agent. Two years later, 
 after Sadowa, and on the day when he gave up his port- 
 folio, the same minister was yet to countersign another 
 decree which raised M. Benedetti to' the dignity of the 
 grand cross. Who knows, however, whether, in the mind 
 of M. Drouyn de Lhuys, this second signature was not 
 destined to avenge somewhat the first ? In truth, per- 
 haps that was a peculiar trait of mind, a Parthian trait, 
 to distinguish so highly an agent for having only too well 
 served a policy the responsibility of which he not the less 
 repudiated." ^ 
 
 Did the former chiefs of the ex-ambassador of France 
 to the court of Berlin judge otherwise of it ? M. Ben- 
 edetti himself furnishes us on this point with valuable 
 testimony, which we will take care not to neglect. He 
 says ("My Mission," p. 148) that in January, 1870, M. 
 Daru, then minister of foreign affairs, had made, in a 
 letter, allusion to the events of 1866, in terms which 
 could not but strongly affect the ambassador: "The 
 territorial state of Prussia," M. Daru had written him, 
 
 1 See the Revue of the isth September, and the ist October, 
 1868. 
 
APPENDIX. 327 
 
 " results from events which perhaps it has not depended! 
 on you to bring about.'' Thus, even four years after 
 Sadowa, they did not cease to attribute to M. Jen- 
 edetti, to the bureaux of the Quai d'Orsay, a notable 
 part in these gloomy events. The ambassador found it 
 opportune to enlighten his new chief on " the rMe which 
 he played in this circumstance," by a private letter dated 
 the 27th January, 1870. " I am not ignorant," we read 
 there, " of all that has been said on this point ; but, by 
 a feeling which you will appreciate, I do not doubt, I 
 have never thought of declining the share of respon- 
 sibility which has been cast on me, and, for this purpose, 
 to set at right the errors too easily gathered by a badly 
 informed public." He affirmed, therefore, that he was 
 then " an active, correct, foreseeing informer," and he 
 appeals to his correspondence deposited in the archives 
 of foreign affairs. "I should add that I never, and 
 in none of the missions which I have fulfilled, have under- 
 taken other correspondences than those whose marks, 
 exist in the department, or in. the hands of your pre- 
 decessors, and that I never had, in all the epochs of my 
 career, other orders to execute than those that have beea 
 given me directly through them." " My Mission," pp.. 
 148-149. Yet that is not sufficient for M. Benedetti,. 
 and in publishing this letter he accompanies it (p.. 
 150) with a triumphant commentary : " I have affirmed 
 a fixed and indubitable fact in mentioning, in my letter 
 (to M. Daru), that I did not have the honor, on any oc- 
 casion (these words are underlined by M. Benedetti 
 himself), to sustain a direct and confidential corre- 
 spondence with the emperor. He has deigned to grant 
 me his confidence, and occasionally to testify to me his 
 satisfaction ; he has never ceased to transmit to me his 
 orders by the mediation of his minister of foreign affairs, 
 with whom I have exclusively corresponded. No one 
 
328 APPENDIX. 
 
 will suppose, I think, that I would affirm this in such 
 absolute terms as I have in writing to M. Daru, my 
 immediate chief, if I had not been fully authorized." 
 
 Unfortunately some pages beyond (p. 194), M. Ben- 
 edetti is forced to acknowledge that, in his negotiation 
 concerning the secret treaty on Belgium, he exchanged a 
 correspondence which did not pass through the depart- 
 ment for foreign affairs, and which the directing minister 
 of this department did not know of. " I thought it 
 fitting," we read there, " to address to the minister of 
 state, M. Rouher, the letter in which I announced my 
 interview with M. de Bismarck, and which accompanied 
 the plan of the treaty relating to Belgium. M. Rouher 
 did not lay before the ministry, not having then under- 
 taken the direction of it, the correspondence which dur- 
 ing several days I exchanged with him." It is true that, 
 in order to palliate this very grave irregularity, M. Ben- 
 edetti pretends that M. Drouyn de Lhuys had offered 
 his resignation toward the middle of August : " At this 
 moment there was no minister of foreign affairs;" but 
 we have proved to him that M. Drouyn de Lhuys did not 
 lose his portfolio until the ist September, 1866. Up to 
 that date, M. Drouyn de Lhuys had not ceased to direct 
 the department, with the desire of remaining there, and 
 of preventing the complete abandonment of the tradi- 
 tional French policy. The ambassador himself quotes 
 in his book several dispatches exchanged with him on 
 grave questions, up to the date of the 21st and 2Sth 
 August (pages 204 and 223); but M. Benedetti thought 
 proper to be silent to his immediate chief concerning 
 the negotiation on the. subject of the treaty on Belgium, 
 and only to inform the minister of state. This negotia- 
 tion not only had its beginning, but also its end (it was 
 broken oil by M. de Bismarck the 29th August), during 
 the ministry of M. Drouyn de Lhuys, and without his^, 
 
APPENDIX. 329 
 
 knowledge. This was then one occasion when M. Bene- 
 detti did not exclusively correspond with the minister of 
 foreign aifairs ! There was then one epoch in the career 
 ot M. Benedetti when he received orders which did not 
 pass through the Quai d'Orsay! And how suppose of 
 the honorable M. Daru that what had happened in the 
 month of August, 1866, could have also taken place in 
 the months of March and April of the same year ? 
 
