Two Chancellors Part 11

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 contest 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 amba.s.sador of France at the court of Berlin had, in this year 1866 a very difficult and painful position, we had almost said a pathetic one. He had worked with _ardor_, with _pa.s.sion_, to bring about this _connubio_ of Italy and Prussia, which seemed to him to be an immense good fortune for the imperial policy, a brilliant victory gained over the old order of things to the profit of the 'new right'

and Napoleonic ideas. In the fear, very well founded besides, of seeing this work miscarry and Prussia draw back, if one spoke to it of eventual compensations and preventive engagements, he had not _ceased to dissuade_ his government from any attempt of this kind." Pp. 210, 211. Already, at p.

206, in a note, M. Klaczko had said: "M. Drouyn de Lhuys, who had already obtained 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, fearing that Prussia would renounce in this case all idea of war against Austria."

Now, these allegations have no meaning, or they signify 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 a.s.sertions by any known fact, nor by the extract from an official doc.u.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 publication which I made in 1871, under the t.i.tle, "My Mission in Prussia," that I repudiated any partic.i.p.ation 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 accord between Prussia and Italy, I had been the princ.i.p.al instigator of it.

It is of importance to me that the readers of the "Revue 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 published.... 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 important mission; this news ... has caused considerable emotion. If it is confirmed, one will not fail to believe that Prussia and Italy are negotiating a treaty of alliance."

The third day after, I added: "General Govone arrived 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 government 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 cabinet 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 informed me yesterday that General Govone was authorized to conclude arrangements with the Prussian government. 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 sufficiently delicate position."

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 position to inform you that M. de Barral, Italian minister, _has_ AT LAST _decided on his part not to hide from me entirely 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 drawn up with the design of dissimulating my conduct and the part which I clandestinely took in the negotiation. In the first case, no one will conceive how he can pretend that I labored _with ardor and with pa.s.sion to bring about this connubio of Italy and Prussia_. In the second hypothesis matters are changed, and I shall expect 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 Mission 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 Bismarck) 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; and what did I say to him concerning these negotiations? 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 mobilization 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 a.s.sertion? Does he think to reproach me for having endeavored to keep myself informed as to what was pa.s.sing, and for having instructed my government exactly?

As to the a.s.sertion of M. Klaczko, twice repeated in his article, that I did not cease, before the war, to dissuade 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 from 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 partic.i.p.ate, we see, in the contention which presents itself to-day, no sufficient motive for us to depart from our att.i.tude of neutrality. We have 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 neutral, 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 att.i.tude in which we really are. The king himself has acknowledged that the present circ.u.mstances do not offer the bases of accord that his majesty desires. The course of events, the nature and the bearing of the interests 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 understanding 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 consideration which obliged us to observe a reserved att.i.tude 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, however, completely of your att.i.tude 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 amba.s.sador the disagreement 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.

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; 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 telegraphic 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 subjects, with the exception of M. de Bismarck, would consent, 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 appreciated the situation before the campaign of Bohemia, it is the same amba.s.sador _who now undertakes_ to present to M. de Bismarck the demands of the cabinet of the Tuileries, who went so far as to submit to him, on the 5th August, a plan of a secret treaty implying the abandonment 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 contrary, 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 consequences of it, which have been grave and gloomy, as he is careful to remember.

If it is thus that M. Klaczko understands the duties 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 disavows. 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 a.s.sertions so dest.i.tute of foundation, and that M.

Klaczko has forced me to protest in spite of my very sincere desire to avoid any polemics, and to 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 a.s.surance of my highest regard.

BENEDETTI.

M. Benedetti's letter was communicated to M. Julian Klaczko, who returned it to us with the following observations:--

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 pa.s.sed the same judgment on his att.i.tude 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 government from any attempt at a prior engagement with Prussia in view of the eventualities of the war.

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 reawaken unanimously and violently at the slightest indication 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 circ.u.mstance, that he never "encouraged hopes" on this side, and that he "sufficiently 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 Marmora, thus expressed himself: "They are busily occupied with negotiations, we are a.s.sured, 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!" On his side, General Govone, in his very minute report of the 7th May, relates the same incident in a fuller and much more 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 something about them through M. Nigra; he has even given them cause to believe that he will be disposed to abandon to him the banks of the Rhine, having been informed by his agents that the emperor was negotiating with Austria, 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 compromise 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 before 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 demand 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 conceding 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 (_il limite minimo_) of the pretensions of this Power." (La Marmora, "Un po piu 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 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[146]

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 contradiction, 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 country, on "the necessities to which the war might reduce 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 Hohenzollern; 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 security of France." ("My Mission," p. 177). This remodeling he had _at first_ hoped to find on the Rhine, "provided that the language of his government was firm and its att.i.tude resolute" (p. 178); he had then sought it on the Meuse and the Escaut, and had allowed himself to be drawn into that secret negotiation on Belgium which was to be so fatal to France.

