That M. de Bismarck was, from the beginning, the great tempter of the imperial government, and the tempter repulsed even for a long time, in these shadowy projects concerning the country of the Meuse and the Escaut, is a truth which to-day cannot be doubted, the authentic documents published lately suffice to convince the most incredulous mind. It was not only in his conversations with General Govone that the president of the Prussian council indicated on several occasions, and very clearly, Belgium and certain parts of Switzerland as the most proper territories to "indemnify France:" long before the spring of the year 1866, even long before the interview of Biarritz, M. de Bismarck had tried to sell the bear-skin, as Napoleon III. said to him one day. General La Marmora, who understood it a long time, adds that "the bear was neither in the Alps nor in the Carpathians; he was very well (stava benone) and he neither wished to die nor to be caged up."[89] Such suggestions were, without doubt, of a nature to startle the party of action in the councils of the empire, they were, however, eagerly received by it; but scornfully checked, up to that point, by M. Drouyn de Lhuys, treated as "projects of brigandage" by the chief of the state, they had to await that hour of patriotic anguish which marked the arrival of Benedetti, to be at last taken into serious consideration.
Certainly the ambassador of France at the court of Berlin had, in this year 1866, a very difficult and painful situation, we had almost said a pathetic one. He had worked with ardor, with passion, to bring about this connubio of Italy and Prussia, which seemed to him to be an immense good fortune for the imperial policy, a brilliant victory gained over the old order of things to the profit of the "new right" and Napoleonic ideas. In the fear, very well founded besides, of seeing this work miscarry and Prussia draw back, if one spoke to it of eventual compensations and preventive engagements, he had not ceased to dissuade his government from any attempt of this kind, and to lay stress upon the fierce, intractable, and suspicious patriotism of the House of Hohenzollern, even to the point of being sometimes suspected at the Hotel of the Quai d'Orsay of somewhat exaggerating the colors, and of making a certain devil blacker and more German than he really was. The work had at last succeeded; succeeded beyond all expectations; succeeded in inspiring fear, in suddenly convincing M. Benedetti "that a territorial remodeling was henceforth necessary to the security of France." This remodeling he had flattered himself for a moment with having obtained on the Rhine: "He had not guaranteed the success, but he had allowed himself to hope for it." Refused with firmness, if not with pride, "and having taken the measure of Prussian ingratitude," he was nevertheless soon given to hope what the minister of William I. had insinuated to him, "that other proper arrangements could be made to satisfy the respective interests of the two countries," and he had grasped at the expedient which was thus pictured before his eyes, with so much the more feverish energy as he saw in it a new triumph for the modern right and the principles dear to his party. Anxious to repair the consequences of a policy to which for his part he had contributed more than any other to make it successful; recognizing, however, the difficulties, if not the impossibility, for the court of Berlin to cede any portion of the German soil, and always convinced of the sincere desire of M. de Bismarck "to indemnify France,"[90] at this decisive hour he made himself, at the side of Napoleon III., the interpreter of the ideas which he had gathered from the head-quarters at Brünn, and pleaded with warmth for this necessary and fruitful alliance with Prussia, which, extolled for a long time by the Palais Royal, had recently deluded even the well balanced mind of M. Rouher.
Let it be well understood, there was no question of immediate action, of which, indeed, the military situation of the country allowed no thought; the question was simply of an agreement and a solidarity to be established for future eventualities, for the time more or less distant, but inevitable, when Prussia should think of crowning its work, of freeing the Main, of extending its rule from the Baltic to the Alps,—this question was of boldly taking stand on the ground of nationalities! "If France boldly takes its stand on the ground of nationalities," said a curious note found among the papers of the Tuileries, and which incontestably sums up the ideas of the party of action at this epoch,[91] "it is necessary to establish now that there exists no Belgian nationality, and to fix this essential point with Prussia. As the cabinet of Berlin seemed to be, on the other hand, disposed to enter with France into arrangements which would suit France, there would be time to negotiate a secret act which should bind the two parties. Without pretending that this act was a perfectly sure guarantee, it would have the double advantage of compromising Prussia, and would be for it a gage of the sincerity of the policy or of the intentions of the Emperor.... To be certain of finding at Berlin a confidence which is necessary for the maintenance of an intimate understanding, we must try to dissipate the apprehensions which have always been entertained, which have been reawakened, and even overexcited by our last communications. This result cannot be obtained by words; an act is necessary, and one which will regulate the ulterior lot of Belgium in concert with Prussia, in proving at Berlin that the emperor seeks elsewhere than on the Rhine the extension necessary for France since the events of which Germany was the theatre. We must at least have a relative certainty that the Prussian government will not oppose our aggrandizement in the North."
III.
