The company was sitting, after déjeûner, on the terrace, looking on to the park. Who were all the people there? I do not recollect them all now; only two of the persons present remain in my memory, Taine and Renan. The conversation was a very lively one, and I recollect that it was Renan chiefly who led the talk, sparkling with esprit and witticisms. The author of the Vie de Jésus is an example that a man may be incredibly ugly and yet exercise an incredible fascination.
Now the talk turned upon politics. A candidate had been sought for the crown of Spain. A prince of Hohenzollern was to receive the crown. I had scarcely been listening, for what could the throne of Spain or he who was to sit upon it have to do with me or all these nonchalant folks here? But then some one said:—
“A Hohenzollern? France would not permit that!”
The words cut me to the heart, for what did that “not permit” imply? When such an utterance comes from any country one sees with one’s mind’s eye the statue personifying that country as a gigantic virgin, her head thrown back in defiance, her hand on her sword.
The conversation, however, soon turned to another subject. How full of tremendous results this question of the Spanish throne would be none of us yet suspected. I, of course, did not either. Only, that arrogant “France would not permit that” stuck in my memory like a discord, and along with it the whole scenery did so in which it was spoken.
From that time the question of the Spanish throne became constantly more loud and more pressing. Every day the space became larger which it occupied in the newspapers and in conversations in the salons, and I know that it bored me in the highest degree, this Hohenzollern candidature: soon there was nothing else spoken of. And it was spoken of in an offended tone, as if nothing more insulting to France could take place. Most people saw behind it a provocation to war on the part of Prussia. But it was clear, so it was said, that “France could not permit such a thing, so, if the Hohenzollerns persist in it, that is a simple challenge”. I could not understand that; but in other respects I was free from anxiety. We received letters from Berlin, telling us from a well-instructed quarter that not the slightest importance was attached at court to the succession of a Hohenzollern to the Spanish crown. And, therefore, we were much more occupied with the work at our house than with politics.
But gradually we became more attentive to the subject for all that. As, before the storm, a certain rustling of leaves goes through the forest, so, before war, a rustle of certain voices goes through the world. “Nous aurons la guerre—nous aurons la guerre,” was what resounded in the air of Paris. Then an unspeakable anxiety possessed me. Not for my own people—for we, as Austrians, were at first out of the game. On the contrary, we might possibly have some “satisfaction” offered to us—the well-known “revenge for Sadowa”. But we had untaught ourselves the habit of looking at war from a national point of view; and what war is from the point of view of humanity—of the highest humanity—is surely notorious. That is expressed in the following words which I heard spoken by Guy de Maupassant:—
“Quand je songe seulement à ce mot ‘la guerre’ il me vient un effarement, comme si l’on me parlait de sorcellerie, d’inquisition, d’une chose lontaine, finie, abominable, contre nature”.
When the news arrived that the crown had been offered by Prim to Prince Leopold, the Duke of Grammont made a speech in Parliament, which was received with great approbation, to the following effect:—
“We do not meddle with the affairs of foreign nations, but we do not believe that respect for the rights of a neighbouring state binds us to permit a foreign power, by seating one of its own princes on the throne of Charles V., to destroy, to our detriment, the equilibrium which exists between the states of Europe (Oh that equilibrium! What war-loving hypocrite invented that hollow phrase?), and so bring into danger the interests, the honour of France”.