Two Chancellors Part 3

In 1815, on his triumphal return from the congress of Vienna, Alexander could select as he wished from the celebrated men who then formed the _etat-major_ of Russian diplomacy, the least known and the most humble of this ill.u.s.trious body. Pa.s.sing over Capo d'Istria, Pozzo di Borgo, Ribeaupierre, Razoumovsky, Stakelberg, d'Anstett, it was lawful for him to confide the direction of the external policy to a German gentleman of Westphalian origin, born at Lisbon, and Russian only by naturalization.

In 1856, after the congress of Paris, the choice of Prince Gortchakof for the same position was, we will not say imposed, but certainly indicated 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 _debut_ at the Hotel of the Place du Palais the former pupil of Zarkoe-Zeloe distinguished himself by liberal ways and advances made in a public spirit, which must have occasionally astonished his predecessor, still living and in possession of the honored t.i.tle 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[26] went the rounds of all the Russias. Another aphorism, taken from a circular, soon transported the nation: the celebrated phrase, "Russia does not sulk, but meditates,"

seemed to be dictated by the very soul of the people, and drew from it a cry of enthusiasm. It was then that one remembered the awakening of the Russian spirit after a long period of compression; the journals, the thoughtful periodicals, inaugurated their joyful _ebats_, the authors, the literary men, began to have an importance hitherto unknown; Alexander Mikhalovitch, who always displayed a liking and sympathy for Russian literature, the former fellow scholar of Pouchkine, pa.s.sed for a patriotic statesman in the eyes of PoG.o.dine, Axakof, Katkof, etc. One perceived that he had a great hatred for Austria, a p.r.o.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 _par 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 _caenaculum_ of diplomats; and at the same time it was the implacable 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 commission, was to favor as no one else did, the dismemberment of France and the const.i.tution of a Germany greater, more powerful, and more formidable than the history of past centuries has ever known! It is true that by the "Germans" the Russia of 1856 meant princ.i.p.ally the Austrians,[27]

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 Roumania, Servia, Montenegro, and which had not yet p.r.o.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."[28] 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 freeing Italy, had long been fixed in the mind of Napoleon 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 cla.s.sic plains of Lombardy. Now, for the enterprise which France 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 friends.h.i.+p of Russia and Prussia. Prussia had emerged from the Oriental crisis very much weakened with its policy "of the free hand;" England, Austria, and Turkey had even had little desire to admit it to the honors of the congress. The president 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 allowing _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 politenesses and cordialities of which Count Orlof was the recipient from France during all the time of the congress. Since then, in the successive arrangements 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 interpretations of the Russian plenipotentiary sustained almost constantly by the plenipotentiary of France. In the different and numerous conferences and commissions which followed in these years, 1856-1859, for regulating the pending questions, the distribution of the votes was almost invariably thus: England and Austria on one side, on the other France, Russia, and Prussia.[29]

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 consequence of the famous letters addressed to Lord Aberdeen by M. Gladstone on the _regime_ of King Ferdinand II. A similar intermeddling in the internal affairs of an independent state did not seem very correct in the eyes of the successor of Count Nesselrode; 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, amba.s.sador of France at Constantinople, "it is necessary to begin by first impaling him;" one commenced, however, by applying to him the question of _hatt-houmayoum_, by interrogating him concerning his intentions in favor of the rajahs of Bosnia, Bulgaria, and Herzegovina, and by thus annoying in a certain degree the cabinets of Vienna and London. Much greater was naturally the solicitude for the va.s.sal 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.

The little Prince of Montenegro, former _protege_ 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 _Algesiras_ and _L'Impetueuse_ appeared before Ragusa. French vessels 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 Georgevitch, and recalled to the throne the old Miloch Obrenovitch. The Porte protested, England 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 a.s.sembly, whose princ.i.p.al 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 Princ.i.p.alities presented 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 a.s.similated 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 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 arrangements 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 1856-1859, 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, completely shut out, and where she now regained influence 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 Tuileries. "Our relations with France are _cordial_," replied 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 breaking 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 hope of having quelled the tempest, when Prince Gortchakof suddenly proposed a _congress_, and p.r.o.nounced that fatal word which then, as so often since, was only the signal for a rupture. A congress! A treaty of peace before any hostility, the glory of the triumph without the peril of victory,--that was the eternal _hysteron-proteron_ of the Napoleonic 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 recommend so often for all the chronic evils of Europe.[30] The chief of the English government, the old Earl of Derby, complained bitterly of the horrible trick which the proposition emanating from St. Petersburg 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 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 character and proportions which escape all human foresight."

Napoleon III. descended to the plains of Lombardy; 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 country "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 oration 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 transaction;" but it profited by the moment to make its reentry into European politics, and bring back on the tapis the question ... of the Ottoman empire! The 4th May, 1860, Prince Gortchakof convoked in his cabinet the amba.s.sadors of the great Powers in order to examine with them the "dolorous and precarious" position of the Christians in Bosnia, Herzegovina and Bulgaria, and soon a circular of the vice-chancellor (20th May) insisted on the reunion of a conference in order to alter the stipulations established by the treaty of Paris.

"The time of illusions is pa.s.sed," Alexander Mikhalovitch 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 accomplished 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, 1860, 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 offered, torn up even before being signed, the Piedmontese annexations in Italy, the expedition of Garibaldi to Sicily, the "new right" of which the official journals in France spoke, and the famous 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 menaced, they would submit to the most severe trials."

Above these popular frights the cabals of the sovereigns 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 loyalty." 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 Emperor of Russia,--and the czar accepted the _rendezvous_.

"It is not a coalition, it is a reconciliation which I am going to make at Warsaw," declared the Emperor Alexander II. to the French amba.s.sador, the Duke of Montebello, whose government was naturally 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, however polite these forms were, they did not hide a necessity for explanation. The cabinet of the Tuileries 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 rea.s.suring. Sum total, no positive result came from this meeting 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 reconciliation there; he simply wished to show his influence: to give a demonstration of his power. He was flattered at seeing these sovereigns, these German princes, coming to the former capital of Poland to deliberate there on the general situation, and to receive 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 friends.h.i.+p, at making it understand that its services had now a much greater value, perhaps even their tariff. The clever productions which emanated successively in these years 1856-1860 from the chancellor's office at St. Petersburg, indicated in a very plastic manner the continually 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 complications, it already emerged "from the reserve which it had imposed on itself since the war of the Crimea." After the annexation of Savoy "its conscience 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, 1860, it was the mouth-piece of the general interests of Europe, the intermediary which demanded explanations from the cabinets of the Tuileries. A modest _protege_ 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 important and almost indispensable ally,--an ally very resolute in not accepting a secondary _role_, in guarding its position of marked influence, in taking for itself a large part in the great combinations of the future.

a.s.suredly the desultory, undecisive, and eternally contradictory policy 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 creating the events, he understood admirably how to profit by them. The superiority of the statesman always reveals itself by the measure which he preserves in his "cordiality" and even in his vengeance, by the foreseeing mind which he does not cease to preserve even in the midst of the allurements of success. It is not doubtful for instance that the warnings 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 accomplished its purpose perfectly.

In fact, the complete execution of the programme "of the Alps to the Adriatic" would have probably given an entirely different turn to the Italian affairs, would certainly have rendered possible in the future a sincere reconciliation 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 destroying one of the fundamental elements of the traditional policy of the czars as regards Germany. In spite of the loss of Milan, Austria preserved its position 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 circ.u.mspect 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 1856-1860, certain general principles of preservation which had made the greatness and strength of the reign of Nicholas. Without doubt, in Servia, in the Danubian Princ.i.p.alities, Alexander Mikhalovitch was not of a vigorous orthodoxy, 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 overturn too much in the "new right." He let the journals 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 doc.u.ments dated at his office, he refrained carefully from all these neologisms and persevered in the terminology consecrated by the old diplomatic language. In these doc.u.ments 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." Still less did he care to make the revolutionary propaganda abroad and to a.s.sociate himself in the commerce of exportation which, according to a malicious remark of those days, Napoleon III. had undertaken with liberal ideas.

