“‘Yet some say, M. le Ministre, that this discontent might grow into rebellion.’
“‘The Government does not believe this need be feared, and does not fear it. Our revolutionists are not formidable. Their hostility exhausts itself in invectives against the Prime Minister, but they respect the King. It is I who have done all the evil, and it is with me alone that they are angry. Were they a little more impartial, perhaps they might see that I have not acted otherwise, simply because I could not. In Prussia’s present position in Germany, and with Austria opposed to her, an army was an imperative necessity. In Prussia it is the only force capable of discipline. I do not know if that is a French word?’
“‘Certainly, M. le Ministre, and in France can also be applied.’
“‘A Prussian who got his arm broken in a barricade,’ continued M. de Bismarck, ‘would go home crestfallen, and his wife would look upon him as a madman; but in the army he is an admirable soldier, and fights like a lion for the honor of his country. A party opposed to the Government has not chosen to recognize the necessity imposed on us by circumstances of maintaining a large military force, evident as that necessity has been. But I could not hesitate, for my own part; by family, by education, I am the King’s man; and the King adhered to the idea of this military organization as firmly as to his crown, being convinced, heart and soul, of its indispensability. No one could make him yield or compromise the point. At his age—he is seventy—and with his traditions, people persist in an idea; above all, if they feel it to be good. On the subject of the army, I should add, I entirely agree with his view.
“‘Sixteen years ago I was living as a country gentleman, when the King appointed me the Envoy of Prussia at the Frankfurt Diet. I had been brought up in the admiration, I might almost say the worship, of Austrian policy. Much time, however, was not needed to dispel my youthful illusions with regard to Austria, and I became her declared opponent.
“‘The humiliation of my country; Germany sacrificed to the interests of a foreign nation; a crafty and perfidious line of policy—these were not things calculated to give me satisfaction. I was not aware that the future would call upon me to take any part in public events, but from that period I conceived the idea, which at the present day I am still pursuing, the idea of snatching Germany from Austrian oppression, or at least that part of Germany whose tone of thought, religion, manners, and interests, identify her destinies with Prussia—Northern Germany. In the plan which I brought forward, there has been no question of overthrowing thrones, of taking a duchy from one ruler, or some petty domain from another; nor would the King have consented to such schemes. And then there are all the interests of family relationship and concessions, a host of antagonistic influences, against which I have had to sustain an hourly warfare.
“‘But neither all this, nor the opposition with which I have had to contend in Prussia, could prevent my devoting myself, heart and soul, to the idea of a Northern Germany, constituted in her logical and natural form, under the ægis of Prussia. To attain this end I would brave all dangers, exile, the scaffold itself! I said to the Crown Prince, whose education and natural tendencies incline him rather to the side of parliamentary government, what matter if they hang me, provided the rope by which I am hung bind this new Germany firmly to your throne?’
“‘May I also ask, M. le Ministre, how you reconcile the principle of freedom, embodied in the existence of a national parliament, with the despotic treatment to which the Berlin Chamber has had to submit? How, above all, have you been able to induce the King, the representative of the principle of divine right, to accept universal suffrage, which is par excellence the principle of democracy?’
“M. de Bismarck answered with animation: ‘That is a victory achieved after four years of struggle. When the King sent for me, four years ago, the situation of affairs was most critical. His Majesty laid before me a long list of liberal concessions, but not one of these concerned the military question. I said to the King, “I accept; and the more liberal the Government can prove itself the stronger it will be.” The Chamber has been obdurate on one side, and the Crown on the other. In the conflict I have remained by the King. My respect for him, all my antecedents, all the traditions of my family, made it my duty to do so. But that I am, either by nature or from principle, an adversary of national representation, a born enemy of parliamentary government, is a perfectly gratuitous supposition.
“‘During those discussions, when the Chamber of Berlin set itself in opposition to a line of policy imposed on Prussia by circumstances of most pressing necessity, I would not separate myself from the King. But no one has a right to insult me by the supposition that I am only mystifying Germany in bringing forward my project of a parliament. Should the day come when, my task being accomplished, I find it impossible to reconcile my duties to my Sovereign with my duties as a statesman, I shall know how to retire without denying the work I have done.’