The second item ran thus: “The Delegation from the Government of National Defence, which is at present in Bordeaux, has satisfied itself that further resistance to the German forces is useless, and it would, with the approval even of M. Gambetta, be prepared to conclude peace on the basis of the demands put forward by Germany. It is understood, however, that General Trochu has decided to continue the war. The Delegation entered into an engagement from Tours with General Trochu not to negotiate for peace without his consent. According to other reports General Trochu has had provisions for several months stored in the fortress of Mont Valérien, so that he may fall back upon that position after Paris has had to capitulate with a sufficient force to exercise influence upon the fate of France after the conclusion of peace. His object, it is believed, is to promote the interests of the Orleans family, of which General Trochu is understood to be an adherent.”
On my taking these paragraphs into the office to have them sent off, Keudell told me the Chief had agreed that henceforth all State papers received and despatched should be shown to me if I asked for them.
The Crown Prince and his aide-de-camp arrived shortly after six o’clock. The former had on his shoulder straps the badges of his new military rank as field-marshal. He sat at the head of the table, with the Chief on his right and Abeken on his left. After the soup the conversation first turned on the subject which I had this morning worked up for the press, namely, that according to a communication from Israel, the secretary of Laurier, who acts as agent for the Provisional Government in London, Gambetta no longer believed in the possibility of successful resistance, and was disposed to conclude peace on the basis of our demands. Trochu was the only member of the Government who wished to continue the struggle, but on his undertaking the defence of Paris, the others had bound themselves to act in concert with him in this respect.
The Chancellor observed: “He is understood to have had Mont Valérien provisioned for two months, so that he may fall back upon that position with the regular troops when it becomes necessary to surrender the city—probably in order to influence the conclusion of peace.” He then continued: “Indeed, I believe that France will break up into several pieces—the country is already split up into parties. There are great differences of opinion between the different districts. Legitimists in Brittany, Red Republicans in the south, and Moderate Republicans elsewhere, while the regular army is still for the Emperor, or at least the majority of the officers are. It is possible that each section will follow its own convictions, one being Republican, another Bourbon, and a third Orleanist, according to the party that happens to have the most adherents, and then Napoleon’s people—tetrarchies of Judea, Galilee, &c.”
The Crown Prince said it was believed that Paris must have a subterranean communication with the outer world. The Chief thought so too, and added: “But they cannot get provisions in that way, although, of course, they can receive news. I have been thinking whether it might not be possible to flood the catacombs from the Seine, and thus inundate the lower parts of the city. Of course the catacombs go under the Seine.”
The Chief then said that if Paris could be taken now it would produce a good effect upon public opinion in Bavaria, whence the reports were again unsatisfactory. Bray was not to be trusted, had not the interests of Germany at heart, inclined to the Ultramontanes, had a Neapolitan wife, felt happiest in his memories of Vienna, where he lived for a long time, and seemed disposed to tack about again. “The King is, after all, the best of them all in the upper circles,” said the Chancellor, “but he seems to be in bad health and eccentric, and nobody knows what may yet happen.” “Yes, indeed,” said the Crown Prince. “How bright and handsome he was formerly—a little too slight, but otherwise the very ideal of a young man. Now his complexion is yellow, and he looks old. I was quite shocked when I saw him.” “The last time I saw him,” said the Chancellor, “was at his mother’s at Nymphenburg, in 1863, when the Congress of Princes was being held. Even at that time he had a strange look in his eyes. I remember that, when dining, he on one occasion drank no wine, and on another took eight or ten glasses—not at intervals, but hastily, one glass after another, at one draught, so that the servant scarcely liked to keep on filling his glass.”
The conversation then turned on the Bavarian Prince Charles, who was said to be strongly anti-Prussian, but too old and feeble to be very dangerous to the cause of German unity. Some one remarked: “Nature has very little to do with him as it is.” “That reminds me of old Count Adlerberg,” said the Minister, “who was also mostly artificial—hair, teeth, calves, and one eye. When he wanted to get up in the morning all his best parts lay on chairs and tables near the bed. You remember the newly-married man in the Fliegende Blätter who watched his bride take herself to pieces, lay her hair on the toilet table, her teeth on the chimney-piece, and other fragments elsewhere, and then exclaimed, ‘But what remains for me?’” Moreover, Adlerberg, he went on to say, was a terrible bore, and it was owing to him that Countess Bismarck once fainted at a diplomatic dinner where she was seated between him and Stieglitz. “She always faints when she is exceptionally bored, and for that reason I never take her with me to diplomatic dinners.” “That is a pretty compliment for the diplomats,” observed the Crown Prince.
The Chief then related that one evening, not long ago, the sentry on guard at the Crown Prince’s quarters did not want to let him go in, and only agreed to do so on his addressing him in Polish. “A few days ago I also tried to talk Polish with the soldiers in the hospital, and they brightened up wonderfully on hearing a gentleman speak their mother tongue. It is a pity that my vocabulary was exhausted. It would, perhaps, be a good thing if their commander-in-chief could speak to them.” “There you are, Bismarck, coming back to the old story,” said the Crown Prince, smiling. “No, I don’t like Polish and I won’t learn it. I do not like the people.” “But, your Royal Highness, they are, after all, good soldiers and honest fellows when they have been taught to wash themselves and not to pilfer.” The Crown Prince: “Yes, but when they cast off the soldier’s tunic they are just what they were before, and at bottom they are and still remain hostile to us.” The Chief: “As to their hostility, that only applies to the nobles and their labourers, and all that class. A noble, who has nothing himself, feeds a crowd of people, servants of all sorts, who also belong to the minor nobility, although they act as his domestics, overseers, and clerks. These stand by him when he rises in rebellion, and also the Komorniks, or day labourers.... The independent peasantry does not join them, however, even when egged on by the priests, who are always against us. We have seen that in Posen, when the Polish regiments had to be removed merely because they were too cruel to their own fellow countrymen.... I remember at our place in Pomerania there was a market, attended, on one occasion, by a number of Kassubes (Pomeranian Poles). A quarrel broke out between one of them and a German, who refused to sell him a cow because he was a Pole. The Kassube was mortally offended, and shouted out: ‘You say I’m a Polack. No, I’m just as much a Prussack as yourself;’ and then, as other Germans and Poles joined in, it soon developed into a beautiful free fight.”
The Chief then added that the Great Elector spoke Polish as well as German, and that his successors also understood that language. Frederick the Great was the first who did not learn it, but then he also spoke better French than German. “That may be,” said the Crown Prince, “but I am not going to learn Polish. I do not like it. They must learn German.” With this remark the subject was allowed to drop.
At dessert the Crown Prince, after asking if he might smoke a pipe, pulled out a short one with a porcelain bowl, on which an eagle was painted, while the rest of us lit our cigars.