Chapter XXXIV: THE REIGN OF VICTORIA (continued) (2)

On the morning of the 16th, no movement having been made that day by the French troops massed in front of Gravelotte on account of the non-arrival of the 3rd and 4th Corps, the heads of the German columns, appearing from the southward about 10 A.M., pushed back Forton's cavalry division, which had bivouacked to the south of the lower Verdun road, and occupied Mars-la-Tour. At first the Germans were in no great force, but their numbers kept increasing and their artillery fire became more and more deadly. At noon Bazaine was compelled to bring up the Guard and place them in line. It was not till two o'clock that the 3rd and 4th Corps came into action on the right of the French line, which then extended in a north-westerly and south-easterly direction across both the Verdun roads, facing the Prussians who were coming up from the south and west. The battle raged all day with great violence; at nightfall the French held their positions and had taken a Prussian flag. But their loss, apparently owing to the superiority of the German artillery, was fearfully heavy; and the Germans were masters of the road to Vionville.

The French bivouacked on the battle-field. On the next day Bazaine found that it was impossible to continue his retreat on Verdun for several reasons. The enemy held the lower road in great force, so that an attempt to break through them would only have brought on another battle against augmented numbers; and almost the same might be said of the upper road, which for a long distance is only separated from the lower by a narrow tract of level or undulating country. Provisions also had fallen short and ammunition still more; and these could only be replenished from the Government establishments in Metz. On the 17th, therefore, the French were engaged all day in falling back to, and strengthening themselves upon a commanding position extending from Amanvillers on the north to Rozerieulles on the south.

In advance of the right front of this position is the village of Verneville, round which Bazaine stationed the 6th Corps under Canrobert. But observing that there was a strong position at the village of St. Privat, commanding the road to Briey, the occupation of which would extend northwards the line already taken up, and make a turning movement on the part of the enemy more difficult, Marshal Canrobert asked permission to move his corps to St. Privat. Bazaine gave his consent; the 6th Corps occupied St. Privat; and the symmetry and defensive strength of the French line were doubtless improved by the change. As in previous engagements the rashness of divisional commanders, particularly Steinmetz, caused the loss of whole brigades before the battle was won by the Germans. Thus a great combined attack of cavalry and artillery was ordered by Steinmetz between four and five. The batteries of the 8th Corps, and three reserve batteries of the 7th Corps, supported by a large body of horse, were pushed across the defile. But they fared no better than their predecessors. The 4th Light Battery, trotting up the hill to the right of St. Hubert, "suffered so severely that, after firing ten rounds, it was put _hors de combat_, and obliged to retire down the hill." The attack failed and both cavalry and artillery fell back by degrees on their original positions. But gradually the superiority of the Prussian artillery fire told, and Bazaine persisted in keeping his reserves, amounting to a third of his forces, out of the field of action. Finally the Saxon Corps, after a long _détour_, delivered their attack on the north flank. After several unsuccessful attempts, in which a great many men fell, a combined assault by the Prussian Guards and the Saxon Corps, simultaneously directed on St. Privat from three sides, the north, the west, and the south, forced the brave defenders, soon after seven, to relinquish their hold. The right of Canrobert's corps was then thrown back, but still faced the enemy, and darkness soon terminated the contest. The result was that the French had held their ground everywhere except on the extreme right, but that all the roads leading to Verdun had been taken from them. On the following day Bazaine withdrew his whole army from the plateau and brought them down to within the shelter of the guns of Metz. Only the half-trained levies at Châlons remained to bar the march of the invader upon the brilliant capital of France.

The intelligence of the great battles fought near Metz reached England in various conflicting forms. But it was clear that a French army was cooped up in Metz; that thousands of men were lying, disabled by sickness or wounds, in hospitals, many of which were of a provisional and inadequate character; and that great distress must infallibly fall upon the poor inhabitants of the north-east region of France, which formed the theatre of war. The reckless way in which the French Government began the war had aroused feelings of deep and indignant disapproval among all classes and parties in Great Britain; but now that it was a question of suffering to be alleviated, human needs to be supplied, the warm hearts of British men and women forgot all but the urgency and the duty of charity. Associations for the relief of the sick and wounded were formed in every direction, and received overflowing support; and numbers both of men and women volunteered to tend the wounded of both armies under the protection of the red cross of the Geneva Convention. The German authorities, whose arrangements in view of these and other accidents of war admitted of little improvement, declined to avail themselves of the zeal of foreign volunteers; but by the French, whom overwhelming misfortune had surprised in a state of unreadiness that only brings out the rashness of their Government into stronger relief, all such services were thankfully accepted. Later a very useful organisation was set on foot by the _Daily News_ newspaper for the special purpose of relieving the wants of the peasantry and others in the country round Sedan, whom the devastating fury of the war had left houseless and penniless.

As soon as a clear notion of what had occurred near Metz was obtained by the French Government, it became a matter of very anxious deliberation what course should be adopted. For some days Marshal MacMahon had been actively engaged in forming a new army at the camp of Châlons out of the heterogeneous materials that he had at his disposal. Altogether a force had been collected of 135,000 men. What was to be done with it? Made wise by the event, critics and historians without number have condemned MacMahon's flank march through the Argonne for the purpose of relieving Bazaine, and have written as if it was absurd and incapable of achievement from the first. Then, as it must have been undertaken from some motive, they have seen in the enterprise the reckless and desperate resolve of the Government of the Emperor to sacrifice the interests of France, which would have dictated MacMahon's retirement towards Paris, to the interests of the dynasty, and stake everything on the success of a most hazardous combination, the failure of which, while it was fatal to the Empire, involved France also in its ruin. The Empress and Palikao, so it is commonly said, forced MacMahon to march towards Sedan against his better judgment, they being influenced by purely dynastic considerations. Count Palikao replied to these critics in a book published after the war was over, and it is impossible to deny that his assertions seem to be of great weight. Was the scheme practicable? Count Palikao maintains that it was; and Colonel Rüstow, an independent witness, appears to be of the same opinion. The gist of their argument is that had MacMahon started at once and pursued a direct march, he would have eluded the Crown Prince and relieved Bazaine after a battle with the small force commanded by the Prince of Saxony.

MacMahon, however, when, after long resistance, he acceded to the policy of endeavouring to relieve Bazaine, considered that he would be exposing his right flank too much if he were to lead his army on the line indicated by Palikao: he preferred a more circuitous course which would take his army close to the Belgian frontier and bring it by way of Montmédy and Briey upon Metz. On the 23rd he marched northwards from Rheims, where he had delayed for two days. Even by this route he had sufficient start, in the opinion of Palikao, to have outmarched the Crown Prince, had he given way to no indecision, and made long marches every day without troubling himself about the number of stragglers whom he might leave behind him. He might, it is said, have reached Montmédy on the 25th of August, on the evening of which day the Crown Prince of Prussia first heard of his northward march. "On the 29th, or, at the latest, on the 30th, he could have united with Bazaine before Metz--that is, if the latter broke through the investing lines--and have fought a battle with Prince Frederick Charles, who would then have been no longer able to oppose him with equal forces." But instead of this, the head of MacMahon's army only reached Mouzon on the 28th of August, and he was therefore unable to bring his whole army across the Meuse before it was struck by the Crown Prince.

That commander, immediately he heard of MacMahon's movements, hastened in hot pursuit together with the Prince of Saxony. On the 27th MacMahon became aware that his plan was discovered and wished to retreat but was overruled by the Empress from Paris. On the 30th of August the 5th Corps (De Failly) was at Beaumont near the Meuse. They had arrived there only that morning after a fatiguing march, and a defeat on the previous day; the soldiers were engaged in cooking; and the scouting and outpost duties appear to have been shamefully neglected. While engaged in the multifarious avocations of a camp, and dreaming of no danger, the doomed men were startled by the bursting of shells among them, fired by a battery belonging to the 1st Bavarian Corps (Von der Tann) which had advanced unperceived through the woods. Von der Tann was presently supported by the 4th Corps (Alvensleben II.) and the 12th Corps (Saxons). Surprised and outnumbered, the French made a feeble resistance, and were driven in confusion from the field. Of the beaten troops, some succeeded in crossing the Meuse, others fled northward in the direction of Sedan. MacMahon was deeply distressed on hearing of the ill conduct of the 5th Corps--of the negligence that had allowed it to be surprised, and the ease with which it had suffered itself to be dispersed and demoralised. A portion of the beaten troops had been, as we have seen, cut off from the Meuse, and thrown back in the direction of Sedan: it was this probably, as well as the knowledge that the head of Vinoy's column was at Mézières, which induced MacMahon--although the 1st and 12th Corps had already crossed the Meuse and were marching upon Montmédy, and the 7th Corps crossed it at Villers below Mouzon in the course of the 30th--to give orders on the evening of that day for the abandonment of his former line of march, and the concentration of all the forces under his command upon the heights surrounding the fortress of Sedan and on the right bank of the Meuse above the town. In the course of the 31st this movement was effected. By gross negligence the 11th German Corps was allowed by the French to throw two pontoon bridges, apparently without opposition, across the Meuse at Donchery, over which the whole 11th Corps was transported to the right bank by the morning of the 1st of September, and was shortly afterwards followed by the 5th Corps. By this operation the doom of the French army was sealed, the only fear of the Germans being lest it should cut its way into Belgium. On the evening of the 30th, orders had been sent from the royal headquarters that the Army of the Meuse, occupying the right wing, should prevent the French left from escaping to the eastward, between the Meuse and the Belgian frontier; while the Third Army should continue its march northwards, and attack the enemy wherever he was fallen in with. These orders had been complied with, and the 11th Corps had been pushed across the Meuse at Donchery during the night of the 31st, so that on the morning of the 1st of September seven German Corps and a half, together with cavalry and artillery, forming a force of upwards of 200,000 men, with from 600 to 700 guns, were already posted in such positions as to leave no way of escape for the French. Two independent armies being on the field, the commander of neither of which could properly take orders from the other, the King of Prussia came upon the scene, as he had done before the day of Königgrätz, and assumed supreme command. The battle began very early on the morning of the 1st of September, while the summer haze still covered the low grounds, with the attack of the Bavarians on Bazeilles, which they carried after a desperate resistance. MacMahon, who had been severely wounded, handed over the command to General Wimpffen. Meanwhile the left wing of the Germans had been making alarming progress. The 11th Corps, having reached Vrigne aux Bois at 7 A.M., was ordered by the Crown Prince of Prussia to wheel round to its right and attack St. Menges. This village lies a little to the east of the extremity of the great horse-shoe bend of the Meuse, nearly due north of Sedan. Following the 11th, the 5th Corps also passed round the head of the bend, and took ground to the eastward of Bose. Then turning southwards and deploying into line, both corps advanced against the 7th French Corps, which occupied the hilly ground between Floing and Illy. Before one o'clock the ring of encircling fire had been so closed in that an interval of not more than 4,000 paces separated the left of the 5th Corps from the right of the Guards. Balan, the village between Bazeilles and Sedan, was taken and held by the Bavarians and the 4th Corps about two o'clock. About 4 P.M. the French troops about Balan were ordered to fall back upon Sedan.

At 5 P.M. the heads of all the German columns pushed forwards, and commenced to bombard Sedan with field pieces. It is a small town of 15,000 inhabitants, without detached forts, and powerless to resist artillery. The whole French army being now pent up within its walls, a scene of indescribable confusion arose. Shells fell and exploded upon houses and in the streets; and the shrieks and groans of the wounded, the execrations of the infuriated soldiers, the cries of the miserable inhabitants, the helpless clamour and hubbub that reigned everywhere, combined to form a picture such as only a Virgil or a Dante could paint.

Wimpffen desired to resign his command into the Emperor's hands; but to this Napoleon naturally would not consent. However, the Emperor himself caused a flag of truce to be hoisted over the gates of Sedan. To this it had come; and the sun of France, as the first military Power in Europe, set on that fatal day.

The Emperor desired to surrender his own person into the hands of the King of Prussia, and sent to the latter, by General Reille, who accompanied the German envoy on his return, a letter thus expressed:--

"Sire, my Brother,--Not having been able to die in the midst of my troops, nothing remains for me but to place my sword in the hands of your Majesty."

The King sent a courteous reply, in which he prayed the Emperor to nominate an officer of rank to negotiate with the officer whom he had named on his side, General Moltke, for the capitulation of the French army. Wimpffen undertook the sad and humiliating duty, and met Moltke at the Prussian headquarters, in the village of Donchery. The Frenchman tried hard to obtain terms that fell short of unconditional surrender. But the logic of facts was against him and Moltke, calm as fate and cold as the grave, unfolded to him with pitiless accuracy the full horror of his situation. The terms of surrender were settled at six o'clock on the morning of the 2nd of September and, being ratified by the King, soon afterwards, came into force. The French army became prisoners of war; and all arms and material of war, whether belonging to the army or to the fortress, were to be handed over by a French to a German commission; the officers were to retain their freedom, their arms, and their personal property on giving their word of honour not to serve against Germany during the continuance of the war. There were many officers, however, who preferred the nobler part of sharing captivity with the men rather than renounce the right of bearing arms against Germany so long as the war lasted. The wild excitement, rage, and grief that seized upon the soldiers, when they knew that they were to surrender their arms and go into captivity, surpass the power of description. By batches of about 10,000 at a time, they were transported, during several days, by rail, to Saarbrück and thence to various parts of Germany.

Seeing the struggle it had cost Wimpffen to agree to the terms proposed, Napoleon thought that could he see Bismarck, he might perhaps obtain from him some alleviation of their rigour. About six in the morning, therefore, of the 2nd of September, he set out in a carriage towards Donchery, having sent forward a messenger to inform Count Bismarck of his desire for an interview. Bismarck was still in bed, but immediately rose and rode out to meet the Emperor. He met the carriage a little distance on the Sedan side of the Donchery bridge and, dismounting, respectfully approached it and asked his Majesty's commands. Napoleon said that he wished to speak with the King, whom he imagined to be at Donchery; but Bismarck replied that the King of Prussia was then at Vendresse, some fourteen miles away. Indeed the Count, knowing his master's kindly nature, had removed him to a distance until the terms were signed. Later in the day a meeting was arranged between the Emperor and the King at a country house near Donchery, called the Château de Bellevue. The interview was brief, but Napoleon's eyes filled with tears when he learned that Prince Frederick Charles was still before Metz, and consequently that there was no hope for Bazaine. The Emperor quitted the Château on the morning of the 3rd of September, and proceeded in a close carriage (it was raining heavily) to the Belgian town of Bouillon. Thence escorted by rail to Liége, and entering Prussian territory at Verviers, the illustrious prisoner reached Wilhelmshöhe, near Cassel, on the evening of the 5th of September, where suitable preparations had been made for his reception.

M. Jules Favre says that late in the evening of the 2nd of September a trustworthy person came to him, and informed him that Marshal MacMahon had been wounded, that the army had been defeated, and that it, along with the Emperor, was shut up in Sedan. All the next day a feverish anxiety reigned in every part of Paris. What was known was terrible, but a just foreboding whispered that there was still worse behind. A meeting of the Chamber was summoned by the Government for three o'clock on the afternoon of the 3rd of September. Count Palikao announced the failure of Bazaine's sorties out of Metz on the 31st of August and 1st of September, and admitted that, after a partial success, the French army, overwhelmed by numbers, had been driven back, partly upon Mézières, partly upon Sedan, and a small portion across the Belgian frontier. In presence of these grave events the Minister declared that the Government appealed to the strength, vigour, and patriotism of the nation; he added that 200,000 Gardes Mobiles were about to enter Paris, who, united to the forces already there, would ensure the safety of the capital. Jules Favre then rose. Availing himself of an admission made by Palikao that the Emperor was not in communication with his Ministers and gave them no orders, he came to the conclusion that "the Government had ceased to exist," and enlarged upon the means that were at hand for supplying its place. Before separating the Chamber voted urgency for a proposition of M. Argence, calling to arms all men between twenty and thirty-five years, whether married or single. Filled with gloom and anxious apprehension, the members separated till the following day (Sunday, September 4th) at five o'clock.

But soon after the meeting certain intelligence of the capitulation reached Palikao and the Ministers and the news, coming by various channels, soon flew over Paris. Immense crowds filled the boulevards; cries were frequently heard demanding the fall of the Government. M. Favre and some of his friends went to M. Schneider, the President of the Corps Législatif, and prevailed upon him to convene it for a midnight sitting that same night. Jules Favre did not conceal from M. Schneider that he meant to propose the deposition of the Emperor; but to this the latter would by no means give his consent. He and many other honourable members of the Chamber believed themselves, even were there no other argument against a revolution, to be restrained by their oath of fidelity to the Emperor from joining in any project that contemplated either his dethronement or the repudiation of the dynasty.

The plan of Jules Favre and his friends of the Extreme Left was this: that the deposition of the Emperor and his dynasty should be proclaimed, and that the Chambers should assume all the powers of government, exercising them through an executive commission consisting of a few members, in which not only Palikao but also M. Schneider would be retained. The plan was embodied in three articles, which ran as follows:--

Article 1. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte and his dynasty are declared to be deposed from the power given them by the constitution.

Article 2. A parliamentary committee, consisting of ----, is entrusted with the powers of government and with the mission to expel the enemy from France.

Article 3. General Trochu remains in his post as Governor of Paris.

The articles prepared by Jules Favre were signed by twenty-seven members of the Corps Législatif, but the name of M. Thiers was not among them. That experienced and wary politician had much confidence in the military knowledge and skill of Count Palikao, and on this account, as well as on account of the general considerations that may be urged against a revolutionary procedure, he would bear no part in a plan for overthrowing the Government. At the midnight sitting of the Chamber, no disguise being any longer possible, Count Palikao announced that the army, having been thrown back after heroic efforts on Sedan, and finding resistance no longer possible, had capitulated, and that the Emperor had been made prisoner. He then demanded an adjournment till noon of the same day (September 4th), that the Government might have time to mature its proposals in this alarming crisis. The adjournment was not opposed; but M. Jules Favre gave notice that he should, at the mid-day sitting, bring forward the motion the terms of which have been already stated. The motion, if the Count Palikao is to be believed, was ill received by the majority of the members.

Between 8 and 9 A.M. a council of Ministers was held at the Tuileries, presided over by the Empress, who displayed exemplary firmness and courage. It was resolved at this council to propose to the Chambers the nomination of a Council of Regency of five members (each member to be nominated by the absolute majority of the Legislative Body), with Count Palikao as its Lieutenant-General. But when he arrived at the Corps Législatif, shortly before noon, and communicated to a number of deputies the plan of the Government, he found that the use of the term "Regency" was generally disapproved. Thiers and his friends desired that the new council should be simply described as a "Council of Government." To this Palikao was unwilling to accede because the words seemed to betoken a breach of continuity between the new Government and the old--to be equivalent therefore to sanctioning revolution. An ingenious expedient occurred to him: it was to alter the words "Council of Regency" into "a Council of the Government and of National Defence;" thus avoiding the unpopular word, and yet implying that the Government had not come to an end, but was prolonged in and transformed into the new Council. The majority of the deputies appeared to approve of the clause so worded; and the Empress, whose consent Palikao was careful to obtain, sent him word that she relied entirely on him and approved of whatever he might do.

The hour for the meeting was now come. The approaches to the hall of the Legislative Body were occupied by troops of the line, and 600 mounted gendarmes were stationed in reserve in the Palais de l'Exposition in the Champs Elysées.

Three propositions were brought before the Chamber: first, that of the Government; secondly, that of Jules Favre; and thirdly, that of M. Thiers. The last was signed by forty-six deputies, and was expressed in the following terms:--

"In view of the existing state of affairs the Chamber names a Commission of Government and of National Defence.

"A constituent Assembly will be convoked as soon as circumstances will permit."

