Studies in Literature and History
Spanish ambassador at Paris, had been left in complete ignorance of
the privy correspondence between Prim and Bismarck for procuring the
nomination of a king from the Hohenzollern family, and this sudden
revelation of its result by no means pleased him. He proposed to the
Emperor Napoleon to despatch to Prince Antoine at Sigmaringen (in
Prussian territory) an agent of his own, who should use every effort
to convince the prince that his son must be imperatively commanded to
withdraw his acceptance of Prim's offer. The emperor, whose sincere
wish was for peace, consented willingly, and the mission was entirely
successful. By long and strenuous argument the envoy had finally
persuaded the father that his son, Leopold, would find himself in a
precarious position on the Spanish throne, with France alienated and
openly hostile; and the result was that Prince Antoine not only laid
on his son a positive command to withdraw, but also telegraphed the
decision to the principal German newspapers, to Olozaga at Paris, and
to Madrid. According to M. Ollivier, Bismarck felt the blow keenly; it
shattered his carefully organised plans; he found himself baffled and
humiliated; he has himself said that his first thought was to resign
office.[45] To the king, on the other hand, the news brought welcome
relief; he supposed that he had now only to await Prince Antoine's
letter confirming the public telegram, when the dispute would
naturally drop with the disappearance of its cause. This was,
moreover, the expectation at that moment of the French emperor, who
observed that, if France and England were preparing to fight for the
possession of an island in the Channel, it would be absurd to go to
war after discovering that the island had sunk to the bottom of the
sea.
In those days, M. Ollivier explains, any telegram of political
interest that passed over the Paris wires was communicated, by
special arrangement, to the Ministere de l'Interieur; and accordingly
he received a copy of Prince Antoine's message to Olozaga before it
reached its address. The contents filled him with exultation--he could
feel no doubt that peace had now been triumphantly secured, mainly by
the unflinching tone of the Cabinet's declaration. He carried the
paper with him to the Chamber, where Olozaga rushed up to him in the
lobby, drew him into a corner, read to him with much obvious
excitement the telegram which Ollivier had already in his pocket, and
hurried on to the Foreign Office. Naturally the incident aroused
general curiosity; the deputies surrounded the minister, and eagerly
pressed him for information. M. Ollivier tells us that he hesitated
for some time before divulging his secret; but that on the whole he
found no good reason for withholding news that would certainly appear
within a few hours in the evening papers, so he read out the telegram
to all present. We believe that few men, who had not been trained by
experience to the cautious habits of official life, would have done
otherwise. But M. de la Gorce[46] has pointed out that the chief
minister ought to have kept silence until the renunciation had been
approved and confirmed by the King of Prussia, who was in hourly
expectation of Prince Antoine's letter, and whose acquiescence,
transmitted through Benedetti to the French Government, would have
probably brought the whole affair to an honourable termination. It may
be objected that this is to argue from consequences, since known,
which could hardly be foreseen at the moment; yet one must admit that
reticence would have been preferable, for we have to remember that M.
Ollivier was disclosing a telegram intercepted, so to speak, on its
passage to a foreign embassy, thereby forestalling not only the
Spanish ambassador but also the French Foreign Office.
The news ran round the Palais Legislatif, inside and outside, and
spread through Paris with electrical rapidity.
'En meme temps debouchait du Palais Legislatif une bande agitee;
c'etait a qui envahirait les fiacres de la place, a qui les
escaladerait, a qui les prendrait d'assaut. A la Bourse, criaient
les hommes d'affaires; nous doublons le prix de la course, et au
triple galop. Parmi les journalistes, meme empressement et concert
de meme nature, et on voyait les haridelles de la place sortir
l'une apres l'autre et s'elancer rapides comme des fleches.'
Apparently all this stir and hurry had already affected M. Ollivier
with some misgivings; for when, on going into one of the
committee-rooms, he met Gressier, formerly a minister, he assured him
that he (Ollivier) had no intention of making the renunciation a
stepping-stone toward further demands. 'To take up that ground,'
replied Gressier, 'will be a proof of courage, but it will bring down
your ministry, for the country will never be content with this degree
of satisfaction.' M. Ollivier soon found that he was right; for a
crowd of deputies began to protest against the faint-heartedness of a
government that seemed willing to drop the whole affair, leaving
Prussia to escape scot-free; and M. Ollivier had scarcely entered the
Chamber when Clement Duvernois rose with an interpellation asking what
guarantees the Cabinet proposed to require for the purpose of
restraining Prussia from inventing more complications of this sort.
Olozaga had taken his telegram to M. de Gramont, who by no means
shared M. Ollivier's joy over it. He observed that the effect was
rather to embarrass his negotiations with Prussia, since that
government could now make the renunciation a pretext for disowning
the responsibility which he desired to fix upon the king with regard
to the whole business; and, moreover, he added, public opinion in
France will consider such a conclusion unsatisfactory. He was at that
moment engaged in colloquy with Werther, the Prussian ambassador, who
had presented himself at the Foreign Office, where presently M.
