EX-LIBRIS 
 
 mm^ 
 
 i "" s 
 
 LOUISE ARNER BOYD
 
 I LIBRARY J 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 
 I SAN DIEGO

 
 BISMARCK 
 
 IS THE 
 
 FRANCO-GERMAN WAR.
 
 BISMARCK 
 
 IN THE 
 
 FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. 
 
 1870-1871. 
 
 AUTHORISED TRANSLATION FROM THE GERMAN OP 
 
 DR. MORITZ BUSCH. 
 
 (ABRIDGED. 
 
 CHICAGO 
 BELFODS, CLAEKE ft CO. 
 
 MDCCCLXXIX.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Departure of the Chancellor I follow him to Saarbrucken Journey 
 continued to the French frontier The mobilised Foreign 
 Office . 9 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 From the frontier to Gravelotte ... * . 17 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Commercy Bar-le-Duo Clermont in Argonne . , . 36 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 We turn northwards The Chancellor in Rezonville Battle and 
 
 Battle-field of Beaumont 50 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 The day of Sedan Bismarck and Napoleon at Dorchery ... 65 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 From the Meuse to the Marne ..... .81
 
 VI. CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 .Bismarck and Favre in Haute-Maison A fortnight in Rothschild's 
 
 Chateau 94 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 The Journey to Versailles The House of Madame Jesse" Our usual 
 
 Life there .120 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Autumn Days in Versailles . . . . . . . . 128 
 
 * 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Thiers and the First Negotiations for an Armistice . 155 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 Increasing Anxiety for Decisive Action in several directions . . 192 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 The Difficulty in the Reichstag about the Convention with Bavaria 
 
 removed The Bombardment put off 209 
 
 CHAPTER XIIL 
 Prospects before Paris improve 236 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 Chaudordy and Facts Officers breaking their Parole French Mis- 
 
 constructions The Crown Prince entertained by the Chief . 256 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 First Weeks of the Bombardment 28G
 
 CONTENTS. Vll. 
 
 CHAPTER XVL 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 The Last Weeks before the Capitulation of Paris .... 310 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 Negotiations for the Capitulation of Paris 329 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 From Gambetta's Retirement to the Conclusion of the Peace Pre- 
 liminaries ........... 356
 
 BISMARCK 
 
 IN THE 
 
 FRANCO-GERMAN WAR. 
 
 CHAPTER 3. 
 
 DEPARTURE OF THE CHANCELLOR I FOLLOW HIM TO SAAR- 
 
 BRUCKEN JOURNEY CONTINUED TO THE FRENCH FRONTIER 
 
 THE MOBILISED FOREIGN OFFICE. 
 
 ON the 31st July, 1870, at half-past five in the afternoon, 
 the Chancellor, who had some days before partaken of 
 the Sacrament in his own room, drove from his residence in the 
 Wilhelm Strasse to the station, accompanied by his wife and 
 daughter, in order to start with King William for the Seat of 
 War, in the first instance for Mainz. Several Councillors of 
 the Foreign Office, a secretary of the despatch department of 
 the Central Bureau, two experts in secret ciphering, and three 
 or four messengers of the Chancellor's department were ap- 
 pointed to go with him. The rest of us followed him only with 
 our good wishes, as, helmet on head, he walked down the stairs 
 between the two Sphinxes, through the great hall, and stepped 
 into the carriage. I had resigned myself to taking part in the 
 2
 
 10 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 war only on maps and in newspapers. But a much better fate 
 was in store for me. 
 
 On the evening of the 6th of August the Government re- 
 ceived the telegram announcing the victory at Worth. Half an 
 hour afterwards, work being over, I carried the joyful news, 
 still fresh and warm, to a company of friends who were waiting 
 in expectation in a wine-shop in Potsdam Street. Every one 
 knows how Germans celebrate good news, and this was so good 
 that it was celebrated by many too well, and by most of us at 
 any rate, too long. In consequence I was still in bed when 
 next morning a chancery messenger appeared, bringing the 
 copy of a telegraphic despatch, requiring me to set out for 
 headquarters in the course of the day. 
 
 Benignant fate ! say I. So quickly were my few necessaries 
 collected, that by midday I had my railway-pass, my passport, 
 and my military billet ; and by eight o'clock in the evening I 
 was joined by the two companions ordered by the Minister to 
 accompany me. We travelled by the Anhalt railway, going by 
 Halle, Nordhausen, and Cassel, anxious, by God's help, to 
 reach headquarters as fast as possible. 
 
 We began our journey in a first-class coupe, but we came 
 down to a third-class, and at last to a luggage-van. Every- 
 where there were long delays, which seemed longer to our im- 
 I atience than they really were. We crossed the Rhine by 
 night. As the day broke we found, lying beside us on the floor 
 of the van, a well-dressed gentleman, who was talking English 
 to some one, whom we afterwards discovered to be his servant. 
 This turned out to be the London banker, Mr. Deichmann, who 
 was bound for headquarters, in the hope of obtaining leave from 
 Rooh to serve as a volunteer in a cavalry regiment, for which 
 purpose he had brought his horse with him. The train being 
 mow brought to % stand in consequence of the many others 
 Mocking up the line in front of us, we drove across the plain, 
 l>y Deichmann's advice, in a fast-trotting country car to Neu- 
 ::stadt in the Palatinate, which we found swarming with soldiers 
 Bavarian riflemen, Prussian red hussars, Saxons, and other 
 uniforms. From Neustadt we proceeded, amidst much discom- 
 fort, to St. Johann, a suburb of Saarbriicken lying on the right 
 bank of the Saar, where we saw few traces of the French bom- 
 bardment of a few days before, though it presented a lively 
 picture, in other respects, of a state of war. A medley of for- 
 age-carts, baggage-waggons, soldiers on horse and on foot,
 
 Cipher Despatch. 11 
 
 Knights of St. John with their crosses, and such like, hurried 
 through the streets. Hessian troops, dragoons and artillery, 
 were marching alonj, singing the while : 
 
 "Red cL w i that lights me to my early ^r ye." 
 
 At the inn where we alighted, I heard that the Chancellor 
 was still in the place, and had taken up his quarters at the 
 house of one Haldy, a merchant and manufacturer. In spite 
 of all difficulties, I had thus happily reached the desired haven. 
 It was not a moment too soon, for as I was going to Haldy's 
 house to report myself I heard on the stairs from Count Bis- 
 marck-Bohlen, the Minister's cousin, that we were to move on 
 immediately in the afternoon. 
 
 I took leave of my fellow-travellers from Berlin, for whom 
 there was no room in the Minister's carriages, and of the Lon- 
 don banker. I then moved my baggaige from the inn to the 
 cook's van, which, with other vehicles, had crossed over at the 
 Saar bridge. Having arranged this, I turned back to Haldy's 
 house, where, in the ante-room, I presented myself to the 
 Chancellor, who was just coming out of his own room on his 
 way to the King. I then sought out the newly-established Bu- 
 reau, that I might hear whether there was anything for me to 
 do. There was plenty to do ! The gentlemen had their hands 
 full ; and I immediately undertook the translation of the Queen 
 of England's speech on opening Parliament, which had just 
 come, for the use of the King. Of the highest interest, even 
 though I did not quite understand it, was the declaration in a 
 despatch, which they gave me to dictate in secre^ cipher to one 
 of the experts, that we on our side should not be content with 
 the mere overthrow of Napoleon. m 
 
 It seemed like a miracle ! Strassburg ! Perhaps the 
 Yossres ! Who could have even dreamed of this three weeks 
 agol 
 
 A little before one o'clock, in the bright sunshine, the car- 
 riages drove to the door, all with four horses, with soldiers for 
 outriders, one for the Chancellor, one for the councillors and 
 Count Bismarck-Bohlen, one for ' the secretary and the two 
 cipherers. After the Minister had taken his seat with Privy- 
 Councillor Abeken and his cousin, and the two other councillors 
 had mounted their horses, the others followed with their port- 
 folios beside them. I took a seat in the carriage of the coun-
 
 12 Bismarck in the Franco- German War. 
 
 cillors, as I always did afterwards, whenever those gentlemen 
 vode on horseback. Five minutes afterwards we crossed the 
 river and entered the long main street of Saarbriicken. From 
 thence the poplar-shaded road led up to Forbach, past the battle- 
 field of the 6th of August, and in half an hour after leaving 
 St. Johann we were on French soil. Of the bloody battle 
 which had raged here just on the frontier, five days before, 
 there were still many traces to be seen : trunks stripped by the 
 balls, knapsacks thrown away, tattered garments, linen rags 
 lying about the stubble fields, trodden-down potato fields, broken 
 wheels, holes made by shells, little wooden crosses roughly tied 
 together to show the place where some of the fallen were in- 
 terred, and so on. But, so far as we could see, all the dead 
 were already buried. 
 
 And here at the beginning of our journey through France, I 
 will interrupt my narrative for a little, to say a few words about 
 the mobilised Foreign Office, and the mode and fashion in 
 which the Chancellor travelled, worked, and lived with his peo- 
 ple. The Minister had in his suite the acting Privy-Councillors 
 Abeken and von Keudell, Count Hatzfeld, and Count Bismarck- 
 Bohlen. There were besides, the private secretary Bolsing 
 from the Central Bureau, the cipherers Willisch and Saint- 
 Blanquart, and lastly myself. Engel, Theiss, and Eigenbrodt 
 acted as messengers and attendants ; the last of whom was re- 
 placed in the beginning of September by the active and intelli- 
 gent Kriiger. We were accompanied by Herr Leverstrom in a 
 similar capacity, the " black horseman," so well known in the 
 streets of Berlin as a government qpurier. For the care of our 
 bodies we had a cook, whose name was Schulz or Schultz. Let 
 it be noticed, how exact I am trying to be, and that I rob no 
 one of his name or title ! In Ferrieres the group of Council- 
 lors was completed by Lothar Bucher, and a third cipherer, 
 Herr Wiehr, also joined us there. Holnstein, young Count 
 Wartensleben and Privy-Councillor Wagner joined us at Ver- 
 sailles. Bolsing, being unwell, was replaced there for some 
 weeks by Wollmann, and business increased to such an extent 
 that we required the services of a fourth secret cipherer, as well 
 as of one or two additional messengers whose names have 
 escaped me. The kindness of our " Chief," as the Chancellor 
 was called in ordinary conversation, by those belonging to the 
 Foreign Office, had arranged things so that his fellow-workers, 
 both secretaries and councellors, were all to a certain extent
 
 The Chancellor's Uniform. 13 
 
 members of his household. We lived, whenever circumstances 
 would permit, in the same house with him, and had the honor 
 of dining at his table. 
 
 The Chancellor wore uniform during the whole of the war- 
 generally the undress of the yellow regiment of heavy Land- 
 wehr cavalry, with its white cap and great top-boots. When 
 riding, after a battle, or in watching its course, he wore a black 
 leather case, fastened by a strap round the chest and back, 
 which held a field glass, and sometimes a revolver and a sword. 
 During the first months he generally wore as a decoration the 
 ross of the order of the Red Eagle ; afterwards he also wore 
 the Iron Cross. I never saw him but once, in Versailles, in a 
 dressing-gown, and then he was not well his health was ex- 
 cellent through the whole campaign. During the journey he 
 generally drove with Councillor Abeken, since dead, and once, 
 for several days in succession, with me also. As to quarters, 
 he was most easily satisfied, and even where better were to be 
 had, he put up with the most modest accommodation. At 
 Versailles, when colonels and majors had splendidly furnished 
 suites of apartments, the Chancellor, all the five months we 
 were there, was content with two little rooms, of which one wa? 
 study as well as bedchamber, and the other, on the ground floor, 
 though neither spacious nor elegant, served as a reception-room. 
 Once, in the school-house at Clermont, in Argonne, where we 
 stayed some days, he had not even a bed, so that we had to 
 make him up one on the floor. 
 
 During the journey we generally drove close behind the 
 King's carriage. We started about ten in the morning, and 
 usually accomplished nearly forty English miles a day. On 
 arriving at our quarters for the night we at once established a 
 Bureau, in which work was seldom wanting, especially when 
 the field telegraph reached us ; by its means the Chancellor 
 again became what, indeed, he always was at this time, with 
 brief interruptions the centre of the civilized world of Europe. 
 Even where we only halted for one night, restlessly active him- 
 self, he kept all about him in constant employment till quite 
 late. Orderlies came and went, couriers arrived with letters 
 and telegrams, and were immediately sent off again. Accord- 
 ing to the directions of the Chief, the Councillors prepared 
 notes and orders ; the clerks copied and registered, ciphered 
 and deciphered. Material streamed in from all points of the 
 compass in the shape of reports, questions, articles in the
 
 14 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 newspapers, and such like, most of which required immediate 
 attention. 
 
 Among the councillors the one who was fastest at work before 
 the arrival of Bucher, was, undoubtedly, Abeken. He was in 
 fact a very power in himself. From long years of service he 
 was thoroughly acquainted with all the ins and outs of busi- 
 ness, a lover of routine, furnished with a fine store of phrases, 
 which dropped from his pen without much necessity for thought. . 
 Master of several languages, so far, at any rate, as was needed 
 for the work required of him, he seemed made to put the 
 thoughts of his Chief into proper drese. He did it with the 
 rapidity of a steam-engine. The substance was supplied by the 
 genius and knowledge of the Minister, who occasionally im- 
 proved the style in which Abeken had presented his ideas. 
 
 The almost superhuman capacity of the Chancellor for work, 
 sometimes creating, and sometimes appropriating and sifting 
 the labours of others, his power of solving the most difficult 
 problems, of at once seeing the right thing, and of ordering 
 only what could be practically done, was, perhaps, never so 
 wonderfully displayed as at this time ; and this inexhaustible 
 power of work was the more remarkable as his strength was 
 kept up with so little sleep. The Ministar lived in the field 
 much as he did at home. Unless an expected battle summoned 
 him before daybreak to the army at the side of the King, he 
 generally rose late, as a rule about ten o'clock. But he passed 
 the night sleepless, and fell over only when the morning light 
 shown through his window. Often, hardly out of bed, and not 
 yet dressed, he began to think and work, to read and make 
 notes on despatches, to study the newspapers, to give instruc- 
 tions to the Councillors and other fellow-workers, to put ques- 
 tions or state problems of the most various kinds, even to write 
 or dictate. Later in the day there were visits to receive, or 
 audiences to give, or a statement to be made to the King. Then 
 came the study of despatches and maps, the correction of papers 
 he had ordered to be prepared, the jotting down of ideas with 
 the well-known big pencil, the composition of letters, the news 
 to be telegraphed or sent to the papers for publication, and in. 
 the midst of all this the reception of unavoidable visitors, who- 
 must sometimes have been far from welcome. Tt was not till 
 two or often three o'clock that the Chancellor, in places where 
 a halt of any length was made, allowed himself a little breath- 
 ing-time ; then he generally took a ride in the neighborhood.
 
 The Chancellors Table. 15 
 
 Afterwards he went to work again till dinner at five or si? 
 o'clock, and in an hour and a half at the latest he was back 
 once more in his room at his writing-table, midnight frequently 
 finding him reading or putting his thoughts on paper. 
 
 The Count differed from other men in the matter of sleep, 
 and he arranged his meal times in a peculiar manner. Early 
 in the morning he took a cup of tea, and perhaps one or two 
 eggs ; after that, generally nothing till dinner in the evening. 
 He very seldom took a second breakfast, and then only tea, 
 which was served between nine and ten o'clock. Thus, with 
 very few exceptions, he ate only once during the f our-and-twen- 
 ty hours, but then, like Frederick the Great, he ate plentifully 
 and with appetite. Diplomatists proverbially keep a good table, 
 and, I am told come next to prelates. It is part of their daily 
 business to entertain distinguished guests, who, for some reason 
 or other, have to be put into a good humor by the contents of 
 a well-s cocked cellar and the efforts of a skilful cook. Count 
 von Bismarck therefore kept a good table, which, when circum- 
 stances permitted, rose to the rank of a very good table. This 
 was the case, for instance, at Rheims, Meaux, Ferrieres, and! 
 Versailles, where the genius of the artist who wore the livery 
 of the household prepared breakfasts and dinners for us, to- 
 which persons accustomed to simple fare did justice, feeling al- 
 most as if they were sitting in Abraham's bosom, especially 
 when, beside the other good gifts of God, champagne was not- 
 wanting in the list of drinkables. Tor such feasts the travel- 
 ling kitchen contained pewter-plates, tumblers of some silver- 
 like metal, gilt inside, and cups of the same kind. During the 
 last five months of the campaign, presents from home added 
 grace to our hospitable board : for home, as it was right it 
 should, thought lovingly of its Chancellor, and liberally sent him 
 dainty gifts both solid and fluid, corned geese, game, fish, phea- 
 sants, cakes, capital beer, and fine wine, with many other excel- 
 lent things. 
 
 To conclude this chapter I remark that, beside the Chancel- 
 lor, only the Councillors at first wore uniform, von Keudell that 
 of the Blue Cuirassiers, Count Bismarck-Bohlen that of a regi- 
 ment of Dragoon Guards, Counts Hatzfeld and Abeken the un- 
 dress uniform of officers in the Foreign Office. It was after- 
 wards suggested that all persons belonging to the Minister's 
 permanent staff, not of course the two first-named gentlemerr r 
 who were also military officers, should wear this dress. The
 
 16 Bismarck in the Franco- German War. 
 
 Chief consented, and so Versailles saw the chancery messengers 
 in a costume which consisted of a dark blue coat, with two rows 
 of buttons, with black velvet collar and cuffs, a cap of the same 
 color, and for the Councillors, secretaries and cipherers, a sword 
 with a gold porte-epee. In this costume old Privy Councillor 
 Abeken, who made his horse prance about bravely, had quite a 
 military air, and I think he knew this and liked it. He was 
 well pleased to look like an officer, just as he once travelled 
 through the Holy Land in Oriental costume, without under 
 standing either Turkish or Arabic.
 
 Forbach. 17 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PROM THE FRONTIER TO GAVELOTTE. 
 
 IN the preceding chapter I halted at the French frontier. 
 That we had crossed it, was evident from the names of the 
 villages. " Departement de la Moselle " was to be read on all 
 the way-posts. The white road swarmed with carts and wag- 
 gons and troops on the march, while soldiers were quartered 
 everywhere. In the neighborhood, which was hilly and part- 
 ly wooded, little camps were to be seen rising up here and 
 there, with horses fastened to picket-posts, guns, ammunition 
 waggons, forage-carts, holes for the cooking fires, and soldiers 
 in their shirt-sleeves, busied in the preparation of food. 
 
 In about two hours we reached Forbach, which we passed 
 through without stopping. In the streets where w6 drove, we 
 observed that while the goods and trades of the different shops 
 were described in French, the names of the proprietors were 
 mostly German : for instance, " Schwarz, Boulanger." Many 
 of the inhabitants who were standing before their doors saluted 
 the carriages as they passed ; most of them looked very cross, 
 which did not add to the charm of their appearance, but was 
 very easily explained, for they had evidently more soldiers 
 quartered on them than they liked. Every window was full of 
 blue Prussians. 
 
 We went up hill and down dale, through woods and villages, 
 till we reached Saint-Avoid, where, about half-past four 
 o'clock, we were quartered with the Chancellor in the house of 
 a M. Laity, No. 301, in the Rue des Charrons. It was a one- 
 storied house with white blinds, and though it had only five 
 windows in front it went back a longway,and was tolerably roomy. 
 It opened behind on a well-planted garden, with trim walks 
 among fruit and vegetables. The day before our arrival the 
 possessor, apparently a retired officer, and well-to-do, had gone
 
 18 Bismarck in the franco-German War. 
 
 away with his wife, and had left an old woman, who could 
 speak nothing but French, and a maid. The Minister had the 
 one front-room ; the rest of the party shared the rooms open- 
 ing on the passage leading to the back parts of the house. In 
 half an hour, the Bureau was established in the first of these 
 back rooms, which served also as a sleeping-room for Keudell. 
 The next room, which looked out on the garden, was given 
 to Abeken and me. He slept in a bed placed in a recess in the 
 wall. At the head of the bed there was a crucifix, and over 
 the feet a Madonna with a bleeding heart. The people in the 
 house, therefore, were thorough Catholics. They made a very 
 comfortable* bed up for me on the floor. The Bureau was at 
 once set to work ; and as there happened to be nothing to be 
 done in my particular line I endeavoured to help in decipher- 
 ing some despatches, a task which presented no great difficulty. 
 
 After seven we dined with the Count in the little parlor 
 next his room, the window of which looked into a court prettily 
 ornamented with flower-beds. The conversation at table 
 was lively, the Minister taking the lead. He thought a sur- 
 prise not impossible ; for, as he had seen for himself, our out- 
 posts were only three English miles from the town, and very far 
 apart. He had asked at an outpost where the next one was, 
 but the men did not know. Afterwards he remarked that in 
 his flight our landlord had left all his drawers full of clean 
 linen, and added : "If the people from the ambulances come 
 here, they will cut up his wife's fine chemises to make lint and 
 bandages, and very properly too. But then, of course, it will 
 be said that Count Bismarck carried them off." 
 
 We then talked of the disposition of the troops, and the 
 Minister said, " Steinmetz has shown himself very self-willed 
 and disobedient. He will," said he, in conclusion, " come to 
 grief with his obstinancy, in spite of the laurels he won at 
 Skalitz." 
 
 We had on the table cognac, red wine, and sparkling Mainz 
 wine. Some one spoke of beer, and remarked that we had 
 none. The Minister rejoined : " That is of no consequence. 
 The wide-spread use of beer is much to be deplored. Beer- 
 drinking makes men stupid, lazy, and impotent. It is the 
 cause of all the democratic pot-politics which people talk over 
 it. Good corn brandy would be better." 
 
 I do not know, how or in what connection the subject of the 
 Mormons came up, but the conversation turned on the question,
 
 Dining vjith the Count. 1^ 
 
 whether they and their many wives should be tolerated. The 
 Count took the opportunity to express his own opinion on re- 
 ligious liberty, and declared himself very decidedly for it ; only 
 it must, he said, be impartially managed. " Every man 
 must be saved after his own fashion," he added, "I will one 
 day agitate this question, and the Reichstag will certainly vote 
 with me. But the Church property must of course remain 
 with those who stand by the old Church which acquired it. 
 A man who secedes from the Church ought to be able to make a 
 sacrifice for his conviction, or rather for his unbelief. It does- 
 not offend us when Catholics or Jews are orthodox. Where 
 Lutherans are so it does ; and the Church is constantly accused 
 of a ' persecuting spirit ' when she casts out the non-orthodox ; 
 but people consider it quite en regie that the orthodox should 
 be persecuted and maligned by the press and in their lives." 
 
 With the morning there arrived a green orderly from Berlin 
 with dispatches. Such messengers have winged feet, yet this 
 one had not been quicker than I in my fright lest I should ar- 
 rive too late. He had started on Monday, the 8th of August, 
 and had changed horses several times, and yet it had taken him 
 quite four days and nights to reach us. Early in the morning 
 I again assisted the cipherers with their work. Later, while 
 the Chief was with the King, I went with the Councillors to 
 see the fine large church in the town, over which the sacristan 
 conducted us. In the afternoon, when the Minister rode out, 
 we inspected the Prussian park of artillery, placed on a hill be- 
 hind the town. 
 
 The Chancellor returned by four o'clock, when we dined. 
 He had been a long way to find his two sons who were serving 
 as privates in the Dragoon guards, and he had learned that the 
 German Cavalry had already gone forward to the upper Moselle. 
 He seemed to be in good humor, perhaps because our cause 
 was prospering, and quite inclined to talk. When the con- 
 versation turned on mythology, he said that "he never 
 could bear Apollo. He had flayed Marsyas from conceit and 
 envy, and for the same reasons had killed N iobe's children. He 
 is," he continued, "the very type of a Frenchman ; that is, one 
 who cannot bear that another should play the flute as well or 
 better than he. That he had sided with the Trojans, did not 
 prejudice him in his favour. ^Honest Vulcan would have been 
 his man, and Neptune would have suited him still better, per- 
 haps because of the quos ego !" He did not, however, say this.
 
 20 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 After dinner \ve had to telegraph the following joyful mes- 
 sage to Berlin : "By the 7th August, we had above 10,000 
 prisoners. The effect of the victory at Saarbriicken turns out 
 to be much greater than we at first believed. They left behind 
 a pontoon train, with about forty waggons, nearly 10,000 
 blankets, which are now of great use for the wounded, and a 
 store of tobacco worth a million of francs. Pfalzburg and the 
 pass over the Vosges at that place are in our hands. Bitsch is 
 watched by a company, as it has a garrison of only 300 
 Mobile Guards. Our cavalry is already close to Luneville." 
 A little later we were able to send another pleasant mes- 
 sage, namely, that the Minister of Finance in Paris, evi- 
 dently in consequence of the approach of the German army, 
 had issued a proclamation warning the French people not 
 to keep their money at home, but to send it all to the Bank 
 of France. 
 
 On the 13th of August, we arrived at Faulquemont, or, as it 
 is now written, Falkenberg. Like that which we had traversed 
 at Saarbriicken, the country through which we drove was hilly, 
 often covered with brushwood, and equally full of martial 
 sights. The road was covered with trains of waggons, artillery, 
 ambulances, gensdarmes and orderlies. Long lines of infantry 
 were marching on the road and to the right across the stubble 
 fields to follow the course of the columns, marked out there 
 by poles with wisps of straw round them. Sometimes we 
 saw a man fall down in the ranks ; and here and there stragglers 
 lay in the ditches, for the August sun shone fiercely from a 
 cloudless sky. The troops who were before us, and, latterly, 
 mostly behind us, were the 84th Regiment (Schleswig-Holstein- 
 ers), and the 36th. At last we got out of the thick cloud of 
 yellow dust which rose from their steps, and entered the little 
 town, where I was quartered on one Schmidt, a baker. The 
 Minister had disappeared in the clouds of dust, and it was 
 some time before I learned from one of the Councillors re- 
 maining in Falkenberg that he had gone on with the King 
 to the village of Herny, five English miles further. 
 
