“What securities have we that Prussia will not originate fresh complications, like this Spanish candidature? That should be provided against.”
There Gribouille comes up again. It may happen, perhaps, at some time, that a trifling rain may threaten to wet us; so let us jump into the river at once!
And so Benedetti was despatched again to Ems; this time to demand of the King of Prussia that he would forbid Prince Leopold once for all, and for all future time, to revive his candidature. What could follow such an attempt at dictating a course of action, which the party on whom the demand is made is not competent to carry out, except an impatient shrug of the shoulders? Those who made the demand must have known as much.
There was another memorable sitting on July 15. Ollivier demanded a credit of 500,000,000 frs. for the war. Thiers opposed it. Ollivier replied. He took on himself to justify before the bar of history what had been done. The King of Prussia had refused to receive the French envoy, and had notified this to the Government in a letter. The Left wanted to see this letter. The majority forbade, by clamour and by a counter-vote, the production of the document, which probably had no existence. This majority supported any demand made by the Government in favour of the war. This patriotic readiness for sacrifice, which would accept even ruin without hesitation, was of course again applauded becomingly with the usual ready-made turns of sentence.
July 16. England made attempts to prevent the war. In vain. Ah! if there had been an arbitration court established how easily and simply might such a trivial dispute have been decided.
July 19. The French chargé d’affaires in Berlin handed the Prussian Government the declaration of war.
Declaration of war! Three words, which can be pronounced quite calmly. But what is connected with them? The beginning of an extra-political action, and thus, along with it, half-a-million sentences of death.
This document also I entered in the red volumes. It runs thus:—
The Government of His Majesty the Emperor of the French could not regard the design of raising a Prussian prince to the throne of Spain otherwise than as an attack on the territorial security of France, and has therefore found itself compelled to request from His Majesty the King of Prussia the assurance that such a combination should never again occur with his consent. As His Majesty refuses any such assurance, and has, on the contrary, declared to our ambassador that he must reserve to himself the possibility of such an event, and inquire into the circumstances, the Imperial Government cannot help recognising in this declaration of the king an arrière-pensée, which, for France and for the European equilibrium ... (There it comes again—this famous equilibrium. Look at this shelf, and the precious china on it—it is tottering; the dishes may fall, so let us smash it down.) This declaration has assumed a still graver character from the communication which has been made to the Cabinet of the refusal to receive the emperor’s ambassador, and to introduce, in common with him, a new method of solution. (So, by such things as these, by a more or less friendly conversation between rulers and diplomatists, the fate of nations may be decided.) In consequence of this the French Government has thought it its duty (!) without delay to think of the defence (Yes, yes, defence: never attack) of its outraged dignity and its outraged interests, and being determined to employ for that end all means which are offered by the position which has been imposed upon it, regards itself from this time forward as in a state of war with Prussia.
State of war! Does the man think who puts these words on paper, on the green cloth of his writing-table, that he is plunging his pen in flames, in tears of blood, in the poison of plague?