Seeing that news of what was passing would most certainly be brought in from the outposts, it seemed best that the French Minister for Foreign Affairs should start at once for the interview. There was in the courtyard a coupé with a handsome horse, once belonging to Napoleon III., and driven by one of his former coachmen. Jules Favre at once got into it, with his son-in-law and M. d'Hérisson. They passed with some difficulty through the Bois de Boulogne, the roads having been torn up and trees felled in every direction. On reaching a French outpost Jules Favre, afraid of being recognized, concealed his face. Their only means of crossing the Seine at Sèvres was to take a small boat which had served General Burnside a few days before. But the Prussians had been making a target of it ever since, and it was riddled with bullets. Having bailed it out, however, with an old saucepan, they stuffed their handkerchiefs into the worst leaks, and crossed the Seine in safety.
In a miserable old carriage, attended by a Prussian escort, Jules Favre was borne away to his terrible interview with Bismarck, leaving d'Hérisson behind. Favre did not come back for many hours. His first words to his aide-de-camp were: "Oh, my dear fellow, I was wrong to go without you. What have I not suffered?"
He had been taken at once to a very modest house in Versailles, where Bismarck had his quarters. After the first salutations Jules Favre said that he came to renew the negotiations broken off at Ferrières. Here Bismarck interrupted him, saying: "The situation is changed. If you are still going to say, 'Not an inch, not a stone,' as you did at Ferrières, we may break off at once. My time is valuable, and yours too." Then suddenly he added: "Your hair has grown much grayer than it was at Ferrières." Jules Favre replied that that was due to anxiety and the cares of government. The chancellor answered that the Government of Paris had put off a long time asking for peace, and that he had been on the eve of making an arrangement with an envoy from Napoleon III. He then explained that it would be easy for him to bring back the emperor and to force France to receive him; that Napoleon could collect an army of a hundred thousand men among the French prisoners of war in Germany, etc.; and he added: "After all, why should I treat with you? Why should I give your irregular Republic an appearance of legality by signing an armistice with its representative? What are you but rebels? Your emperor if he came back would have the right to shoot every one of you."
"But if he came back," cried Jules Favre, "all would be civil war and anarchy."
"Are you so sure of that?" said the chancellor. "Anyhow, a civil war in France could not affect Germany."
"But, M. le Comte, are you not afraid of reducing us to despair, of exasperating our resistance?"
"Your resistance!" cried Bismarck. "Are you proud of your resistance? If General Trochu were a German, I would have him shot this evening. You have no right, for the sake of mere military vainglory, to risk the lives of two millions of people. The railroad tracks have been torn up, and if we cannot lay them down again in two days, we know that a hundred thousand people in Paris will die of famine. Don't talk of resistance, it is criminal."
Jules Favre, put entirely out of countenance by Bismarck's tone, merely insisted that in pity to France there should be no question of subjecting her to the ignominy of being again made over to her deposed emperor. Before parting, Bismarck requested him to write down such conditions of peace as seemed to him reasonable, in order that they might discuss them the next day.[1]
[Footnote 1: My copy of d'Hérisson's book has a pencil note at this place, written by a friend then at Versailles: "Bismarck rode after Jules Favre when he set out on his return, and thrust into his carriage an enormous sausage.">[
When that day came, the chancellor, having had interviews with his sovereign and Von Moltke, submitted his own propositions. They were seven in number:—