It was probably not the _patriotic anguish_ attributed by us to M. Benedetti on the day after Sadowa, that could have wounded his feelings. Could it be the Italian sympathies with which we have credited him that awakened his susceptibilities? But the p.r.o.nounced liking for the country and the cause of M. de Cavour has been the princ.i.p.al and marked characteristic of the political life of the former amba.s.sador 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 councils of the second empire, a party which considered Italian 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 imperial policy, a brilliant victory gained over the old order of things, to the profit of the "new right" and Napoleonic ideas! The diplomatic career of M. Benedetti, even presents in this respect a character of unity and indivisibility which will arouse the eternal admiration of all Italian patriots. In 1860 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 between France and Italy was again troubled in consequence of Aspromonte, and of the circular of General Durando, of the 10th 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 _eclat_ his disapprobation 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 pa.s.sed by Paris and had placed there the first beacons of the great combination against Austria. The post at Berlin was then raised to an emba.s.sy, and M. Benedetti became the holder of it. His former colleague 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 Bismarck engaged in his first campaign against Austria concerning the Duchies, and made his first proceedings at Florence to combine an understanding with Italy. The _connubio_ was not definitely consummated until April, 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 _connubio without the knowledge of his government_; but M. Benedetti will doubtless not pretend that this understanding between Italy and Prussia did not have all his sympathies. 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."[147] He had advised him, also, "not to sign any treaty, but only to have a project thoroughly discussed and ready to sign when the mobilization of Prussia should be achieved." Would M.

Benedetti seek to persuade that by this advice he had wished to hinder the _connubio_? No, a.s.suredly, by such advice M.

Benedetti told General Govone to act only in earnest. 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 rea.s.sure 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 M. Benedetti exactly informed."[148] 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 amba.s.sador of France to the court of Berlin has always pa.s.sed for the agent of the imperial government who wished most ardently for the success of the Italo-Prussian combination, 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 contemporaneous history. Speaking in our "Preliminaries of Sadowa," of the treaty negotiated between M. de Bismarck 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 a.s.sisted 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_! At Paris, one only saw (in this treaty) the single, prodigious fact of a pact concluded between a monarch by the grace of G.o.d, and a king of the national will, and one went into ecstacies 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 circ.u.mstances 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, probably, to allow such an open adversary as M. Benedetti to be imposed on him as princ.i.p.al agent. Two years later, after Sadowa, and on the day when he gave up his portfolio, 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, perhaps 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."[149]

Did the former chiefs of the ex-amba.s.sador of France to the court of Berlin judge otherwise of it? M. Benedetti 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 amba.s.sador: "The territorial state of Prussia," M. Daru had written him, "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. Benedetti, to the bureaux of the Quai d'Orsay, a notable part in these gloomy events. The amba.s.sador found it opportune to enlighten his new chief on "the _role_ which he played in this circ.u.mstance," 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 responsibility 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 undertaken other correspondences than those whose marks exist in the department, or in the hands of your predecessors, and that I never had, _in all the epochs of my career_, other orders to execute than those that have been given me directly through them." ("My Mission," pp. 148-149). Yet that is not sufficient for M. Benedetti, and in publis.h.i.+ng 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 occasion_ (these words are underlined by M. Benedetti himself), to sustain a direct and confidential correspondence 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 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. Benedetti is forced to acknowledge that, in his negotiation concerning the secret treaty on Belgium, he exchanged a correspondence which did not pa.s.s through the department 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 undertaken the direction of it, the correspondence which during several days I exchanged with him." It is true that, in order to palliate this very grave irregularity, M. Benedetti 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 1st 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 traditional French policy. The amba.s.sador himself quotes in his book several dispatches exchanged with him on grave questions, up to the date of the 21st and 25th 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 negotiation not only had its beginning, but also its end (it was broken off by M. de Bismarck the 29th August), _during the ministry of M. Drouyn de Lhuys, and without his knowledge_. This was then _one occasion_ when M. Benedetti did not exclusively correspond with the minister of foreign affairs! There was then _one epoch in the career_ of M.

Benedetti when he received orders which did not pa.s.s 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, however, the culminating point, in fact the only grave point of the debate, and the only one concerning which we allowed ourselves to reproach him with having acted _without the knowledge_, not of his government, but _of his minister_.

Would M. Benedetti perhaps find that this is an anecdotal incident, incompatible with the dignity of history? 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 a.s.sign to the compromising doc.u.ment 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 negotiation, and M. de Bismarck has since then taken malicious pleasure in casting light on the different phases of this negotiation, by different extracts taken from the papers of Cercay and published in the "Moniteur prussien," 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 proportionate to the responsibility." He enumerates these 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 diplomacy, _sui generis_, and we can say with M. de Bismarck: "M. Benedetti is too clever for us."

JULIAN KLACZKO.