 Falkenberg is a place of some 2,000 inhabitants, with only 
 one tolerably long principal street, and sundry little narrow 
 lanes on either side. It lies on the ridge of a gently-sloping 
 hill. Nearly the whole of the day troops continued to march 
 through. Among them were some Hessian infantry. The 
 Saxons were stationed close by. They sent their sutlers even
 
 Divine Service. 21 
 
 in the night-time to my baker to^et bread, who was soon left 
 in consequence without any. 
 
 The people with whom I was quartered were very polite and 
 agreeable. They cleared out for me the best of their rooms, 
 and though I begged them not to trouble themselves on my ac- 
 count, they brought me a good breakfast with red wine, and 
 coffee in the French manner, in a little bowl with a silver spoon, 
 with which I was to drink it ; and this they made me take in 
 spite of my reluctance. The woman spoke only broken Ger- 
 man, but the man talked fluently, though in a German patois, 
 and with here and there a word of French. The pictures in 
 their rooms showed them to be Catholics. 
 
 Sunday, August 14- After luncheon, we followed the Minis- 
 ter to Herny. The sky over our heads was of the deepest 
 blue, and the fields reeked from the scorching heat. Near a 
 village on the left of the road some Hessian infantry held di- 
 vine service in the open air, the Catholic soldiers in one circle, 
 the Protestants a little distance off in another, each round their 
 own clergyman. The latter sang the hymn 
 
 " Ein, feste Burg ist unser Gott." 
 
 Arrived at Herny, we found that the Chancellor had taken 
 up his abode in the first story of a long, low, whitewashed 
 house, a little aside from the principal street where his window 
 looked on to a dung heap. The house was tolerably roomy, so 
 that we joined him there, and I was again with Abeken. Hatz- 
 feld's room was also the Bureau. The King took up his quarters 
 with the pastor, near a fine old church the windows of which 
 were filled with painted glass. The village consists of one 
 broad straggling street, with a well-built mairie, which contains 
 also the parish school, and of houses mostly crowded close to- 
 gether, looking at the back into the little railway station. Tn 
 that we found a great deal of wanton destruction, papers scat- 
 tered about, books, torn up, and such like. Xear it some sol- 
 diers were guarding two French prisoners. After four o'clock 
 we heard for several hours the heavy thunder of artillery from 
 the neighbourhood of Metz. At tea-time the Minister said, 
 " I did not think a month ago that I should to-day drink tea 
 with you gentlemen in a peasant's house in Herny." Amongst 
 other matters we talked of Gramont, and the Count wondered 
 that this strong, healthy man, after such unhappy antecedents, 
 had not joined a regiment, in order to atone for his stupidity.
 
 22 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 He certainly was big and styong enough. " I should have 
 acted differently in 1866, if things had not gone well with me," 
 said he ; "I should have joined a regiment at once ; I never 
 would have allowed myself to be seen alive." 
 
 When he returned to his room, which by the way was a low, 
 countrified little parlour with very little furniture, I was fre- 
 quently called to receive orders. It seemed useful to enable 
 our illustrated papers to give a representation of the storming 
 of the Spicherenberg. Then the assertion of the Constitutionnel 
 had to be contradicted, according to which the Prussians 
 burned down everything in their march through France, and 
 left nothing but ruins behind them ; of which, with every op- 
 portunity to know the facts, we could honestly declare we had 
 seen nothing. Finally it was desirable to counteract the Neue 
 Freie Presse, which had hitherto shown itself to be friendly to 
 ais, but these last few days its circulation had, according to the 
 Constitutionnel, suffered, perhaps because of its partiality to 
 the Prussians, and perhaps because there was something in the 
 report that the Hungarian French party had bought the jour- 
 nal and had given it another tone. " Say this," said the Chan- 
 cellor, concluding his directions with regard to another article 
 of the Constitutionnel, " that there has never been the least 
 question in the Ministerial Council of ceding Saarbriicken to 
 the French, the matter not having been mentioned except in 
 confidential communications ; and of course a national minister 
 one in sympathy with the national feeling could not there- 
 fore entertain it. Yet this rumour may have a little founda- 
 tion ; it may be a misunderstanding, or a perversion of the fact 
 that the question was mooted and discussed in the Ministerial 
 Council before 1864 whether it might not be advisable to make 
 over the coal-mines at Saarbriicken, which are national prop- 
 erty, to companies. I proposed to pay the cost of the Schles- 
 wig-Holstein war in this way, but the thing came to nothing in 
 consequence of the King's aversion to any such transaction." 
 
 Monday, August 15, seemed to begin all at once and unus- 
 ually early. At daybreak, by four o'clock, the attendant called 
 out in the room where Abeken and I slept, " His Excellency is 
 going off directly ; the gentlemen will please to get ready." I 
 got up at once and packed up. It was, however, a mistake. 
 By the " gentlemen " only the Councillors were meant. About 
 six o'clock the Chancellor started with Count Bismarck-Bohlen. 
 Abeken, Keudell, and Hatzfeld followed him on horseback.
 
 Reconnoitering near Metz. 23 
 
 We others remained in Herny, where there was plenty to do, 
 and where, when we had finished our work, we could make our- 
 selves useful in other ways. Thick yellowish-gray clouds of 
 dust were rising from long lines of infantry passing through 
 the village ; amongst others, three Prussian regiments, partly 
 Pomeranian, almost all large, fine men. The band played 
 " Heil dir im Siegerkrantz," and "Ich bin ein Preusse." One 
 could see in the eyes of these men the burning thirst they were 
 enduring, so we organized, as quickly as possible, a little fire- 
 extinguisher's brigade. We carried the water in pails and jugs, 
 and reached it out to them as they marched along for they dare 
 not stop in their ranks, so that at least one here and there 
 could get a mouthful to carry him on a bit, either in the hollow 
 of his hand or in the little tin cup which he carried by his side. 
 
 Our Councillors returned from their ride about three o'clock ; 
 the Minister was rather later. Meanwhile Count Henckel, a 
 stately dark-bearded gentleman, and Bamberger, a member of 
 the Reichstag, had arrived ; also a Herr von Oldberg, who was 
 to be Prefect, or something of that kind, so that we begin to 
 feel that we are masters of the conquered land, and are settling 
 down in it. How much of the country it is intended to keep 
 had been told me in the morning by a telegram sent eastwards, 
 in the deciphering of which I had been helpful, and which had 
 said plainly that, God willing, we should keep Elsass. 
 
 As we learned at dinner, the King and Chancellor had made 
 a sort of reconnoitering tour to within three English miles of 
 Metz, and had seen General von Steinmetz. The French army 
 stationed outside the fortress had been violently attacked by 
 him the day before near Courcelles, and driven into the town 
 and forts. The enemy's loss was estimated at 4,000 men ; they 
 found forty dead " Red-breeches " in one ditch, most of them 
 shot through the head. 
 
 In the evening, as we sat on a bench near the house door, the 
 Minister came up for a moment. Whilst he talked with us he 
 asked me for a cigar, but Councillor Taglioni (one of the King's 
 cipherers, formerly in the Embassy at Paris, now dead) was 
 quicker than I in getting it out of his pocket. The more's the 
 pity, for my weed was a great deal better than his. 
 
 We were told that we were to proceed next day to Pont- 
 a-Mousson, and as we turned in for the night, I thought to pay 
 Abeken a compliment by telling him that the day's ride was 
 quite astonishing for one of his years ; he really ought to be con-
 
 24 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 gratulated. But he did not take it altogether well ; he did not 
 like -to appear old, and I vowed to myself quietly that in future 
 I would be more sparing of my surprise and my good wishes. 
 
 On August 16, at half-past nine, a lovely, but warm morn- 
 ing, we set off again. I drove in the Councillor's carriage, as 
 some of them rode, and by me sat Landrath Jansen, one of the 
 Free-Conservative party in the Reichstag ; a good-looking, 
 pleasant man, who had come to take part in the administration 
 of the conquered district. The journey took us over a broad 
 undulating plain, to the chain of hills on the right banks of the 
 Moselle, among which stood out the cone of the Mousson, with its 
 extensive ruins. We drove on an excellent road, through some 
 more villages with handsome mairies and schools. It was 
 everywhere full of life ar^d bustle, with the infantry soldiers, 
 the detachment of Saxon horsemen in bright blue, and all kinds of 
 carriages and carts. Here and there, too, there were little camps. 
 
 At last about three o'clock we drove over the slope of the 
 hill, and down into the valley of the Moselle towards Ponte-a- 
 Mousson. It is a town of about 8,000 inhabitants, stretching 
 along both sides of the river, over which is a beautiful stone 
 bridge, and with a great old church on the right bank. We 
 crossed the bridge and came into a market-place surrounded 
 with arcades, hotels, cafes, and an old town-house, before which 
 the Saxon infantry were lying on straw spread on the ground. 
 Here we turned into the Rue Saint-Laurent, where the Minis- 
 ter, with Abeken, Keudell, and Count Bismarck-Bohlen, were 
 quartered in a small mansion at the corner of the Rue Raugraf, 
 which was covered with a red-blossomed climbing plant. His 
 involuntary host was, so we heard, an old gentleman who had 
 gone off with Madame on his travels. The Chancellor took 
 possession of the apartments on the first floor, which looked 
 out on the little garden at the back. The Bureau was estab- 
 lished on the ground floor, in a back room, and a smaller room 
 next it served as the dining-room. The Landrath, I, Secretary 
 Bolsing, Willisch, and St. Blanquart, the other temporary 
 cipherer, were about ten doors off, in the Rue Saint-Laurent, in 
 a house which seemed to be inhabited only by some French 
 ladies and their maid servants. I slept with Blanquart, or to 
 give his full title for once, Hofrath St. Blanquart, in a room 
 which a chance visitor might have called an omnium gatherum 
 of memorials from every country ; dried flowers, wreaths of 
 roses, palm branches, photographs from the city of David, also
 
 An Ethnographical Cabinet. 25 
 
 Vino di Gerusalemme, a darabuka, cocoa-nuts, corals, cray-fish, 
 sponges from the bottom of the sea, a sword-fish, and other 
 monsters with gaping jaws and sharp teeth ; three German 
 tobacco pipes, next which came three Oriental cousins of theirs 
 a tschibbuk, a nargileh, and a schischi ; then came a Spanish 
 Madonna with half-a-dozen swords in her breast, reminding one 
 of a bull fight ; antelopes' horns, pictures of saints from Moscow, 
 and, lastly, framed and glazed, a French newspaper, with an 
 article in it obliterated by a Russian censor of the press. In 
 short, a complete enthnographical cabinet. 
 
 We remained here only long enough to make ourselves de- 
 cent. Then we hastened to the Bureau. On the way we saw 
 different proclamations nailed up at the corners of the streets 
 one, of our victory, of the 14th, a second, about the abolition 
 of the conscription, and a third in which the mayor of Ponte- 
 a-Mousson exhorted the inhabitants to circumspection, which 
 must have been issued the day before the attack of the civilians 
 in this place on our soldiers, or even before. The inhabitant*) 
 were also ordered by our people, under threat of punishment, 
 to put lights in all the windows at night, and to leave open all 
 shutters and doors, and to deliver up all their weapons at the 
 town-house. 
 
 The distant thunder of cannon was heard during the greater 
 part of the afternoon, and in the evening, at dinner, we learn i that 
 there had again been a hardly-contested action near Metz . upon 
 which some one remarked that perhaps we should not succeed 
 in preventing the French from accomplishing their object, 
 and withdrawing to Yerdun. To this the Minister replied 
 jestingly, "Molk, the hard-hearted reprobate, said that such a 
 mishap would not be to be lamented, for then we should hav- 
 them safe." Which meant, I suppose, that then we should shut; 
 them in on every side, and prevent their further retreat. in 
 fact, annihilate them. Of the other sayings of the Chancellor 
 on this occasion, I give only this, that he said " The little black- 
 Saxons, who looked so intelligent," had pleased him greatly, 
 during the visit he had paid them the day before. He meanf 
 the dark green riflemen, or the 108th regiment, with tho same- 
 colour of uniform. " They seem to be sharp, nimble fellows, and 
 we ought to mention this in the public press." 
 
 The following night I was awakened several times by th< 
 measured tread of infantry marching through, and the rollin;.' 
 and rumbling of heavy wheels over the uneven pavement. As 
 3
 
 26 Bismarck in the Franco-German War 
 
 we learnt afterwards in the Bureau, they were Hessian soiuiers. 
 We were told that the Minister had already, about four o'clock 
 in the morning, ridden off towards Metz, where a great battle 
 was expected to-day or to-morrow. As there was every proba- 
 bility of my having little or nothing to do, I seized the oppor- 
 tunity to take a walk with Willisch in the neighbourhood of 
 the town. 
 
 We descended once more to the confusion of war time and 
 to our house in the Rue Raugraf, but only to hear that the 
 Chancellor had not returned. News had been received of a 
 battle the day before to the west of Metz. We heard of the 
 heavy losses of our side, and that Bazaine had with great diffi- 
 culty been prevented from breaking through. The chief scene 
 of the fighting seemed to have been the village of Mars-la-Tour. 
 The Chassepot balls literally fell like a shower of hail. A 
 Cuirassier regiment, so it was said then, with an exaggeration 
 not uncommon in such cases, had been almost annihilated, and 
 the dragoons of the guard had also suffered severely. There 
 was no division whose battalions had not had terrible losses. 
 To-day, however, when we would have the superiority of force, 
 as the French had yesterday, a victory might be expected if the 
 French attempted to advance. 
 
 This, however, seemed not quite certain. Consequently we 
 were rather uneasy no sitting still, no steady thinking, was 
 possible ; as in a fever, certain thoughts were constantly recur- 
 ring. On going to the market and to the bridge we found the 
 slightly wounded gradually dropping in on foot, those badly 
 wounded in waggons. Along the road from Metz we met a 
 long line of about one hundred and twenty prisoners. They 
 were chiefly small, meagre men, but still there were amongst 
 them some well-grown, broad-shouldered fellows Guards, recog- 
 nizable by the white cord on the breast. Coming back from the 
 market we went into the garden at the back of the Bureau, 
 where, on the left hand, in a corner not far from the house, 
 " the dog was buried," the dog of Herr Aubert, who was, appar- 
 ently, our landlord, and who erected a stone in memory of the 
 departed, with the following touching inscription : 
 
 GIRARD AUBERTS EPITAPH ON HIS DOG. 
 
 Ici tu pis, ma vieille amie, 
 
 Tu n'es done plus pour mes vieux jours, 
 
 O toi, ma Diane chdrie, 
 
 Je te pleurerai toujours.
 
 The Chancellor and the Doctor. 27 
 
 At last, about six o'clock, the Chancellor came back. No 
 great battle had taken place to-day, but something would most 
 likely happen next morning. The Chief told us at the table, 
 that he had been to visit his eldest son, Count Herbert, who 
 had been wounded by a shot in the upper part of the thigh 
 during a cavalry attack at Mars-la-Tour, and who was lying in 
 the field hospital of Mariaville. The Minister, riding about, at 
 last found it in a farmyard at the top of a hill, where were 
 also a considerable number of other wounded men. They were 
 left in the hands of a doctor who could not contrive to get 
 water for them, and who, from a kind of prudery, refrained 
 from taking the hens and turkeys which were running about 
 the yard for the use of the Lick. " He said he dare not," con- 
 tinued the Minister. " Friendly representations made to him 
 were no use. Then I threatened, first to shoot the hens with a 
 revolver, and afterwards gave him twenty francs with which he 
 could buy fifteen of them. At last I remembered that I was a 
 Prussian general, and I told him so. Upon which, he listened 
 to me. But the water I was obliged to look for myself, and 
 get it taken to them in barrels." 
 
 Meantime the American General Sheridan, had entered the 
 town. He came from Chicago, was staying in the market-square 
 in the Croix Blanche, and wanted an interview with our Chan- 
 cellor. I waited upon him by the Count's wish, and said that 
 he would expect him in the course of the evening. The gen- 
 eral, a little corpulent gentleman of about forty-five, with a 
 dark mustache and a tuft, spoke a most decided Yankee dialect. 
 He had with him his adjutant, Forsythe, and as interpreter, 
 McLean, a journalist, who was also war correspondent for the 
 New York World. 
 
 In the night, from our room, we heard again the heavy tramp 
 of soldiers marching through the town, and we afterwards 
 found they were Saxons. 
 
 Next morning they told me in the Bureau that the King and 
 the Minister had already driven out about three o'clock. There 
 was fighting again almost on the battle-field of the 1 6th, and it 
 seemed as if matters were coming to a crisis. As may be easily 
 imagined, we were more excited by this news than any time 
 before in these last days. Restless and impatient to know what 
 was going on, we started to walk in the direction of Met-z, and 
 arrived in a state of mental and bodily stew, at a spot about 
 two miles and a half from Pont-a-Mousson. On the road we
 
 28 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 met some who were slightly wounded, walking some singly, 
 some in pairs, some in larger bodies to the town. Many still 
 carried their muskets ; others were supporting themselves with 
 sticks, and one had enveloped himself in the red-lined cloak of 
 a French cavalry soldier. They had taken part in the action 
 the day before at Mars-la-Tour, and Gorze. About the fight 
 which was going on this day they bring reports, good and bad, 
 which were repeated in the town with exaggerations. At last, 
 good news got the upper hand, but even when the evening was 
 far advanced nothing absolutely certain was known. We dined 
 without our Chief, for whom we waited in vain till past mid- 
 night. At last, however, we heard that he along with Sheri- 
 dan and Count Bismarck-Bohlen was with the King at Rezonville. 
 
 Friday, August 19. When we knew for certain that the 
 Germans had been victorious the day before, Abeken, Keudell, 
 Hatzfeld and I, drove towards the battle-fields. 
 
 Immediately after passing Gorze we came upon traces of 
 battle ; ditches ploughed by cannon balls, branches torn from 
 the trees by shot, and a few dead horses. Further on there 
 were more ; in some places we counted two or three close to- 
 gether, and in another there was a heap of eight such carcasses. 
 Most of them were frightfully swollen and their legs were 
 stretched up in the air, with their heads lying limp on the 
 ground. Near Mars-la-Tour there was a Saxon camp. The 
 battle of the 16th, as it appeared, had done little harm to the 
 village ; only one* house was burned down. I asked a lieuten- 
 ant of Uhlans here where Rezonville was. He did not know. 
 "Where is the King 1 ?" "At a place about six (English) miles 
 from here," was the answer. " Out there," said the officer, 
 pointing toward the east. A peasant woman, who tried to show 
 us where Rezonville lay, also pointed in that direction, so we 
 drove on straight along a road which brought us after a time 
 to the village of Vionville. Just before we reached that place 
 I stumbled on the first of those killed in this fight a Prussian 
 musketeer lying between the ditches on the edge,of the road and 
 a stubble field. His face was as black as a Turco's and his 
 body fearfully swollen. All the houses in the village were full 
 of badly wounded soldiers ; German and French doctors were 
 moving along the road, and ambulance men with the Geneva 
 Cress hurried backwards and forwards. 
 
 I determined to wait here for the Minister and the Council- 
 lors, for I thought they would certainly come to this place, and
 
 After the Battle. 29 
 
 that probably before long. I walked to the battle-field through 
 a narrow path on the left side of the road, where, in a dit^li, a 
 man's leg which had been cut off lay under a mass of bloody 
 rags. About four hundred paces from the village I came to 
 two ditches about 300 feet long, running parallel to each other, 
 neither wide nor deep, which men were still digging, and near 
 them great heaps of dead bodies, French and German huddled 
 together. Some were half-dressed, most of them still in uni- 
 form, all blackened and frightfully swollen from the heat. 
 There must have been 250 bodies, which had been brought to- 
 gether here, and carts were still arriving with more. Many 
 others had, no doubt, already been buried. Farther on to- 
 wards Metz the battle-field sloped upwards a little, and here 
 more seem to have fallen than elsewhere. The ground was 
 strewn with French caps, German helmets, knapsacks, arms, 
 and uniforms, linen, shoes, and papers, all strewn about. 
 Among the furrows of the potato field lay some single bodies, 
 some on their faces, some on their backs ; one had lost the 
 whole of his left leg to a span above the knee ; another, half 
 his head ; some had the right arm stretched stiff towards the 
 sky. Here and there we came upon a single grave marked by 
 a little cross made of the wood of a cigar-box and tied together 
 with string, or by the bayonet from a Chassepot. The odour from 
 the dead bodies was most perceptible, and at times, when the wind 
 blew from the direction of a heap of horses, quite unbearable. 
 
 It was time to go back to the carriage, and I had had 
 quite enough of this picture of the battle-field. I took another 
 road, but here, too, I had to pass heaps of the dead ; this time, 
 "Pied-breeches" only, heaps of discarded clothing, shirts, shoes, 
 papers, and letters ; prayer-books and books of devotion. Near 
 some dead bodies lay whole packets of letters which the poor 
 fellows had carried with them in their knapsacks. I took two or 
 three of them as memorials, two of them German letters from one 
 Anastasia Stampf, from Scherrweiler, near Schlettstadt, which 
 I found beside a French soldier, who must have been stationed 
 at Caen just before the outbreak of the war. One was dated 
 from " 25, hay month, 1870 "(July), and concluded with the 
 words, "We commend thee always to Mary's holy keeping." 
 
 When I got back to the carriage the minister had not yet 
 arrived, and it was four o'clock. We now turned round and 
 took a nearer way back to Gorze, and I saw that we had driven 
 round the two long sides of an acute-angled triangle, instead of
 
 30 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 choosing the shortest route. Here we met Keuclell, to whom 
 I explained our mistake and the unfortunate roundabout road 
 we had taken. He had been with Abeken and Count Hatzfeld 
 with the Chief, in Rezonville. While the battle of the 1 8th 
 was raging, the decisive struggle taking place on Gravelotte, 
 Bismarck had advanced with the King rather too far, and for 
 a little time they were in some danger. Afterwards he, single- 
 handed, had been carrying water to the badly wounded. At 
 nine o'clock in the evening I saw him safe and sound in Pont- 
 a-Mousson, where we all met together once more at supper. 
 The conversation at table turned naturally on the two last 
 battles, and the gain and loss which accompanied them. The 
 French had left masses of people on the field. The Minister 
 had seen their Guards laid down at Gravelotte in rows and 
 heaps. But oUr losses, too, were, he said, very great. Those 
 of the 16th of August were only now known. "A number of 
 Prussian families will be thrown into mourning," remarked the 
 Chief. " Wesdehlen and Reuss are laid in one grave ; Wedell, 
 dead ; von Finkenstein, dead ; Rahden (Luca's husband), shot 
 through both cheeks ; a great number of commanders of regi- 
 ments and battalions killed or severely wounded. The whole 
 field at Mars-la-Tour was yesterday still white and blue with 
 dead Cuirassiers and Dragoons." In explanation of this re- 
 mark we learned that a great cavalry attack had been made, 
 near that village, on the French who were pressing forward in 
 the direction of Verdun ; that though this attack had been re- 
 pulsed by the enemy's infantry in the style of Balaklava, it had 
 so far been successful, that it had arrested the enemy, till rein- 
 forcements reached us. The sons of the Chancellor had been 
 present at this action, and had displayed great bravery ; the 
 eldest had received no less than three shots, one through the 
 breast of his coat, another on his watch, and a third through 
 the fleshy part of the thigh. The youngest seemed to have 
 come through it unhurt ; and the Chief related with manifest 
 pride, that Count Bill in the retreat had, with his strong arms, 
 dragged out of the fray one of his comrades who was wounded 
 in the leg, and ridden off with him slung across his horse, till 
 they got assistance. On the 18th still more German blood was 
 shed, but we had won the victory and attained the object of 
 this destructive war. By nightfall Bazaine's army was decisive- 
 ly driven back on Metz, and the officers who were taken prison- 
 ers themselves admitted to the Minister that it was all over
 
 The Minister and Sheridan. 31 
 
 with them. The Saxons, who on the two previous days had 
 made very stiff marches, and had reached a position to take 
 effective part in the fight at the village Saint-Private, stood now 
 across the road -to Thionville, and thus Metz was entirely sur- 
 rounded by our troops. 
 
 The Chancellor, as it appeared, had not approved of some of 
 the measures of the military in these two fights. Among other 
 things, he said of Steinmetz, " that he had made a bad use of 
 the really prodigious bravery of our troops a blood-spendthrift !" 
 He spoke with vehement indignation of the barbarous manner 
 in which the French waged war ; they had fired, it was said, on 
 the Geneva Cross flag, and even on the bearer of a flag of truce. 
 
 The Minister seemed to have quickly got on very good terms 
 with Sheridan ; for I had to invite him and his two companions 
 to dinner next evening. 
 
 On the 20th, early, came Herr von Kuhlwetter, who was to 
 be civil commissioner, or prefect, in Elsass or Lothringen. At 
 eleven the Crown Prince, who with Ms troops was stationed 
 some twenty-five miles from Pont-a-Mousson, on the road from 
 Nancy to Chalons, came to visit the Chancellor. In the after- 
 noon there passed through the Rue Notre Darne nearly twelve 
 hundred prisoners on foot, and amongst them two carriages 
 with officers, guarded by Prussian cavalry. In the evening, 
 Sheridan, Forsy the, and McLean were guests of the Chief, who 
 talked eagerly with the American General in good English, 
 whilst champagne and porter circulated. The latter was drunk 
 out of the metal pots I have described, one of which filled up 
 to the brim he sent to me, saying : " Doctor, do you still drink 
 porter?" I mention this because at this time no one took 
 porter but the Minister and the Americans, and because the gift 
 was extremely welcome and agreeable ; for though we had more 
 than enough of wine, champagne, and cognac, we had had no 
 beer since Saarbriicken. 
 
