"I am very much pleased, but the shadow remains in the background. I was already as good as caught for the Ministry. Perhaps when I am out of their sight they will discover another Minister-President. I expect to start for Paris to-morrow; whether for long, God knows; perhaps only for a few months or even weeks. They are all conspired together that I should stay here. I have had to be very firm to get away from this hotel life even for a time."
He did not really expect to be away more than ten days or a fortnight. At a farewell audience just before he started, the King seems to have led him to expect that he would in a very few days be appointed as he wished, Foreign Minister.
He arrived in Paris on the 30th, to take up his quarters in the empty Embassy. He did not wait even to see his wife before starting and he wrote to her that she was not to take any steps towards joining him.
"It is not decided that I am to stay here; I am in the middle of Paris lonelier than you are in Reinfeld and sit here like a rat in a deserted house. How long it will last God knows. Probably in eight or ten days I shall receive a telegraphic summons to Berlin and then game and dance is over. If my enemies knew what a benefit they would confer on me by their victory and how sincerely I wish it for them, Schleinitz out of pure malice would probably do his best to bring me to Berlin."
Day after day, however, went by and the summons did not come; on the contrary Bernstorff wrote as though he were proposing to stay on; he did not however, suggest giving up his post in London, Roon wrote that he had raised the question in conversation with the King; that he had found the old leaning towards Bismarck, and the old irresolution. The Chamber had met, but the first few weeks of the session passed off with unexpected quiet and it was not till the autumn that the question of the Budget would come up. Bismarck wrote to Bernstorff to try and find out what was to happen to him, but the King, before whom the letter was laid, was quite unable to come to any decision.
Bismarck therefore determined to use his enforced leisure in order to go across to London for a few days. He had only visited England once as a young man, and, expecting as he did soon to be responsible for the conduct of foreign affairs, it was desirable that he should make the personal acquaintance of the leading English statesmen. Undoubtedly, one of the reasons why he had been sent to Paris was that he might renew his acquaintance with the Emperor. There was also a second International Exhibition and everyone was going to London. We have, unfortunately, no letters written from England; after his return he writes to Roon:
"I have just come back from London; people there are much better informed about China and Turkey than about Prussia. Loftus must write more nonsense to his Ministers than I thought."
The only event of which we have any information was his meeting with Mr. Disraeli, who at that time was leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons; it took place at a dinner given by the Russian Ambassador to the Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar. Among the guests was Count Vitzthum, Saxon Envoy; he saw Bismarck and Disraeli engaged in a long conversation after dinner; afterwards the English statesman told him the substance of it. Bismarck had spoken as follows:
"I shall soon be compelled to undertake the leadership of the Prussian Government. My first care will be, with or without the help of Parliament, to reorganise the army. The King has rightly set himself this task; he cannot however carry it through with his present councillors. When the army has been brought to such a state as to command respect, then I will take the first opportunity to declare war with Austria, burst asunder the German Confederation, bring the middle and smaller States into subjection, and give Germany a national union under the leadership of Prussia. I have come here to tell this to the Queen's Ministers."
Disraeli added to Vitzthum, who, of course, as Saxon Envoy was much interested: "Take care of that man; he means what he says." It does not appear that Bismarck had an opportunity of explaining his project either to Lord Palmerston or to Lord Russell.