Speedily, in response to communications addressed by the Crown Prince to the South German sovereigns, notifying these potentates of his appointment as Commander-in-Chief of their armies, came replies expressing satisfaction of different shades and qualities. The Grand Duke of Baden's bubbled with joy, and expressed the determination of his troops to gain their Royal Commander's confidence by fidelity and bravery. The King of Würtemburg rejoiced likewise, but in cooler terms, "in our German affair" being brought to a head at last; and was anxious to have the opportunity of saluting the heir of Prussia. The King of Bavaria telegraphed "Very happy. Many thanks your Royal Highness's attention!" A message which conveyed no more warmth than was felt.
His telegram of martial support, addressed at the outset of affairs to Onkel Wilhelm, had seemed quite genuine. Had not Count Bismarck quite a sheaf of documents, more or less compelling, signed in the youthful monarch's scrawling hand? King Ludwig had ordered immediate mobilization of the dark green and light blue uniforms—expended millions of gulden in variegated lamps, public fountains of white beer and red wine, bands, Royal Command Opera performances, patriotic set-pieces in fireworks (representing the tutelary genii of Prussia and Bavaria, cuirassed and armed, upholding the standards of black-and-white and blue-and-white), joined in the "Wacht am Rhein" as though he liked the tune (which he abhorred), and certainly enjoyed the tumultuous plaudits with which his subjects greeted their monarch's first and last appearance in the character of a man of action.
But instead of riding away at the head of the South German Army, Nephew Ludwig sent an excuse to Onkel Wilhelm—one has heard a gumboil named as occasion of the disability—and Cousin Fritz was dispatched to take over chief command.
Prince Luitpold of Bavaria accompanied the First Army Headquarter Staff. Alas, the appointment but served to inflame the gumboil of the jealous King,—the accounts that were daily to reach him of the prowess of his martial cousin of Prussia worked like poison in his blood. He drew the hood of his mantle of dreams more closely over his head to shut out those fanfares of triumph, those "Hochs!" and cheerings, and plunged more deeply into the solitudes of his forests and mountain-caves. Blood and iron were his bugbears, and yet they might have been his tonics too. They might have staved off the black hound of Destiny, already baying at his heels, and saved him from vicious decadence, ultimate madness, and a strange and sordid end.
And yet, how did his chivalrous cousin die, at the meridian of robust manhood, under the newly imposed weight of an Imperial Crown? Not the swift, soldierly death that is given by the bullet of a chassepot—the projectile from a mitrailleuse—the flying fragment of an exploding shrapnel-shell—but a straw-death, a bed-death such as angry seers and cursing Valkyrs of Scandinavian legend foretold as the speedy punishment of warriors who had broken faith and tarnished by false oaths the brightness of their honor.
But no shadow of the grim fate that was to befall him darkened those brave blue eyes at this period. Laboring night and day at the mobilization of his Third Army, in concert with his Chief of Staff, Von Blumenthal, he was buoyantly happy, despite his hatred of the shedding of blood and his undisguised compassion for the conjectured plight of the Man on the Seine.
With whom Britannia at first expressed a sympathy not at all restrained or guarded, and for the success of whose arms she was openly eager, until, toward the close of this momentous month of July, 1870, the text of a brief but pithy diplomatic document, penned in precise and elegant French, and dated a few years previously—made its appearance in the columns of the Times.
The movements of the opposing forces camped on the banks of the Meuse and the Saar lost interest for the public eye in perusal of this rough memorandum of a proposed treaty between the Third Napoleon and the King of Prussia, scrawled in Count Benedetti's flowing Italian hand.
Since the spring of '67 it had been hidden away in a snug corner of Bismarck's dispatch-box, waiting to jump out. You recall the terms of the thing—one of many overt attempts to seize a coveted prize. The Empire of France was to recognize the acquisitions made by Prussia in the war of 1866 with Austria. Prussia was to aid Napoleon III. to buy from Holland the debatable Duchy of Luxembourg. The Emperor was to shed the luster of his smile and the ægis of his approval upon Federal Union between the North German Parliament and the South German States—the separate sovereignty of each State remaining. In return, Prussia was to abet the Bonaparte in the military occupation and subsequent absorption of the Kingdom of Belgium. And in furtherance of these laudable ends, an alliance, offensive and defensive, against any Power, insular or otherwise, was to be compact between the great gilt eagle of the Third Empire and the black-plumaged bird across the frontier.
Britons, with inconveniently good memories, perusing this draft, recalled the existence of a treaty existing between France, England, and Prussia, mutually binding these Powers to protect the neutrality of Belgium, and drew reflections damaging to the betrayer and the betrayed. French diplomatists asserted that the project had been drawn up by Benedetti at Bismarck's dictation. Why preserve so explosive a document, they argued, if it was never to be drawn out and supplied with detonators in the shape of signatures? Later on M. Rouher's boxes of official papers, found at his château of Cercay, gave up the original draft-treaty annotated in the Emperor's handwriting.