 M. Benedetti completely ignores in his protest this 
 incident of the treaty concerning Belgium ; it is, how- 
 ever, the culminating point, in fact the only grave point 
 of the debate, and the only one concerning which we al- 
 lowed ourselves to reproach him with having acted with- 
 out the knowledge, not of his government, but of his min- 
 ister. Would M. Benedetti perhaps find that this is an 
 anecdotal incident, incompatible with the dignity of his- 
 tory? He had in fact first tried, in his letter published 
 in the " Moniteur," the 29th July, 1870, to give to this 
 deplorable event an entirely anecdotal turn, to assign to 
 the compromising document a, so to say, spontaneous 
 generation ; he would have wished to give only an exact 
 account of the ideas of M. de Bismarck, and " consented 
 to transcribe them in a manner under his dictation." 
 He could not long persist in such trifling; he had to 
 avow in his book that he had entered on a veritable ne- 
 gotiation, and M. de Bismarck has since then taken ma- 
 licious pleasure in casting light on the different phases 
 of this negotiation, by different extracts taken from the 
 papers of Cer^ay and published in the " Moniteur prus- 
 sien," in reply to the book of M. Benedetti. " During 
 my long career," says M. Benedetti, in the preface of 
 his book (p. 4), " I have been charged only on three 
 different occasions with opening negotiations having a 
 fixed object, and leaving me with an initiative part pro- 
 portionate to the responsibility." He enumerates these 
 
330 APPENDIX. 
 
 three negotiations and proves that he conducted them 
 all to a good end, but he takes good care not to include 
 in the number his negotiations on Belgium, in which he 
 was given an initiative part, and in which we will also 
 give him his proportional part of the responsibility. 
 
 We will also leave him the tone of his polemics ; it is 
 like his ^v^Xoxa-if:^, sui generis, and we can say with M. 
 de Bismarck : " M. Benedetti is too clever for us." 
 
 Julian Klaczko. 
 
 THE MISSION EXTRAORDINARY OF MR. FOX. 
 
 On Monday, the i6th April (according to the Russian 
 calendar, the 4th), 1866, an attempt was made on the 
 life of Alexander II., Emperor of Russia. The would- 
 be assassin was a Russian named Dmitry Karakozoff, a 
 member of the order of the Nihilists. The rescuer of 
 the Czar was a newly-emancipated serf, Ossip Ivanovitch 
 KomissarofI by name. The facts of the attempted as- 
 sassination are as follows : In the morning of that day 
 Komissaroffi started for the chapel built by Peter the 
 Great on an island in the Neva. The bridge between 
 the main bank and the island had, however, been re- 
 moved, and he therefore turned toward the palace quay. 
 .On approaching the Summer Garden he joined the crowd 
 of people waiting to see the Emperor pass. While trying 
 to secure a favorable position, Komissaroff was attracted 
 by a stranger who was attempting to force his way to the 
 front, and who kept his right hand constantly in his coat 
 pocket. 
 
 When the Emperor appeared, the man beside Komis- 
 saroff drew a pistol and aimed it at his Majesty. He 
 stood so near that the shot would undoubtedly have 
 proved fatal, had not Komissaroff struck up his arm and 
 
APPENDIX. 331 
 
 caused the weapon to be discharged in the air. Karako- 
 zoff was seized, and after trial, was executed on the isth 
 September. Komissaroff was made a nobleman, and 
 had gifts and orders showered on him by the score. Mr. 
 Clay, our minister to Russia, delivered a congratulatory 
 address to the Emperor at a special audience, and the 
 Emperor returned his thanks to the President and the 
 people of the United States. 
 
 In the mean time. Congress, remembering that Russia 
 had given our nation its warmest sympathies and aid in 
 our hour of peril, introduced a joint resolution, relative 
 to the attempted assassination of the Emperor of Russia. 
 The resolution was approved by President Johnson, and 
 it was then resolved to send a special envoy in a national 
 vessel to carry to the Emperor of Russia the congratula- 
 tions at his providential escape. For this delicate mis- 
 sion the Hon. Gustavus Vasa Fox, the Assistant Secre- 
 tary of the Navy, was chosen. At his own request it 
 was determined to send him in a monitor, a class of ves- 
 sel which had never crossed the Atlantic, but in whose 
 seaworthiness Mr. Fox trusted implicitly. For this pur- 
 pose the Miantonomoh, a two-turret monitor, to be ac- 
 companied by two wooden men-of-war, was selected. 
 On June 5, 1866, Mr. Fox left St. John, N. B., for 
 Queenstown, arriving there on June i6th. Mr. Fox then 
 left the Miantonomoh, and made short trips through Eng- 
 land, Ireland, and France. He rejoined the squadron at 
 Copenhagen on Saturday, July 21st, and after having 
 been hospitably entertained by the king, left on August 
 ist for Cronstadt. He arrived there on August 5th, and 
 on the following day he went to St. Petersburg and paid 
 his respects to Mr. Clay, the United States Minister 
 there. On the 8th the mission was received at Peterhof 
 by the Emperor, assisted by Prince Gortchakof. Mr. 
 Fox addressed the Emperor, who replied to him through 
 
332 APPENDIX. 
 
 Prince Gortchakof. On August 9th his Majesty visited 
 the ships at Cronstadt. 
 
 For more than. a month a series of dinners -and balls 
 were given in honor of the mission, and Mr. Fox's prog- 
 ress throughout the country was a perfect ovation. He 
 was made honorary citizen of all the large cities j. he re- 
 ceived delegations of peasants, and was honored with 
 rich presents from the Emperor. The tact and eminent 
 social qualities which he displayed, made this altogether 
 unique mission successful, and greatly strengthened the 
 warm ties which exist between the two^ countries. It will 
 be seen that M. Klaczko erroneously calls Mr. Fox " as- 
 sistant secretary of state." _ 
 
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