 The General, well known as a successful general of the 
 Unionists in the latter part of the war of Secession, talked a 
 good deal. He spoke of the fatigues he had undergone during 
 his ride from the Rocky Mountains to Chicago, of the horrible 
 swarms of gnats, of a great bone cave in California, in which 
 fossil animals were found, and of buffalo and bear hunting. 
 The Chancellor also told a hunting story in his best style. He 
 was one day, in Finland, in considerable danger from a great 
 bear, which he could not see plainly, as he was covered with
 
 32 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 snow. " At last I fired," lie continued, " and the bear fell, 
 about six steps in front of me. He was not dead, however, 
 and was able to get up again. I knew what was the 
 danger, and what I had to do. I did not stir, but loaded again 
 as quietly as possible, and shot him dead as he tried to stand up." 
 In the forenoon of the 21st we worked hard for the post 
 and the telegraph in order to send off the news, and articles 
 commenting on it, to Germany. The parlementaire who had 
 been shot at by the French, as he approached them, with his 
 white flag, was, we heard, Captain or Major Verdy of Moltke's 
 staff; the trumpeter who accompanied him was wounded. We 
 received certain intelligence from Florence, that Victor Em- 
 manuel and his minister, in consequence of our victories, had 
 determined to remain neutral, which hitherto had been far from 
 certain. Lastly, we were now able to calculate, at any rate 
 pretty nearly, the losses of the French on the 14th at Cour- 
 celles, on the 16th, at Mars-la-Tour, and on the 18th at Grave- 
 lotte. The Minister put these, for all the three days, at nearly 
 50,000 men, of whom 12,000 were dead, and added, "The 
 jealousy of some of our leaders was the cause of our losing so 
 many of our men." 
 
 Monday, August 22, I wrote in my journal : 
 " Went early with Willisch again to bathe before the Chief 
 was up. At half-past ten I was summoned to him. He asked 
 at once how I was, and whether I had not been attacked by 
 dysentery. He had not been well in the night. The Count 
 and dysentery 1 God preserve him from that ! That would 
 be worse than a lost battle. All our affairs would fall into un- 
 certainty and confusion." 
 
 There is no longer any doubt that, in the event of ultimate 
 victory over France, we shall keep Elsass and Metz, with the 
 surrounding country, and the following was, perhaps, the train 
 of thought which led the Chancellor to this decision. 
 
 A contribution, however great it might be, would be no com- 
 pensation for the enormous sacrifices we have made. We must 
 secure South Germany, exposed as it is, from the attacks of the 
 French : we must put an end to the pressure which France has 
 exercised upon it for two centuries, especially since this pres- 
 sure has essentially contributed to the derangement of German 
 relations during the whole of that time. Baden, Wurtembure;, 
 and the other countries on the south-west, must not again be 
 threatened from Strassburg and overrun at pleasure. It is the
 
 Tlie Object to be secv.red. 33 
 
 same with Bavaria. During the last two hundred and fifty 
 years the French have undertaken more than a dozen wars of 
 conquest against the soul^i-west of Germany. Guarantees 
 against such disturbances of the peace were sought, in 1814 
 and 1815, in a policy adopted towards France, which, however, 
 proved to be too forbearing. This forbearance was useless, and 
 even now would be fruitless and without result. The danger 
 lies in the incurable assumption and dominating spirit inherent 
 in the French character ; attributes which may be abused by 
 any ruler not merely by the Bonapartes to provoke attacks 
 on peaceful neighbors. Our protection against it does not lie 
 in fruitless attempts momentarily to weaken the susceptibility 
 of the French, but in the gaining of a well-secured frontier. 
 France has, by her continued appropriation of German terri- 
 tory, and of all our natural defences on our west frontier, 
 placed herself in a position to penetrate into the heart of 
 South Germany with an army, relatively speaking, not very 
 great, before any help can be brought down from the north. 
 Since the time of Louis XIV. under him and his successor, 
 under the Republic, under the first Empire, there has been a 
 constant repetition of these attacks, and the feeling of insecur- 
 ity compels the States of Germany to keep their eyes incessantly 
 on France. That a feeling of bitterness will be created in the minds 
 of the French by taking away a piece of territory, is really not 
 worth considering. This bitterness would exist even without 
 cession of territory. In 1866 Austria had not to cede one 
 square rood of her territory ; and what thanks did we get for it ? 
 Our victory at Koniggratz filled the French with aversion, hatred 
 and bitter vexation ; how much more effect will our victories at 
 "NViJrth and Metz have upon them ! Revenge for this defeat of 
 the proud nation will, therefore, even if we took no territory, 
 be the war-cry in Paris and the provinces influenced by Paris, 
 just as, for many years, they thought of vengeance for Water- 
 loo. But an enemy which cannot be turned into a friend by 
 generous treatment after defeat, must be rendered permanently 
 harmless. It is not the levelling of the French fortresses on 
 the east frontier of France, but their cession, that can alone be 
 of service to us. Those who cry out for disarmament must be 
 the first to wish to see the neighbors of the French adopt 
 these measures, for France is the sole disturber of the peace of 
 Europe, and will remain so as long as she can. 
 
 It is quite astonishing how naturally such opinions of the
 
 34 Bismarck in the Franco- German War. 
 
 Chief already flow from my pen ! What ten days ago still 
 looked like a miracle, is now quite natural and self-evident. 
 
 At table the conversation again turned on the improper, not 
 to say base, manner in which the Red-breeches carry on the 
 war, and the Minister said that at Mars-la-Tour they had fallen 
 upon one of our officers, who was sitting, wounded, on a stone 
 by the wayside. Some said they shot him ; others said, and 
 a doctor who examined the body was of the same opinion, 
 that he was thrust through with a sword, whereupon the Chief 
 remarked that if he had to choose, he would rather be stabbed 
 than shot. Then he complained of Abeken's movements dur- 
 ing the night, so that he, who was a bad sleeper in any case, 
 was disturbed by Abeken's calling out, running backwards and 
 forwards, and banging the doors. " He thinks he is feeling for 
 his connections by marriage," said he. This referred to the 
 Counts York, with whom our Geheimrath had become distantly 
 connected by his marriage with Friiulein von Olfers a rela- 
 tionship on which, with his perpetual " my cousins, the Yorks," 
 he plumed himself more than a man of self-respect and high 
 feeling would have done. One of the two Yorks had been 
 wounded at Mars-la-Tour or Gravelotte, and the old gentleman 
 drove that night to see him. I can easily imagine him, under 
 the pressure of high- wrought feeling, reciting on the way, as he 
 sat behind the coachman, something gushing, or thrilling, or 
 dithyrambic, from Goethe, or Ossian, or even out of the old 
 Greek tragic poets. 
 
 Count Herbert was brought here to-day, from the field- 
 ambulance to his father, on the floor of whose room they made 
 him a bed. I saw him and spoke with him. His wound is 
 painful, but apparently not at present dangerous. He will go 
 back to Germany in a few days till he recovers. 
 
 NOTE 1. According to the Constitutionnel of August 8, the pressure of 
 public opinion in "V ienna had grown steadily. It showed itself in this way, 
 that in a single day the Neue Freie Presse received more than a thousand 
 letters from subscribers, to give notice to stop their papers, as they would 
 no longer take in a print which continued to promote the interests of Prus- 
 sia to the injury of Austria. 
 
 NOTE 2. According to one of the articles inspired from Vienna in the 
 Constitutionnel, the Morgenpost of that city, of August 2, contained revela- 
 tions said to come from "a personage on a very friendly footing with the 
 Grand Duke of Baden, " ' ' according to which M. de Bismarck " is said to 
 have "proposed in full Ministerial Council to give up Saarbriicken and 
 Landau to France. The Grand Duke himself," it goes on to say, "told the 
 fact to the person, who published it in the Morgenpost, and the Grand Duke 
 had it from the King of Prussia, who asserted that it was only through his 
 own opposition that the proposition of M. de Bismarck was not adopted by 
 the Council." .
 
 Thiers' Predictions concerning France. 35 
 
 CHAPTER IIL 
 
 COMMERCY BAR-LE-DUC CLERMONT IK ARGOXNE, 
 
 r I WESDAY, August 23. We set out again on our journey 
 _|_ westwards. Sheridan and his people were to accompany 
 us, or follow us immediately. President von Kuhlwetter re- 
 mains here for the present as prefect; Count Renard, of gigantic 
 frame and corresponding beard, at Nancy, and Count Henckel 
 at Saargemiind, in similar positions. We saw the Imperial en- 
 voy Bamberger again. Herr Stieber, too, made his appearance 
 in the neighborhood of the house at the corner of the Rue 
 Raugraf. Lastly, as I paid a parting visit to the interior of 
 the town, in order to take away a mental image to remember 
 the place by, I saw the refined, wrinkled, smooth-shaven face 
 of Moltke, for the first time since I saw him along with the 
 Minister of War mounting the steps of Bismarck's residence, 
 eight or ten days before the declaration of war. It wore 
 to-day, as it seemed to me, a very happy and pleasant ex- 
 pression. 
 
 An account of the way in which Thiers had spoken not long 
 ago of the immediate future of France interested me not a 
 little as I returned to the Bureau. He had clearly pointed out, 
 that in the event of victory we should take possession of Elsass, 
 that Xapoleon would, after the loss of battles, certainly lose 
 also his throne, and that he would be succeeded for some months 
 by a Republic, and then by some member of the Orleans 
 family, perhaps even by Leopold of Belgium, who, as my in- 
 formant claimed to know from certain knowledge, was very 
 ambitious. 
 
 We left Pout-a-Mousson at ten o'clock. The fine weather 
 of the last few days had changed between morning and after- 
 noon to a gray cloudy sky and showers of rain. I drove in the 
 Secretaries' carriage, which carried the portfolios of the Foreign
 
 36 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 Office from place to place. Beyond Gironville the road ascend- 
 ed a steep hill, from which there was a fine view over the plain 
 beneath. We left the carriage here, to ease the horses, the 
 Chancellor walking with Abeken at the head of the procession 
 for a quarter of an hour, in great wide top boots, which in size 
 and shape reminded one of those one sees in portraits from the 
 Thirty Years' War. Next to him walked Moltke, the greatest 
 artist in war of our days, by the side of the greatest? statesman 
 of our time, on a French road leading to Paris, and I could bet 
 that neither thought it specially remarkable. 
 
 When we returned to the carriages, we saw, to the right of 
 the road, that a telegraph had been established by some smart 
 soldiers. Soon afterward we descended into the valley of the 
 Upper Meuse, and shortly before two reached Commercy, a 
 pretty little town with about 6,000 inhabitants, close to a great 
 forest. The stream here is still narrow and muddy. On it is 
 an old mansion, with a collonade in front. The white shutters 
 of the better houses in the street were mostly closed, as though 
 the proprietors were determined not to see the hated Prussians. 
 The people in blouses, on the contrary, seemed more curious 
 and less hostile. Over several dodrs was to be seen "Fabrique 
 de Madeleines." These are biscuits in the shape of little melons, 
 Avhich are in great request all through France, so we did not fail 
 to buy some boxes to send home. 
 
 The Chief was quartered with Abeken and Keudell at the 
 house of Count Macore de Gaucourt, in the Rue des Fontaines, 
 in which not long before a Prince of Schwarzburg had lived, 
 and where only the lady of the house remained behind. Her 
 husband was in the French army, and was therefore in the field. 
 He was a man of very good family, descended from the old 
 Dukes of Lorraine. There was a pretty flower-garden near his 
 house, and a park with charming shade stretched behind it. 
 I was not far from the Minister, at No. 1, Rue Heurtebise, on 
 the ground floor dressing-room of a man living on his means, 
 whom I found a friendly and obliging host. He gave me an 
 excellent four-poster bed. In walking through the town I met 
 Sheridan's adjutant, in front of a house with steps leading up to 
 the door. He told me that he left California in the beginning 
 of May, and travelled to Chicago in great haste, and from thence 
 to London ; then to Berlin, and from there to Pont-a-Mousson 
 in five days. He and the General, who was looking out at a win- 
 dow on the first floor, now wear uniform. Afterwards, I sought
 
 The Orleans Family. 37 
 
 for the Chancellor, found him in the garden, and inquired wheth- 
 er he had anything for me to do. After some thought, he said 
 "Yes," and an hour afterwards I set the field post, as well as 
 the telegraph to work. I wrote, for instance, the following 
 article : 
 
 "It is now quite certain that, the Princes of the Orleans 
 family, in the expectation of seeing the star of the Napoleons 
 pale and sink still lower, consider their time come. Emphatic- 
 ally declaring themselves Frenchmen, they have placed their 
 sword at the command of France in the present crisis. By 
 their indolence, for the most part by adhering to the principle 
 of laissez faire in dealing with the affairs of their neighbors, 
 the Orleans family lost their throne. It seems as if they de- 
 sired to reconquer it by energy, and as if by indulging the pas- 
 sions of Chauvinism, the craze for glory and the assumption of 
 the guardianship of the world, inherent in Frenchmen, they 
 would seek to maintain themselves upon the throne. Wo are 
 by no means at the nd of our work. A decisive victory is 
 probable, but not yet certain ; the fall of Napoleon is some- 
 what nearer, but it is not yet a fact. If Napoleon actually 
 falls, could we be content in view of what we have just re- 
 marked merely with this result, of our enormous exertions 1 
 Ought we to feel that we had attained, in that event, what 
 must be our supreme object a peace with France, secured for 
 many years 1 No one will assert this. A peac* with the Or- 
 leanist family reseated on the throne of France would he, with- 
 out any doubt, far more delusive than a peace with Napoleon, 
 who has had enough to do with glory 7 . Sooner or later, we 
 should be again challenged by France, when France probably 
 would be better armed, and more secure of powerful all lances." 
 
 Three reserve armies are to be formed in Germany . ono, 
 the strongest, at Berlin; another on the Rhine, and a third 
 on account of Austria's suspicious attitude in Soksi'a at Gio- 
 gan. The latter was purely a defensive measure. The troops 
 on the Rhine were to be commanded by the Duke of Mecklen 
 burg ; those at Berlin by General von Cansticn, and those ,it. 
 Glogan by General von Lowenfield. 
 
 Towards evening the military band played before the house 
 of the King, who had been quartered in Covnmercy during the 
 war of Liberation, and the street boys were; quite pieased to 
 hold the notes of the music for the men who played the horns 
 and hautboys.
 
 38 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 The Chancellor at dinner began to speak of his sons, and said, 
 "I hope now that I shall keep at least one of my young fellows I 
 mean Herbert, who is on his way home. He had got very 
 much in his place in the field. When he lay wounded near us in 
 Pont-a-Mousson, and common dragoons came to see him, he 
 conversed with them more freely than with the officers." 
 
 At tea it was mentioned that in 1814 the King had lived 
 in the very same street, and, indeed, in a house close by the 
 one he was quartered in now. The Minister said, " My plan 
 for his Majesty in the future campaign is to send the Staff 
 Guard on in front. The country right and left of the road 
 must be thoroughly searched by a company of soldiers, and the 
 head-quarters must keep together. Sentinels must be placed 
 at short distances from one another. The King agreed to this 
 plan, when I told him that it had been followed in 1814. At 
 that time the monarchs did not drive, but always rode, and 
 Russian soldiers, twenty feet apart, lined the road." Some 
 one observed that it was quite possible that peasants or Francs- 
 tireurs might fire on the King in the carriage. 
 
 In the evening some more articles were sent to Germany, 
 amongst others one on the co-operation of the Saxons at 
 Gravelotte, whose praises the Chief never tired in repeating. It 
 ran thus : 
 
 "In the battle at Metz on the 18th, the Saxons distin- 
 guished themselves by their usual heroic bravery, and con- 
 tributed most essentially to the attainment of the object of the 
 German troops. To bring the Saxon Army Corps into the 
 field, very long marches from the right to the extreme left 
 wing had been made the day before, and even on the 18th it- 
 self. In spite of these fatigues they attacked with extraordin- 
 ary energy, drove the enemy back, and completely fulfilled the 
 duty they were charged with, preventing the enemy breaking 
 through towards Thionville. Their losses in these actions 
 amounted to 2200 men." 
 
 About nine o'clock the Bavarians began to march through. 
 They went along the Rue de la Banque, and therefore passed 
 the King's abode as well as ours. There were more French 
 spectators than was convenient to us, on the pavement, on both 
 sides of the rows of trees which border the wide street. The 
 light cavalry in green uniforms turned up with red ; dark-blue 
 cuirassiers, among whom were many fine men ; lancers, artillery, 
 infantry, regiment after regiment marqfced for several hours
 
 The Francs-tireurs. 39 
 
 past the Commander-in-Chief of the German armies. As they 
 inarched in front of the house where the King stood, they raised 
 loud ringing hurrahs, while the cavalry brandished their sabres, 
 and the infantry held up their right hands and lowered their 
 colours, amid blaring fanfare of the trumpets of the cavalry, and 
 music from the bands of the infantry. Who, after the war of 
 1^66, or even three months ago, would have thought it pos- 
 sible 1 
 
 More articles were written for the post, and others for the 
 telegraph. Our people press rapidly forwards. The heads of 
 the German columns already stand between Chalons and Eper- 
 nay. In Germany the three reserve armies which have been 
 talked of for some days are in process of formation. In oppos- 
 ition to our plan of creating a safe frontier on the west, by the 
 incorporation of French territory, neutral powers for the 
 most part raise difficulties, especially England, which, jeal- 
 ous of us for some time past, shows a disposition to tie our 
 hands. The accounts from St. Petersburg appear to be better, 
 where the Emperor, though not without some doubts of the 
 measures we have in view, seems disposed to favor us, and 
 where too the Archduchess Helena has given us her active sym- 
 pathy. We stand, however, by our plan, dictated by the 
 necessity of securing South Germany from the attacks of France 
 once and for all, and of thus making it independent of French 
 politics, the achievement of which will doubtless be demanded 
 by the national feeling with an energy quite irresistible. The 
 troops before us report much exciting news about the bands of 
 Francs-tireurs which have been formed. Their uniform is of 
 such a kind that they can hardly be known as soldiers, and 
 what they do wear to distinguish them as such can be easily 
 thrown away. One of these fellows when a troop of our caval- 
 ry is going along the road, lies apparently sunning himself in 
 the ditch near a wood. As soon as our men have passed, up 
 he starts and fires his rifle at them, which he had kept concealed 
 in the neighboring bush, and runs into the wood, out of which, 
 perfectly acquainted with the paths in it, he comes again, a 
 little further on, an innocent countryman in a blouse. I am 
 inclined to think that these are not defenders of their country, 
 but assassins, who should be hanged without ceremony, if they 
 fall into our hands. 
 
 At dinner Count Seckendorf, Adjutant in the Crown Prince's 
 general staff, was one of the guests. (Vide note 1, at end of
 
 40 Lismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 chapter.) He denied that the Crown Prince had, as reported, 
 caused some treacherous French peasants to be shot ; on the 
 contrary, said the Prince, he had always behaved with great 
 mildness and forbearance, even towards officers of the enemy, 
 who showed great want of soldier-like breeding. 
 
 Count Bohlen, who is always full of fun and anecdotes, said, 
 "When the battery von Breinitz, on the 18th, was sustaining 
 such a sharp fire that in a short time nearly all its horses, and 
 most of its men, were lying on the ground either dead or 
 wounded, the captain said, as he rallied the last who were left 
 standing, ' A fine fight this, isn't it ? " 
 
 The Chief said, "Last night I asked' the sentinel outside the 
 door, who he was, and what he got to eat, and I heard that the 
 man had not had anything to eat for four-and-twenty hours. 
 Then I went in and found the cook, and cut a great hunch of 
 bread, and took it to him, which seemed to be most acceptable 
 to him." 
 
 The conversation then turned from Hatzfeld's prefecture to 
 other prefects and commissaries in spe, and when first one and 
 thert another name, which were all well known, were objected 
 to, the Minister remarked, " Our officials in France may be 
 allowed to do a few stupid things, if only their administration 
 in general be energetic." 
 
 Friday, August 26. They say that we are to advance to-day 
 towards Sainte-Manehould, where our troops, as I telegraphed 
 this morning to Germany, have taken prisoners 800 of the 
 Mobiles. This expected move was announced by Taglioni, who 
 by the way gave us yesterday some most excellent caviare, 
 which he had, I believe, from fat Borck. The first thing this 
 morning, I wrote an article on the Francs-tireurs, and describ- 
 ed in detail their delusions as to what is permitted in warfare. 
 Then for the Chief had gone out, some said to see the King, 
 others to make a tour of inspection in the upper town (vide 
 note 2, at end of chapter) in company with Abeken I went to 
 see the fine old church of Saint-Piei-re. The walls and pillars 
 in this church are not so high, and the latter much less slender 
 than is usual in Gothic churches, but the whole is very elegant. 
 On one of the walls is a skeleton of marble, presented by one 
 of the duchesses, who loved her husband in such a marvellous 
 fashion that when he died she had his heart preserved in the 
 hand of this skeleton. The windows are 'filled with painted, 
 glass, which throws a colored shade over the nave. Abeken
 
 A Cartful of Franc-tireur Prisoners. 41 
 
 was strangely moved and excited by it. He cited passages 
 from ' Faust,' and showed himself for onoe quite the romanticist 
 he is or wants to be taken for. I fear that with the aesthetic- 
 tendencies of his character he imbibed during his residence in 
 Rome, where he was preacher to the embassy, a strong leaning 
 to the Catholic church, which was not weakened by the fact 
 that distinguished people in Berlin, to whose circles he had the 
 entree, were enthusiastic for it, and his heart will never be in 
 the work if he has to form front against that Church. 
 
 On the 26th we did move on, but not towards Sainte-Mene- 
 hould, where it was still unsafe, and Francs-tireurs and Gardes 
 Mobiles were hovering about, but to Clermont in Argonne, 
 where we arrived about seven o'clock in the evening. We met 
 first some Bavarian troops and baggage- wagons, from whom 
 the King, who was just before us on the road, received a salvo 
 of hurrahs, of which the Chancellor came in for a share. Then 
 we overtook, one after the other, the 31st Regiment, the 96th, 
 and the 66th, and after >vards passed some Hussars and Uhlans, 
 and lastly some Saxon artillerists. Just outside a wood, not 
 far from a village that, if I mistake not, is named Triancourt. 
 we passed a vehicle containing captured Francs-tireurs, and be- 
 hind them a second containing their arms and knapsacks, and 
 the weapons of some other people of the same kind. Most of 
 these fellows hung their heads, and one was crying. The Chief 
 halted and spoke to them. He did not seem to have had any- 
 thing very cheering to say. Afterwards a superior officer, who 
 rode up to the Councillors' carriage and got a friendly glass of 
 cognac, told us that these fellows or comrades of theirs, had, the 
 day before, not far from this place, shot or murdered a major 
 of Uhlans, named von Fries or Friesen. When taken prison- 
 ers, they had not behaved like soldiers, but had escaped from 
 their escort, but in the vineyards to which they had crept, the 
 troopers, assisted by some riflemen, had driven them up into 
 a corner like game, and some of them were again captured, 
 others shot or cut down. It is evident that the war is now 
 beginning, in consequence of the practices of these Francs- 
 tireurs, to take a savage turn. The soldier looks on them 
 henceforward as men who meddle with things with which by 
 right they have nothing to do, as those who do not belong to 
 . the profession, as mere bunglers, and he hardly needs to add 
 to that that they are likely enough to lie in wait to shoot him. 
 We arrived at Clermont wet through, for we had, twice on 
 4
 
 4] Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 the way, been overtaken by heavy showers of rain and hail, 
 and with the exception of Keudell and Hatzfeld, we took up 
 our abode in the town school, on the left side of the principal 
 street. The King was quartered just opposite. In the even- 
 ing we had an opportunity of taking a look at the place. Re- 
 turning to our quarters we found the Minister had gone, and 
 left word for us to follow him to the Hotel des Voyageurs, 
 where we' were to dine with him, our cooking wagon being 
 late, or not having arrived. We went there and found food 
 and places at the Chief's table, in a sort of back-room used for 
 skittles, and full of noise and tobacco-smoke. An officer with 
 a long black beard, wearing the cross of St. John, dined with us. 
 This was Prince Pless. He said that the captive French officers 
 at Pont-a-Mousson behaved in a very arrogant and shameless 
 way, and spent the whole night in drinking and playing hazard. 
 A general had wanted a private carriage, as proper for his 
 rank, and had behaved in a very unseemly Avay when it was, as 
 was natural, refused him. The Francs-tireurs and their un- 
 mentionable mode of warfare were then talked of ; and the 
 Minister mentioned, what Abeken had told me already, that 
 when he overtook some of them in the road this afternoon, he 
 had given them a terrible lecture. " I told them, ' Vous serez 
 totis pendus ; vous n'etes pas soldats, vous etes des assassins /' 
 upon which some of them began to whine." That the Chancel- 
 lor is anything but hard we have already seen, and shall see 
 often again. _ 
 
 In the morning a little quiet but ingenious contrivance and 
 re-arrangement was required to fit our sleeping-room for our 
 very different requirements. It became, without loosing its 
 fundamental character, at once Bureau, dining-room, and tea- 
 room. In the artistic hands of Theiss some trestles, on which 
 stood a kneading-trough, a cask raised to the necessary height 
 by a not very high box, a door which Ave appropriated, and 
 which was laid by the artist on the top of the kneading-trough 
 and cask, made us a magnificent table, at which the Chancellor 
 himself afterwards dined and breakfasted, and which between 
 the meal times served as writing table for the secretaries and 
 Councillors, at which world-stirring ideas of the Count in the 
 room below were reduced to shape and written out, and the 
 most important dispatches, instructions, telegrams ^pnd news- 
 paper articles penned. The want of chairs was happily sup- 
 plied by a form from the kitchen and an empty box or two ; a
 
 The Chancellor's Work-room. 43 
 
 cracked and altogether shaky washhand-basin was found, which 
 Willisch, clever as an old sailor in mending and patching, made 
 tight again by the help of sealing-wax. For candlesticks, the 
 Minister and ourselves made use of the empty wine-bottles 
 champagne bottles answer the purpose best and in the necks 
 of these, good stearine candles burn as brightly as in the sockets 
 of silver candlesticks. Not so easily and happily as in the 
 matters of utensiles. furniture and lights, did we contrive about 
 getting the necessary water either for washing or drinking 
 purposes, for the crowds of men who had been besieging the 
 little wells of Clermont during the two days before had pumped 
 away all the water for themselves and their horses. Only one 
 of us, who was something of a grumbler, complained of these 
 little misfortunes ; the rest, including Abeken, who was an old 
 traveller, seemed to take them, as I did, good-humoredly, as 
 giving a flavor to the expedition. 
 