It was with the mission of negotiating a secret act, binding the two parties in the sense indicated by the note which we have just given, that M. Benedetti left Paris towards the end of the month of August. The act was to provide for an offensive and defensive alliance between the two states, and, in exchange for the recognition of the changes already accomplished or still to be accomplished in Germany, to assure to Napoleon III. the diplomatic aid of Prussia for the acquisition of Luxemburg, and its armed aid at the moment when France should judge it opportune to annex Belgium. Immediately on his arrival at his post the French ambassador went resolutely to work: he carried on the negotiation without the knowledge of his immediate chief, and only referred to the emperor and the minister of state.[92] He begged the president of the council of Prussia to regard the propositions of the 5th August, those relative to the left bank of the Rhine, as null and void, as a joke of M. Drouyn de Lhuys during the sickness of his august master, and submitted to him a new project in five articles concerning Belgium. It matters little that the ambassador of France had with him the minute of it which he had written in the cabinet of the Prussian minister, at his request, and, "in some measure at his dictation;" it is certain that Benedetti acted according to the instructions from Paris,[93] and that M. de Bismarck on his part did not decline such overtures. He had even made observations on some of the terms employed in the draft, and insisted on introducing several changes in the text. The project thus amended was sent to Paris, and returned anew to Berlin with rectifications made by the emperor and M. Rouher. On the banks of the Seine, in the councils of the small number initiated in the secret, they were full of expectation and cheerfulness; they debated the question of the successor of M. Drouyn de Lhuys, and the opinions were divided between M. La Valette and M. Benedetti; they exchanged ideas which were soon expressed in a sadly celebrated document, and they rejoiced at seeing "the treaties of 1815 destroyed, the coalition of the three Powers of the North broken, and Prussia made sufficiently independent and sufficiently compact to ignore its former traditions."[94] All of a sudden a discouraging dispatch from the ambassador of France at the court of Berlin (29th August) troubled their minds, and they had again some apprehensions on the subject of the "necessary and fruitful alliance" which they flattered themselves with having established.
The conferences had continued up to the last days of the month of August, and M. de Bismarck had lent himself with good grace to the dilatory negotiations. In the mean time, the peace of Prague, the definite peace with Austria, was signed (26th August); the States of the South had adhered one after the other to the stipulations of Nikolsburg, and solemnly recognized the confederation of the North, as well as the territorial acquisitions of Prussia. The secret act concerning Belgium was in the hands of the minister of William I., and only needed to be fairly copied and signed, but at this moment M. Benedetti suddenly met with strange inconceivable distrusts which did not fail to wound him deeply. M. de Bismarck hesitated, spoke to him of his fears "that the Emperor Napoleon would wish to make use of such a negotiation to create suspicion between Prussia and England." The stupefaction of the French ambassador was extreme. "What degree of confidence can we on our side accord to those open to such suspicions?" he asked in his dispatch of the 29th August.[95] The proceeding seemed to him unjustifiable, and, in order not to be tempted to qualify it, he judged it opportune "to go for a fortnight to Carlsbad where he would hold himself ready to return to Berlin on receipt of the first telegram which M. de Bismarck should address to him." Slightly moved at this circumstance, the court of the Tuileries was not the less obstinate in believing in the secret act which was preparing at Berlin; it dismissed M. Drouyn de Lhuys, and long before the arrival of his successor from Constantinople, M. de Moustier, they hastened to publish that famous circular of the 16th September, which bore the signature of the minister of the interior, M. de La Valette, and was one more pledge given to the conqueror of Sadowa. The manifest praised the theory of combinations and affirmed that "Prussia, enlarged, free henceforth from any solidarity, would assure the independence of Germany;" as to the most secret hopes, scarcely an allusion was made to them: "France can only desire territorial aggrandizements which do not alter its powerful cohesion." Nothing happened, however, and M. Benedetti waited in vain under the elms and the beautiful firs of Carlsbad: M. de Bismarck gave no sign of life. He had gone to Varzin, from whence he did not return until the month of December. The dilatory negotiations had borne all their fruit in the month of August, and the French government would have been too happy if all those shadowy intrigues had remained for it only a simple deception: they became its chastisement.
M. de Benedetti had, however, pretended to know his man, to have followed him for fifteen years! He had followed him in any case during the negotiations of the spring which brought about the treaty between Prussia and Italy; he had then contemplated the magnificent tilt between the viper and the charlatan, and himself very judiciously judged a situation in which the plenipotentiaries of the two countries had surpassed one another in miracles of the true Punic faith. "M. de Bismarck and General Govone distrusted and still distrust one another," M. Benedetti wrote in his dispatch of the 27th of March, 1866. "It is feared at Florence that, finding itself in possession of an act which places Italy in a certain degree at its discretion, Prussia will make known the stipulations of it at Vienna and will persuade the Austrian cabinet, by intimidation, to peacefully make the coveted concessions. At Berlin, they fear that Italy, if they promised to negotiate on these bases, will directly inform Austria before concluding any treaty, and will thus try to obtain from it the abandonment of Venice." After a similar experience in anima vili, how could M. Benedetti have left on the table of the president of the council of Berlin his compromising autograph on the subject of Belgium, an act which in a certain degree placed France at the mercy of Prussia? How could he be astonished at seeing his interlocutor "open to certain suspicion," and did he not on the contrary make the same calculations for his own account and profit? It was, however, very foolish to suppose that M. de Bismarck had the will to do unto others that which he declared he did not wish others to do unto him! And the ambassador of France would have scarcely been wrong in crediting this charitable thought to his interlocutor, however unevangelical, for the amusing or rather the sad part of the affair,—the true humor of all this imbroglio, as the Bardolph of Shakspere would say,—is that the cavalier of the Mark had already executed precisely the manœuvre, indifferently chivalric surely, of which he pretended to suspect Napoleon III., and that the thing was done at the moment when he demanded if they had nothing in their hands and pockets. They had left in his hands two very secret and dangerous documents, the two plans of the treaties on the Rhine and Belgium,[96] and he took care not to avail himself of them immediately at the expense of the interested parties, whom he had every interest to attach to himself.
