In the closing days of 1870 fresh efforts were made by H.M. Government to start the Black Sea Conference as soon as possible, and to persuade the French to send a representative without delay. Under the circumstances, it might have been supposed that they would have named their Ambassador in London, but for some obscure reason, it was decided that Jules Favre was the only possible man, and as he was shut up in Paris it was necessary to obtain a safe conduct for him from the Germans. The following letter is of interest as an impartial appreciation of Jules Favre, and as containing some sage opinions upon the question of the Black Sea and the Dardanelles.
Lord Lyons to Lord Granville.
Bordeaux, Dec. 26, 1870.
I did all I could in favour of Tissot. He would have been a much more convenient plenipotentiary than Jules Favre and have facilitated the business of the Conference and the speedy termination of it. Jules Favre is, I believe an honest and really patriotic man—by which I mean a man who will sacrifice his own position and interests to what he believes to be the real good of his country. But he has not hitherto shown himself to be a good diplomatist or a skilful negotiator, and is too much led away by his feelings to be a good practical man of business. He will at all events go to London with a real knowledge of the state of things in Paris, and if he thinks the convocation of a National Assembly feasible and advisable, will have more means than any one else of bringing it about in spite of Gambetta. It will be good too that he should see for himself what the real feelings and intentions of the English Government are. He is a man, who would, I should think, be touched by real kindness and consideration for his country and himself in these times, and sensitive in case anything like a slight was put upon him or them—and particularly if the situation of France were not taken very seriously by all who approach him. He was a fierce and even truculent orator in the Chamber, but in private life is mild and agreeable. His power of speaking may be an inconvenience in the Diplomatic Conference, and I fancy he is led away by his 'verve' when he does get into a speech, and says sometimes things more forcible than judicious. I should think he would never himself sign a peace by which territory was yielded, but I conceive him to be a man who would make room for others to do so, and help them, if he was really convinced that it was necessary for France.
I suppose the Germans will make no difficulty about the safe conduct: it is for their interest to have some influential member of the Government who might enable peace to be made in an emergency, in which Gambetta might, if unchecked, have recourse to desperate measures.
At this moment I think the French have recovered their hope of making a successful resistance to the Dismemberment of the country. I am not very sanguine after all that has occurred, but I do think the military prospects less gloomy than they have been since Sèdan, or at all events, since Metz. You will, I conclude, soon have a really trustworthy account of things in Paris from Claremont.
The Conference, I suppose, must end in Russia carrying her main point practically, and therefore it only remains to make it as much as possible an antidote to the scheme of raising her prestige in Turkey, by the form she adopted, of setting the other parties to the Treaty at defiance. I am afraid not much can be done towards this. I should suggest a very careful consideration of the meaning of the restoration to the Sultan of the right to open the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus at pleasure, and a very cautious wording of the article establishing it. Otherwise, considering the weakness of the Porte, I am afraid the new right might become a snare and a danger rather than a safeguard. It was so much easier for the Porte to say: 'I cannot' in answer to inconvenient importunity, than it will in future be to say: 'I will not.' Even under the Treaty prohibition the Turks had not the firmness they might have had in resisting demands for vessels to pass. I can conceive circumstances under which it might suit them to let a Russian fleet through into the Mediterranean, if only to be rid of it for the time in the Black Sea.
In Busch's 'Bismarck' there are many references to Jules Favre's emotional disposition. At the first interview which took place, a French peasant was told to keep watch outside the house where the Chancellor and Favre were negotiating, and the latter was unable to resist the temptation of making a speech to his fellow-countryman. 'Favre, who had gone into the house with the Chancellor, came out and addressed his countryman in a speech full of pathos and noble sentiments. Disorderly attacks had been made, which, he said, must be stopped. He, Favre, was not a spy, but, on the contrary, a member of the new Government, which had undertaken to defend the interests of the country, and which represented its dignity. In the name of International Law and of the honour of France, he called upon him to keep watch, and to see that the place was held sacred. That was imperatively demanded by his, the statesman's, honour, as well as by that of the peasant, and so forth. The honest rustic looked particularly silly as he listened open-mouthed to all this high falutin, which he evidently understood as little as if it were so much Greek.' Bismarck entertained a well-founded contempt for rhetoric, and Jules Favre's eloquent verbosity was to him only an instance of the way in which Frenchmen could be successfully duped. 'You can give a Frenchman twenty-five lashes, and if you only make a fine speech to him about the freedom and dignity of man of which those lashes are the expression, and at the same time strike a fitting attitude, he will persuade himself that he is not being thrashed.' It is probable too that Jules Favre's inability to appreciate Bismarck's undisguised cynicism contributed to the disfavour with which he was regarded as compared with the other negotiator, Thiers. When during one stage of the negotiations, Jules Favre complained that his position in Paris was very critical, Bismarck proposed to him that he should organize a rising so as to be able to suppress it whilst he still had an army at his disposal: 'he looked at me quite terror-stricken, as if he wished to say, "How bloodthirsty you are!" I explained to him, however, that that was the only right way to manage the mob.'
Whatever the merits or demerits of Jules Favre, a disagreeable surprise was inflicted upon both the British Government and the Government of National Defence by a refusal on the part of Bismarck to give him a safe conduct through the German lines. At first, difficulties were raised in connection with alleged violations of flags of truce; but upon the issue of a proclamation by Jules Favre, Bismarck took advantage of the opportunity in order to prevent his departure for London on the ground that it would imply an official recognition of the Government of National Defence.
At all events, he made such stipulations about the way in which the safe conduct should be applied for, that Jules Favre with his strong sentimental character found it impossible to comply with them, and he was also honourably reluctant to leave Paris just before the bombardment was about to begin. Bismarck, it is clear, was determined that he should not go to London if he could prevent it. The meeting of the Conference was postponed and by the time the final arrangements in connection with it had been made, negotiations for peace had begun and it became necessary for Favre to remain in Paris.
At the close of 1870, the bombardment of Paris had not yet begun: the French hopes of military success were based upon Generals Chanzy and Bourbaki; the German terms of peace were still unknown, and there was every sign that the extreme Republicans were disposed to break with Favre and Trochu and to perpetuate their power by war à outrance and a loi des suspects, or reign of terror. The most surprising feature in the situation was that Russia, who had been in fact an active ally of Prussia, by undertaking to watch Austria, and had obtained nothing whatever for France, was in much higher favour than the other blameless neutrals, it being fondly imagined that the Emperor Alexander's influence would be successful in obtaining favourable peace terms; and so adroitly did the Russians play their cards, that they persuaded Moltke that the 'malevolent neutrality' of England was the sole cause of the continuance of the war. Such at least was the purport of a communication which the latter made to Mr. Odo Russell at Versailles.