My Dear Comtesse,
I send you the line that you wanted. It is a pale reflex of my sentiments towards you. It is very good of you to think of writing to M. de B—— [Bismarck], but I believe it would be useless. In the first place, I have asked M. de F—— to do so, and he has left; then, again, it is too late now to enable me to profit by it. Things have taken a bad turn for me. We must put up with the d’Orléans, who have numerous partisans amongst the middle classes; and then I cannot be pardoned for having been served so badly and so unfortunately.
Accept, dear Comtesse, etc.
Napoléon.
“I admit we were the Aggressors.”
Wilhelmshöhe,
March 2, 1871.
My Dear Comtesse,
How can one fail to be discouraged in presence of the conditions of peace imposed upon France? I admit that we were the aggressors; I admit that we were defeated, and that, therefore, we were compelled to pay the cost of the war or abandon part of our territory; but to condemn us to make both sacrifices is very hard. Where is the Government which will be able to stand with a material and moral burden like that upon its shoulders? With such conditions it is not a peace which the Emperor of Germany has concluded—it is to kill us; instead of re-establishing peace, it will sow hatred and distrust in the future. Is this a good plan, even for Germany? I do not think so. The state of civilization in which Europe finds itself demands that the nations bind themselves together by a crowd of common interests which would make the ruin of one react upon all the others.
The work of France stopped for several years, thirty-eight millions of people delivered up to anarchy, and having in their hearts only a desire for vengeance—this is to keep a wound open in one of the principal members of the social body. If the Emperor of Germany and M. de Bismarck had thoroughly reflected upon the state of Europe; if, instead of allowing themselves to be dazzled by the extraordinary success which they have obtained, they had desired to put an end to revolutions and to war, they had declared that as long as France had no stable, and consequently liberal, Government, they would only sanction a suspension of hostilities in the nature of a truce, and would take steps to put themselves in a more favourable military position in case the struggle should recommence, but as soon as there was a Government based upon law and accepted by the whole nation they would feel more certain of peace in the future than they could be by holding dissatisfied departments, detached from a nation profoundly ... that would have been de la grande politique; the hatred against Germany would have disappeared as though by magic, peace would have been assured for many years, there would have been renewed confidence, there would have been a revival of commercial affairs, and the Emperor of Germany would have obtained a glory far greater than he will acquire by the possession of Metz and Strasburg.
I am writing to you as if you were my Minister for Foreign Affairs; but I find it a consolation, in the midst of the preoccupations which beset me, to open my heart to you.