Ollivier joined them, Olozaga having departed. What followed is
treated by some French writers as the most ill-conceived of all the
false moves made by the French players in this hazardous diplomatic
game. Gramont had been urging Werther to advise the Prussian king to
write a letter to the emperor, to the effect that in authorising the
acceptance of the Spanish throne by Leopold he had no idea of giving
umbrage to France; that the king associated himself with the prince's
renunciation, and hoped that all causes of misunderstanding between
the two governments were thereby removed. Gramont sketched out what he
thought the king might say, and actually made over his note to the
Prussian ambassador, by way of _aide-memoire_; precisely as in 1867
Benedetti had trusted Bismarck with his draft of the secret treaty
proposed for the annexation of Belgium to France, which Bismarck
afterwards published in the _Times_ of July 1870. M. Ollivier, who
agreed with and supported Gramont, now maintains that his arrival
changed the character of the conference, that it ceased to be an
official interview between the Minister of Foreign Affairs and an
ambassador, and thenceforward became merely one of those free
unofficial conversations in which politicians explain their views
without compromising their respective governments. But we are obliged
to remark that in our judgment this plea is inadmissible, for M. de
Gramont has explicitly stated that the interview, so far as he was
concerned, was official,[47] and Werther could not have been expected
to appreciate this subtle yet important distinction--of which nothing
seems to have been said to him--while M. Ollivier should have foreseen
that Bismarck would certainly ignore it. The result was that Werther
did transmit to his king the suggestion of the two French ministers;
that the king was deeply offended at having been required to send what
he called, not unreasonably, a letter of excuses; that Bismarck used
Werther's despatch to kindle national indignation throughout Germany;
and that Werther himself was reprimanded and recalled.
The scene now shifts to St. Cloud, where the poor emperor, who had
supposed that Prince Antoine's telegram signified peace with honour,
found a military party eager for war, and hotly asserting that the
empire would be totally discredited unless satisfaction were demanded
from Prussia for conniving at the Hohenzollern candidature. The
interpellation of Duvernois in the Chamber was cited as a forcible
expression of public opinion. M. Gramont now arrived at the palace
with his report of the interview with Werther, in which the latter had
persistently declared that the king had nothing whatever to do with
Leopold's withdrawal. The emperor's unstable mind began to waver; he
forgot or put aside his arrangement with M. Ollivier--that the
ministers should meet him next morning for consultation over this new
aspect of the affair--and he proceeded then and there to hold a
Cabinet Council.
What passed at this Council has never been exactly known. The reproach
of a ruinous blunder lies heavy on those who took part in it. Gramont
says no more than that the deliberations were conscientious, and that
every one, including the emperor, earnestly desired peace.[48] M.
Ollivier tells us, in the volume now before us, that of all the
Cabinet ministers the Duc de Gramont alone was summoned; whether he
learnt subsequently who were also present, and what share they took in
promoting the decision, he leaves his readers to guess. It is clear
that the proceeding was irregular and totally unconstitutional, and
other French writers hint that Gramont's silence is intended to shield
_une personne auguste_ from responsibility for a decision that was
fatally wrong. When the Council broke up at 7 P. M. (July 12) Gramont
immediately despatched from the Foreign Office his famous telegram to
Benedetti at Ems, instructing him to require from the Prussian king a
positive assurance that he would not authorise the renewal of
Leopold's candidature--a demand, in short, for guarantees. At his
office he met Lord Lyons, to whom he expounded his reasons for
treating the single renunciation as inadequate, to the great surprise
of our ambassador, who objected so strenuously to Gramont's views and
intentions that the minister, somewhat shaken, merely said that the
formal decision would be made public next morning. While the emperor
and two councillors were then taking irrevocable steps toward a
collision, and were unconsciously playing into the hands of their
arch-enemy, the leaders of the warlike faction in the Chamber and the
Parisian press were clamouring with fury and vitriolic sarcasm against
a faint-hearted and contemptible ministry that shrank from seizing the
opportunity of humbling Prussia.
Again the scene changes, this time to the Foreign Office, where M.
Ollivier, in total ignorance of that evening's Council at St. Cloud,
sought and found the Duc de Gramont about midnight. He had come to
ask whether any fresh news had been received from Benedetti at Ems;
and Gramont answered by showing him the telegram just despatched by
the Council's order to Benedetti, with a letter to himself from the
emperor desiring that its language should be stiffened. Naturally M.
Ollivier could hardly control his resentment at discovering that an
extremely grave resolution had been adopted and acted upon without
consulting or even warning him beforehand; that the emperor, in spite
of his promises to govern constitutionally, had reverted to such an
extreme use of autocratic power; and that Gramont had made no attempt
to check it, had even abetted the irregularity. However, the telegram
had gone to Ems--it was too late to remedy that mischief--but the
Cabinet would have to answer before the Chamber for its despatch. He
said to Gramont: