"Advocate His Highness delaying any decision to appeal to the guaranteeing Powers until after the conclusion of peace. Any Roumanian complication would be doubly undesirable at present: the Prince could not even hope for our moral support."
Prince Charles replied that this advice had reached him too late, and that complications in the East could not possibly arise, as the documents in question were to be kept private. So far as he was concerned personally his position was neither of service to Roumania nor to Europe, whilst he himself was exposed to contumely; he therefore could not much longer continue to bear the responsibilities of government.
To crown the difficulties of the Prince's position information reached him on December 18 that the railway contractor was unwilling or unable to pay the coupon of the bonds due on January 1. The blow was indeed a bitter one, for the thought that it was to him that Roumania owed its railway system had always been one of comfort. It suggested at least one service which he had been able to render his adopted country. Now that even this last consolation had been taken from him, Prince Charles was still more firmly convinced that he could not forsake Roumania in its day of peril, and that his cherished plan of abdication must not take place until this serious financial trouble had been settled.
It was during these dark days that he poured out his innermost thoughts to his truest friend, his father: "When once this enormous difficulty has been surmounted I shall be able to say that I have stood the ordeal of fire; then the cruel sport will be finished; then you will find me some spot where I can rest my weary head—some quiet remote corner where one can entirely forget oneself for a time. Switzerland would be the most welcome to me; there we might blot out the hard separation of five years in your company, my dearest parents. But for the present these are but pious wishes, since I cannot to-day fix the moment of their fulfilment: may it not be long in coming!"
The Chamber found worthy representatives—the chief instigators of the recent insurrection—to convey the scandalously worded address to the ruler who had never a thought save for the welfare and prosperity of his country.
In reply to that passage of the Speech from the Throne referring to the Plojeschti sedition—"A free government, that is, one which is always in agitation, cannot maintain itself without laws capable de correction"—the Chamber declared that "the best means to prevent such occurrences in the future would be compliance with the wishes of the people and respect for the law!" Prince Charles informed his Ministers that he could not accept an address couched in such terms, but eventually gave way to their prayers and entreaties that he would not offer the Opposition such an opportunity for attacking the dynasty. The ill-considered action of passionate and reckless Deputies, they urged, would only gain an importance which it otherwise would have lacked, from the fact of the Prince refusing to acknowledge it.
A most interesting document, dated December 22, 1870, the publication of which at a later period had so far-reaching an effect on the Roumanian nation, contains the reasons which led Prince Charles to confess himself beaten.
"Nearly five years have now passed since I formed the bold resolution of placing myself at the head of this country, so richly endowed by Mother Nature, and yet, in other respects, so poor. On reviewing this period, so short in the life of a nation, so long in the existence of a man, I must confess that I have not been able to be of much use to this beautiful country. I often ask myself the question, 'At whose door does the fault lie—at mine, in being ignorant of the character of this nation, or at that of the nation, which will neither allow itself to be guided nor understand how to guide itself?'
"My numerous journeys in all parts of the two Principalities, and my many-sided intercourse with all grades of society have almost convinced me that the real blame rests not on me personally, nor on the majority of the nation, but rather on those who have constituted themselves the leaders of the country which gave them birth. These men, the greater number of whom owe their social and political education to foreign countries, and have thereby only too thoroughly forgotten the condition of their own country, aim solely at transplanting to their Fatherland the ideas they have gained abroad by casting them into Utopian form, without having tested them. This unfortunate country, which formerly suffered so much oppression, has thus passed at one bound from a despotic government to a Liberal constitution such as no other nation in Europe possesses.
"My experiences lead me to consider this the greater misfortune since the Roumanians can boast of none of the citizenly virtues which appertain to such a quasi-republican form of State.
"Had I not taken to my heart this magnificent country, for which, under other circumstances, the richest future might have been foretold, I should have lost patience long ago; but I have now made one final effort which will perhaps cause me to appear unkind to my country in the eyes of the parties, as well as in those of the national Roumanian leaders, by putting all personal considerations behind me, and possibly by completely sacrificing my popularity; it would, however, have been an inexcusable neglect of duty to conceal this evil any longer, or to permit the country's future to be sacrificed to party intrigues. The man who has the courage to speak the truth and to call things by their right names will often get the worst of the bargain, and this in all probability will be my fate. Yet I gratefully recognise this difference, that I am at liberty to return to an independent life, free from care, to the joys of home and family in my native land, that powerful magnet which has never ceased to attract me in the heavy hours through which I have been passing.
"I regret with my whole heart that my good intentions have been so misconstrued and rewarded by ingratitude; but, since I share this fate with the majority of mortals, I shall learn to console myself and by degrees forget what once I aimed at, in intercourse with congenial spirits. I shall accept the address of the Chamber to-morrow, a masterpiece of Phanariot perfidy, the contents of which will reach you through the papers. The only circumstance which can justify my acceptance of a document in which a legislative body dares to speak to the Sovereign of conditional allegiance is the serious financial situation of the country, threatened as it is by bankruptcy. Just as in private life the disapproval of an action can only affect the agent, so in this case the entire responsibility falls on the shoulders of those who do not understand how to honour the Prince whom they have themselves chosen—a man dishonours himself when he does not know how to respect that which he has himself created.
"C."
A series of passionate debates, which at times threatened to end in violence, resulted in a vote of no confidence in the Ministry on December 24. Prince Jon Ghika succeeded in forming what must under the circumstances be termed a strong Ministry, and declared that his policy lay in effecting a compromise between the Prince, who had lost all confidence in the country, and the representatives of the people.
The North German Consul-General handed the following letter from Prince Bismarck to the Prince on January 19, 1871, dated from Versailles, January 10: