¶ Already Bismarck was thinking of great armaments against France; for she was now demanding territorial compensations, as between Prussia and Austria. We find in the “Revue Modern,” August, 1865, this striking interview with Bismarck, by the French writer, Vilbort:
¶ “About 10 p. m. we were in the study of the Premier, when M. Benedette, the French Ambassador, is announced. ‘Will you take a cup of tea in the salon?’ M. de Bismarck said to me, ‘I will be yours in a moment.’ Two hours passed away; midnight struck; one o’clock. Some twenty persons, his family and intimate friends, awaited their host.
¶ “The tiny cloud on the horizon as yet had no name, but this cloud hung to the west across the Rhine.
¶ “At last he appeared, with a cheerful face and a smile upon his lips. Tea was taken; there was smoking and beer, in German fashion. Conversation turned, pleasantly or seriously, on Germany, Italy and France. Rumors of a war with France were then current for the tenth time in Berlin. At the moment of my departure, I said: ‘M. le Ministre, will you pardon me a very indiscreet question? Do I take war or peace with me back to Paris?’ M. de Bismarck replied, with animation: ‘Friendship, a lasting friendship with France! I entertain the firmest hope that France and Prussia, in the future, will represent the dualism of intelligence and progress.’ Nevertheless, it seemed to us that at these words we surprised a singular smile on the lips of a man who is destined to play a distinguished part in Prussian politics, the Privy Councillor Baron von ——. We visited him the next morning, and admitted to him how much reflection this smile had caused us. ‘You leave for France tonight,’ he replied; ‘well, give me your word of honor to preserve the secret I am about to confide to you until you reach Paris? Ere a fortnight is past we shall have war on the Rhine, if France insists upon her territorial demands. She asks of us what we neither will nor can give. Prussia will not cede an inch of German soil; we cannot do so without raising the whole of Germany against us, and, if it be necessary, let it rise against France rather than ourselves.’”
¶ The treasonable speech of the Baron did not, however, bear fruit “in a fortnight,” but Bismarck knew the great political game well, and everything served him in his German undertakings. We shall see.
54
The curtain falls in triumph on another spirited act in the great drama “Germania.”
¶ The political fruits of Sadowa may be summed up in a few sentences. We clear the air for the grand finale, at the palace of the French kings at Versailles, four years later.
¶ By the Prague treaty, August 23, 1866, Austria consented to the reconstruction of the Federation and retired from the scene.
Bismarck saw that the large states beyond the River Main,—Bavaria, Wuertemberg, Baden and South-Hesse, were not yet ready for his new North German Confederation; but he would bring them in—somehow—later! As for Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Frankfort, and Schleswig-Holstein, they were now mapped with Prussia, their crime being this, that they had opposed Prussia in a half-hearted way, before Sadowa.