He declined categorically all partic.i.p.ation 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 or by menacing demonstrations, was to subst.i.tute 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 Gagarine of the 10th October, 1860, 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 dispatch to Prince Gagarine, "a question of Italian interests, but of general interests, common to all governments, 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 recommend 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 moves with the revolution to recover by it its heritage_." In a word, the Russian vice-chancellor profited with prodigious dexterity by the good disposition of France and still more by its errors, without 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 himself 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 a.s.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 forget 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 Mikhalovitch began to control 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 vengeance on Austria was surely not the least sweet or pleasant, his former colleague of Frankfort, having become representative of Prussia at the court of Russia, was consumed at his side by the languis.h.i.+ng fever of a man of action trammeled by foolish probity. He had arrived at St. Petersburg in the spring of the year 1859, three months after the famous birthday reception given to M. de Hubner by the Emperor Napoleon III.; the Italian complications were about to break out, and the Russian vice-chancellor 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 circ.u.mstances so propitious. 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 greatness and the prosperity of the country of Frederick II. and of Blucher. 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 Hohenzollern all the advantages which he would find in a rupture with Austria: "In Germany," the Emperor of the French had said, "Austria represents 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."[31] Thus thought the future prisoner of Wilhelmshoehe on the eve of Magenta and Solferino, and "his excellency the lieutenant" 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 a.s.sist Austria, and whether they did not have federal obligations towards the Emperor Francis Joseph! The Samson 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 letters to Malvina, the state of mind of M. de Bismarck during these years 1859-1860. At the commencement of hostilities, and evidently despairing of seeing 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, pa.s.sed 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 in Lombardy (Magenta) caused him, nevertheless, to return to St. Petersburg. "Perhaps there will be something for the diplomats to do." At St. Petersburg, he learns of the strange desire at Berlin of interceding for Austria, of mobilizing the federal armies, and from it he conceived the greatest apprehensions for his country. He became ill.

A very grave case of hepat.i.tis endangered his life seriously. "They covered my body with innumerable cupping gla.s.ses large as saucers, with mustard poultices and quant.i.ties of blisters, and I was already half way to a better world when I began to convince my doctors 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 const.i.tution ended by conquering, 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 provinces; but Prussia had not drawn any material, palpable advantage from this disaster of the Hapsburg, and the cavalier of the Mark was not the man to cherish, like his friend Alexander Mikhalovitch, a purely Platonic hatred. He consoled himself, however, 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 endeavor," he wrote at the approach of autumn, 1859, "to cower in my bear-skin, and to bury myself 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 annexation 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 interview with the Emperor Francis Joseph at Toeplitz.

"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 conquest of the kingdom of Naples, the cabinet of Berlin 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 pa.s.sage: "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 manner 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 such _navetes_ 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 policy 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 indignant. Is it not taken from life? Varnhagen is vain and _mechant_, but who is not? 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 1859-1860, his relations 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 friends.h.i.+p of Russia, of which he understood all the value. The position of the representatives of Prussia has always been exceptional at St. Petersburg; thanks to the near relations.h.i.+p of the two courts, they enjoyed in the winter palace a confidence and intimacy which the 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 Russian point of view, during his long sojourn at Frankfort. His former journeys in Courland had made him known and liked by the German n.o.bility of the Baltic Provinces, by the Keyserlingk, the Uxkull, the Nolde, the Bruvern, etc., always so influential at court, in the chancellor's office, and in Russian diplomacy. "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 pa.s.sed the hunting season, shared their amus.e.m.e.nts, their banquets, and their political conversations."[32] 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 (_nastaastchaa_). This enthusiasm 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 Germanic superiority, has so often and boldly expressed his disdain for the _Welches_ and Latins, feels at bottom a still greater contempt for that Sclavic race which every good German makes rhyme with slave (_slave-esclave_).[33] However that may be, never did foreign amba.s.sador 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 pa.s.sion 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, bounding into the dining hall, agreeably deranging the _convives_, licking the hand of their master, and "biting the calves of the servants' legs."[34] 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 Russian 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 contrary, they had never known on the banks of the Neva a Prussian as gay as this excellent M. de Bismarck, as good a fellow, as good a liver, having a loud laugh, coa.r.s.e 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 government, a grumbling, fault-finding 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 the _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 mechant_ insinuation of which Austria generally 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 1859, M. de Bismarck wrote in a confidential letter: "Austria and its dear confederates are intriguing at Berlin to have me recalled from here: I am, however, very amiable. G.o.d's will be done!"