 In two little school-rooms on the ground-floor the Bureau of 
 the War Minister, or the general staff, was established ; and 
 there quartermasters and soldiers wrote on the school tables 
 and the masters' desks. On the walls were different kinds 
 of apparatus for teaching, on one were maps and sentences and 
 a black-board for teaching arithmetic, on the other an advice 
 most applicable to these bad times : il Faites-vous utie etude de 
 la patience et sacJtez ceder par raison." 
 
 While we were still drinking our coffee in the morning, the 
 Chief came and angrily inquired, why the proclamation, accord- 
 ing to which certain offences of the population contrary to 
 military law were to be punished with death had not yet been 
 posted up. By his order. I went to inquire of Stieber, who had 
 found out good quarters for himself in the other part of the 
 town, and I returned with the answer that Abeken had given 
 the proclamation to the general staff, and that it was his duty 
 as the director of the field police to post up only such procla- 
 mations as issued from his Majesty. 
 
 I took this message to the Chancellor and received some more 
 commissions. I saw that he was hardly better put up than we. 
 He had slept that night on a mattress on the floor, his revol- 
 ver within reach, and he worked at a table so small that he 
 could hardly put both elbows on rt at once, in a corner near the 
 door. TTpl room was meanly furnished ; there was neither sofa, 
 arm-chair, nor anything of the kind. He who for years had 
 made the history of the world, in whose head its currents met and
 
 44 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 changed character according to his plans, had hardly a place to 
 lay his head, while stupid courtiers in their comfortable four- 
 posters had the sound sleep of the idle classes ; and even M. 
 Stieber himself had managed to get much more comfortably 
 housed than our master. 
 
 On this occasion I saw a letter which had fallen into our 
 hands, having been sent from Paris some days ago, and address- 
 ed to a French officer of high rank. According to its contents, 
 the circles to which he belonged neither believed in the possi- 
 bility of further resistance nor hoped to maintain the dynasty 
 on the throne. The writer did not know what to hope or ex- 
 pect in the immediate future ; a Republic without Republicans, 
 or a monarchy without believers in monarchy, appeared to be 
 the choice which he saw before him. To him the Republicans 
 appeared too much in love with moderation ; the Monarchists 
 too self-seeking. They were enthusiastic, he said, about the 
 army, but no one showed any great activity in joining it in order 
 to fight the enemy. 
 
 I shall here introduce some interesting notes from the jour- 
 nal of a Bavarian superior office, which have been placed at my 
 disposal. In May, 1871, on the return march to Clermont he 
 was quartered in the same house in which King William had 
 lived during our residence there, and he alse visited the hill and 
 its chapel to St. Anne. There, too, he met the priest, made 
 his acquaintance, and learnt from him all sorts of interesting 
 things. The remains of walls which we noticed had belonged 
 to an old castle, which was afterwards, turned into a cloister, 
 destroyed at the time of the first French Revolution. The 
 priest was an old man who had lived in the place for fifty-six 
 years. He was a man of much feeling, and a good patriot. 
 The misfortunes of his country lay heavy on his heart, but he 
 did not deny that it was a mischievous arrogance which had 
 brought this sad fate upon it. Of this arrogance he gave a 
 curious proof, which I will give as nearly as I can in the 
 Father's own words. 
 
 " Like you, gentlemen, the French Cuirassiers appeared here 
 suddenly last August. The beautiful hill tempted them too, 
 to admire the country from its summit. They went joking 
 along, and coming to my church, standing open, as usual, they 
 said that a public-house would have been more in j^ace here. 
 Whereupon they got a cask of wine, which they drank in the 
 chapel, after which they had dancing and singing. Suddenly
 
 The Dog arid the Chancellor. 45 
 
 there appeared a sturdy cuirassier, who carried on his back a 
 dog dressed in woman's clothes, which he set down in the circle 
 of dancers. ' C'est Monsieur de Bismarck !' he cried, and their 
 noisy delight over this wretched joke seemed as if it would 
 never end. They pulled the dog by the tail, and as he howled 
 they shrieked, 'C'esl le langaye de Monsieur de Bismarck /' 
 They danced with the creature, and at last the soldier got it on 
 his back again ; after which they formed a procession, which 
 was to go down the hill and through the town. This excited 
 me past bearing. I begged a hearing, and told them it was a 
 shame to compare any man, even an enemy, to a brute. In 
 vain ; they overpowered me with noise and thrust me on one 
 side. In a rage I called out to them : ' Look to it, that the 
 punishment due to insolence does not fall on your head.' How- 
 ever, they would not be warned ; the noise went on and the 
 crowd went away with their dog, shouting and brawling, un- 
 happily, meeting only applause all through the town. Ah ! all 
 that I feared was only too completely realized. Fourteen days 
 had not passed before Bismarck stood as conqueror on the very 
 spot where he had been ridiciiled in so absurd a fashion. I saw 
 this man of iron, but I did not then think him such a terrible 
 person, or that he would make my poor France bleed to death. 
 Yes, I can never forget the day when these soldiers sinned 
 against him so." 
 
 The author of the journal continues : " "We returned to our 
 quarters, and our host willingly showed us the room in which 
 the Emperor William lived and the bed on which he slept. The 
 old gentleman could not sufficiently praise the Emperor's chival- 
 rous manners, and he did not think Bismarck nearly so dread- 
 ful as he was represented. The Count had come there one day 
 to see the Emperor but had to wait a very long time, for 
 Moltke was already engaged with him. He had taken a walk 
 with Bismarck through the garden while he was waiting, and 
 found him very pleasant. He spoke French admirably, and 
 no one would have thought him such a terrible Prussian. He 
 had talked with him about all kinds of rural matters, and had 
 shown himself as much at home there as in politics. Such a 
 man, he said emphatically, is what France needs." 
 
 Sunday, August 28. When we got out of bed a fine, soft 
 rain was fMling from a dull grey sky, reminding us that Goethe, 
 not far from here, in 1792, in frightful weather, amidst mud 
 and dirt, had passed the days before and after the cannonade at
 
 4G Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 Valmy. I went to General Sheridan, who had found a home 
 for himself in the back-room of an apothecary's shop, and by 
 the Chief's directions, took him the Pall Mall Gazette. Then I 
 wished to get from the Saxons some details of the 18th, but at 
 first I could only find single soldiers who had no time to tell 
 me anything. At last, by chance, I came upon one of the 
 Landwehr officers, a country gentleman, Fuchs-Nordhof, from 
 Mocker, near Leipsic. But he could not tell me much that was 
 new. The Saxons had fought nobly near Sainte-Marie-aux- 
 Chenes and at Saint-Privat, and had saved the Guard there, who 
 had fallen somewhat into disorder, from entire defeat. The 
 Freiberg riflemen had taken the French position on the right 
 attack, at the point of the bayonet without firing a shot. The 
 Leipsic regiment, the 107th, had lost many men and almost all 
 its officers. This ^as all. He told me also that Krausshaar 
 had fallen. 
 
 When the Minister rose we had plenty to do. Our cause 
 makes excellent progress. I am to telegraph that the Saxon 
 cavalry at Voussieres and Boumont, in the North, have scattered 
 the Twelfth Chasseurs. I learnt, and was allowed to repeat 
 to others, that the determination to take some provinces from 
 France was still firmly adhered to, and that peace would be 
 concluded on no other terms. An article sanctioned by the 
 Chief, explained our reasons in the following manner : 
 
 The German armies, since the victorious days of Mars-la- 
 Tour and Gravelotte. have continually advanced, and the time 
 appears to have come when the question may be put, under 
 what conditions Germany will conclude peace with France. In 
 this we must not be governed by the love of glory or the lust 
 of conquest, and as little by the magnanimity dinned into our 
 ears by the foreign press. In all our proceedings we have to 
 consider merely how best to protect Germany, and especially 
 South Germany, from fresh attacks of French ambition, such as 
 we have had renewed more than a dozen times from Louis XIV. 
 to the present day, and which will be repeated as often as 
 France feels herself strong enough to do so. The enormous 
 sacrifices, both in men and money, which the German people 
 have made in this war, and all our victories, would be in vain, 
 if the power of France to attack were not weakened, and Ger- 
 many's capacity of defence not strengthened. The German 
 people have a right to demand this If we contented ourselves 
 with a mere change of dynasty or with a contribution, no sub-
 
 The Necessary Conditions of Peace. 47 
 
 stantial improvement in our condition would ensue. Nothing 
 would prevent this war from being the first of a series of wars ; 
 and especially the sting of the present defeat would drive the 
 pride of the French to revenge the German victories. The 
 contribution would soon be forgotten, the riches of France 
 being so great in comparison with our own. Each new dynasty, 
 in order to maintain itself, would seek compensation for the 
 disaster of the dynasty now in power by victories over us 
 Magnanimity is no doubt a very estimable virtue ; but, in 
 politics, magnanimity, as a rule, gets little thanks. In 1866 
 we took not a single acre of territory from the Austrians. 
 Have we found that we are thanked in Yienna for this self- 
 denial ? Are they not full there of bitter feelings of revenge, 
 simply because they were beaten ? And further, the French 
 growled at us from envy because of Koniggratz, where, not they, 
 but a foreign power were conquered. How will they ever for- 
 give us the victories of Worth and Metz, whether we magnani- 
 mously renounce or do not renounce any cession of territory 1 
 How they will dream of vengeance for the defeats which they 
 have now suffered at our hands ! 
 
 If in 1814 and 1815 the French were treated otherwise, 
 than as we here indicate, the result of the leniency with which 
 France was then dealt with has sufficiently proved that it was 
 a mistaken clemency. Had the French been weakened in 
 those days, as it was desirable they should have been in the in- 
 terests of the peace of the world, we should not have had to 
 be carrying on this war now. 
 
 The danger lies, not in Bonapartism, although Bonapartism 
 is specially pledged to a Chauvinistic foreign policy. It lies in 
 the incurable, ineradicable arrogance of that portion of the 
 French people which give* the tone to France. This trait of 
 the French national character, which will prescribe its line of 
 action to every dynasty, let it call itself what it may, even to a 
 French republic, will continually be a goad to attacks upon 
 peaceable neighbors. He who desires the load of military 
 armament in Europe to be lightened, he who wants to see such 
 a peace as will permit nothing of the kind, must wish for a 
 solid and impregnable barrier against the war-chariot of the 
 French lust of conquest, not in a moral but a material form ; 
 that for the future it may be made as difficult as possible to 
 the French to invade South Germany with an army compara- 
 tively small, so as by the possibility of such an invasion to con-
 
 48 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 strain the Germans of the south, even in a time of peace, to 
 consider France. To secure South Germany by defensible 
 frontiers is our present task. To fulfil it is to liberate Ger- 
 many entirely is, in fact, to complete the war of liberation of 
 1813 and 1814. 
 
 The least, therefore, which we must demand, the least which 
 the German nation in all its parts, but especially our country- 
 men and fellow-soldiers beyond the Maine, will demand, is the 
 cession of the sallyports of France towards Germany, the 
 conquest of Strassburg and Metz for Germany. To expect a 
 lasting peace from the dismantling of these fortresses would be 
 a short-sighted illusion of the same kind as the hope that it is 
 possible to gain the French by mere clemency. It must not be 
 forgotten, moreover, that when we demand these cessions we 
 are demanding the cession of territory originally German, a, 
 considerable part of which is still German, the inhabitaijts of 
 which may perhaps again learn in time to feel their German 
 nationality. 
 
 To us change of dynasty is a matter of indifference ; a war 
 contribution might weaken France for a time financially. 
 What we want is the increased security of the German fixmtier, 
 and this is only attainable by the transformation of the two 
 fortresses which threaten us, into bulwarks to protect us. From 
 being French fortresses of aggression Strassburg and Metz must 
 become German places of defence. 
 
 He who sincerely desires peace on the continent of Europe, 
 he who wishes that nations should lay down their arms, and 
 that the plough should prevail over the sword, must wish above 
 all that the neighbors of France on the East may secure this 
 position, for France is the only disturber of peace, and will re- 
 main so, so long as she has the powef. 
 
 "NOTE (1). Among other matters we talked at dinner of the Augusten- 
 burg prince who was serving with the Bavarians. The opinion expressed of 
 him was much what was said to me some months later by a kindly disposed 
 friend of his, who was at that time professor in Kiel, in a letter to myself. 
 '' We all know that he is not born for any heroic exploits. It is not his na- 
 ture. It is a family trait that he rather takes to a persistent waiting on 
 Providence, an expectation of the marvellous things his inheritance is to 
 bring him. He has never once made any attempt at heroism. It would 
 have been much more seemly if, instead of hanging about the army as a 
 mere amateur of battle-fields, he had led a company or a battalion of the 
 soldiers who were once almost his own, as a captain or a major, or, if he 
 preferred it a Bavarian company. Probably little would have come of 
 it, but one would have been glad at least of the goodwill it would have 
 shown."
 
 Bismarck at Bar-le-duc. 49 
 
 NOTE (2). In the latter case thefollowing may refer to our stay in Bar-le- 
 thif.. Charles Loizet says in the Paris Revue Poliiique et Litteraire for Feb- 
 ruary or March, 1874 : "In a town in eastern France which had the sorry 
 honor ot harboring the highest personages of the invasion for several days, 
 and where the forced march on Sedan was decided on at a moment's notice, 
 the famous Bismarck took a walk round alone, up and down through the 
 most outlying quarters of the town, indifferent to the ill-wishes and the 
 amazement of trie people who pointed at him. A man whose heart was 
 made bitter by domestic trouble, and who aad ceased to care for his own 
 life, secretly sought a concea^d weapon for an enterprise which would have 
 made a great sensation. It was refused him, the people were terrified for 
 tear he should find one. The inhabitants of the town, who were very pa- 
 triotic, had been previously disarmed. The man hung about for days, and 
 his plan went to the grave with him. And the Chancellor went alone, in 
 uniform, for a walk through the meadows above the upper town ! " The 
 : egret with which M. Loizet concludes his story has something tragi-comical 
 a it.
 
 50 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 \V'B TURN NORTHWARDS THE CHANCELLOR IN REZONVILLE- 
 BATTLE AND BATTLE-FIELD OP BEAUMONT. 
 
 SUNDAY, August 28. At tea we were surprised by great 
 news. With the whole army, except what remains behind 
 for the investment of Metz, we alter the direction of our march, 
 and instead of going westward to Chalons we move northwards 
 under the edge of the forest of Argonnes to the Ardennes, and the 
 Meuse district. Our immediate object will be, it is said, Grand 
 Pre. This movement is owing to Marshal MacMahon, who, 
 with a strong force to the north of us, is nfarching to Metz to 
 relieve Bazaine. 
 
 On the 29th, by ten o'clock, we started. The weather, 
 which was at the beginning of the day rainy and cold, now im- 
 proved, and the sky gradually cleared. We passed different 
 villages, and sometimes a pretty chateau and park. On the 
 road were Bavarian camps, line infantry, riflemen, light caval- 
 ry, and cuirassiers. We drove through the little town of 
 Varennes, by the small two-windowed house where Louis XVI. 
 was arrested by the postmaster of Sainte-Menehould, and 
 which now contains a store of scythes belonging to the firm of 
 Nicot-Jacquesson. The first market we came to in the town, 
 with square-trimmed lime-trees, the little three-cornered square, 
 which came next, and the large market-place further on, were 
 all full of foot and horse soldiers, wagons, and guns. The 
 crowd of men and animals was so great that we could with dif- 
 ficulty get through them out into the open ground, and then it 
 was only to pass through other villages and by more camps, 
 past the Prussian artillery, to Grand Pre, where the Chancellor 
 took up his quarters in the Grand Rue, two or three houses 
 from the market. The King lived at the apothecary's, not far 
 off on the left side of the road, towards the gloomy old castle
 
 Setting out for Beaumont. 51 
 
 above the town. The second division of the head-quarters, in 
 which was Prince Karl, Prince Leopold of Bavaria, the Grand 
 Duke of Weimar, and the Hereditary Grand Duke of Meck- 
 lenburg-Schwerin had arrived at the neighboring village of 
 Juvin. The quartermaster had got a lodging for me not far 
 from opposite the Chief, in a modest little room belonging to a 
 milliner, who had left home. On our arrival in the market- 
 place we saw there some French prisoners, and towards evening 
 more came in. I heard that a collision with MacMahon's army 
 was expected the next day. 
 
 In Grand Pre, too, the Chief showed that he had no fear of 
 any murderous attack upon his person. He went about the 
 narrow streets of the town freely in the twilight without a 
 companion, in lonely places where he was quite likely to be at- 
 tacked. I say this from my own knowledge for I followed 
 him at a little distance. It seemed to me possible that I might 
 be of use to him. 
 
 I heard the next morning that the King and- the Chancellor 
 were going out together, to be present at the great battue of this 
 second French army. Remembering what the Chancellor said 
 to me at Pont-a-Mousson, one day when he came back from 
 Rezonville, and the proverb he quoted another time, " It is he 
 who makes himself green that the goats will nibble," I took 
 heart as the carriage drove up, and begged him to take mo with 
 him. He answered " Yes, but if we stay out the night, 
 what will you do V I replied, "Never mind, Excellency, T 
 shall be able to take care of myself." " Well, then, come 
 along," said he smiling. He then took another stroll to the 
 market-place, while I joyfully got together my bag, my water- 
 proof, and my faithful diary, and when he came back and got 
 into the carriage, he beckoned to me to take a seat by his side. 
 A man must have luck, as well as do his duty, to get on. 
 
 It was a little after nine when we started. First we went 
 back a little way on the same road we had come by a few doys 
 before, then to the left, up through vineyards, past more vjj - 
 lages in a hilly country, with columns of troops and parks of 
 artillery everywhere before us marching or resting, then down 
 another road to the right, through the valley to the little town 
 of Busancy, which we entered at eleven o'clock, where we hale 
 ed in the market-place to wait for the King. 
 
 The Count was very communicative on the way. First lu 
 complained that he was so often disturbed at his work by people
 
 52 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 talking outside his door, " especially as some of the gentlemen 
 speak so loud. The common inarticulate noises do not irritate 
 me. Music, or the rattle of carriages, does not put me out ; 
 but talking, if the words are audible, is quite a different thing. 
 I then want to know what is being said, and lose the thread of 
 my thoughts." 
 
 Further on he remarked that it was not proper for me to re- 
 turn the military salutes of officers who passed the carriage. 
 The salute was not to him as Minister or Chancellor, but simply 
 to his rank as general, and officers might take it amiss if a civ- 
 ilian took their salutes as including himself. 
 
 He feared that nothing decisive would be done to-day, an 
 opinion which was shared by some Prussian artillery officers 
 standing by their guns close to Busancy, whom he asked about 
 it. " This," said he, " reminds me of a wolf hunt I once had in 
 the Ardennes, which began just here. We were for many long 
 days up in the snow, and at last heard that they had found the 
 tracks of a wolf. When we went after him he had vanished. 
 So it will be to-day with the French." 
 
 Then he expressed a hope that he might meet his second son 
 here, about whom he frequently inquired of the officers, and he 
 remarked, " You see how little Nepotism there is with us. He 
 has been serving now twelve months, and has not been promot- 
 ed, whilst others, who have not served much more than one 
 month are ensigns already." I ventured to ask how that could 
 be. " Indeed, I don't know," replied he. " I have particular- 
 ly inquired whether there was any fault in him drinking or 
 anything of that kind ; but no, he seems to have conducted 
 himself quite properly, and in the cavalry fight at Mars-la-Tour 
 he charged the French square as bravely as any man among 
 them." A few weeks afterwards both sons were promoted to 
 the rank of officers. 
 
 Then, amongst other things, he told another of his experi- 
 ences on the evening of the 18th : " I had sent my horse to water, 
 and stood in the dusk near a battery which was firing. The 
 French were silent, but," he continued, " when we thought their 
 guns were disabled, they were only concentrating their guns 
 and mitrailleuses for a last great push. Suddenly they began 
 a quite fearful fire with shells and such like an incessant crack- 
 ing and rolling, whizzing and screaming in the air. We were 
 separated from the King, who had been sent back by Roon. I 
 stayed by the battery, and thought to myself, ' if we have to
 
 Field Commissariat. 53 
 
 retreat, put yourself on the first gun-carriage you can find.' 
 We now expected that the French infantry would support the 
 attack, when they might have taken me prisoner unless the 
 artillery carried me away with them. But the attack failed, 
 and at last the horses returned, and I set off back to the King 
 We had gone out of the rain into the gutter, for where we 
 had ridden to the shells were falling thick, w"hereas before they 
 had passed over our heads. Next morning we saw the deep 
 holes they had ploughed in the ground. 
 
 "The King had to go back farther, as I told him to do, after 
 the officers had made representations to me. It was now night. 
 The King said he was hungry, and what could he have to eat? 
 There was plenty to drink wine and bad rum from a sutler 
 but not a morsel to eat but dry bread. At last, in the village, 
 we got a few cutlets, just enough for the King, but not for any 
 one else, so I had to find out something for myself. His 
 Majesty would sleep in the carriage, among dead horses and 
 badly-wounded men. He afterwards found accommodation in 
 a little public-house. The Chancellor had to look out some- 
 where else. The heir of one of the greatest German poten- 
 tates (the young Hereditary Grand Duke of Mecklenburg) 
 kept watch by our common carriage, that nothing should be 
 stolen, and Sheridan and I set off to find a sleeping place. We 
 came to a house which was still burning, and that was too hot. 
 I asked at another, 'full of wounded soldiers.' In a third, also 
 full of the wounded. In a fourth, just the same; but T was 
 not to be denied this time. I looked up and saw a window 
 which was dark. 'What have you got up there 1 ?' I asked. 
 'More wounded soldiers.' 'That we shall see for ourselves.' I 
 went up and found three empty beds, with good and apparently 
 fairly clean straw mattresses. Here we took up our night 
 quarters and I slept capitally." 
 
 "Yes," said his cousin, Count Bismarck-Bohlen, when the 
 Chancellor told us this story the first time, and with less detail ; 
 "you did sleep sound; and so did Sheridan, who where he got 
 it I don't know had rolled himself up in white linen all over,, 
 and who must have been dreaming of you, for I heard him 
 several times murmuring, 'O, dear Count!' H'm, and the 
 Hereditary Grand Duke, who took the thing very well, is a 
 particularly pleasant and agreeable young fellow." "The best 
 of the stoiy is," said Bohlen, "that there was no necessity for 
 such a pinch, for we found out that quite close by there was an
 
 54 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 elegant country-house, which had been prepared for Bazaine 
 with good beds, sack in the cellar, and what noc everything of 
 the best. One of our generals lodged there and had a capital 
 supper with his friends." 
 
 On our way to Busancy, the Chancellor went on to say, 
 " The whole day I. had had nothing to eat but the soldiers' bread 
 and fat bacon. Now we found some eggs five or six the 
 others must have theirs boiled ; but I like them uncooked, so I 
 got a couple of them and broke them on the pommel of my 
 sword, and was much refreshed. When it got light I took the 
 tirst warm food for six-and-thirty hours it was only pea-sau- 
 sage soup, which General Goben gave me, but it tasted quite 
 excellent." 
 
 Afterwards they gave us a roast fowl, "over whose toughness 
 the best teeth would have despaired." This had been offered to 
 him by a sutler, after he had bought one uncooked from a sol- 
 dier. Bismarck had taken the former and paid for it, and gave 
 the soldier's to the sutler, telling him, " If we meet again in 
 the course of the war, you shall give it to me roasted ; if not, 
 then I hope you will pay it me back in Berlin." , 
 
 The market-place in Busancy, a small provincial town, was 
 full of officers, Hussars, Uhlans, messengers, and vehicles of 
 every kind. After a time Sheridan and Forsythe came. At 
 half-past eleven the King appeared, and immediately afterwards 
 we started again, news coming that the French were unexpect- 
 edly going to make a stand. 
 
 Some four kilometres from Busancy we came on higher land 
 with bare depressions to the right and left, with heights again 
 beyond. Suddenly, a dull heavy crack in the distance. " A 
 cannon shot," said the Minister. A little farther on, beyond 
 the depression on the left, on a treeless rise, I saw two 
 columns of 'infantry stationed, and in front of them two guns, 
 which were being fired. But it was so far from us that we 
 hardly heard the shots. The Chief was surprised at my sharp 
 eyes, and put on his spectacles, as I now for the first time notice 
 that he is obliged to do when he wants to make out anything 
 distant. Little white round clouds, like air balloons, floated 
 for two or three seconds in the air over the hollow beyond which 
 the guns stood, and vanished with a flash ; they were shrapnels. 
 The guns must be German, and seem to aim at the slope be- 
 yond the declivity on the other side. We could make out a 
 wood on the slope, and in front of it dark lines which were
 
 T7te Battle of Beaumont 55 
 
 probably Frenchmen. Still further off on the horizon a high 
 spur of hill, with three or four large trees on the top of it, stood 
 forward ; on the map this was called the village of Stonn, 
 where, as we afterwards heard, the Emperor Napoleon remain- 
 ed to watch the battle. 
 
