Chapter 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 languishing 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 Huebner 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 circumstances 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 Bluecher. 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 assist 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, passed an agreeable day in a villa, so much more agreeable "when one has the feeling of being sheltered from the telegraph." The news of a great battle fought 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 hepatitis endangered his life seriously. "They covered my body with innumerable cupping glasses large as saucers, with mustard poultices and quantities of blisters, and I was already half way to a better world when I began to convince my 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 constitution 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 Mikhailovitch, 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 passage: "Called to express ourselves on the acts and principles of the Sardinian government, we can only deplore them profoundly, and we believe that we are fulfilling a rigorous duty by expressing in the most explicit and formal 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 _naivetes_ 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 friendship 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 relationship 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 nobility of the Baltic Provinces, by the Keyserlingk, the Uxkuell, 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 passed the hunting season, shared their amusements, 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 (_nastaiastchaia_). 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 ambassador on the banks of the Neva have so much devotion as the cavalier of the Mark for the polar stars, or pushed as far as he did the passion of local color. He pushed it so far as to introduce into his house several little bears which (as formerly the foxes at Kniephof) came, at the dinner hour, 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 pronounced in the language of Pouchkine.

The Russians could not help giving a most cordial reception to a diplomat who showed himself so taken with their usages and customs, with their pleasures and their "peculiarities," and who, moreover, had the advantage of succeeding to that good M. de Werther, whose reputation, neither there nor anywhere else, was exactly that of a too hilarious character. On the 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, coarse jests, and a witty speech. He indulged in all sorts of pleasantries at the expense of the "Philistines of the Spree," the "old fogies of Potsdam," which gave him no small success: a minister plenipotentiary slandering his own 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. God'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 Mikhailovitch 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 fashionable 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 Olmuetz 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 naively: "I detest war, it spoils the armies!" The swords of Bluecher 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 shine 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 Muenchausen, "to condense mists into stones of size for a gigantic edifice," and to make of a dream of _savans_ a popular passion. The force of will, the force of character, and in one word the genius, can still, even in a century of democratic 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 "masses," and, as a Teutonic proverb says, cannot distinguish the trees on account of looking at the forest. Take from the most recent history of Prussia three or four men who answer to the names of William I., Moltke, Roon, and Bismarck, and the old Barbarossa would very probably up to the present time have continued his secular sleep in the cave of the Kyffhaeuser.

Nature delights as well in analogies 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 constitution, found credit for a moment even in the heart of the ministry; and under no conditions would he give his consent to the feudal "charter" granted by his brother the 3d of February, 1847, except on the express reservation that the States should not decide on the budget, and should never 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 multitude did not forego the satisfaction of inscribing on the palace of the fugitive the words of _national property_. Returned from England after the appeasement 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, friendships, 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 constitutional language. A "new era" was to commence for Prussia; that word was almost officially adopted to designate the change of system, and in a memorable address, delivered on the 8th November, 1858, to the cabinet which he had formed, the prince regent sketched the 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 Olmuetz in 1850; they had let pass the opportunities which the wars of 1854 and 1859 presented. The love of peace was absolute, there was a complete absence of ambition, they were perfectly resigned to the political situation which they occupied, and on the other side no one wished 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 constitutional 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. Assuredly 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 Brassier de Saint-Simon, read to Count Cavour the famous note of M. de Schleinitz against the Italian annexations, the president of the Sardinian council listened in silence to the harangue, then expressed his great regret at having displeased the government of Berlin on this point, but declared that he consoled himself with the thought that "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 principal 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 Mikhailovitch allowed itself most often to be convinced without too much assistance, 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 assist at the coronation of the king at Koenigsberg, and he only returned to St. Petersburg to take leave definitely. At the beginning of the month of May, 1862, he was again at Berlin; at the great military 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 astonishing 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 Cassel and Nassau, _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 the pressing call to go to Berlin. The elections had given a deplorable result, the immense majority of the new chamber belonged to the _progressionists_. They had not been able to decide at Berlin on the choice of the president of the future ministry,--"a cover for the government pot," as M. de Bismarck said; he was to fill those functions in the interim by taking the portfolio of foreign affairs. Burned by the sun of the South and fortified by the waters of the Gulf, "tanned and salted," the former aspirant for the inspectorship of dikes in a district of the Mark, started for his country to fill there the first position in the state. He only, so to speak, crossed Paris this time, but he remained there long enough to leave a characteristic _mot_, which summed up his entire programme. "Liberalism," said the designated chief of the Prussian government, in taking leave in the bureaux of the Quai d'Orsay, "liberalism is only nonsense which it is easy to bring to reason; but revolution is a force, which it is necessary to know how to use."

