[21] Session of the chamber of the 21st April, 1849. See also the interpellation of M. Temme in the session of the 17th April, 1863.
[22] A circular of Prince Schwarzenberg, made public by a calculated indiscretion, after having related the incident of the telegraph, and the desperate course of M. de Manteuffel as regards the Austrian minister, added: "His majesty the Emperor thinks it his duty to comply with the desire of the King of Prussia, so modestly expressed."
[23] Shakspere, Henry IV. part I. act iii. scene I.
[24] It does not, however, fail to be interesting, and to even have a very piquant side. Still full of the conviction that they had made on Denmark a war "eminently iniquitous, frivolous, and revolutionary," the Prussian plenipotentiary to the Bund labored, in 1852, very actively in dissipating for the future a possible cause of perturbation, and negotiated an Esau bargain with the Duke Christian-August Augustenburg, the former upholder of Schleswig-Holsteinism, and eventual pretender to the Duchies. Thanks to the intervention of M. de Bismarck, the old duke signed for the sum of one million and a half rixdalers given by the government of Copenhagen, a solemn act, by which he bound "himself and his family, on his princely word and honor, to undertake nothing which could disturb the tranquillity of the Danish monarchy." That did not prevent the son of Christian from impudently insisting on his pretended rights in 1863, nor even M. de Bismarck from supporting them for a certain time, up to the moment when the famous syndics of the crown cast the doubt in the soul of the first minister at Berlin and proved to him that the Duchies, belonging by right to no one, belonged to King William by the fact of conquest.
[25] The minister of Nassau, Baron Max de Gagern was at the head of this deputation.
[26] "Austria is not a state, it is only a government."
[27] As well as the Germans born or naturalized in Russia who encumbered the different branches of the state service, and occupied in general a very large and important position in the administration of the empire. On his accession to the ministry, Alexander Mikhaïlovitch loudly signified his intention of "purging" his department of all these "intruders." Routine, however, and above all Sclavic idleness (which willingly leaves to foreigners and to "intruders" all work demanding perseverance and application) were not slow in triumphing over the principle of nationality; the palingenesis of the minister, announced with so much fuss, ended in a very insignificant change in the personnel of the lower order, and the chancellor found among these Germans his two most devoted and capable aids: M. de Westmann, deceased last May at Wiesbaden, and M. de Hamburger, quite recently made secretary of state.
[28] Letter of M. de Cavour to M. Castelli-Bianchi, Storia documentata, vol. viii. p. 622.
[29] See, for this and all that follows concerning the relations of France and Russia in the years 1856-63, Two Negotiations of Contemporaneous Diplomacy; the Alliances since the Congress of Paris, in the Revue des deux Mondes, of the 15th September, 1864.
[30] It is true that, in a circular of the 27th May, 1859, the Russian vice-chancellor took care to give a commentary to his proposition, and to prove that the congress which he had planned looked to nothing chimerical. "This congress," said he, "did not place any power in presence of the unknown: its programme had been traced in advance. The fundamental idea which had presided at this combination, prejudiced no essential interest. On one side, the state of territorial possession was maintained, and on the other there could come from the congress a result which had nothing excessive or unusual in the international relations." It would be well to re-read this remarkable circular, and to weigh every word of it. One will find in it the most curious and substantial criticism, made, so to speak, by anticipation, of the different projects of the congress, those which later the Emperor Napoleon III. was to present to Europe, especially the eccentric project which surprised the world in the imperial speech of the 5th November, 1863.