 The tiring on the left soon ceased. Bavarian artillery, blue 
 cuirassiers, and green light horse came along the road past us 
 at full trot. A little further on, as we drove through some 
 brushwood, we heard a crackling, rather like a long drawn out 
 and badly-fired platoon salvo. " A squirt of shot," said Engel, 
 turning round on the box. 
 
 2^ot far from this, on a spot where Bavarian riflemen were 
 resting in the ditches and in a clover field by the side of a road, 
 the Minister mounted his horse, in order to ride on with the 
 King, who was before us. We remained some time standing on 
 the same spot, and artillery kept continually galloping past. 
 Many of the riflemen seemed to be dropping out of the ranks. 
 One of them begged mournfully for water. "I have had dysen 
 tery for five days," he murmured. " Ah, dear comrade, I am 
 dying ; no doctor can do me any good ! Burning heat insiue, 
 nothing but blood running from me !" We comforted him, and 
 gave him water with a little cognac. Battery after battery 
 rushed past us, till at last the road was again free. Right in 
 front, on the horizon, which was here very close to us, the white 
 clouds from shells were again rising, so that we concluded that 
 the fight was going on in a valley not far off. The thunder of 
 the guns was more distinct, and the snarl of the mitrailleuses, the 
 noise of which sounds to us something like a coffee-mill at work. 
 At last we turned into a stubble field, on the right from the 
 road, which goes down at that point into a broad depression 
 to the left. The ground now sloped gently to a height on which 
 the King had taken his stand with our Chief and a number of 
 princes, generals, and other officers of high rank, about a thou- 
 sand paces in advance of the horses and carriages which brought 
 them here. I followed them over fresh ploughed fields and 
 stubble fields, and a little apart from them I watched, till night 
 fell, the Battle of Beaumont. 
 
 A broad not very deep valley stretched before us, at the bot- 
 tom of which was a beautiful deep green wood of leafy trees. 
 Then an open, gently rising country in which the small town of 
 Beaumont, with its fine church, was visible a little to the 
 rk'ht. Stilt further to the right were more woods. To the left
 
 56 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 also, at the edge of the valley in the background, there were 
 woods to which led a road bordered with Italian poplars. In 
 front of them was a small village, or rather a collection of 
 buildings, belonging to an estate. Beyond the gently-swelling 
 ground before and behind Beaumont the prospect terminated 
 with dark hills in the distance. 
 
 Now the guns could be seen distinctly firing. From the 
 heavy cloud of smoke hanging over it, the town seemed to be 
 burning, and soon afterwards smoke burst up from the village 
 or farm at the wood beyond the poplar-trees. 
 
 The firing now slackened a little. First it was in the neigh- 
 borhood of the town, then it moved upwards some to the left, 
 and at last it came from the wood at the bottom of the valley, 
 apparently from the Bavarian artillery which had passed us. 
 
 To our left, behind a village which lay a little below our 
 station, and is named in the maps Sommauthe, a regiment of 
 Bavarian hussars and another of light cavalry filled up the 
 foreground of the picture for some time. About four o'clock 
 these bodies of cavalry galloped oft' towards the wood below, 
 and disappeared there. Afterwards more cavalry, Uhlans, if I 
 remember right, went down into the hollow, beyond which we 
 first saw the firing from the road behind the place where the 
 carriages were left, and rode on to Stonn. At the edge of the 
 wood beyond the burning village in front and to the left, the 
 battle again seemed to be raging furiously. Once there was a 
 bright burst of light, and then a dull report. Probably a munition 
 wagon had exploded. It was said that the Crown Prince him- 
 self had been for some time taking part in the battle. 
 
 It began to get dark. The King now sat on a chair, near 
 which a straw fire had been kindled, for the wind blew keenly, 
 and watched the battle through his field-glass. The Chancellor 
 watched it too ; but he had taken his place on a grassy ridge, 
 from which Sheridan and his adjutant also observed the spec- 
 tacle. We now distinctly perceived the flash of the exploding 
 shells, changing the little round balls of vapor in a moment 
 into jagged stars of fire, and the flames as they burst forth from 
 Beaumont. The French were retiring more and more rapidly, 
 and the battle disappeared behind the ridge of the treeless 
 heights, which closed the horizon on the left of the woods be- 
 yond the burning village. The battle, which from its com- 
 mencement appeared like the enemy covering his retreat, was 
 won. We had caught the Minister's wolf, or would catch him
 
 Losses on both sides. 57 
 
 .hat day or next. The following morning I wrote home, after 
 making out additional details. 
 
 The French, with whom were the Emperor and his son, gave 
 way at all points, and the whole battle was in fact, a constant 
 advance of our side and a constant retreat of theirs. They 
 never showed the energy which they displayed in the actions 
 at Metz, and which showed itself there latterly in vehement at- 
 tacks. They were either greatly discouraged, or the regiments 
 had in their ranks many Mobile guards, who, as may be easily 
 imagined, do not fight like real soldiers. Even their outposts 
 were badly set, so that their rearguard could be at once sur- 
 prised by an attack. Our losses in killed and wounded were 
 far less this time than in the battles at Metz, when they were 
 not far from equal to those of the French. They had lost, 
 however, frightfully, especially in that surprise, and still more 
 frightfully at Mouzon, where they were crowded back over the 
 Meuse. As far as yet ascertained we have captured about 
 twenty guns, among which there are eleven mitrailleuses, the 
 equipages of two tents, masses of baggage and military stores. 
 Up to the present we have taken nearly 15,000 men prisoners. 
 The French army, which was estimated at from 100,000 to 
 120,000 on the morning of the day of battle, is now in Sedan, 
 cut off from the possibility of a farther march round about the 
 extreme end of our right wing towards Metz. I think we have 
 cause to count August 30 as one of the best and most produc- 
 tive of our days of victory in this war. 
 
 From the position whence we had witnessed the fight at 
 Beaumont, we returned, as darkness came on, towards Busancy. 
 Everywhere along the road, and a great way off from it we 
 were reminded of the night life of a great army. The road 
 was full of Bavarian infantry. Further on gleamed the spiked 
 helmets of Prussian line troops, whom, when we approached, 
 we found to be the King's Grenadiers. Lastly, there were long 
 lines of wagons, which had sometimes lost their way, so that 
 we were detained some time. At one place, where there was a 
 steep declivity between two hills, and we were forced to make 
 an unusually long halt, the Chief said, " I wonder whether the 
 reason why we are stuck fast here is the same as that which 
 made the five Swabians capable, after they had eaten the 
 dumplings, of blocking up the defile." 
 
 It was pitch dark when we reached Busancy. Round ID 
 blazed a hundred little fires, in the lights of which glided the 
 5
 
 58 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 silhouetted figures of men, horses, and wagons. We dismount- 
 ed at the house of a physician, who lived at the end of the 
 principal street, not far from the house in which the King had 
 taken up his quarters, and in which those who had been left 
 behind in the morning in Grand Pre had also meanwhile found 
 accommodation. I slept here in an almost empty back room on 
 the ground floor, on a straw mattress, under a blanket fetched 
 from the town hospital by one of our soldiers somewhere about 
 ten o'clock. But the sleep of the righteous was none the worse 
 on that account. 
 
 Wednesday, August 81. In the morning, between nine and 
 ten o'clock the King and Chancellor drove out to inspect the 
 battle-field of the preceeding day. I was again to accompany 
 the Minister. At first we took the same road as the day be- 
 fore, past Bar de Busancy and Sommauthe, and between these 
 two villages we passed some squadrons of Bavarian Uhlans, 
 who were resting, and who greeted the King with loud 
 "Hurrahs." It seemed to me as if their lances were shorter 
 than the others. Behind Sommauthe, Avhich was full of the 
 wounded, we drove through the beautiful wood between it and 
 Beaumont, and it was after eleven when we reached the latter. 
 King William and our Chancellor here took horse and galloped 
 across the fields to the right. I took the same direction on 
 foot. The carriages went on to the town, where they were to 
 wait for us. 
 
 Before I started, indeed, as soon as I was alon'e, as on the 
 day before, I carefully noted the commissions which I had re- 
 ceived on the road, and any other remarks which had fallen 
 from the Chief this morning were committed to paper as accur- 
 ately as was possible. The Chancellor was again unusually 
 communicative and very accessible to questions. He spoke 
 rather as if he had a cold. He had had cramp, he said, in his 
 legs all night, which often happened with him. He was then 
 obliged to get up and walk about for a while in his room with 
 bare feet, and that usually gave him cold. So it was this time. 
 " One devil drove out the other ; the cramp went away, and 
 the snivelling came on." He then said that he wished me 
 again to notice in the press the horrible way in which the war 
 is being carried on by the French, and their repeated violations 
 of the Geneva Convention, " which indeed is good for nothing," 
 said he, " and cannot be carried out in practice," and of their 
 unjustifiable firing at those bearing white flags of truce, with
 
 Von der Goltz. 59 
 
 their trumpeters. " They have allowed German prisoners in 
 Metz to be ill-treated by the mob," he continued, "giving them 
 nothing to eat and shutting them up in cellars. But it is not 
 very much to be wondered at. They have barbarians for com- 
 rades, and from their wars in Algiers, China, Cochin China, and 
 Mexico, they have become barbarians themselves." 
 
 Then he related how the Red-breeches had yesterday made 
 no great stand, and shown very little foresight. " At Beau- 
 mont," he said, " they were attacked in their camp on a clear 
 morning by a surprise party of heavy artillery. We shall see 
 to-day where their horses are lying, shot at the picket posts, 
 with many dead soldiers lying in their shirt-sleeves, chests 
 rifled, bowls full of potatoes, pots with meat half-cooked in 
 them and such like." 
 
 While driving through the wood perhaps the remark was 
 suggested by our having met before we came to it the King's 
 suite, to which, by the way, Counts Hatzfeld and Bismarck - 
 Bohlen had attached themselves he spoke of Borck, the 
 Keeper of the King's Privy Purse, and from him passed to 
 Count Bernstorff, who was then our ambassador in London, 
 and who had (while he was in office) " kept him for a long time 
 from entering on his diplomatic duties while he was laboriously 
 weighing and considering whether London or Paris was the 
 better embassy to appoint him to." I ventured to ask what 
 sort of a man von der Goltz, of whom one hears such different 
 opinions, had been whether he was really as clever and as 
 considerable a man as people say. "Clever! Yes, in a cer 
 tain sense, a rapid worker, well informed, but changeable in his 
 judgment of men and things : to-day for this man, or these 
 plans ; to-morrow for another man and quite opposite arrange- 
 ments. Then he was always in love with the Queens to whose 
 courts he was accredited : first, with Amalia of Greece, then 
 witli Eugenie. He seemed to think that what I had had the 
 good fortune to do, he with his larger intellect might have done 
 still better. Therefore he was continually intriguing against 
 me, although we had been acquaintances when young. He 
 wrote letters to the King in which he complained of me, and 
 warned him against me. This did him no good, for the King 
 gave me the letters, and I answered them. But in this respect 
 he was unchangeable, and continued writing letters, unexhaust- 
 ed and indefatigable. For the rest, he was not much liked by 
 his subordinates. In fact they hated him. I remember, when
 
 60 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 I went, in 1862, to Paris, and called upon him, he had just 
 gone to take a nap. I wished to leave him undisturbed, but 
 the secretaries were obviously delighted that he would have to 
 get up, and one of them went off at once to announce me to 
 him so as to cause him annoyance. He might so easily have 
 gained the respect and attachment of the people about him. 
 Any man can do so as ambassador. It was always a great object 
 with me. But as Minister there is no time for that ; there are 
 so many other things to do and to think of, that I am obliged 
 to manage at present in a more military fashion." 
 
 From these characteristic traits we see that von der Goltz 
 was a kind of intellectual kinsman and forerunner of Arnim. 
 
 The Minister spoke, lastly, of Radowitz, and said, amongst 
 other things : ''They ought to have placed their army sooner in 
 position before Olmutz, and it is his blame that this was not 
 done." The very interesting and characteristic remarks with 
 which he supported this assertion must, unhappily, for the 
 present, be suppressed, like some others made afterwards by the 
 Chancellor. 
 
 The King and the Chancellor had ridden to the place where 
 the " surprise patrols of heavy artillery " had done their work, 
 and as soon as I had finished my notes, I followed them there. 
 The part of the field referred to lay to the right of the road which 
 brought us here, and about eight or nine hundred paces from it. 
 Before it, near the wood at the bottom of the valley, were some 
 fields surrounded with hedges, in which lay about a dozen 
 dead German soldiers, Thuringians of the 31st Regiment. One 
 of them was lying on the hedge, shot through the head. He 
 was caught in the thornbush just as he was getting over it. 
 The encampment itself looked horrible, all blue and red, with 
 dead Frenchmen, some of whom had been blown to pieces by 
 the bursting shells of the surprise party belonging to the Fourth 
 Corps in a manner quite impossible to describe Blackened 
 with powder, stiff in their blood, they lay, some on their backs, 
 others on their faces many with staring eyes like wax figures. 
 One shot had scattered about five in one place like so many 
 ninepins; three of them had their heads quite or half shot 
 away, some had their bodies ripped up, whilst one whose face 
 had been covered with a cloth seemed to have been even more 
 frightfully mangled. Further on lay a piece of a skull like a 
 dish with the brains on it like a cake. Caps, shakoes, knap- 
 sacks, jackets, papers, shoes, clothes and blacking-brushes, were
 
 After the Battle. Cl 
 
 strewn about. Officers' chests open, horses shot at the picket 
 post, pots with peeled potatoes, or dishes with bits of meat 
 which the wind had salted with sand, at the extinguished 
 cooking-fires all showed how unhoped for had been success to 
 us, how unexpected their loss to them. A bronze gun even had 
 been left where it stood. I took a brass medal from one of the 
 dead, which he wore next his bare breast on a bit of elastic. A 
 saint was represented on it with a cross in his hand, and below 
 it the episcopal insignia the mitre and crosier, over which 
 were the words and letters, " Crux S. P. Bened." At the back 
 in a circle of dots was a figure resembling one on our Landwehr 
 crosses, covered with several letters, perhaps the initials of the 
 words of a prayer or some pious charm. Also an amulet, seemingly 
 of ecclesiastical origin, given no doubt to the poor fellow by his 
 mother or by his pastor, but which had not made him bullet 
 proof. Sutlers and soldiers Avent poking about. " Are you a 
 doctor V they called to me. " Yes, but not a physician ; what do 
 you want ?" " There is a man here still alive." This was true, 
 and he was removed on a hand-barrow covered with linen. A 
 little further on, in front of me, at a field path which ran into 
 the main road, lay a man stretched on his back, whose eyes 
 turned as I approached, and who still breathed, although' he 
 had been hit in the forehead by a German rifle bullet. In a 
 space of five hundred paces square there must have been a hun- 
 dred and fifty dead bodies, but not more than ten or twelve of 
 them were ours. 
 
 I had once more had enough of such sights, and hastened 
 towards Beaumont, to reach our carriage. On the way, just 
 before the first houses in the town, I saw a number of French 
 prisoners in a redstone quarry to the right of the road. " About 
 seven hundred," said the lieutenant, who with a detachment 
 was guarding them, and who gave me some muddy Bavarian 
 beer out of a cask, for which I showed my gratitude by giAing 
 him a pull at my flask of cognac. Further on along the road 
 Avas a young Avounded officer in a carriage, shaking hands with 
 the men of his company. In the market-place and round 
 the principal church of the town, Avhich stood on a small 
 patch of elevated ground, there were more captured Red- 
 breeches, and amongst them some of high rank. I asked a 
 Saxon rifleman where the King's carriages Avere. "Gone 
 already a quarter of an hour ago that way." So I was 
 too late. Alas ! I hurried in the direction indicated, in the
 
 62 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 piping heat, along the poplar-bordered road, uphill towards the 
 town which was in flames last night, and asked the soldiers 
 there. "They are just gone through." At last at the edge of 
 the wood, behind the last house, where lay a great number of 
 dead Bavarians as well as of Frenchmen on both sides of the 
 ditcheg in the roadside, I saw the carriage of the Chief stop. 
 He was evidently pleased that I had returned. " Ah ! there he 
 is," he said ; "I wanted to have sent back for you before I 
 would if it had been anyone else. But I thought to myself, 
 The doctor will take no harm. He will stay all night by a 
 watch-fire if necessary, and can soon ask his way back to us." 
 
 He then told me what he had seen and experienced since I 
 left him. He also had seen the prisoners in the quarry, and 
 among them a priest, who was said to have fired on our peo- 
 ple. " When I charged him with it he denied it. ' Take 
 care,' said I to him, ' for if it is proved against you, you will 
 most certainly be hanged.' I allowed him in the meantime to 
 take off his priest's gown." 
 
 " Near the church," the Chief continued, " the King noticed 
 a soldier who was wounded. Although the man looked some- 
 what dirty from his work of the day before, the King held out 
 his hand, to the great surprise, no doubt, of the French officer 
 who was standing by, and asked him what was his trade. He 
 was a doctor of philosophy. ' Well, you must have learned to 
 bear your wounds philosophically,' said the King. 'Yes,' 
 answered the soldier, ' that I had already made up my mind 
 to.'" 
 
 On the road, near a second village we overtook some Bavar- 
 ian stragglers, common soldiers, who were dragging themselves 
 slowly along in the burning sun. " Halloa, fellow-country- 
 men !" cried the Chancellor to one, "will you have a drop of 
 cognac?" Naturally he would, and another with his longing 
 eyes looked like wanting it, and then a third and so they and 
 some more each had his pull at the Minister's flask and then at 
 mine, after which each of them got a genuine cigar. 
 
 A rniJc further on, at a village the name of which my map 
 did not give, but which sounded something like Crehanges, the 
 King had arranged a breakfast, to which Count von Bismarck 
 \v:is also invited ; and there were all the princes of the second 
 grade and gentlemen of the -suite of the Crown Prince. Mean- 
 time I. mtulo my pencil notes on a stone by the roadside, and 
 then went to assist the Dutch, who had set up their ambulance
 
 The Duke of Auyustenburg. 63 
 
 close by in a large green tent, where they brought the wounded 
 and nursed them. When the Minister came back, he asked 
 me what I had been doing. I told him. " I should have liked 
 to have gone too," he said, drawing a deep breath. 
 
 On the road afterwards, the conversation wandered for a 
 while into high regions, and the Chief discussed good-naturedly 
 and fully all the questions suggested by my curiosity. 1 regret 
 that, for various reasons, I must keep these utterances to my 
 self, the more so as they were as wise as they were characteris- 
 tic, and as they were full of geni^i humor. At last we came 
 down from the sphere of the gods above the clouds back to 
 men ; out of the region of the supernatural, or, if my reader 
 likes it better, the extra-natural, back to the natural. There 
 we stumbled upon the Duke of Augustenburg in his Bavarian 
 uniform. " He might have done better," said he I mean the 
 Minister continuing, " I wanted originally no more from him 
 than what the minor princes had conceded in 1 866. But he would 
 not yield (Thank goodness, thought I to myself, and thanks to 
 the wisdom of Samwer the advocate !). I remember a conver- 
 sation which I had with him in 1864 he was with us in the bil- 
 liard-room beside my study and which lasted till late at night. 
 At first I called him ' your Highness,' and was rather especial- 
 ly polite. But when I began to speak of Kiel harbor, which 
 we wanted, and he said, ' that would be about twenty square 
 miles of water,' which I could not but allow ; and when he 
 would also have nothing to say to our demands with regard to the 
 military, I put on a different face. I now called him ' illus- 
 trious person,' and said to him at last quite calmly plattdeutsclt, 
 that Ave were quite able to wring the neck of the chicken we 
 had ourselves hatched." 
 
 After an unusually long drive over hill and dale, we arrived 
 about seven in the evening at to-day's destination, the town of 
 Vendresse. On the way we passed several large villages, a few 
 mansions, one very old with towers in the corners, like a castle, 
 by a canal with old trees on both sides, and latterly through a 
 district which the Chancellor said reminded him of a Belgian 
 landscape. At a Avindow in one of the villages was Ludwig 
 Pietsch from Berlin, who must have been here as war corres- 
 pondent who saw me and screamed down his salutations to 
 me. In the next village, Chemery, a halt was made for half 
 an hour, whilst more infantry regiments defiled before the King 
 and saluted him with the usual hurrahs.
 
 64 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 In Yendresse the Chancellor went to the house of "Widow 
 Baudelot, where the other gentlemen of the suite had already 
 settled themselves. Keudell and Abeken, who I think had 
 ridden here from Busancy, had met with an adventure on the 
 way. When they were in the wood behind Sommauthe, or 
 near Stonn, suddenly eight or ten French soldiers, with Chasse- 
 pots, rushed on them out of a thicket, and then disappeared. 
 The Councillors, thereupon, as was very natural, had turned 
 round and taken a less suspicious road. It was not impossible 
 that each party wished to give the other a wide berth. But 
 Saint Blanquart, who had travelled the same road, with Bolsing 
 and Willisch, and seen the same suspicious Red-breeches, was 
 firmly convinced that he had risked his life for the Fatherland. 
 Lastly, Hatzfeld and Bismarck-Bohlen could boast of a pretty 
 little heroic deed, for at that place, if I remember right, where 
 the Chancellor had breakfasted with the Princes, they had dis- 
 covered a fugitive Red-breeches hiding in a vineyard, had start- 
 ed him out of it, and had either themselves made him prisoner 
 or got some one else to catch him. 
 
 In Yendresse I saw Wiirtemberg soldiers for the first time. 
 They were mostly fine strong fellows. Their uniform, dark 
 blue, with two rows of white buttons and black straps, reminded 
 me of the Danish soldiery.
 
 On the Road to Sedan. 65 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE DAY OF SEDAN. BISMARCK AND NAPOLEON AT DONCHERY. 
 
 On the 1st September, Moltke's chase after the French in the 
 district of the Meuse, according to all that we hoard, was evi- 
 dently drawing to an end, and it was permitted me to join in 
 it the very next day. Having risen very early to get forward 
 in my journal that book which was waiting for so many in- 
 teresting entries I left the house where I had been quartered 
 for that of the Widow Baudelot, and just as I was entering it 
 a large squadron of cavalry, consisting of five Prussian hussar 
 regiments, green, brown, black, and red (Bluchers), passed by 
 the railing of the little garden before the Chiefs window. He, 
 we were told, was going to drive with the King, in about an 
 hour, to a commanding point of view near Sedan, to witness 
 the catastrophe which was now confidently expected. When 
 the carriage came, and the Chancellor appeared, he looked 
 round, and his glance fell upon me. " Can you decipher, Doc- 
 tor?" "Yes," I replied, and he rejoined, "Then get a cipher, 
 and come with us." I did not need to be told twice, and soon 
 took my seat in the carriage, in which Count Bismarck-Bohlen 
 had a place at the Minister's side, this morning. 
 
 A few hundred paces on we stopped in front of the house 
 where Verdy was quartered, behind the carriages of the King, 
 who was not quite ready. In this interval Abeken came to us, 
 to receive his orders respecting some papers he brought with 
 him. The chief explained his views precisely, and Abeken, as 
 his habit is, insisted a little on a point he wanted made clear. 
 Just at that moment Prince Karl, with his negro in Oriental 
 costume, passed by. Now the old gentleman, who on such oc- 
 casions had generally ear and thought for nothing but the 
 Chief's words, had the misfortune to be over-much interested 
 in everything concerning the Court, which this time brought
 
 C6 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 him into trouble. The appearance of the Prince was evidently 
 more engrossing than the words of the Minister, who must have 
 noticed it. On asking Abeken what he had just been saying, 
 he got a rather mooning answer. He had a rather sharp re- 
 buke. "Listen to what I say, Mr. Privy Councillor, and in 
 God's name let princes be princes. We are talking business 
 here." Afterwards he said to us, "The old gentleman is quite 
 carried away if he sees anything belonging to the Court." Then, 
 as if apologizing for him, " But after all I could not do without 
 him." 
 
 When the King appeared, preceded by his bright uniformed 
 life-guards, we followed him, and so passed once more the towns 
 of Chemery and Chehery, which we saw yesterday, and then by 
 a third village, which lies to the left of the road in a hollow, 
 at the foot of a bare hill, halting in a stubble-field on the right 
 hand of the road. Here the King, with his retinue of princes, 
 generals, and courtiers, mounted their horses, our Chief doing 
 the same, and all hastened towards the flat top of the rising 
 ground before us. The expected battle was already going on, as 
 the distant thunder of the guns informed us. Bright sunshine 
 from a cloudless sky lighted the scene. 
 
 After a time I followed the riders, leaving the carriage under 
 the care of Engel. I found the party in a stubble field at the 
 top of the hill, where there was a view of the country far and 
 near. Before us it dropped into a broad, deep green valley, on 
 the hills enclosing which a wood was here and there to be seeh, 
 and through whose meadows the blue waters of the Meuse 
 wound along to a middle-sized town, the fortress of SEDAN. On 
 the rocky hill on our side, about a rifle shot off, began wood, 
 and to the left there was some brushwood. The foreground 
 below our feet was formed by a slanting descent, over which 
 we looked down the valley. Here on our right stood Bavarian 
 batteries, which kept up a vigorous fire at and over the town, 
 and behind were dark columns, first infantry, then cavalry. 
 Still further to the right a column of black smoke curled up out 
 of a hollow near the descent to the bottom of the valley. This 
 was, as we heard, the burning village of Bazeilles. Sedan is, 
 in a direct line, about a mile from us ; the weather being so 
 clear, its houses and* churches can be distinctly seen. Above 
 the fortress, which joins the town on the left, and looks some- 
 thing like a straggling suburb, rises, not far from the farther 
 bank of the stream, a long chain of hilltops, with its middle
 
 The Battle of Sedan. 67 
 
 clothed with a wood, which also runs down into the hollow 
 which here divides the ridge, bare on the left, and covered on 
 the right with a few solitary trees and bushes. Near this gorge 
 there are some cottages, if I am not wrong ; or they may be 
 villas. To the left of this ridge is a plain, from which swells 
 up an isolated hill, with a group of tall trees u/pon it with dark 
 tops. Not far from this, in the river, are the pillars of a bridge 
 which has been blown up. In the farther distance, to the left 
 and right, are three or four villages. Behind, towards the hor- 
 izon, the picture before us is closed in by ranges of high hills, 
 covered all over with dark woods, seemingly pine forests. These 
 are the Ardennes on the Belgian frontier. 
 
