[5] Not quite correct, according to a subsequent statement of the Minister’s and Count Bill’s own account.
[6] Louis de Condé was treacherously murdered on the 12th of March, 1569, after the engagement at Jarnac, just as he had delivered up his sword to an officer of the royal army, being shot by one Montesquieu, a captain of the Guards.
[7] These particulars are worked up into the [preceding chapter].
[8] In presence of later events he can hardly have expressed himself in this way.
[9] The Würtemberger was Von Reinhard, and the Darmstadter Von Munch-Bellinghausen, both determined opponents of Prussia.
[10] Compare this passage with the speech delivered by Bismarck in the United Diet on the 15th of June, 1847. On that occasion he said, “I am of opinion that the conception of the Christian state is as old as the so-called Holy Roman Empire, as old as all the European States, and that it is exactly the ground in which those States have struck deep roots; and further, that each State that wishes to secure its own permanence, or even if it merely desires to prove its right to existence, must act upon religious principles. The words ‘By the grace of God,’ which Christian rulers add to their names, are for me no mere empty sound. On the contrary, I recognise in them the confession that Princes desire to wield the sceptre with which God has invested them in accordance with His Will.” Certain remarks made by the Chancellor in his speech of the 9th of October, 1878, during the debate on the Anti-Socialist Bill, should also be remembered in this connection. He said, inter alia: “If I had come to believe as these men (the Social Democrats) do—yes, I live a full and busy life and am in opulent circumstances—but that would not be sufficient to make me wish to live another day if I had not, in the words of the poet, ‘an Gott und bessere Zukunft Glauben’ (faith in God and a better future).”
[11] It was a report from Mohl, originally intended, for his Government at Carlsruhe, which was communicated to the Chief, under whose instructions extracts therefrom were utilised in the press.
[12] At that time Secretary of State in the Foreign Office. He was not a Catholic.
[13] Bucher afterwards told me that the Chancellor was affected both by the superstition respecting the number thirteen and that relating to Friday. Other diplomats, as, for instance, the French, seem to entertain the same objection both to the number and the day. The following anecdote, which I was assured was perfectly genuine, may serve as an example. After the negotiations respecting the duty payable by ships passing through the Sound had been completed, it was arranged that the treaty containing the terms agreed upon should be signed at Copenhagen on the 13th of March, 1587. It turned out that the day thus chosen was not only the thirteenth of the month, but was also a Friday, and that there were thirteen Plenipotentiaries to sign the document. “A threefold misfortune!” exclaimed the French Ambassador Dotezac. To his delight, however, the addition of the signatures was postponed for some days owing to difficulties occasioned by the difference in the rate of exchange of Danish and Prussian thalers. The number of representatives still caused him so much anxiety, however, that it made him ill, and it was only on the decease of the Hanoverian Plenipotentiary a few weeks later that the French Ambassador and the other signatories of the treaty felt that they were no longer in danger of sudden death.
[14] Walker, the English Kutusow of Count Bismarck-Bohlen, H. B. M.’s Military Plenipotentiary at headquarters, was not held in much estimation by the Chancellor and his entourage.