The three propositions were referred to the bureaux in the usual way that a committee might be appointed to report upon them. But while deliberation was going on in the bureaux (which met in committee-rooms distinct from the Legislative Chamber itself) events occurred that soon brought their labours to an untimely end. The Chambers were invaded by an unruly mob and the President was compelled to suspend the sitting. Gambetta with most of the Paris deputies proceeded to the Hôtel de Ville and there proclaimed the Republic. The Government of National Defence was constituted with General Trochu as its President. Already the Empress had fled and the Senate quietly dispersed without the slightest attempt to assert its authority. The other Ministerial posts were thus distributed:--Foreign Affairs, Jules Favre; Interior, Gambetta; War, General Le Flô; Marine, Admiral Fourichon; Justice, Crémieux; Finance, Picard; Public Instruction and Religion, Jules Simon; Prefect of Police, Count Kératry. M. Etienne Arago was appointed Mayor of Paris.

The Corps Législatif did not resign itself without an effort to the violent suppression that had been effected. A deputation of its members, headed by M. Grévy, presently waited on the Provisional Government. M. Grévy stated that a considerable number of members of the Corps Législatif, holding the same principles as those that animated the Provisional Government, and prepared to accept the fall of the Napoleonic system as an accomplished fact, were desirous of continuing the sessions of that body in a spirit of co-operation with the Government at the Hôtel de Ville. It was arranged that a meeting should be held at the Presidency at eight o'clock the same evening, when Jules Favre and Jules Simon, as a deputation from the Provisional Government, would inform their former colleagues of the decision arrived at in reference to M. Grévy's proposal. The subject was then anxiously debated. M. Glais Bizoin informed the Ministers that he had taken upon himself to close the doors of the hall of the Corps Législatif and seal them. This energetic proceeding it was deemed upon the whole advisable to sustain. The continuance of the Corps Législatif would lead, it was feared, to political intrigues and complications of various kinds that would be unfavourable to that concentration of every one's faculties on the task of national defence which it was so desirable to promote. At the meeting in the evening, M. Thiers being in the chair, Jules Favre explained to the members present the reasons that actuated the Provisional Government in declining the co-operation of the Corps Législatif. Thiers replied with exquisite _finesse_, spoke of Jules Favre as his "_cher ci-devant collégue;_" said that he could not approve of what had happened, but that he desired none the less earnestly that the courage of those of his colleagues who had not withdrawn before a formidable task might be profitable to the country and gain for it that success which was the ardent desire of every good citizen.

In England the news of the fall of the Empire and the Revolution of the 4th of September was received with mixed feelings. A very general opinion prevailed that the Emperor had been overtaken by a just retribution, though this feeling was qualified by the recollection of the real friendliness that Napoleon had generally manifested towards the country, and in which his sincerity cannot be doubted. With regard to any change the revolution just consummated might make in the position of France, and in the duties of the neutral Powers in her regard, the Government of Mr. Gladstone gave no indication of a belief that, either now or hereafter, interference (unless Belgium were attacked) could become the duty or the interest of England. But, as far as words went, the Provisional Government could not complain of any lack of cordiality. The British ambassador, Lord Lyons, was the first of all the foreign representatives to call on M. Jules Favre at the Foreign Office on the morning of the 5th of September. Lord Lyons was full of good will. He reminded the Minister that his Government had offered its mediation to France, which had refused it. He could not conceal that public opinion in England was still hostile to France and that the mind of the Queen was strongly acted upon by the influence of relationship in favour of Germany. Yet it was possible that, in the course of events, the feeling in England might change; and that a sense of common interest might, if Germany pushed her successes too far and too unscrupulously, make the majority of Englishmen think that of two evils intervention was the less. In reply, M. Jules Favre, after laving great stress on the circumstance that the Imperial Government which rashly began the war had been overthrown, and that the party now in power had from the first been opposed to war, enlarged on those considerations which seemed to him to prove that England had a manifest interest in interfering to prevent France from being seriously weakened. England, he thought, would sink in reputation, and lose the respect that her magnanimous conduct at the beginning of the century had won for her among the nations of Europe, if she tamely suffered a people to which she was bound by so many ties to be destroyed piecemeal. England was now in a position, relatively to France, which might be likened to that in which France stood, relatively to Austria, after the battle of Sadowa. France then extended a generous and protecting hand and saved Austria from ruin; so let England now act towards France. Lord Lyons promised to bring M. Jules Favre's observations under the notice of his Government and, after expressing the strong feeling of sympathy with France in her misfortunes by which he was personally animated, took his departure.