The preliminaries of Nikolsburg, the reader will remember, had stipulated that the States of the South should remain outside of the new confederation directed by Prussia, and that they should form among themselves a restricted union. That was the great success obtained by the French mediation, the salutary combination of the three fragments, much more favorable to the interests of France, according to its opinion, than that of the former Bund, the ill-omened creation of 1815. It is true that among the persons initiated in the secret of Benedetti's mission, "this group of confederates" was only regarded as "a matter of business for a reasonable profit;" in waiting, however, they "saved" the South, and M. Drouyn de Lhuys honestly exerted himself, in this month of August, 1866, to aid the unhappy plenipotentiaries of Bavaria, of Würtemberg, of Hesse, etc., who had gone to seek a definite peace at Berlin. M. de Bismarck had first frightened them by his fiscal and territorial demands; they had invoked and obtained the support of the emperor, and in the Tuileries they flattered themselves with having in truth persuaded the minister of William I. to more equitable sentiments. Still, on the 24th August, M. Drouyn de Lhuys wrote to his agent in Bavaria: "I am happy to think that our last step has not been without influence on the result of a negotiation which is ending in a more satisfactory manner than the cabinet of Munich had at first thought possible;" and it was not only M. Benedetti who took to himself in this matter the credit of playing the fine rôle of moderator.[97] The truth is, that if M. de Bismarck ended by becoming more moderate and even amicable towards the Southern States, he had very different motives than the desire of being agreeable to the cabinet of the Tuileries. He had simply shown to "the group of confederates" the project of the treaty of the 5th August; he had made them see that the French government, at the same time when it seemed to protect, sought to extend itself together with Prussia at their expense, and demanded portions of the Palatinate and of Hesse. In place of demanding from them the sacrifices which they feared, the minister of William I. offered to defend them against the "hereditary enemy." There was no hesitation: the States of the South surrendered, and Prussia concluded with them (from the 17th to the 23d August) secret treaties of offensive and defensive alliance. The contracting parties guaranteed reciprocally the integrity of their respective territories, and the States of the South engaged to place, in case of war, all their military forces at the disposal of the King of Prussia. The "matter of business," on which M. Rouher had counted, was henceforward out of the market; the line of the Main found itself free before it had been traced on the official map of Europe, and from the month of August, 1866, M. de Bismarck could count on the armed coöperation of all Germany.[98]
The military conventions with the States of the South were kept rigorously secret for a long time, and it was not till the spring of the following year that M. de Bismarck found it convenient to give them a crafty publicity in reply to the speech of the minister of state on the three fragments. Up to that time M. Benedetti had been ignorant of them, like other mortals, but he had shown himself more clear-sighted as regards another very grave event, contemporary with these conventions concluded with the South, and he recognized from the beginning the ominous bearing of the mission of General Manteuffel to St. Petersburg in the month of August, 1866. It must not be forgotten that at the bottom of the "new policy" which during this month they were flattering themselves with having inaugurated at the Tuileries by a cordial understanding with the court of Berlin, a Russian problem was agitating. Would the monarchy of Brandenburg, "rendered sufficiently independent and sufficiently compact to loosen itself from its traditions, free henceforward from all solidarity," decide to break its secular and hitherto unrelaxed ties with the empire of the czars? That was the true and vital question of the future. "Prussia must have an alliance with a great Power," the minister of William I. did not cease to reiterate at this epoch; but, as Austria was destroyed, and England had long since condemned itself to widowhood, only France and Russia remained, between whom the lucky conqueror of Sadowa had then the position of the Don Juan of Mozart, between Doña Anna and Doña Elvira. Surprised in the darkness, imposed upon in a moment of deplorable misunderstanding, the proud and passionate Doña Anna occasionally cast glances of defiance and venganza, oftener, alas! looks still ardent from the last embrace, and betraying the secret flame, which even said very plainly, that she would go still farther, provided there was reparation, provided that a marriage followed, if it was only a clandestine marriage. Russia was Doña Elvira, the former, the legitimate ally a little vexed at recent neglect, even very gravely injured in family interests, but always loving, always fascinated, and only waiting for a kind word to forget all and to throw herself into the arms of the fickle one. We only speak briefly of Zerline, of Italy, a cunning and lively soubrette, intruding herself everywhere, in love, she also, the poor little thing, with the irresistible seducer, and often treated very cavalierly, happy, nevertheless, to be pinched privately, and to say that she also was "protected by a great lord."