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 Mikhalovitch had so long invited them, and, curiously enough, it was precisely the mobilization of the Prussian army in 1859, the mobilization so condemned by M. de Bismarck, which was the immediate cause of this sudden revival fraught with incalculable consequences. It is fas.h.i.+onable now in France to represent the Prussian government as having meditated for half a century a war of revenge and conquest, slowly brightening their arms, and training 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 warlike projects, and even the humiliation of Olmutz was not an incentive to the minister of war at Berlin. The two predecessors of William I. only sacrificed to the military 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 bottom, they were not far from thinking like the Grand Duke Constantine, the brother of the Emperor Nicholas, who one day said navely: "I detest war, it spoils the armies!" The swords of Blucher and Scharnhorst were sheathed since 1815; even the adoption of the needle gun in 1847 was only an accident, rather a scientific experiment; in 1848 and 1849, the Prussian troops did not s.h.i.+ne with marvelous _eclat_ 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 incoherencies 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 intelligence, an energy, and a rapidity without equal in history; they knew how to profit by all the discoveries of science, and above all did not let the great lesson escape them which a formidable civil war in North America soon taught, a war so rich in experiments 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 1860, 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 suffices to remember that the different parliaments of Berlin did not cease to oppose military reform, and 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 pa.s.sion. The force of will, the force of character, and in one word the genius, can still, even in a century of democratic leveling and uniform mediocrity play a _role_, of which our poor philosophy of history scarcely had a suspicion, which drowns so skillfully all responsibility and initiative in the blind fatality of the "ma.s.ses," 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 a.n.a.logies as in contrasts, 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 antecedents, it is necessary to turn to the posthumous "Journal" of M. Varnhagen von Ense,--the liberal, crabbed Dangeau, compromising in the highest degree, 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 awakened 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 const.i.tution, 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 occupy themselves with foreign affairs. And the unpopularity 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 mult.i.tude did not forego the satisfaction of inscribing on the palace of the fugitive the words of _national property_. Returned from England after the appeas.e.m.e.nt of the revolutionary effervescence, he placed himself, in 1849, at 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" influences 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. surrounded 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 destined 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 distinguished by its taste for arts and pleasure, she early had her own acquaintances, friends.h.i.+ps, and a bearing sufficiently different from the ordinary way of the court to resemble occasionally a divergence sought after with intention. The wishes of the Princess Augusta did not fail to finally exercise their influence on her husband, and the project, 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 terrible 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 presumptive of the throne of Prussia and Germany, this same daughter of Queen Victoria, send affectionate telegrams to Doctor Strauss when dying, and render to the author of the "Life of Jesus" an homage _in extremis_ which transported with enthusiasm all the valiant cavaliers of the _combat of civilization_!

Habituated in a manner, and for several years already, to consider the brother of the king as reconciled 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 const.i.tutional 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 programme of a reparative policy. He besought his councilors to bring about ameliorations in that which was arbitrary or contrary to the wants of the epoch. While defending himself against a dangerous _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 engagements, and of not hindering useful reforms. The 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 Hohenzollern, 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 Olmutz in 1850; they had let pa.s.s 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 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.[35] The chambers refused the demanded credit; the government went its way and continued its expenditures. The military question thus became a question of budget, and soon transformed itself into an irremediable const.i.tutional conflict. Towards the end of 1861, 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 regarded 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 cessation. a.s.suredly one always saw nothing but moral conquests in Germany, but one thought that a moral in action, aided somewhat by needle guns, 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 Germany with a Prussian point (_mit preussischer Spitze_)." When, in the month of October, 1860, the envoy of Prussia, Count Bra.s.sier 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 "Prussia 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 Hohenzollern, and we have recalled above the encouragements which Napoleon III. sent to Berlin after 1858.

The visit made by King William I.[36] to the Emperor of the French at Compiegne in the month of October, 1861, was in this respect a symptom more significant, 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 their full expression (_Abschluss_) would not only find the three princ.i.p.al races of the European system, but also the three great Christian churches!"[37] Lord Palmerston declared at this very epoch in parliament, with his Britannic _desinvolture_, "that the situation seemed pregnant with at least half a dozen respectable wars;" and in spite of the obscurity which still covers the transactions of the years 1861-1862, it is not doubtful that Napoleon III. had then occasionally brought up in his scheming mind a combination embracing at once the Orient and the Occident, 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 Compiegne, which he was to recall with a certain tenderness two years later in his polite reply to the invitation of the Congress. In October, 1861, Napoleon III., at Compiegne, probably made use of no other language than that which he had used in 1858 at Berlin by the mediation of the Marquis 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 conflicts in the interior and the political constellations in the exterior united, towards the end of 1861, in equally urging the King of Prussia to energetic resolutions. A man of vigor was wanted for the vigorous actions which were projected, and the glances naturally fell on that grumbling diplomat at St. Petersburg, 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 1860 and 1861, and to repeat without cessation the precept of Strafford, the precept of thorough (_a outrance!_). We see him during these years making very frequent journeys to Germany, seeking opportunities of meeting 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 Compiegne, 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 (18th September, 1861), and directed entirely against a political programme which the conservative party in Prussia had published. In this curious letter he rises with violence against the _Bund_, "the hot-bed of particularism,"

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 dangerous fiction of a solidarity which would exist between all the conservative interests_. To triumph over this "dangerous fiction"

strongly rooted in certain minds, there was in truth the great difficulty for the future minister of William I., his _omne tulit punctum_, 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 certainly 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 Mikhalovitch allowed itself most often to be convinced without too much a.s.sistance, it was not the same with the Hohenzollern, who, afterwards, on many an occasion, and in decisive moments, was to feel the scruples, the shudders, and what Falstaff calls the "tertian fevers of conscience."

On the return of William I. from Compiegne, the nomination of the cavalier of the Mark to the direction of affairs was already a well-arranged and fixed matter. M. de Bismarck soon afterwards came to a.s.sist 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 parade which was 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 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 inaugurating his government of combat he wished to add some new conversations to those which were held at Compiegne, to take once again the measure of the man on whom a then universal belief made the destinies 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 studies 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, admired 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 incapacity." He saw also the influential men in the government, and in society, and strove to rally them to his ideas and his projects. He did not conceal that his sovereign would not delay to appeal to him, and he exposed without 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 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 nevertheless always been, as regards the goal which he pursued, of a _desinvolture_, of an indiscretion without equal, and it was thus that he had at Paris in 1862 those astonis.h.i.+ng and confidential conferences which only amused and which should have made them reflect.[38]

France,--said M. de Bismarck then and since, in 1862 as in 1864 and 1865, every time that he conversed 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, the 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, Austria will guard it, even its preponderance will increase, 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 Ca.s.sel and Na.s.sau, _it has a dislocated shoulder_ on the side of Hanover, it is in the air, and this painful situation necessarily condemns 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 itself 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 possible aggrandizements of Prussia seem to be excessive, and to break the balance of strength what would prevent 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 intelligence, accompanied by many an ingenious malicious remark, happy _mots_ on men and things, on that chamber of lords at Berlin, for instance, composed 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_.

In the last days of the month of June, the new representative of Prussia at the court of the Tuileries 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 little 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 politics, and knows neither journals nor dispatches. It was at this moment (the end of September, 1862) that he received from his sovereign t