At the time of the formation of the new Government Jules Favre was honestly of opinion that the change in her representation would powerfully recommend the cause of France to the neutral Powers. The Emperor, he argued, made war upon personal or dynastic grounds; the Emperor is overthrown; the true France now makes her voice heard; declares that she would not have gone to war if she could have helped it; that her ideas all lie in the sphere of peace and solidarity of peoples; and that the other Powers of Europe may safely make a collective representation to Prussia in order to bring about peace, because the Republic in France is a guarantee that no wanton aggression will ever be practised towards Germany hereafter. That this view should commend itself to an ardent Republican was natural, but that it should be shared in by other nations, and above all by Germany, was most improbable. Count Bismarck, though Jules Favre did not as yet know it, had already caused it to be understood that Germany held France, not the French Government for the time being, responsible for the declaration of war; and would not now grant peace till she had obtained the most solid guarantees for the future.

Still, though England held back, might not France hope to be aided in her hour of need by one of the other Powers, or by a combination of them? M. Favre was firmly persuaded that both gratitude and interest ought to bring about a collective intervention on the part of the neutral Powers, which should force Prussia to negotiate for peace. Yet the grounds that he himself alleges for this persuasion are vague and inconclusive. The greatest among the neutral Powers "could not," he says, "open its annals without finding glorious instances of the devotedness of our chivalrous nation. All had enjoyed her hospitality, had found her generous, kindly, ready for any sacrifice, and seeking no recompense." Every word of this might be admitted, though not without qualifications; but what then? Admiration for the geniality and fertility of the French mind, recollection of cheering and stimulating hours passed within her borders, ought not to have blinded the neighbours of France to considerations of justice, nor to have induced them to shelter her altogether from the effects of the just resentment of Germany. That intervention was not resorted to later may be a legitimate subject of regret; but no neutral will be convinced by M. Favre's reasoning that it was the duty of his country to intervene immediately after the fall of the Empire. Unless, indeed, there were some special pre-existing obligation, by which a particular nation might be bound, in gratitude and honour, to come to the assistance of France. Jules Favre thought there were two nations thus situated--Austria and Italy. With regard to Austria, the blunt explanations of Prince Metternich, who called at the Foreign Office soon after Lord Lyons, dispelled all expectation of aid in that quarter. Austria had been saved by French intervention after the battle of Königgrätz; Prince Metternich did not think of denying this, nor of extenuating the claim to which such a service rendered his country amenable. He attempted to explain away the belief of the Duc de Gramont respecting words that had fallen from Count Beust. "It is not impossible," he said, "that M. Beust may have spoken of preparing 300,000 men if we were free to do so; but it is just this freedom that has always been denied us. The Emperor and his Ministers will never brave the will of the Czar. Now the latter has threatened that if we were to declare ourselves for France, he would join Prussia. Our hands are therefore bound; but we will do nothing against you; we will even aid you in everything that is reconcilable with our neutrality." These words clearly define the position of Austria at that time. She would willingly have aided France, but the Court of St. Petersburg, impelled by strong family and dynastic ties to sympathy with Prussia, had intimated that if Austria interfered for France, the sword of Russia would be thrown into the opposite scale.

Italy remained: could the nation that owed its very existence to France refuse to lend its aid to its benefactor in this time of peril? To the Italian Ambassador, who called after Prince Metternich, M. Favre used decided, almost peremptory, language. M. Nigra was embarrassed and sad; perhaps he was thinking of the return that the Italian Government were at that moment preparing to make for the generous aid of France in the shape of the annexation of the Papal territory. He did not contradict one of Jules Favre's assertions, but only took his stand on the impossibility of isolated action on the part of Italy. She was ready to unite with other Powers, and even to lead them if they would follow. But nothing was to be done without the support of England or Russia.

These interviews opened the eyes of Jules Favre, and convinced him that France could hope for no armed intervention. She must trust to herself, and put forth her utmost energies to defend her capital, to kindle the flame of patriotism in the population, and to raise new armies in the place of those that had been lost.