Aug. 16, 1870.
So far as we can conjecture, the military situation is very bad, and the political is certainly as bad as can be. There are ups and downs in the spirits of the French about the war, but the Emperor and the dynasty seem simply to sink lower and lower. La Tour d'Auvergne[22] speaks still as a loyal subject, but I know of no one else who does. The Empress shows pluck, but not hope. She has sent her nieces away, and she summoned the Bonapartes in Paris to the Tuileries yesterday, and told them plainly that the time was come for them to look after themselves.
No party wishes to come into office, with the risk of having to sign a disadvantageous peace. It is this which has hitherto kept the Left within bounds. They wish the peace to be made by the Emperor before they upset him. No one can tell what the effect of a victory might be; few people expect one, and fewer still believe that the effect would be to set the Emperor on his legs again. The Paris population so far seems to have behaved well.
The one thing, in fact, upon which there seemed to be general agreement was that the Empire was doomed.
By the middle of August the feeling in Paris against England, produced largely by articles in the London press, had reached a very disagreeable point, and the Ambassador was obliged to ask that he might be spared from having to make too many obnoxious communications to the French Government; these communications consisting of complaints put forward by the Prussian Government through the channel of the British Embassy at Paris, which it was really the duty of the United States Legation to deal with.
Lord Lyons to Mr. Hammond.
Paris, Aug. 23, 1870.
The last paragraph of your letter of this morning frightens me not a little. You say the Prussians complain of a flag of truce being fired upon and of field hospitals being shot at; and you add: 'You will probably hear from us about these matters, if Bernstorff makes a formal representation.' I hope this does not imply that you mean to adopt all Prussian complaints as British, and make me the channel of communicating them to the French Government. Please do not forget that the United States Legation, not this Embassy, represents Prussian interests in France, and that if you impose upon me such works of supererogation as making unpleasant communications from Prussia, you will expose me to well-merited snubs, and damage my position so much that I shall be able to effect very little in a real emergency. The particular things which you mention ought not to be made the subject of diplomatic representation at all: they ought to be discussed by Flag of Truce between the two Generals.
Why H.M. Government should have taken the inexplicable course of gratuitously offending the French Government is not explained, but at all events the practice was abandoned.