 The main position of the French now appears to be on the 
 hills immediately beyond the fortress, and it looks as if our 
 troops were intending to surround them there. At present, 
 however the advance of our men is only obvious on the right ; 
 the line of their artillery fire is slowly pushing nearer and 
 nearer, with the exception of the Bavarian artillery below our 
 point of view, which appear stationary. Gradually clouds of 
 gunpowder smoke rise behind the line of hills with the gorge 
 in the centre, and we infer from this that our masses enclos- 
 ing the enemy are endeavoring to continue farther the semi- 
 circle they now form, so as to complete the circle. On the 
 left of the picture, however, all is yet perfectly still. About 
 eleven o'clock there rises from the fortress, which, by-the-way, 
 is not firing, a black grey pillar of smoke, edged with yellow. Be- 
 yond it the French are firing furiously, and above the wood of 
 the gorge, rise unceasingly a number of little white clouds from 
 bombs, whether German or French we know not ; sometimes 
 also the crackling and snarling of a mitrailleuse. 
 
 On our hill a brilliant assemblage had gathered ; the King, 
 Bismarck, Moltke, Hoon, a crowd of princes, Prince Karl, their 
 Highnesses of Weimar and Coburg, the Hereditary Grand 
 Duke of Mecklenburg, generals, aides-de-camp, marshals of the 
 household, Count Hatzfeld, who after a time disappeared, 
 Kutusoff the Russian, Colonel Walker the English military 
 plenipotentiary, General Sheridan and his adjutant, all in uni- 
 form, all with field-glasses at their eyes. The King stood. 
 Others, among whom was the Chancellor, sat on a grassy ridge 
 at the edge of the stubble. I heard that the King had sent 
 round word that large groups must not stand together, as the 
 French in the fortress mi"ht fire on them.
 
 68 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 After eleven o'clock our li*e of attack on the right bank of 
 the Meuse developed itself by a further advance in order to 
 surround the French position in a narrower ring, and in my 
 zeal I was explaining this perhaps somewhat more loudly than 
 was necessary or befitting the place, to an elderly gentleman of 
 the Court, when the Chief hearing me with his sharp ears, 
 turned round and beckoned me to come to him. " If you are 
 developing your strategical ideas, Doctor," said he, "it would 
 be better to do it less audibly, otherwise the King will ask, 
 Who is that 1 ? and I muet then present you to him." Soon 
 afterwards he received a number of telegrams, and came and 
 gave me six of them to decipher, so that the contemplation of 
 the spectacle, for me at least, came to an end for a time. 
 
 Our line of fire by one o'clock swept the larger half of the 
 enemy's position on the heights on the other side of the town. 
 Clouds of smoke from the powder rose in a wide curve, and the 
 little white balls of smoke from the sharpnels which we knew 
 the look of so well, kept rising and shattering. Only to the 
 left there was still one quiet gap. The Chancellor now sat on 
 a chair and studied an official document of many sheets. I 
 asked whether he would like something to eat or drink, as we had 
 it ready He declined. "I should like it, but neither has the 
 King anything," he answered. 
 
 The enemy on the other side of the river must now have 
 been very near, for we heard more frequently than before the 
 hateful sound of the mitrailleuses, of which, by-the-way, we 
 had been told meantime that their bark was worse than their 
 bite. Between two and three o'clock by my watch the King 
 came close past the place where I was standing, and said to the 
 people about him, after looking for some time through a glass 
 towards the suburb : "They are pushing great masses forward 
 there to the left that, I think, must be an attempt to break 
 through." They were, in fact, columns of infantry advancing, 
 but soon going back, apparently because they found that the 
 gap, though quiet, was not at all open. Shortly afterwards we 
 could see, through a telescope, French cavalry on the crest of 
 the hill to the left of the wood and the gorge make repeated 
 charges, which were met by quick fire, after which at a semi- 
 circular sweep of the field we could see, even with the naked 
 eye, the ground strewn with white objects horses or cloaks. 
 Soon after the artillery fire became weaker at all points, and 
 the French everywhere fell back into the town and its imnie-
 
 The Surrender. 69 
 
 diate neighborhood. They had been surrounded, except for a 
 small gap near the Belgian frontier, and for some time, on the 
 left, there also, as the Wiirtembergers had planted a couple of 
 batteries not far from our hill, to which, as we were told, they 
 had now brought up the Fifth and Eleventh Army Corps. 
 After half -past four all the enemy's guns were silent, and a 
 little afterwards ours also. 
 
 Once more the scene became mo^e lively. Suddenly there 
 rose, first in one part of the town, then in another, great whit- 
 ish-blue clouds, signs that the town was burning in two 
 places. Bazeilles, too, was still in flames, and sent up from 
 just below the horizon to the right a column of thick yellow- 
 ish-grey vapor into the clear evening sky. The burning light 
 of the late afternoon became more and more intense, the valley 
 below looking every moment brighter and more golden. The 
 hills of the battlefield, the gorge in its midst, the village, the 
 houses and towers of the fortress, the suburb of Torcy, the 
 ruined bridge to the left in the distance, shown bright in the 
 evening glow, and their details became clearer every minute, as 
 if one were looking through stronger and stronger spectacles. 
 
 About five o'clock General Hindersin talked with the King, 
 and I thought I heard him speak of the " bombardment of the 
 town" and the "ruins of the houses." A quarter of an hour 
 afterwards a Bavarian officer galloped up the hill to us : Gen- 
 eral von Bothmer wished to tell the King that General Mn.il- 
 linger said that he was with his riflemen in Torcy, that the 
 French wished to capitulate, and that they werr ready to sur- 
 render unconditionally. The King answered, " No one can ne- 
 gotiate this affair but myself. Say to the General, that a bearer 
 of a flag of truce must come to me." 
 
 The Bavarian rode back again down the valley. The King 
 talked it over with Bismarck then groups of these two with 
 the Crown Prince, who had come up some time before from the 
 left, Moltke y and Roon. Their Highnesses of "Weimar and Co- 
 burg stood close by, but a little aside. After a time a Prus- 
 sian adjutant appeared, bringing word that our losses, so far as 
 was yet known, were not large ; moderate with the Guards, 
 somewhat larger with the Saxons, less with the other corps 
 which had taken part in the battle. Only a few of the French 
 had escaped by the woods towards the Belgian frontier and 
 were being pursued. All the rest had been driven into Sedan. 
 
 " And the Emperor 1 " asked the King.
 
 70 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 "Nobody knows," answered the officer. 
 
 About six o'clock another adjutant appeared, and said that 
 the Emperor was in the town, and would immediately send out 
 a flag of truce. 
 
 "This is indeed a great success!" said the King, turning 
 round to his retinue. " And I thank thee " (to the Crown 
 Prince), " that thou hast contributed to it." 
 
 With that the King gave his hand to his son, who kissed it ; 
 then to Moltke, who kissed it also. Lastly, he gave his hand 
 to the Chancellor, and talked with him for some time alone, 
 which seemed to me to make some of their Highnesses uncom- 
 fortable. 
 
 About half-past six, a guard of honor of cuirassiers ap- 
 peared a little way off, and the French general, Reille, as the 
 bearer of Napoleon's flag of truce, rode slowly up the hill. 
 He dismounted about ten paces from the King and went up to 
 him, took off his cap, and presented him with a letter having a 
 large red seal. The general is an oldish, middle-sized, slight 
 man, in a black overcoat, open, with straps and epaulettes, 
 black vest, red stockings, and polished riding boots. He wore 
 no sword, but carried a walking stick in his hand. All stepped 
 back from the King, who opened and read the letter, and then 
 told the now well-known contents to Bismarck, Moltke, the 
 Crown Prince, and the other gentlemen. Reille stood a little 
 way apart, below him, at first alone, then in eonversation with 
 the Prussian generals. The Crown Prince also, Moltke, and 
 the Coburg Highness, talked with him, whilst the King con-" 
 ferred with the Chancellor, who then commissioned Hatzfeld to 
 sketch an answer to the Imperial letter. After some minutes 
 he brought it, and the King wrote it out, sitting on one chair, 
 while the seat of a second was held up by Major von Alten, 
 who knelt before him on one knee, with the chair supported on 
 the other by way of table. 
 
 Shortly before seven o'clock, the Frenchman rode back in the 
 twilight to Sedan, accompanied by an officer and a Uhlan trum- 
 peter, with a white flag. The town was still blazing in three 
 places, and the red lights flashing in the pillar of smoke rising 
 over Bazeilles showed that the conflagration there was still raging. 
 But for these signs the tragedy of Sedan was played out, and 
 the curtain of night fell on the scene. 
 
 An after-piece only was left for the next day. For the pre- 
 sent we went home. The King went again to Vendresse. The
 
 The After -piece. 71 
 
 Chief, Count Bismarck-Bohlen, and myself, drove to the little 
 town of Donchery, where when we arrived it -was quite dark. 
 We took up our quarters in the house of a Doctor Jeanjot. 
 The place was full of Wiirtemberg soldiers, encamped in die 
 market-place. We made this diversion to Donchery, because 
 it had been arranged that the Chancellor and Moltke should 
 meet the French plenipotentiaries this evening, with a view to 
 settling the terms of the capitulation of the four French Army 
 Corps shut up in Sedan. 
 
 I slept here in a little alcove in a back room on the first 
 floor, separated only by the partition from the Chancellor, who 
 had taken possession of the large front room. About six 
 o'clock in the morning I was awakened by hasty steps, and I 
 heard Engel say, " Your Excellency ! your Excellency ! there 
 is a French general down here at the door ; I don't understand 
 what he wants." The Minister seems at once to have jumped 
 out of bed, and held a short parley with the Frenchman out of 
 the window it was again General Reille. He then dressed as 
 quickly as possible, mounted his horse without touching 
 breakfast, just as he had arrived the night before and rode off 
 at full speed. I went at once to the window of his room to 
 see in what direction he had gone, and saw him trotting to- 
 wards the market-place. Everything was lying about his 
 room in great disorder. On the floor there lay, "Tagliche 
 Losungen and Lehrtexte der Briidergemeinde fur 1870,"* and 
 on the night table there was another book of devotion, " Die 
 tagliche Erquickung fiir gliiubige Christen " f ; books in which, 
 as Engel told me, the Chancellor was accustomed to read at 
 night. 
 
 I, too, now dressed quickly, and after I had learned down- 
 staii-s that the Count had ridden off to Sedan, in order to meet 
 the Emperor Napoleon, who had left the fortress, I followed 
 him as quickly as possible. About 800 paces from the bridge 
 over the Meuse, at Donchery, there stands on the right of the 
 high road, which is lined with poplars, a solitary house, which 
 was then inhabited by a Belgian weaver. It is a one-storied 
 house, painted yellow, with four windows in front, white shut- 
 ters on the ground, floor, and on the first floor white Venetian 
 blinds. It is slated, like most of the houses in Doncherv. 
 
 * 'Daily Watchwords and Texts of 'the Moravian Brethren for 1870.' 
 t ' Daily Refreshment for Believing Christians.'
 
 72 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 Close beside it on the left there was a field of potatoes 
 in flower, while to the right there were a few bushes across the 
 path leading to the house, which was about fifteen paces from 
 the high road. 
 
 Here I saw that the Chancellor had already found the Em- 
 peror. In front of the weaver's little house, six French officers 
 of superior rank were standing, of whom five wore red caps 
 with gold lace, the sixth a black one. On the high road a 
 carriage with four seats, apparently a hired one, was waiting. 
 Opposite the Frenchmen stood Bismarck, his cousin Count 
 Bohlon, and a little way off Leverstrom and two hussars, one 
 in brown and the other in black uniform. About eight o'clock 
 Moltke came, with some officers of the general staff, but after 
 a short time he removed to a distance. Soon afterwards a little 
 thick-set man came forward, behind the house, who wore a red 
 cap with a gold border, a black paletot lined with red, with a 
 hood, and red trousers. He spoke first to the Frenchmen, some 
 of whom were sitting on the bank near the potatoes. He wore 
 white kid gloves, and was smoking a cigarette. 
 
 It was the Emperor. From the short distance at which I 
 stood I could see his face perfectly. The look in his light grey 
 eyes was somewhat soft and dreamy, like that of people who 
 have lived hard. He wore his cap a little on the right, to 
 which side his head also inclined. His short legs were out of 
 proportion to the long upper body. His whole appearance was 
 a little unsoldierlike. The man looked too soft, I might say 
 too shabby for the uniform he wore : he gave one the impres- 
 sion that he could be occasionally sentimental feelings which 
 forced themselves upon one the more on comparing this little 
 molluscous gentleman with the erect and lofty form of our 
 Chancellor. Napoleon looked unstrung, but not very much 
 broken down, and not so old as I had imagined him to be : he 
 might have been a tolerably preserved man of fifty. 
 
 After a while he went up to the Chief and spoke for about 
 three minutes with him, then he again walked up and down 
 alone, smoking, with his hands behind his back, through the 
 potato-field in flower. Another short conversation followed 
 between the Chancellor and the Emperor, which the Chancellor 
 began. After it Napoleon conversed with the French officers 
 of the suite. About a quarter to nine o'clock Bismarck and 
 his cousin went away in the direction of Donchery whither I 
 followed them
 
 The Terms of Surrender. 73- 
 
 The Minister repeatedly spoke of the events of this morning: 
 and of the preceding evening. I throw these different state- 
 ments together in the following paragraphs, which give always 
 the sense, generally the very words. 
 
 "Moltke and I, after the battle of the 1st September, had 
 gone to Donchery, about three miles from Sedan, with a view 
 to negotiations with the French. We passed the night there, 
 while the King and the head-quarters returned to Vendresse. 
 These negotiations lasted till after midnight without coming to 
 any conclusion. Besides Moltke and myself Blumenthal and 
 three or four other officers of the general staff were present. 
 General Wimpffen was the spokesman for the French. Moltke's 
 terms were short : the whole French army to surrender as pris- 
 oners of war. AVimpffen found that too hard. ' The army,' 
 said he, 'had merited something better by the bravery with 
 which it had fought. We ought to be content to let them go, 
 under the condition that as long as this war lasted the army 
 should never serve against us, and that it should march off to 
 a district of France which should be left to our determination, 
 or to Algiers. Moltke coldly persisted in his demand. 
 Wimpffen represented to him his own unhappy position : that 
 he had arrived from Africa only two days ago ; that, only to- 
 wards the end of the .battle, after MacMahon had been wound- 
 ed, had he undertaken the command ; now he was asked to put 
 his name to such a capitulation. He would rather endeavor 
 to maintain himself in the fortress, or attempt to break through. 
 Moitke regretted that he could take no account of the position 
 of the general, which he quite understood. He acknowledged 
 the bravery of the French troops, but declared that Sedan 
 could not be held, and that it was quite impossible to break 
 through. He was ready, he said, to allow one of the general's 
 officers to inspect our positions, to convince him of this. 
 Wimpffen now thought that from a political point of view it 
 would be wise for us to grant them better conditions. We 
 must, he said, desire a speedy and enduring peace, and this we 
 could have only by showing magnanimity. If we spared the 
 army, it would bind the army and the whole nation to grati- 
 tude, and awaken friendly feelings ; while an opposite course 
 would be the beginning of endless wars. Hereupon I put in a 
 word, because this matter seemed to belong to my province. I 
 said to him that we might build on the gratitude of a prince, 
 but certainly not on the gratitude of a people least of all on 
 6
 
 74 Bismarck in the Franco- German War. 
 
 the gratitude of the French. That in France neither insti- 
 tutions nor circumstances were enduring ; that governments 
 and dynasties were constantly changing, and the one need not 
 ^arry out what the other had bound itself to. That if the Em- 
 peror had been firm on his throne, his gratitude for our grant- 
 ing good conditions might be counted upon ; but, as things 
 stood, it would be folly if we did not make full use of our suc- 
 cess. That the French were a nation full of envy and jealousy ; 
 tha they had been much mortified with our success at Konig- 
 gratz, and could not forgive it, though it in no wise damaged 
 them. How, then, should any magnanimity on our side move, 
 them not to bear us a grudge for Sedan ? This Wimpffen would 
 not admit. ' France,' he said, 'had much changed lately ; it 
 had learned under the Empire to think more of the interests 
 of peace than of the glory of war. France was ready to proclaim 
 the fraternity of nations / and more of the same kind. It was 
 not difficult to prove the contrary of all. he said, and that his 
 request, if granted, would be likelier to lead to the prolongation 
 than to the conclusion of the war. I ended by saying that we 
 must stand to our conditions. 
 
 "Thereupon Castelnau became the spokesman, and, as the 
 Emperor's personal commissioner, declared that on the previous 
 day he had surrendered his sword to the King only in the hope 
 of an honorable capitulation. I asked, ' Whose sword was that 
 the sword of France or the sword of the Emperor V He re- 
 plied, 'The Emperor's only.' 'Well, there is no use talking 
 about any other conditions,' said Moltke sharply, while a look 
 of contentment and gratification passed over his face. 'Then, 
 in the morning we shall begin the battle again,' said 
 "WirnpfFen. ' I shall recommence the fire about four o'clock,' 
 Teplied Moltke ; and the Frenchmen wanted to go at once. I 
 Pegged them, however, to remain and once more to consider 
 -the case ; and at last it was decided that they should ask for a 
 ^prolongation of the armistice in order that they might consult 
 itheir people in Sedan as to our demands. Moltke at first would 
 mot grant this, but gave way at last, when I showed him that 
 it could do no harm. 
 
 " Early on the 2nd, about six o'clock in the morning, Gener- 
 al Reille appeared in front of my house at Donchery to tell me 
 that the Emperor wished to speak with me. I went with him 
 directly, and got on my horse, all dusty and dirty as I was, in 
 an old cap and my great waterproof boots, to ride to Sedan,
 
 The Unhallowed War. 75 
 
 where I supposed him still to be. But I met him on the high 
 road near FresnoLs, a mile and three-quarters from Donchery. 
 He sat with three officers in a two-horse carriage, and three 
 others were on horseback beside him. I only knew Reille, 
 Castelnau, Moscowa, and Vaubert. I had my revolver in my 
 belt, and his eye rested upon it for a moment.* I gave the 
 military salute. He took his cap off and the officers did the 
 same ; whereupon I took mine off, although it is contrary to 
 rule. He said ' Couvrez-vous clone.' I behaved to him just as 
 if in Saint-Cloud, and asked his commands. He inquired 
 whether he could speak to the King. I said that would be im- 
 possible, as the King was quartered nine miles away. I did 
 not wish them to come together till we had settled the matter 
 of capitulation. Then he inquired where he himself could stay, 
 which signified that he could not go back to Sedan, as he had 
 met with unpleasantness there, or feared to do so. The 
 town was full of drunken soldiers, who were very burdensome 
 to the inhabitants. I offered him my quarters in Donchery, 
 which I would immediately vacate. He accepted this. But 
 he stopped at a place a couple of hundred paces from the vil- 
 lage and asked whether he could not remain in a house which 
 was there. I sent my cousin, who had ridden out 'as my adju- 
 tant, to look at it. When he returned, he reported it to be a 
 miserable place. The Emperor said that did not matter. He 
 went across to the house and came back again, apparently not 
 being able to find the stairs, which were at the back. I went 
 up with him to the first floor, where we entered a little room 
 with one window. It was the best in the house, but had only 
 one deal table and two rush-bottomed chairs. 
 
 " Here I had a conversation with him which lasted nearly 
 three-quarters of an hour. He complained at first of this un- 
 hallowed war, which he had not desired. He had been driven 
 into it by the pressure of public opinion. I rejoined that 
 neither had any one with us wished for war the King least of 
 all. We had looked upon the Spanish question as Spanish, and 
 not German ; and we had expected, from his friendly relations 
 with the princely house of Hohenzollern that the hereditary 
 Prince would easily have come to an understanding with him. 
 Then he turned to speak of the present situation. As to that, 
 
 * I must here omit an expression of the Chancellor's, very characteristic 
 both of himself and of the Emperor.
 
 76 Bismarck in the Franco- German War. 
 
 he wished above all for a more favorable capitulation. I ex- 
 plained that I could not enter upon a discussion on that point, 
 as it was a purely military question, on which Moltke must de- 
 cide. Then we left the subject, to speak of a possible peace. 
 He answered, he was a prisoner^ and therefore not in a position 
 to decide ; and when I asked him whom he considered competent 
 for that, he referred me to the Government in Paris. I re- 
 marked to him, that in that case, things were just where they 
 were yesterday, and that we must stand by our former demands 
 with regard to the army of Sedan, so as to have some pledge 
 that the results of the battle of yesterday should not be lost to 
 us. Moltke, who had been summoned by me, had now arrived. 
 He was of the same opinion, and went to the King to tell hirn 
 so. 
 
 "Outside, in front of the house, the Emperor praised our 
 army and its generalship ; and when I allowed to him that the 
 French had also fought well, he came back to the conditions of 
 the capitulation, and asked whether it was not possible for us 
 to allow the corps shut up in Sedan to cross the Belgian fron- 
 tier, and there to lay down their arms and be 'interned.' I 
 tried again to make him understand that this was a military 
 question, not for me to decide without an understanding with 
 Moltke. And as he had explained, that as a prisoner he could 
 not take upon himself the Imperial powers of the Government, 
 the negotiations on these questions could only be conducted 
 with the general in command at Sedan. 
 
 " Meantime, efforts had been made to find him better accom- 
 modation ; and the officers of the general staff had discovered 
 that the Chateau of Bellevue, near Fresnois, where I had first 
 met him, was suitable for his reception, and was not yet filled 
 with the wounded. I told him so and advised him to settle 
 himself there, as the little weaver's house was not comfortable, 
 and he perhaps needed rest. We would inform the King that 
 he was there. He agreed to this, and I rode back to Donchery 
 to dress myself. Then I conducted him with a guard of honour, 
 consisting of a squadron of the first Cuirassier regiment to Belle- 
 vue. At the conferences which now began, the Emperor 
 wished to have the King present from whom he expected 
 softness and good-heartedness but he also wanted me to take 
 part. 
 
 "I on the contrary was determined that the military men, 
 who can be harder, should have the whole affair to settle. So
 
 A Chance of another Battle. 77 
 
 I whispered to an officer as he went upstairs that he was to 
 call me out in about five minutes the King wanted to speak 
 with me and he did so. With regard to the King, the Em- 
 peror was told that he could not see him until after the capitu- 
 lation was settled. The arrangement between Moltke and 
 Winipffen was thus made much as we had wished it to be the 
 evening before. Then the two sovereigns came together. When 
 the Emperor came out after the interview, his eyes were full 
 of tears. Towards me he was quieter, but friendly throughout." 
 We had heard nothing about all these occurrences previous 
 to the forenoon of September 2, and from the moment when 
 the Chief in his best uniform with his cuirassier's helmet on his 
 head, rode away a:rain from Donchery, till quite late at night, 
 only indefinite reports reached us. About half-past nine some 
 Witrtemburg artillery trotted past our house, and it was said 
 that the French would renew the fight, that Moltke had grant- 
 ed them a respite till eleven o'clock for reflection, and that the 
 bombardment would then immediately commence from five 
 hundred guns. In order to see this I went with Willisch over 
 the Meuse Bridge, where, at the barracks, there were many 
 French prisoners standing, to the high road, passing the little 
 weaver's house, now become historical, and up to the top of 
 the range of hills overlooking it, whence we could overlook 
 Donchery with its grey slate roofs, and the whole neighbor- 
 hood. Everywhere on the roads and in the fields clouds of 
 dust rose under the horses' hoofs of the passing squadrons of 
 cavalry, and the weapons of columns of infantry flashed in the 
 sun. Sideways from Donchery, near the bridge which had been 
 blown up, we saw a camp. The highway at our feet was taken 
 up with a long row of wagons with baggage and forage. After 
 eleven o'clock, when we saw there was ho firing, we came down 
 the hill again. Here we met the lieutenant of police, von 
 Czernicki, who meant to drive in a little conveyance into 
 Sedan, and who invited us to go with him. We had gone as 
 far as near Fresnois when we it was about one o'clock met 
 the King with a great retinue, amongst whom was the Chancel- 
 lor. Expecting that the Chief might wish to go home we 
 got out and went back. The cavalcade, which included Hatz- 
 feld and Abeken, went on through Donchery, with the inten- 
 tion of riding round the whole field of battle. Not knowing, 
 however, how long the Minister might be away, we remained 
 where we were.
 
 78 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 About half-past one some thousands of prisoners marched 
 through the town on their way to Germany ; partly on foot, 
 partly in wagons a general on horseback, and sixty or seventy 
 officers of different grades. There were cuirassiers with white 
 helmets, blue hussars with white lace, and infantry of the 
 22nd, 52nd, and 58th regiments. The escort consisted of Wiir- 
 temburg infantry. About two o'clock there came two thousand 
 more prisoners, amongst them negroes in Arab garb broad- 
 shouldered figures with savage faces, looking like apes, and a 
 number of old troopers wearing the Crimean and Mexican 
 medals. A tragi-comical incident happened here. One of the 
 troop of prisoners marching along noticed a wounded man in 
 the market-place, and recognized his brother, with a cry, " Eh, 
 mon frere !" He tried to run out to him. But Godfather 
 Schwab, of the escort, said, " Is it freezing (frieren) you are ? 
 I am freezing too ;" and pushed him back into the column. I 
 beg my reader's pardon if this is a pun, but I am only telling 
 the story, and did not make it. 
 
