In the July of that year, while the gilding was yet untarnished upon France's brand-new Constitution—ratified by a plebiscitum obtained after the usual methods, and recording seven millions of pinchbeck votes—while the Imperial Court of the Third Napoleon played at Arcadian pastorals under the mistletoe-draped oaks and spreading beeches of St. Cloud, the question of the Candidacy of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern for the vacant Throne of Spain appeared in the firmament of European politics (even as the voice of Lord Granville prophesied a lengthy period of unbroken fine weather)—and broke about the ears of the Power most concerned like a stinging shower of hail.
The Spanish crown upon the head of a Hohenzollern. Rather a Montpensier, intolerable as that would have been. True, the Almanach de Gotha had offered (to General Prim, President Zorilla, and the Cortes, assembled in solemn session) only the unwelcome alternative of the legal heir to the throne going begging; true, the Spanish people were very well satisfied with the idea of being ruled by a Catholic gentleman of Royal blood, suitable age, handsome person, and military experience, married to a Portuguese princess, and possessing two healthy sons.
But that a Prussian Prince, holding a commission in Prussia's Army, should be set up like a signpost of warning on France's southern frontier, as though to keep her in mind of what would happen in the event of another war on the Rhine—was, from the Gallic point of view, intolerable. "The security and the dignity of the French nation are endangered by this candidacy!" cried Jules Favre. According to M. Thiers, "the nominacy was not only an affront to the nation, but an enterprise adverse to its interests." Gambetta cried aloud that all Frenchmen must unite for a national war. Marshal Vaillant made a memorandum in his notebook. "This signifies war, or something very like it!" And at the Council of Ministers hastily summoned to St. Cloud on the morning of the sixth of July, the Emperor passed to the Duke de Gramont, his Foreign Minister, a penciled communication. "Notify Prince Gortchakoff at Petersburg that if Prussia insists upon the accession of the Prince of Hohenzollern to the throne of Spain, it will mean war!"
What haste to clutch at the casus belli. When the Ministers quitted the Imperial Council, and the Corps Législatif opened its session, long-continued applause greeted the declaration of Gramont from the tribune that a certain unnamed Third Power, by placing one of its Princes on the throne of Charles V., threatened to disturb the equilibrium of Europe, to imperil the material interests and endanger the honor of France. "If it be impossible to prevent this," ran the peroration, "strong in your support, Messieurs, we shall perform our duty without hesitation or faltering!" Here was an ultimatum that sounded the very note of war.
Do you hear the echo of the thunderous acclamations that attended the Foreign Minister to his seat, the clapping of hands, stamping of feet, roaring of lungs that have been dust for more than forty years, or are now on the point of dissolving into their native element? Naturally because the Right were defiant, the Left called their utterances bellicose. Had the Right manifested a disposition to turn the other cheek in Scriptural fashion, the Left would have passionately taunted this band of politicians with cowardice, lack of patriotism, indifference to the sacred cause of national freedom,—would have accused them of being traitors to their country, and Heaven knows what else.
The Press threw oil upon the roaring conflagration. Were this affront submitted to, cried the Gaulois, "there would not exist a woman in the world who would accept a Frenchman's arm!" The Correspondant was "relieved to find that Frenchmen once more have become Frenchmen." The Moniteur Universel was charmed to discover that the blame for this momentous conflict could never be attributed to the French Government. The Figaro left off making a cockshy of the Imperial dignity, to admit that for once the Emperor's official mouthpiece had spoken the right word. And the Débats praised the attitude taken by the Government. "Silence at this juncture would," it cried, "have been pusillanimous. Shall the nation be accused of bowing its head for the second time, before the cannon of Sadowa?"
Lord Granville, replacing the recently deceased Clarendon at Great Britain's Foreign Ministry, mentioned to the Spanish Ambassador to England that the choice of Prince Leopold would create a sore. He wrote to Layard at Berlin that he considered France had been given good cause of resentment. Lyons, in the shoes of Lord Cowley, at the English Embassy in Paris, wrote to his chief that the unhappy affair had revived all the old animosity, though it seemed to him that "neither the Emperor nor his Ministers really wish or expect war!" The Times of July 8th was severe on the policy of Prussia; the Standard for once expressed the same opinion as the Times. The Daily Telegraph prophesied that the succession of the Prussian Prince would mean France's present humiliation and future peril. The Pall Mall Gazette poked mordant fun at the attitude of unconsciousness assumed by King William, who, between sips of Ems water, declared his ignorance of the whole affair. The Early Wire, backing and filling, kept an even keel for a day or two. Then said Mr. Knewbit confidentially to P. C. Breagh, one midsummer evening, after the early supper:
"My opinion is we are a-going to give a leg-up to this 'ere 'O'enzollern business, our Chief being—when England, Home, and Duty permit him to indulge the weakness—a red-'ot admirer of a Certain Person at Berlin. Who"—Mr. Knewbit's wink was infinitely sagacious—"is said on the strict Q.T. to have put up Field-Marshal Prim and the Government at Madrid to making the proposal to the young gentleman. For the sake of giving a jolt-up to the elderly swell at the Tuileries. We all have our ideal 'eroes," Mr. Knewbit added, "and our Chief's partiality dates from his acting in an emergency as Special War Correspondent for his own paper, durin' the Prusso-Austrian War of 1866. It was at the Battle of——that name always beats me——"
"Königgratz, perhaps?" suggested Carolan.
"Königgratz—when this 'ere Bismarck spurs his big brown mare up to Colonel von Somebody to ask him why, seeing the 'eavy losses occurring in his neighborhood from Austrian Artillery—he didn't ride forward with his Cuirassiers to find out where the shells came from? Took our Chief's fancy uncommon, that did, as the iron sugar-plums was dropping freely in the neighborhood, and when he had rode on, swearing at the Colonel like anything you can imagine—the old man picked up a cigar-stump he'd pitched away, and keeps it to this hour in the pen-tray of the silver inkstand the Proprietors presented him with when he came home."