[81] This, however, was only a short desire on the part of Prince Gortchakof, a design without consequence, and of which we find the only authentic trace in an obscure phrase of a dispatch of the French ambassador at Berlin. Vide Benedetti, My Mission in Prussia, p. 226.
[82] Dispatch in cipher intercepted by the Austrians and published in connection with the war of 1866 by the Austrian staff.
[83] Papers and Correspondence of the Imperial Family, vol. ii. pp. 225, 228. The editors pretend that this letter was addressed to M. de Moustier, which is entirely erroneous, M. de Moustier being then at Constantinople. We are inclined to believe that the receiver was M. Conti, who had accompanied the emperor to Vichy. It will be remembered that Napoleon III., very unwell and suffering during this whole epoch, had gone the 27th July to Vichy, where M. Drouyn de Lhuys went to see him for a short time; the chief of the state could not, however, prolong his sojourn in the watering-place, and returned to Paris on the 8th August.
[84] "For some time it has been too often said that France is not ready."—Confidential note of M. Magne of the 20th July (Papers and Correspondence of the Imperial Family, vol. i. p. 241). M. de Goltz had early discovered this secret, and had not ceased to recommend to M. de Bismarck a firm attitude as regarded France.
[85] My Mission in Prussia, pp. 171-172. M. Drouyn de Lhuys, who had already obtained from Austria the cession, in any case, of Venetia, insisted at this moment more strongly than ever that they should also take pledges in advance from Prussia, "the most formidable, the most active of the parties." M. Benedetti did not cease to oppose such a proceeding, fearing that Prussia would renounce in this case all idea of war against Austria, and this dispatch of the 8th July was in reality only a new plea in favor of the laisser-aller without conditions which should be granted to M. de Bismarck.
[86] Benedetti, My Mission in Prussia, pp. 177 and 178. Moniteur prussien (Reichsanzeiger) of the 21st October, 1871.
[87] My Mission in Prussia, p. 181. This assertion of M. Benedetti is fully confirmed by the note found among the papers of the Tuileries, of which we will speak farther on.
[88] "Prussia will disregard what justice and foresight demand, and will give us at the same time the measure of its ingratitude, if it refuses us the guarantees which the extension of its frontiers obliges us to claim."—Dispatch of M. Benedetti, the 5th August, 1866, found at the castle of Cerçay among the papers of M. Rouher, and published in the Moniteur prussien of the 21st October, 1871. Towards the same epoch, they spoke also of the ingratitude of Italy. "The unjustifiable ingratitude of Italy irritates the calmest minds," wrote M. Magne in his confidential note by order of the emperor, dated the 20th July. The cabinet of Florence in truth created in France at this moment unheard of embarrassments by susceptibilities and demands which, to say the least, were very ill-timed. After having been beaten on land and sea, at Custozza and at Lissa, and having received as a recompense the magnificent gift of Venetia, the Italians made pretensions to Tyrol! There was even an instant when the emperor thought "of renouncing the fatal gift made him, and of declaring, by an official act, that he gave back to Austria its parole." See the curious note of M. Rouher written by order of the emperor, Papers and Correspondence of the Imperial Family, vol. ii. pp. 229 and 23.
[89] La Marmora, Un pó più di luce, p. 117. Report of General Govone, 3d June, 1866. Ibid. p. 275.
[90] "All the efforts which he (M. de Bismarck) has without cessation made to bring about an agreement with us prove sufficiently that, in his opinion, it was essential to indemnify France."—My Mission in Prussia, p. 192. Thus thought the ex-ambassador of France, even in 1871!