And while so many events were taking place on the world's stage, great, marvelous, and terrible events, Russia continued to sulk and meditate; it meditated in the perpetual adoration of Prussia. One seeks in vain for a trace of its action in the events which, nevertheless, concerned in so high a degree its interests, its family alliances, its secular traditions. "Since I have been in Russia," wrote M. Benedetti to his chief in the spring of the year 1866, "let me mention that I have always remarked, not without surprise, the indifference with which the cabinet of St. Petersburg seems to me, from the beginning, to watch the pretensions of Prussia and the eventuality of a conflict between the two great Germanic Powers; and what I have not been less struck with is the constant security in which I have found M. de Bismarck as to the attitude and the intentions of the Empire of the North." Russia was silent in 1865 during the crisis of Gastein; in the month of May, 1866, it only accepted the invitation to the congress to make them despair and to discourage the other Powers from it; it was absent from the deliberations of Nikolsburg and of Prague; it left to France the care of making efforts for the South of Germany, for Saxony; it even left it the honor of stipulating a clause in favor of unhappy Denmark, the country of the future empress! One moment, it is true, M. d'Oubril, the Russian ambassador at Berlin, a diplomat of the old school, had shown himself very much alarmed at the victories and conquests of the Hohenzollern; he was ordered in all haste to St. Petersburg, and "returned from there in a few weeks entirely reassured, and affecting a satisfaction which was not disturbed a single instant either by the reverses of the German princes allied with the House of Russia, or by the developments which Prussia made in its military power."[75] Prince Gortchakof did not sacrifice to the old idols of the right of nations and of the balance of power; he did not share certain prejudices touching the "solidarity which should exist among all the conservative interests;" and he had too lofty a soul to be jealous of a good neighbor. Moreover, had he not too "vanquished Europe," three years previously, in the memorable campaign of Poland? Some august personages, some princesses and grand duchesses, had said in vain, with the women of the Bible, that Saul killed his thousands, but David tens of thousands; they had in vain showed their despoiled relations and their confiscated patrimonies; Alexander Mikhaïlovitch did not envy the young laurels of his former colleague of Frankfort, become Chancellor of the Confederation of the North. He rejoiced in seeing Austria severely punished and France well mortified; for the rest, he thought that nothing was changed, and that there was only one more great chancellor in this century.
IV.
THE ECLIPSE OF EUROPE.
I.
In the little salon of the house Jessé, situated on the Rue de Provence at Versailles, in the first of the sad month of November, 1870, sat by the side of the fire two illustrious speakers, whose movements Europe in suspense watched with the most intense anxiety. Leaning his elbow on a writing table, on which "two bottles with candles in their necks did service as lights,"[76] M. de Bismarck had asked M. Thiers for permission to smoke a cigar, while he rested from the negotiations pursued during the whole day concerning the armistice and the peace, and entered into a conversation full of abandon and gossip on the events of the war. Among other things he related that the Emperor Napoleon III., having retired to a little garden after the capitulation of Sedan, grew pale at seeing him arrive armed with two pistols in his belt: "He thought me capable of an action in bad taste." One would scarcely be deceived in supposing that the man who since the attack of Blind had not ceased to show a very nervous solicitude for his person,[77] attributed here in this circumstance, and surely very ungenerously, to the unhappy monarch sentiments which were far from his mind. However that may be, the Prussian minister took pleasure during whole hours in the reminiscences and stories in which he showed all his brilliancy of mind; and on his part M. Thiers, scarcely returned from that journey of forty days, during which he had twice crossed Europe and negotiated with so many sovereigns and ministers, was not behind hand with piquant anecdotes and ingenious ideas. He thought, however, that it was necessary to recall, after some time, the serious matters which brought him to the head-quarters; but M. de Bismarck,—this "savage full of genius," as the French statesman soon called him in his effusions at the bishop's palace at Orleans,—seemed to wish to prolong as much as possible a delightful chat, and, taking the hand of M. Thiers, he cried out, "Allow me, I beg of you; allow me, it is so pleasant to be a little while with civilization!" The civilization, allowed at last to plead his cause anew, did not the less find the old "iron count" in the affable and fluent talker of a few moments before: the arts had decidedly in no respect softened the political manners of the savage. Then M. Thiers remembered the favorable disposition which he had found in Russia, and he thought it useful to make the most of it in a moment so critical. During his sojourn at St. Petersburg, he had addressed to the delegation of Tours a telegraphic dispatch singularly hopeful. "He had every cause," he said, "to be very much satisfied with his reception by the emperor, the imperial family, Prince Gortchakof, and the other dignitaries as well as with that of Russian society in general. The emperor and his chancellor had expressed themselves warmly against the exorbitant conditions of peace laid down by Prussia; they had declared that Russia would never give its consent to conditions which were not equitable; that, in consequence, the consent of the other Powers would likewise be wanting; the exactions of Prussia would only be from the effect of force, and would not rest on any sanction."[78] Without entering into such developments, M. Thiers spoke this time in general terms of the marks of solicitude which "his friend Prince Gortchakof" had given him, and ended by stating that Russia had become alarmed and irritated. At these words, M. de Bismarck got up and rang: "Bring the portfolio that contains the papers of Russia." The portfolio having been brought, "Read," said he; "here are thirty letters from St. Petersburg." M. Thiers did not fail to profit by the permission: he read, he understood, and he was disabused.