FOOTNOTES:

[26] "Austria is not a state, it is only a government."

[27] As well as the Germans born or naturalized in Russia who encumbered the different branches of the state service, and occupied in general a very large and important position in the administration of the empire. On his accession to the ministry, Alexander Mikhailovitch loudly signified his intention of "purging" his department of all these "intruders." Routine, however, and above all Sclavic idleness (which willingly leaves to foreigners and to "intruders" all work demanding perseverance and application) were not slow in triumphing over the principle of nationality; the palingenesis of the minister, announced with so much fuss, ended in a very insignificant change in the _personnel_ of the lower order, and the chancellor found among these Germans his two most devoted and capable aids: M. de Westmann, deceased last May at Wiesbaden, and M. de Hamburger, quite recently made secretary of state.

[28] Letter of M. de Cavour to M. Castelli-Bianchi, _Storia documentata_, vol. viii. p. 622.

[29] See, for this and all that follows concerning the relations of France and Russia in the years 1856-63, _Two Negotiations of Contemporaneous Diplomacy; the Alliances since the Congress of Paris_, in the _Revue des deux Mondes_, of the 15th September, 1864.

[30] It is true that, in a circular of the 27th May, 1859, the Russian vice-chancellor took care to give a commentary to his proposition, and to prove that the congress which he had planned looked to nothing chimerical. "This congress," said he, "_did not place any power in presence of the unknown_: its programme had been traced in advance. The fundamental idea which had presided at this combination, _prejudiced no essential interest_. _On one side, the state of territorial possession was maintained_, and on the other there could come from the congress _a result which had nothing excessive or unusual in the international relations_." It would be well to re-read this remarkable circular, and to weigh every word of it. One will find in it the most curious and substantial criticism, made, so to speak, by anticipation, of the different projects of the congress, those which later the Emperor Napoleon III. was to present to Europe, especially the eccentric project which surprised the world in the imperial speech of the 5th November, 1863.

[31] Massari, _Il Conte Cavour_, p. 268.

[32] _Aus der Petersburger Gesellschaft_, vol. ii. p. 90.

[33] In 1862, at the moment of definitely leaving his post at St. Petersburg, M. de Bismarck received the visit of a colleague, a foreign diplomat. They were speaking of Russia, and the future chancellor of Germany said, among other things, "I am in the habit, when leaving a country where I have lived long, to consecrate to it one of my watch charms, on which I have engraved the final impression which it has left me; do you wish to know the impression which I carry from St. Petersburg?" And he showed to the puzzled diplomat a little charm on which these words were engraved: "_Russia is nothingness!_"

[34] M. de Bismarck has since presented these quadrupeds to the zoological garden of the former free city of Frankfort.

[35] Constantin Roessler, _Graf Bismarck und die deutsche Nation_, Berlin, 1871.

[36] Frederick William IV. having died the 2d January, 1861, the prince regent took from that day the name William I.

[37] See the remarkable pamphlet entitled _Europa's Cabinete und Allianzen_, Leipzig, 1862. It is the work of a Russian diplomat, celebrated in political literature, the same whose book on the _Pentarchie_ had such a loud echo under the monarchy of July.

[38] See in the _Revue des deux Mondes_ of the 1st October, 1868, _Les Preliminaires de Sadowa_.

III.

UNITED ACTION.