 After three o'clock two captured guns with their ammunition 
 wagons passed through our street, all still drawn by their own 
 French horses. On one cannon there was written in chalk, 
 "5th Rifles, Gorlitz." Somewhat later a fire broke out in a 
 side street close behind our quarters the Wiirtembergers had 
 there broken open a cask of brandy and incautiously allowed it 
 to catch fire ; they were said to have demolished another house 
 because the people refused them Schnaps. The damage done 
 could not have been very great, for when we came to the place 
 there was nothing of it to be observed. 
 
 There was hunger now among the inhabitants of our little 
 town, and our host himself, who as well as his wife was a good 
 soul, was in want of bread. The place was over-full from the 
 numbers of soldiers quartered there, as well as of the wound- 
 ed, some of whom were laid in the stables. People from the 
 court wanted to take our house for the Hereditary Grand Duke 
 of Weimar, but we opposed this with success. Then an officer 
 wanted quarters with us for a Mecklenburg prince. We 
 showed him the door, and told him it would not do this was 
 the Chancellor's place. But when I was away for a little 
 time, the gentlemen from Weimar had forced themselves in, 
 and we might be glad that they had not appropriated the very 
 bed of our Chief. 
 
 About ten o'clock the Minister had not yet returned, and
 
 4The Secret of Piy Driving. 79 
 
 we were in trouble and perplexity. Some accident might have 
 happened to him, or he might have returned with the King 
 from the battle-field to Vendresse. He arrived after eleven, 
 and I had supper with him. The Hereditary Prince of Weimar r 
 in the light blue uniform of a hussar, and Count Solms-Son- 
 nenwalde, formerly of the embassy in Paris, now attached to 
 our bureau, but hitherto seldom to be seen, supped with us. 
 
 The Chancellor told us all sorts of things about his ride over 
 the field of battle. He had been nearly twelve hours in the 
 saddle, with only short interruptions. They had gone over the 
 whole battle-field, and found the greatest excitement in all the 
 camps and bivouacs. In the battle itself 25,000 prisoners 
 were taken, and 40,000 more in Sedan after the capitulation, 
 which had taken place at mid-day. 
 
 The Minister had had the pleasure of meeting his youngest 
 son. " I discovered in him " so he said at dinner "a new 
 famous talent he possesses exceptional dexterity in pig-driv- 
 ing. He had found out the fattest, on the principle the fatter 
 the pig the slower his pace, and the more difficult to run awa\r 
 At last he carried it off in his anus like a child. It must have? 
 seemed odd to the French officers among the prisoners, to see a. 
 Prussian general embrace a common dragoon." 
 
 " In another place," he went on to say, "they smelt sudden- 
 ly a strong odor as^of roasted onions. I remarked that it 
 came from Bazeilles, and it was probably the French peasants 
 who had been killed by the Bavarians, and had then been burnt 
 in their houses, because they had fired at them from their win* 
 dows." Then they spoke of Xapoleon, who was to set off to- 
 morrow morning to Germany, and indeed to Wilhelmshohe- 
 It was a question," said the Chief, "whether they should go> 
 "> 'V Stenay, and Bar-le-Duc, or through Belgium." " But- 
 here," replied Solms, '"he would be no longer a prisoner. >r 
 " That would not matter at all, even if he had gone in another 
 direction. I was for his going through Belgium, and he him- 
 self appeared inclined to do so. If he should not keep his- 
 word, it would do us no great mischief. But to make this tour, 
 we must have asked permission from Brussels, and could not 
 have got an answer under two days." 
 
 As I was wading about ten o'clock in the morning through 
 the frightful filth of the market-place in a drizzling rain, there 
 crowded past me a long row of carriages from the bridge over 
 the Meuse, escorted by the black Brunswicker hussars. They
 
 80 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 were chiefly covered coaches, then baggage and cooking wagons, 
 and lastly a number of cavalry horses. In a closed coupe, 
 immediately behind the hussars, by the side of General Castel- 
 neau sat the " Prisoner of Sedan," the Emperor Napoleon, 
 on his way through Belgium to Wilhelmshohe. There fol- 
 lowed him, in an open char d, banes, with Prince Lynar and 
 some of the French officers, who had been present the day be- 
 fore at the meeting of the Chancellor and the Emperor, the 
 general of infantiy, General- Adjutant von Boy en, who had 
 been selected by the King to accompany the Emperor. " Boyeii 
 will do admirably for this," said our Chief to us the night be- 
 fore, probably thinking that the officers who surrounded the 
 illustrious captive might be somewhat insolent ; "he can be 
 very rude in the most polite manner." 
 
 We learnt some time afterwards that the route round by 
 Donchery was taken because the Emperor very much wished 
 not to pass through Sedan again. The hussars rode with them 
 to the frontier, near Bouillon, the first Belgian town. The 
 Emperor was not badly received by the French prisoners 
 whom they passed on their way. The officers, on the contrary, 
 had to put up with some disagreeable remarks. They were 
 naturally "traitors," as from henceforth every one was who 
 lost a battle or sustained any defeat from us.
 
 Enraged Soldiery. 81 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FROM THE MEUSE TO THE HARXE. 
 
 I WILL now let my journal once more speak for itself. 
 Saturday, September 3. We left Donchery this morning 
 rather before one o'clock. On the way we were overtaken by 
 a short but unusually heavy storm, with thunder which echoed 
 through the valleys for a long time. The terrible downpour 
 which followed, wet the Chancellor, who was in an open car- 
 riage, through and through, even under the armpits, as he told 
 us at dinner. He had pulled on his waterproof, but had not 
 found much good from it. Fortunately no evil consequences 
 followed, .but the time is arrived when diplomacy must come 
 more to the front again in our affairs, and if the Chief were 
 to fall ill, who could replace him "? 
 
 I drove with the Councillors, and Count Bohlen gave us all 
 sorts of details of the occurrences of the last few days. Napoleon 
 had left Sedan so early it must have been just about day- 
 break, if not sooner because he did not feel safe in the midst of 
 the enraged soldiers, who crowded together in the fortress, were 
 furious when the news of the capitulation spread through the 
 town, and broke to pieces muskets and sabres, wherever they 
 could get them. The Minister had said to Wimpffen at their 
 first interview at Donchery, that he was well aware that the 
 arrogance and pugnacity of the French, and their envy of 
 their neighbors' successes, did not come from the laboring or 
 industrial classes, but from the journalists and the Parisians ; 
 but these guided and controlled public opinion. Accordingly, 
 we could not reckon on those moral guarantees at which the 
 general hinted, we must have material ones ; the army of Sedan 
 must first be rendered harmless, and then the great fortresses in 
 the East must be handed over. The troops had laid down their 
 arms on a sort of peninsula formed by one of the bends of the
 
 82 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 Meuse. At the interview between the King and the Emperor, 
 before which Moltke had ridden out a little to meet the King 
 on his road from Vendresse, the two Sovereigns were left for 
 about ten minutes alone together in the drawing-room with the 
 glass verandah, in the little chateau of Bellevue. The King 
 afterwards called the officers of his retinue to read the capitu- 
 lation to them, while he thanked them, with tears in his eyes, 
 for helping to bring it about. The Crown Prince told the 
 Hessian regiments that the King had sent the captive Em- 
 peror to Cassel as a reward for the bravery with which they 
 had fought. 
 
 The Minister dined with the King at Yendresse, where we 
 were quartered for one more night, but he came back in time 
 to eat pancakes with us. He read to us part of a letter from 
 his wife, which in Biblical, but most energetic language, ex- 
 pressed her hope of the destruction of the French. He then 
 said thoughtfully: " H'm ! 1866 in seven days. This time, 
 perhaps, seven times seven. Yes ; when did we cross the fron- 
 tier? On the 4th ? No, on the 10th August. It is not yet 
 five weeks since that. Seven times seven it is possible." 
 
 I again sent off some articles to Germany, amongst which was 
 one on the results of the battle of the 1st September. These 
 results have grown greater bit by bit since yesterday, as at 
 Koniggratz. We have made prisoners of more than 90,000 
 Red-breeches, all told, and captured over 300 guns, an army of 
 horses, and an enormous quantity of war material. In a few 
 days we shall have still more, for of MacMahon's army, which, 
 after Beaumont, was still reckoned at nearly 120,000 men 
 evidently not many have escaped. 
 
 Bethel, September 4, evening. Early to-day the Chief called 
 me to him, when we were still in Yendresse, to give me an ac- 
 count, the latter part of which he almost dictated, of his meet- 
 ing with Napoleon, for the newspapers.* Soon afterwards, 
 about half-past nine, the carriages drove up and we began our 
 journey into Champagne. We arrived here, in Rethel, about 
 half-past four. The place is a middle-sized town and full of 
 Wiirtemberg soldiers. As we drove through to the market- 
 place, we saw French prisoners looking down upon us from the 
 first story windows of a house in the street. The quarter- 
 master had assigned us the spacious and elegantly-furnished 
 
 *I have worked it in in the last chapter.
 
 Elegantly Furnished Apartments. S3 
 
 house .of M. Duval, in tlie Rue Grand Pont, where 1 had, next 
 to Abeken, a pretty little room with mahogany furniture and a 
 four-poster with yellow satin hangings a pleasant contrast to 
 last night in Donchery. The whole of the mobilised foreign, 
 office is established here. 
 
 Reims, /September 5. The French do not seem to look upon 
 us all as barbarians and villains. Many of them evidently 
 suppose us to be honorable people. I went this morning to a 
 shop to buy some shirt collars. The shopman told me the 
 price of a box, and when I put down two thalers for them, he 
 handed me a basket full of small money that I might take the 
 change he had to give me. 
 
 We took up our quarters in the handsome house of M. 
 Dauphinot, nearly straight opposite the grand cathedral. The 
 Chief here lived in the wing to the right of the entrance into 
 the court, on the first floor ; the Bureau was established on a 
 raised ground floor, under the Minister's chamber, while a room 
 close by was appropriated for a dining-room, I found my bed- 
 room in the left wing, near Abeken. The whole house, so far 
 as I can see, is elegantly furnished. Once more I sleep in a 
 mahogany four-poster, with silk hangings, have cushioned chairs 
 covered with crimson damask ; a mahogany commode with 
 marble top, a washhand-stand and night table of the same kind, 
 and a marble chimney-piece in my bedroom. The streets are 
 thronged with Prussians and Wiirtembergers. King William 
 did the Archbishop the honor to take up his quarters in his 
 palace. I hear that our host is the Mayor of Reims. Keudell 
 thinks that the district to be held by us at the conclusion of the 
 war will not be given to one state, nor be divided among sever- 
 al, but that it will remain as the property of the whole of Ger- 
 many. 
 
 In the evening the Chief was at dinner, and as we were here be- 
 tween the two great champagne firms of the country, we tried 
 different brands of that wine. It was mentioned that yesterday 
 a squadron of our hussars had been fired upon from a coffee- 
 house. " Then," said the Minister, "the house must beat once 
 destroyed, and the occupier brought before a court-martial. 
 Stieber must be directed to investigate the matter without de- 
 lay." The champagne recommended by Count Bohlen was good, 
 and he was specially praised for finding it, I suppose by me 
 among others. The Minister said, "Our Doctor is not like the 
 rest of the Saxons, who drink nothing but coffee." I replied,
 
 84 Bismarck in the Franco- German War. 
 
 "Yes, your Excellency, that is why I am so downright, occas- 
 sionally perhaps not perfectly polite ;" at which there was great 
 laughter. It is said that we shall remain here ten or twelve 
 days. 
 
 Tuesday, September 6. Early betimes to the Cathedral, the 
 chimes of the bells having already awakened me several times 
 during the night. A magnificent edifice, of the best period of 
 Gothic architecture, dedicated to Our Lady. From ten till 
 three o'clock I worked diligently, without once looking up ; 
 amongst other things, on two articles one of considerable 
 length, the other shorter upon the conditions under which 
 Germany can conclude peace. Our Chief considered an article 
 In the Volks-Zeitung, of August 31, "very sensible and deserv- 
 ing to be more widely circulated." It pronounced against the 
 incorporation of the conquered provinces of France in Prussia ; 
 and after attempting to show that this would not strengthen 
 "but weaken Prussia, it ended with these words : " Not the 
 aggrandisement of Prussia, but the unity of Germany and the 
 rendering France innocuous, are the objects to be be pursued." 
 Bamberger has established in Nancy a newspaper in French ; 
 to which news is to be sent from us from time to time. 
 
 Before dinner, Count Bohlen, counting the covers, said, "Are 
 we not thirteen at table to-day 1" "It is well you mention it, 
 for the Minister does not like sitting down thirteen. " Bohlen, 
 to whom our bodily comforts seem to be entrusted, had evident- 
 ly stimulated the genius of our chef de cuisine to do its very 
 best. The dinner was quite sumptuous. Von Knobelsdorf, 
 captain of the guards, Count York, and a tall, slender, rather 
 shy youth, in the uniform of a lieutenant of dragoons with a 
 crimson collar, who as we afterwards heard was a Count Briihl, 
 were the guests of the Chancellor. The latter brings great news 
 with him, that in Paris the Republic is proclaimed, and a Pro- 
 visional Government instituted, in which are the leaders of the 
 former Opposition, Gambetta and Jules Favre. Rochef ort, also, 
 of La Lanterne, sits with them in high counsel. These gentle- 
 onen, it is said, intend to carry on the war against us. In that 
 case our position is not improved, in so far as we wish peace, 
 but it is by no means made worse, especially if the Republic 
 lasts ; and if afterwards they want to win good friends for 
 JFrance at the different Courts. 
 
 With Napoleon and Lulu all is over for the present ; the 
 Empress has done as Louis Philippe did in 1848 ; she has left
 
 Count Pierrefonds. 85 
 
 the field and is said to be in Brussels. What sort of a web, 
 these advocates and litterati will spin, who have come in her 
 pjace will soon be seen. Whether France will recognize their 
 authority remains also to be seen. Our Uhlans are already at 
 Chateau Thierry. Two days more and they might be before Paris. 
 But, as is now certain, we shall be at least a week longer in 
 Reims. 
 
 Friday, September 9. In the forenoon till three o'clock 1 
 was writing all kinds of articles ; amongst others, some on the 
 inexplicable attachment of the Alsatians for France ; on their 
 voluntary Helotism, and the infatuation which prevents their 
 seeing and feeling that a Gaul regards them only as a French- 
 man of the second class, and treats them in many respects ac- 
 cordingly. The news comes that Paris is not to be defended, 
 but is to be declared an open city, which is doubtful, as accord- 
 ing to other accounts they have still regular soldiers at their 
 command, though not many now. 
 
 S't.turday, September 10. The Chief drove out early with 
 Hatzf eld and Bismarck-Bohlen to Chalons, where the King also 
 was going. They came back about half-past five in the after- 
 noon. Meantime, after four o'clock, Minister Delbriick arriv- 
 ed : he had come by Hagenau and Bar-le-Duc, and had had many 
 unpleasant experiences. He had travelled with General Boyen, 
 who brought Napoleon or, as he now calls himself, Count 
 Pierrefonds without accident as far as Cassel. He complain- 
 ed that he had not been able to bring with him a box of very 
 old Xordhausen, which had been entrusted to him, I forget 
 where, for head-quarters. Further, he said that Napoleon had 
 declared to Boyen that he had been forced into the war by 
 public opinion, and that he had praised our troops very highly, 
 especially the Uhlans and the artillery. 
 
 Sunday, Septembe-" 11. About twelve o'clock Abeken and I 
 went to the Protestant church, or, as they call it here, the 
 Protestant temple, on the Boulevard, in which there is a high 
 oratory, with galleries, chancel, and a small organ, but without 
 towers. The service, which was conducted by the military 
 chaplain, Frommel, and which the King, Prince Karl, the 
 Grand Duke of Weimar, the Hereditary Grand Duke of Meck- 
 lenburg, Bismarck, and Roon, as well as some Prussian and 
 many Wiirtemberg officers and soldiers attended, began with 
 military music, instead of organ playing. First, the psalm, 
 " Praise the Lord," the soldiers singing from their Psalm Bookr.
 
 SQ Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 Instead of the Epistle another psalm followed, and then the 
 Gospel for the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity. The preacher 
 took his text from 1 Sam. vii. 11 and 12 : "And the men of 
 Israel went out of Mizpeh, and pursued the Philistines, and 
 smote them, until they came under Beth-car. Then Samuel 
 took a stone, and set it between Mizpeh and Shen, and called 
 the name of it Eben-ezer, saying, Hitherto hath the Lord helped 
 us." The last words were his principal subject ; the subordin- 
 ate heads dwelt on gratitude for the help of the Lord, and the 
 vow sworn on the altar-stone Eben-ezer not to act like those 
 whom the Lord had condemned, and the hope that the Lord 
 would grant His help still further, especially for the permanent 
 unity of Germany. The discourse was not unsuitable. Many 
 good thoughts were well expressed ; but Clovis came in for 
 somewhat undeserved honor, because he was baptised (it took 
 place, as every one knows, in Reims), although every student 
 nowadays knows that he was none the better of it, as after 
 Taaptism he continued to be a crafty and sanguinary tyrant. 
 What the preacher said about St. Louis was equally awkward. 
 
 In the course of the day a M. Werle was with the Chief, a 
 thin old gentleman with shaking head and the inevitable red 
 ribbon in his buttonhole, which seems to be universal among 
 well-dressed Frenchmen. He is a member of the legislative 
 "body, and proprietor or partner in the firm Veuve Clicquot, 
 and it is said that he wishes to consult the Minister on 
 the means of meeting the distress which prevails in the 
 town, and averting a rising of the poor against the rich. 
 The latter fear that the Red Republic may be declared by the 
 workmen, who seem to be in a state of ferment ; and as Reims 
 is a manufacturing town, having ten to twelve thousand 
 ouvriers within its walls, the danger may well be serious when 
 our soldiers have to leave the town. No one could have dreamt 
 of this a month ago : German troops the defenders of the 
 French from Communism truly a miracle of miracles ! M. 
 Werle speaks German, too ; indeed he is, by birth, they say, a 
 countryman of ours, like many of the proprietors of the great 
 Champagne manufactories here and in the neighborhood. 
 
 Monday, September 12. I was writing different articles till 
 midday. In Laon the French though it may have been the 
 act of a single individual person have been guilty of a wicked 
 treachery. Yesterday, after the conclusion of the capitulation 
 and after the entry of our troops, they blew the citadel into the
 
 Molike and Blumenthal. 87 
 
 air, by which explosion about a hundred men of our 4th battalion 
 of rifles have been killed or wounded. 
 
 The following is the view which the Chancellor takes of the 
 general position, if I undei'stand him rightly. Peace seems yet 
 to be far away, as there is no government in Paris which 
 promises durability. When the time for negotiation comes, the 
 King will invite his allies to come to a common understanding 
 as to the terms which we ought to demand. . Our main object is 
 and will continue to be, the security of the South-West German 
 frontiers against the centuries old danger of a French invasion. 
 A new neutral intermediate state, like Belgium or Switzer- 
 land, would be of no use to us, since such a state would cer- 
 tainly lean to France, if another war broke out. Metz and 
 Strassburg, with as much of their surroundings as is necessary 
 to us, must become our frontier territory and belong to all Ger- 
 many. A partition of this district amongst our separate state? 
 is not to be thought of. Carrying on war in common will no' 
 be without a salutary influence upon the demand for the unity 
 of Germany. Prussia will as a matter of course, after the war 
 respect the free will of the South, as she has hitherto done 
 and will avoid even the suspicion of any pressure. A great deal 
 will depend upon the personal feeling and decision of the King of 
 Bavaria. 
 
 Tuesday, September 13. Early this morning a military band 
 of troops from Wiirtemberg gave the Chief a morning serenade 
 which inmit have delighted him very much. If the gentlemen 
 of the Stuttgart Observer hear of it ! In the course of the 
 forenoon the Chancellor summoned me six times, and I wrote 
 as many as six articles for the press, among which were two 
 for the French newspapers here, which had also received news 
 from us on previous days. Further measures were taken to 
 secure for General von Blumenthal the place which is due to 
 him, when his portrait and biography are given, in the friendly 
 illustrated journals. " The newspapers do not mention him 
 at all, so far as we see, although he is chief of the staff of the 
 Crown Prince ; and, after Moltke, has up to this time been of 
 the greatest service in the conduct of the war." 
 
 On the 14th September, a little before ten "in the morning 
 we left Reims, the cathedral of which continued visible for a 
 long time across the level country, and went to Chateau 
 Thierry. All the villages were full of Wiirtembergers, and 
 they had stationed outposts, both of infantry and cavaliy,
 
 88 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 along the road for our protection. It must still be somewhat 
 dangerous here, for the peasants who went hobbling about with 
 their wooden shoes, or stood before their houses, looking quite 
 harmless and unintelligent, are capable of very wicked tricks. 
 To speak plainly, their faces are extremely simple-looking, but 
 perhaps the nightcaps which most of them wear give them that 
 sleepy, weak appearance. They had, without exception, their 
 hands in their long trousers pockets, but it might possibly not 
 be mere apathetic indifference which made them clench their 
 fists inside. 
 
 About five o'clock -we arrived at Chateau Thierry, where 
 we all found comfortable accomodation together in the hand- 
 some house of a M. Sarimond in the square fronting the Church. 
 The host was, so the Minister informed us, a pleasant man, 
 with whom one could talk about all sorts of things. Chateau 
 Thierry is a charming little town. It lies rather raised above 
 the banks of the Marne below the moss-covered ruins of an old 
 castle. It is spread over a large space of ground and has many 
 gardens. Only the one long street in the heart of the town 
 which leads up to the church, and a few of the side streets 
 opening on it, have houses standing close to each other. The 
 old church is dedicated to Saint Crispin the Cobbler who was 
 so benevolent as even to steal leather to make shoes for the 
 poor in French, Crepin, perhaps an allusion to the fact 
 that before the tanneries which still flourish here, the industry 
 of shoemaking may formerly have provided food for a great 
 part of the inhabitants. 
 
 The next day (Sept. 15} we set out at noon, after breakfast- 
 ing at the Hotel Nogeant, for Meaux, about 30 English miles 
 from Chateau Thierry, and only about the same dis^nce from 
 Paris. On the way we again passed for hours by vineyards of 
 enormous extent. We crossed the Marne and drove through 
 coppices, and over the spurs of the hills on the left side of the 
 valley. At the village of Lusancy we halted for half an hour. 
 Our carriage was now drawn partly by horses captured at 
 Sedan. The nearer we approached to Paris the closer together 
 were the sentries posted, especially in the woods, and where 
 there were alleys of trees. They now consisted of Prussian in- 
 fantry (with yellow shoulder-straps). We could see very little 
 of the inhabitants of the villages as we passed through. Only 
 the landlords and the old people seemed to have been left be- 
 hind. Girls and young wives were not to be seen, nor young
 
 Meaux. 89^ 
 
 children. In Lusancy we saw written in chalk over one house- 
 door, " 111 with small-pox." 
 
 Meaux is a town of about 12,000 inhabitants, and stands in' 
 a pleasant, well-wooded neighborhood. It has beautiful shady 
 promenades, with large green gardens. The streets in the 
 older part of the town are mostly narrow and poor. The Chief 
 lived in the Rue Trouchon, in the splendid house of the 
 Vicomte de la Motte, which had an extensive garden behind 
 it. I was quartered just opposite, in the house of a Baron 
 Vandeure, an old gentleman, who had fled, and at whose 
 writing-table I could work most comfortably. I had the choice 
 also of two different bed-rooms, and of a four-poster bed with 
 silk and another with linen or cotton hangings. Then the 
 view from the Baron's study, the windows of which look out 
 on a little garden with old trees and creepers, is of the kind 
 that soon makes one feel at home, and the library would be 
 most welcome if we were here for amusement. It is very well 
 chosen. I find, for instance, Sismondi's ' Histoire des Fran- 
 cai.s,' Thierry's collected works, Cousin's ' Philosophical Es- 
 says,' Renaii's ' Histoire Religieuse,' Rossi's ' Economie 
 Nationale,' and other works on history and national ecomomy. 
 
 At dinner we were told that a man had arrived from Paris, 
 bearing a flag of truce, and they pointed out a thin dark-haired 
 young fellow, standing in the court in front of the Chief's 
 house. This was the person ; and from his talk he seemed to 
 be an Englishman. At dinner to-day both the Counts York 
 were our guests. They explained to us why we had seen so 
 few men in the villages. They had found great crowds of 
 peasants in the woods, who had fled there with some of their 
 belongings, especially with their cattle, and highly delighted 
 they were when they were told they were mostly unarmed 
 that they might go back without fear or anxiety to their vil- 
 lages. On hearing this, the Chief said, " If I were a soldier 
 and had to order things, I know what I should do. I should 
 treat all who remained at home with every possible attention 
 and respect. But I should consider the houses and furniture 
 of those who have run away as found property. And if I 
 caught them I would take away their cows and whatever else 
 they had with them, declaring that they had stolen and hidden 
 them in the wood. It would be well if they could first be 
 made aware that the different sauces with which we cook little 
 French children are all lies."
 
 DO Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 Friday, September 16. A splendid bright sunny morning, 
 with a deep blue sky over Bossuet's city. Early in the morn- 
 ing I translated for the King a letter sent to him by James 
 Parkinson, an English prophet, who predicted that if the King 
 did not put a stop to this shedding of blood, the vengeance of 
 Heaven, of which the Emperor Napoleon would be the instru- 
 ment, would overtake him for the " Slaughter of the Danes," 
 and the "Blood of 'Austria's sons.'" This warning was dated 
 August 29. Three days later the telegraph would have pre- 
 vented it. The officious fool who sent this, and some other 
 English fools in high places who meddle in our affairs, would 
 have done better to remember that England has her own door- 
 step to sweep clean, that we are defending ourselves against 
 the most outrageous arrogance in a just war ; that we have not 
 yet thought of wantonly burning peaceful villages, or of blow- 
 ing men from the mouths of cannon, as they have done in wars 
 ten times less justifiable. 
 