Yet, it would not have been difficult for the illustrious historian of the Consulate and the Empire to have spared himself this cruel deception, to have avoided, also, more than one false step in his rapid course across Europe, if he had only wished to consult competent men or even paid them the least attention. M. de Beust, for instance, was perfectly able to enlighten him on the real relations between Russia and Prussia; but it was especially M. Benedetti who could have told him the precise and already old date of the understanding agreed upon by the two courts of Berlin and St. Petersburg in view of a war with France, as well as the very extraordinary circumstances which had accompanied this understanding. Let us briefly recall here those circumstances, endeavoring to free them as much as possible from certain obscurities with which the interested parties continue to surround them, and let us return once more to the day after Sadowa, to the public or secret transactions which followed this dreadful day. The greater part of the political combinations which were to be so fatal to France in the war of 1870, were contrived and consolidated during that equally gloomy and turbulent period, during the two months of July and August of the year 1866.
"None of the questions which touch us can be solved without the consent of France," the Emperor Napoleon III. had declared the 11th June, 1866, in a solemn document produced before the legislative body; and among those questions any "modification of the map of Europe to the exclusive profit of a great Power" was naturally placed in the first rank. But, using that equally immense as unhoped-for victory of the 3d July, 1866, Prussia intended changing the map to its exclusive profit. In place of "maintaining for Austria its great position in Germany," as the imperial letter of the 11th June had demanded, Prussia demanded that the empire of the Hapsburg should be totally excluded from the Germanic Confederation; in place of according to the secondary States "a more important rôle, a more powerful organization," it aspired to the complete hegemony over all Germany, and furthermore wished to complete large annexations in the countries occupied by its troops. In fomenting this war which was to end in such unforeseen results, the imperial policy had above all pursued two ends,—the affranchisement of Venice, and the equitable settlement of affairs in Germany. Venice was ceded, ceded even before the commencement of hostilities, and in accepting this cession, in announcing in the "Moniteur" this "important event" after the great disaster of General Benedeck, the Emperor Napoleon, in the judgment of his minister of foreign affairs, was the more bound not to allow Austria and its allies to be overwhelmed as it concerned the vital interests of France itself. The minister demanded, in consequence, his august master to convoke the legislative body, to send to the frontier of the East an army of observation of 80,000 men whom Marshal Randon would bring together very quickly, and to declare to Prussia that they would occupy the left bank of the Rhine, if it was not moderate in its demands towards the vanquished, and if it realized territorial acquisitions of a nature to destroy the equilibrium of Europe.
Assuredly, after the terrible experiences of the year 1870, these very legitimate doubts as to the efficaciousness of the measures proposed by M. Drouyn de Lhuys in the month of July, 1866, can be raised; it is nevertheless well to remember that the prestige of France was still great and almost intact; that in a week Austria could bring back from Italy 120,000 or 130,000 soldiers still fresh from the victory of Custozza, and that the troops of General Moltke already began to experience the natural consequences of the whole war, although fortunate. "Prussia is victorious," wrote the ambassador of France at the court of Vienna, "but it is exhausted. From the Rhine to Berlin there are not 15,000 men to be met with. You can be master of the situation by means of a simple military demonstration, and you can do it in all security, for Prussia is incapable at this moment of accepting a war with France. Let the emperor make a simple military demonstration, and he will be astonished at the facility with which he will become, without striking a blow, arbiter and master of the situation." In the confidential letters addressed by M. de Bismarck to his wife during this campaign, there are some traces of anxiety which at this moment assailed his mind, especially of his efforts to talk sense to the overexcited, "to the good people who do not see farther than their noses, and swim at their ease on the foaming wave of the phrase." Six days after Sadowa, on the way to Vienna, he wrote from Hohenmauth: "Do you still remember, my heart, that we passed by here nineteen years ago, in going from Prague to Vienna? No mirror then showed us the future, neither did it in 1852, when I crossed this iron line with the good Lynar!... As for us, all is well, and we will have a peace which is worth something, if we do not exaggerate our demands and do not think that we have conquered the world. Unfortunately we are as quick to get drunk as to despair, and I have the unthankful task of pouring water in the foaming wine, and to show that we are not alone in Europe and that we have three neighbors." Lastly, in his celebrated speech of the 16th January, 1874, in the Reichstag, the chancellor of Germany, in speaking of those decisive days, made the important avowal, that, "if France had then had only a few available troops, a small body of French troops would have sufficed to make quite a respectable army by joining the numerous corps of South Germany, which on their part could furnish excellent materials whose organization alone was defective. Such an army would have first placed us in the prime necessity of covering Berlin, and of abandoning all our successes in Austria." Let us add to that that Germany was still effervescent against the "fratricidal" policy of Prussia, that the proceedings and the exactions of Generals Vogel de Falkenstein and Manteuffel had exasperated the minds of all on the banks of the Main: there was a single instant, very fleeting also, it is true, when the appearance of the French on the Rhine would not have wounded the Teutonic susceptibilities, would have even been saluted with joy! "Sire," said to the Emperor Napoleon III. one of the most eminent ministers of the Germanic Confederation,—"sire, a simple military demonstration on your part can save Europe, and Germany will also preserve an eternal recollection of it. If you let this moment pass, in four years from now you will be forced to make war against Prussia, and then you will have all Germany against you."