 The young black-haired gentleman of yesterday, who was 
 supposed to have come with a flag of truce, and who had a long 
 talk with the Chief in the evening over a bottle of Kirschwasser 
 (cherry cordial), is Sir Edward Mallet, an attache of the Eng- 
 lish Embassy in Paris. He had brought a letter from Lord 
 Lyons, in which he asked whether the Count would confer 
 with Favre on the conditions of an armistice. The Chancellor 
 is said to havo answered him : "On the conditions of a Peace, 
 yes ; on the conditions of an Armistice, no." * 
 
 There was some talk about the King not going to Paris, but 
 of his awaiting the course of events at Ferrieres, the seat of 
 Rothschild, lying about half-way between Meaux and Paris. 
 
 At dinner, Prince Hohenlohe was a guest. The Chief, after 
 returning from dining with the King, was also present. We 
 learnt that Reims was to be the centre of administration of the 
 French provinces occupied by our army, outside Elsass and 
 Lothringen ; that the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg was to have 
 the supreme control as Governor General, and that Hohenlohe 
 was to take office under him. 
 
 In conversation, the Chief said to his cousin, who was com- 
 plaining of not feeling very well : " When I was thy age" (his 
 cousin was about thirty -eight) " I was quite intact, and every- 
 
 * He cannot well have done so, if we compare this with what happened 
 liter.
 
 The Chiefs Opinion of five, French. 91 
 
 thing agreed with rue. It was at St. Petersburg that I got my 
 first shake.'' 
 
 Some one turned the conversation to Paris, and the French 
 in connection with the Alsatians ; and the Chief expatiated on 
 this theme, telling me afterwards giving me leave, or a hint 
 at least, to report his words, or the sense of them, to the news- 
 papers. "The Alsatians and Gerrnan-Lorrainers," he said, 
 " supplied the French with many clever people, especially in 
 their army. But they were litttle esteemed among them, 
 seldom advanced to the higher offices of the state, and ridiculed 
 by the Parisians in all manner of anecdotes and caricatures. 
 It is the same," so he continued, " with the other French pro- 
 vincials, but not so much so. France breaks up, in a sense, 
 into two nations, Parisians and Provincials, and the latter are 
 the willing helots of the former. France may now be emanci- 
 pated from the domination of Paris. The man who feels him- 
 self as a provincial, out in the cold, and wants to come to some- 
 thing, settles in Paris, is there received into the ruling caste, 
 and shares their power Might we not force the Emperor back 
 on them as a punishrnent ? At any rate it is possible ; for the 
 peasants do not want the tyranny of Paris. France is a nation 
 of ciphers a mere crowd ; they have money and elegance, but 
 no individual men, no feeling of individuality ; they act only in 
 the mass. They are thirty millions of obedient Kaffres, each 
 without a native 'ring' or a personal value. It would be easy 
 to get sixty people together capable of holding down all the 
 rest of these people who are without character or personality, 
 so long as they are not united." 
 
 Saturday, September 17. I went early for an hour's walk with 
 Willisch along the green Marne, where, at a great public wash- 
 ing establishment, women were beating shirts and bed-linen in 
 the river, down to the old bridge, over the one-half of which 
 stand the buildings of a mill several stories high, and then on 
 to the suburb on the left bank of the stream. At the end of 
 the Rue Corillon another bridge, which has been blown up, 
 crossed a gorge or deep cutting, at the bottom of which there 
 is a canal. The interruption of traffic caused by the destruc- 
 tion of this bridge has been already so far remedied by our 
 pontooners, that not far from the ruins which block up the 
 canal they have made a temporary bridge for single horsemen, 
 over which a squadron of Bavarian cuirassiers happened to be 
 just passing one behind the other.
 
 92 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 On the way back we met a long train of wagons, with mili- 
 tary stores, which reached from the ruined bridge quite to the 
 middle of the town. At one corner of a street we saw several 
 placards, amongst them an address yards long from Victor 
 Hugo to the Germans, very piteous and high-flown, at once 
 sentimental and pompous ; a whipped-up trifle, with fine 
 phrases stuck in as if for plums, thoroughly French. What can 
 the queer man take us for, if he thinks that our Pomeranians 
 and East Prussians, with their sound, manly intelligence, can 
 like such stuff as this 1 A man in a blouse near me, who was 
 reading it half aloud, said to me ' C'est bien fait, Monsieur, 
 n'est-ce pas ? " ("Well written, sir, is it not 1 ?") I answered 
 that it grieved me to the soul to be obliged to say that it was 
 utter nonsense. What a face he pulled ! 
 
 Sunday, September 18. Early- in the morning articles were 
 written for Berlin, Hagenau and Reims. Among other things 
 they dealt with the phrase of Favre : "La republique c' est la 
 paix" ("The Republic is peace"). The line of thought which 
 I followed was mainly this : France has, for the last forty 
 years, always pretended to be peace, and has always and under 
 all forms been the exact opposite. Twenty years ago, the em- 
 pire said it was "peace" the Republic now says the same thing. 
 In 1829, Legitimacy was " peace," and at that very time a 
 Russian and French league was formed which was only prevent- 
 ed by the Revolution of 1830 from fulfilling its object, an 
 aggressive war against Germany. It is notorious that the 
 "peaceful" government of the Citizen King wanted, in 1840, to 
 take the Rhine from us, and it can never be forgotten that the 
 Second Empire has carried on more wars than all the preceding 
 forms of government. We may infer what we have to expect 
 from Favre's asseveration with respect to the Republic. To all 
 such illusions Germany has to oppose the words, " La France c' est 
 guerre" ("France is war"), and it is in accordance with this 
 conviction that we demand the cession of Metz and Strassburg. 
 
 I find this addition to my journal : To-day the Wiirtemberg 
 War Minister, von Suckow, was for a considerable time upstairs 
 with the Chief. He reported that in Swabia the cause of Ger- 
 many was all right ; that things looked less promising in 
 Bavaria ; and that Bray, the Minister, had been as unnational 
 as he well could be under the circumstances. 
 
 In the afternoon a M. B. appeared at my house, who took up 
 his quarters, with his two boxes, quite coolly down below with
 
 Mi Weale, of Jenley. 93 
 
 the guards. He had afterwards some conversation with the 
 Chief ; and from his passport appeared to be a merchant travel- 
 ling for Count Pierrefonds. 
 
 Monday, /September 19. In the morning I prepared for the 
 Military Cabinet an extract in German from an English letter 
 addressed to the King. The author, who claims to be descend- 
 ed from the Plantagenets, is named Weale, of Jenley, in Pem- 
 brokeshire, formerly an engine-driver. Like Mr. Parkinson, 
 who some days ago obtruded himself with his prophecies, he 
 has evidently a bee in his bonnet, but is at the same time a 
 good sort of fellow. With many pious reflections, horribly 
 spelt, he warns us of pits and traps which are laid for the Prus- 
 sians in the woods of Meudon, Marly, and Bondy, on the 
 ground of a conversation between an Irishman and a French- 
 man, which he says he heard. He winds up with blessing the 
 King, his family, and all his subjects. 
 
 We hear for certain that Jules Favre will be here to-day at 
 twelve o'clock to treat with the Chief. The fine weather seems 
 to favour him. About ten o'clock Count Bisrnarck-Bohlen 
 comes down from the Chancellor. " We are to be off at once," 
 to the Chateau of Ferrieres, fifteen miles away. We have to 
 pack up and be off immediately. With great difficulty Theiss 
 gets my clothes from the washerwoman. Then we learn 
 Abeken and I are to remain with one carriage and a servant 
 and to follow at a later hour. At last, about eleven o'clock, 
 we have breakfast with the Chief, at which there was some rare 
 old white Bordeaux, which the owner of the house, a Legitimist 
 lady by the way, honoured the Minister with, as it appeared, 
 because we had done no mischief to her or to hers. The Chief 
 had guessed the Legitimist feeling of the old lady from, the 
 Lucerne lion over his bed.
 
 9f Bismarck in the Franco- German War. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 BISMARCK AND PAVRE IN HAUTE-MANSION. A FORTNIGHT 
 IN ROTHSCHILD'S CHATEAU. 
 
 AT twelve o'clock on September 19, Jules Favre had not 
 yet arrived, and they did not wait. The Minister, 
 however, left a letter for him at the Marie, and told the servant 
 of our Viscountess to inform him of it if he came. To-day the 
 Chief and the Councillors went round the estate of the great 
 Parisian money-broker, and for some time they rode before the 
 carriages, in the second of which I sat by myself. We first 
 drove past the house where the King is, which is a fine mansion 
 on the Promenade, and then out of the town along the canal on 
 the left bank of the river, till we were able to cross the latter 
 by means of a temporary bridge. At the village of Mareuill 
 the road slightly ascended, running along the first steps, so to 
 speak, of the chains of hills which on this side run parallel to 
 the river and the canal, through a well-cultivated country, with 
 vegetable gardens, orchards, and vineyards of blue grapes. 
 
 Here, between the villages of Mareuill and Montry, at a place 
 where the high road made a sharp descent, under fine shady 
 trees, we met a carriage and pair, close shut, in which were three 
 gentlemen in ordinary dress and a Prussian officer. One of the 
 civilians was an oldish grey-bearded gentleman, with a protrud- 
 ing under-lip. "That is Favre," I said to Kr tiger, who was 
 sitting behind me ; "where is the Minister?' He was not to 
 be seen, but was probably on before, hidden from our sight by 
 a long train of wagons, some of them piled high with baggage. 
 I made them drive quickly, and after a time met the Chief 
 with Keudell riding back to us, in a village called, I believe, 
 Chessy, where some peasants had covered a dead horse with 
 straw and chaff, and then set fire to it, causing a most dreadful 
 odour.
 
 Guards against a Surprise. 95 
 
 'avre passed us, your Excellency," said I ; " and is up 
 there 
 
 i know it," answered he, smiling and trotted on. 
 
 The day after Count Hatzfeld told us some particulars of the 
 meeting of the Chancellor with the Parisian Advocate and 
 Regent. The Minister, the Count, and Keudell were a good 
 mile and a half before us on the road, when Hofrath Taglioni, 
 who was with the King's carriages, had told him that Favre 
 had driven by. He had come by another road, and reached 
 the spot where it joined this one, after the Chief and his com- 
 panions had passed. The Chief was indignant that he had not 
 been told of it before. Hatzfeld spurred after Favre and 
 turned back with him. After a time Count Bismarck-Bohlen 
 met them, and galloped back to tell the Minister, who was 
 still a good bit off with Keudell. At last they met near 
 Montry. The Minister himself thought of going with the 
 Frenchman into a house here ; but as the high-lying chateau of 
 Haute-Maison was only about ten minutes walk distant, and 
 was considered a more suitable place, they went there. 
 
 Here they met with two Wiirtemburger dragoons, one of 
 whom, with his carbine, was posted as guard at the door. A 
 French peasant also was there, whose face looked as if he had 
 had a severe beating, and whom they asked if there was any- 
 thing to be had to eat and drink. Whilst they were speaking 
 to him, Favre, who had gone into the chateau with the Chancellor, 
 came out and had a discourse with his country man full of pathos 
 and fine feeling. " Surprises might be attempted : this must 
 not be. He was no spy, but a member of the new Government, 
 who had taken the weal of the country in hand, and was 
 responsible for its honourable conduct ; and he called upon this- 
 peasant, in the name of the rights of nations and the honour of 
 France, to see that this house was held sacred. His, the 
 Regent's honour, and the peasant's honour peremptorily de- 
 manded this;" an 1 such like fine phrases. The worthy but 
 somewhat stupid peasant lad listened to this flood of words 
 with a very simple look, evidently understood as little of it as- 
 if it had been Greek, and made such a face that Keudell said r 
 " If that fellow is to protect us against a surprise, I had much 
 rather depend on the soldier there." 
 
 I learnt from another source in the evening that Favre had 
 been accompanied by M. Rink and M. Hell, formerly secretaries 
 of Benedetti, ai,well as by Prince Biron, and :hat quarters had
 
 96 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 been found for him in the village near Ferrieres, where he hoped 
 to have another interview with the Chief. Keudell said, 
 " When the Chancellor left the room where he and Favre had 
 been talking, he asked the dragoon at the door where he came 
 from." "From Hall in Swabia." "Well, you may boast 
 hereafter that you were on guard at the first peace negotiation 
 in this war." 
 
 The rest of us, meanwhile, had to wait a long time at Chessy 
 for the Chancellor, and took occasion, probably with his leave, 
 to drive on towards Ferrieres, which was about six milos off. 
 On the road we crossed the line of the zone round Paris, -with- 
 in which the French have diligently destroyed everything. 
 But here the destruction was only partial. The inhabitant* of 
 the villages which we visited seemed to have been mostly driven 
 away by the Gardes Mobiles. So far as T know, we did not 
 see one dog, but in some yards there were a few hons. On 
 most of the doors which we passed there was written in chalk, 
 "The Corporal's Guard N.," or "One officer and two horses," 
 or something of that kind. Tn the villages on roiue* occasion- 
 ally to town-like houses, and outside of them there were villas 
 and mansions with parks, showing the proximity of the great 
 city. In one of the villages through which we passed lay sev- 
 eral hundred empty wine bottles in the ditch and on the field 
 near the road. A regiment had discovered here a good source 
 whereat to quench its thirst, and had halted for that purpose. 
 There was no sign to bo seen on the road of the guards, or the 
 other prudential measures which had been observed at Chateau 
 Thierry and Meaux, which might have been hazardous for the 
 <Chief when he returned late in the evening and with only a 
 inall escort. 
 
 At last, as it began to grow dusk we drove into the village 
 of Ferric-res, and soon after into Rothschild's property, which 
 is situated close by, in the castle of which the King, and with 
 him the higher division of the great headquarters, took up their 
 : abode for some time. The Minister was to have his quarters 
 jn the last three rooms of the right wing on the first floor, 
 -where he looked out upon the meadows, the lake and the castle 
 park ; while the Bureau took possession of one of the larger 
 rooms of the ground floor, and a smaller room in the same corridor 
 was used as a dining-room. Baron Rothschild had fled, and was 
 in Paris, and had left behind only a house-steward or castellan,
 
 First Negotiations for Peace. 97 
 
 who looked a person of the highest consequence, and three or 
 four women servants. 
 
 It was dark when the Chief arrived last of all, and he soon 
 after sat down with us to dinner. While it was going on Favre 
 sent to enquire when he could come to continue the negotia- 
 tions, and from half -past nine till after eleven he had a confer- 
 ence alone with the Chancellor in our Bureau. When he left 
 he looked a my journal remarks perhaps he had not quite 
 laid aside the part he had been playing so as to act on our 
 fc"lings crushed and depressed, almost despairing. The con- 
 versation appeared to have led to no result : the gentlemen in 
 Paris will have to become more pliable. Their emissary and 
 and representative was rather a big man, with grey whiskers 
 coming round under his chin, a somewhat Jewish type of coun- 
 tenance, and a hanging under lip. 
 
 During dinner we hat! to admire an illustration of the hos- 
 pitality and sense of decency of the Baron, whose house the 
 King was honoring with his presence, and whose property, 
 tlv v rf>fore, van spared in every way. Baron Rothschild, the 
 hundredfold millionaire, who, besides, had been till a very 
 recent date Consul-General of Prussia in Paris, insolently re- 
 fused us, through hi steward, the wine which we wanted, al- 
 though I may remark that this and every other requisition was 
 to be paid for. When cited before the Chief, the man impud- 
 ently persisted in his refusal, positively denied that he had any 
 wine in the houie, though he afterwards admitted that he had 
 in the cellar a few hundred bottles of "petit Bordeaux" in 
 fact, there was more than seventeen thousand bottles but de- 
 clared that he could not let us have any. The Minister, how- 
 ever, explained his point of view to the man in a very forcible 
 manner, insisting that it was a most uncourteous and niggard- 
 ly way in which his master was returning the honor which the 
 King had shown him by putting up in his house ; and, when 
 the burly fellow looked as if he intended to give u a little more 
 insolence, asked him sharply if he knew what a " Strohbtmd " 
 was 1 Our friend appeared to guess, for he became pale, 
 though he said nothing. It was then explained to him that a 
 " Strohbund " is a truss of straw upon which refractory and 
 insolent house-stewards are laid, back uppermost, and he might 
 easily imagine the rest. Next day we had what we wanted, 
 and, as far as I know, afterwards had no cause of complaint. 
 But the Baron received for his wine not only the price that
 
 98 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 was asked, but something over and above for the good of the 
 house ; so that, on the whole, he made a pretty good thing 
 out of us. The exceptional respect for Rothschild's seat was in 
 every respect maintained till the conclusion of the war. The 
 greater was our annoyance, therefore, at learning that Roths- 
 child had spread in Parisian society a report exaggerating and 
 falsifying the words of our Chief, saying that the Prussians 
 had wished to flog his house-steward at Ferrieres, because the 
 pheasants which he set before them had not been truffled. 
 
 The morning next but one the Minister came into the 
 " Chambre de Chasse " of the mansion, a room fitted up with 
 beautifully carved oak furniture, and ornamented with precious 
 china vases, which we had transformed into our bureau, and 
 inspecting the game-book, which was lying on the table in the 
 middle of the room he showed me the page, dated November 
 3rd, 1856, which recorded that on that day he himself, with 
 Gallifet and others, had shot here, and that he had killed 
 forty-two head of game, fourteen hares, one rabbit and twenty- 
 seven pheasants. "Now," he said, "along with Moltke and 
 others, I am after nobler game, the wolf of Grand Pre." At 
 that date he had no presentiment of it, and his fellow sports- 
 men assuredly had even less. 
 
 About eleven o'clock he had a third meeting with Favre, 
 subsequent to which a council was held with the King, at 
 which Moltke and Roon were present. After some letters had 
 been written to Berlin, Reims, and Hagenau, I had two hours 
 on hand to make myself acquainted with our new abode. I 
 used this time in looking over the mansion, so far as it was 
 open to us, and in rambling about through the park, which lay 
 on the south side of the house, and a flower garden on the north, 
 about 400 paces to the west of the mansion are the stables and 
 farm buildings, and opposite these, on the other side of the car- 
 riage drive, a very large fruit and vegetable garden with rows 
 of fine green-houses and hot-houses. I saw also in the park a 
 Swiss cottage, fitted up to accommodate some servants, and to 
 be used as a laundry. 
 
 About the castle itself I will be brief. It is a square build- 
 ing, of two stories, and at each of the four corners a three- 
 storied tower, with a rather flat roof. The style is a mixture 
 of different schools of the Renaissance, which do not produce a 
 very effective whole. The edifice does not look so large as it 
 really is. The south front, with its flight of steps ornamented
 
 Cr(su8 at Home. 99 
 
 with stately vases, leading to a terrace, upon which are orange 
 and pomegranate trees in tubs, looks the best. The chief en- 
 trance is on the north side, having a vestibule, with busts of 
 Roman emperors, which are very handsome, though it is not 
 easy to see what they have to do in the house of the Croesus of 
 modern Judaism. From this a somewhat narrow staircase, the 
 walls of which are lined with marble, leads to the chief room of 
 the house, round which runs a gallery, supported by gilded 
 Ionic columns. The walls above these are hung with Gobelin 
 tapestry, and among the pictures of this gorgeously -furnished 
 room there is an equestrian portrait by Velasquez. Amid so 
 many beautiful objects, the eye wanders first to one and then to 
 another, but the whole gives one the impression that the pos- 
 sessor thought less of beauty or comfort than of bringing to- 
 gether the costliest articles. 
 
 If, however, the mansion leaves one somewhat cold, the gar- 
 dens and park deserve the highest praise. This applies not 
 only to the flower-garden in front of the north facade, with its 
 statues and fountains, but in a still higher degree to the more 
 remote parts of the park, which end in forest, and through 
 which there are straight-lined carriage drives and paths, some 
 of them leading to a large manor-farm. Here there are beau- 
 tiful foreign trees, both singly and in tasteful groups, and 
 there is a charming variety of wood, meadow, and water, with 
 occasional lovely glimpses through the trees and shrubberies. 
 In front of the mansion lia smooth grass plats, with gravel 
 walks winding through them to a lake, with black and white 
 swans, Turkish ducks, and other bright-colored water-fowl. Be- 
 yond this water, to the right rises an artistically-planted hill, 
 where winding paths lead through shrubberies, fir woods, and 
 leafy trees, to the summit. On the left of the lake is a small 
 deer-park, and further on, on the same side, a little stream, 
 which runs murmuring at the edge of a clearing through a wood 
 of tall forest trees. On the grass in front of the steps were 
 sheep and poultry, and among them a few pheasants, which 
 were running in great troops on the more distant sward. Of 
 these birds, there are as many as four or five thousand in the 
 park. Our soldiers acted towards all these good things as if 
 they were not made to be enjoyed ; but they took, doubtless, 
 another view of them, pre-eminent in which was a healthy 
 hunger. "Tantalus in uniform," said one with a mytho- 
 logical turn of mind, when we saw three of those dainty
 
 100 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 birds, which are uncommonly good, even without sauer kraut 
 cb la Rothschild that is, boiled in champagne walk past 
 a sentry, so close that they might have been spitted with his 
 bayonet. 
 
 When we returned from our travels of discovery we learned 
 that the house steward, who had at first been so insolent, had 
 come at last to regard us as not altogether unwelcome guests. 
 He had an uncommon dread of the francs-voleurs, as thefrancs- 
 tireurs were now often called by people of property in the 
 country, and this fear had won from him the admission that 
 our presence had a pleasant as well as a vexatious side. He 
 said to one of us that those gentlemen, who rivalled the Mobiles 
 and the Chasseurs d'Afrique in plundering and devastating the 
 neighborhood, had destroyed everything in the country houses 
 at Clayes, and had forced the peasants sword in hand to leave 
 their houses and fly into the woods. They might have taken 
 it into their heads, had we not been, at Ferrieres, to pay a visit 
 to the chateau. The possibility had presented itself to his 
 sorrow-stricken mind, that they might have considered it 
 advisable to burn it down. Probably in consequence of these 
 reflections he had bethought himself that the Baron's cellar 
 contained champagne, and that he might cede to us a number 
 of bottles at a good price, without committing a deadly sin. 
 In consequence of this change of mood we began now to feel 
 more at home. 
 
 At breakfast we heard that the news had arrived at the 
 general staff that Bazaine, who must have been completely 
 surrounded and shut in in Metz, had asked Prince Frederick 
 Karl by letter whether the news of the defeat at Sedan, and 
 of the proclamation of the Republic which, he had received 
 through exchanged prisoners, was correct, and that the Prince 
 had answered him in the affirmative, both by letter and with 
 the corroboration of Parisian newspapers. 
 
 In the evening I was summoned to the Chief, who did not 
 appear at table, and who, it was said, was not very well. A 
 narrow winding stone staircase, which was honored with the 
 name of the " Escalier particulier de Monsieur le Baron" took 
 me up to an elegantly-furnished room, where the Chancellor lay 
 on a sofa in his dressing-gown. I was to telegraph that the day 
 before the French we had heard the cannonade but had not 
 known what it was had made a sortie with three divisions in a 
 southern direction, but had been utterly routed and driven back.
 
 Cession of Territory a Condition of Peace. 
 
 101 
 
 We had taken seven guns and more than two thousand prisoners 
 in the affair. 
 
 Wednesday, September 21. When the Chief had recovered 
 from his indisposition, there was again more to be done. These 
 labors, both in their matter and intention, are not meant for 
 publicity, like many other excellent things then done, heard, or 
 experienced. I say this once for all, solely to obviate the sus- 
 picion that I take part in this campaign more as a pleasure- 
 loving Phaeacian than in the spirit of a true " soldier of the 
 pen." 
 
 At tea we heard something more about the last negotiation 
 of the Chancellor with Jules Favre. The attention of the latter 
 is said to have been drawn to the fact, that the precise con- 
 ditions of a peace could not be communicated to him until they 
 had been settled in a meeting of the German powers immedi- 
 ately concerned ; but that peace would not be concluded with- 
 out a cession of territory, as it was a matter of absolute 
 necessity that we should obtain a better frontier against French 
 attacks. There was, however, less discussion in this conference 
 about peace and our requirements in connection with peace, 
 than about the concessions from the French side on which we 
 could grant a truce. When the forfeiture of territory was 
 mentioned Favre was very much excited, sighing and raising 
 his eyes to Heaven, and shedding many patriotic tears. The 
 Chief does not expect that he will come again. It is as well, 
 and this was the answer sent to the Crown Prince, who had 
 telegraphed this morning to inquire. I wrote these last words 
 early on the 22nd. 
 
 Thursday, September 22, evening. The French are never 
 tired of denouncing us to the world as tyrants and barbarians, 
 and the English press, especially the Standard, notoriously 
 very "hostile to us, eagerly lends its help. Almost without 
 intermission that journal pours out upon the breakfast-tables of 
 its readers the bitterest calumnies as to our conduct to the 
 French population and to the prisoners we have taken. It is 
 always asserting that eye-witnesses, or people otherwise well- 
 informed, drawing what they say from the best sources, furnish 
 these lies or these perversions and exaggerations of the facts. Thus 
 within these last few days the Duke of Fitz James hasdrasvn a 
 horrible picture of our atrocious cruelties in Bazeilles, which 
 he pretends to have depicted only in its true colors ; and in the 
 same spirit a M. L., who plays the part of an ill-treated French
 
 102 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 officer taken prisoner at Sedan, laments, in lugubrious tones, 
 the inhuman conduct of the Prussians. We might leave this 
 to answer itself, but a duke makes an impression even upon 
 those on the other side of the Channel who are more favorably 
 disposed to us, and with calumnies sufficiently audacious some- 
 thing always will stick. Therefore a refutation of these asper- 
 sions goes off to-day to the London journals favorably disposed 
 to us. To this effect : 
 
 " In this war, as in every other, a great number of villages 
 have been burned down mostly by artillery fire, German as 
 well as French. In these, women and children who have taken 
 refuge in the cellars, and who have not had time to escape, have 
 perished in the flames. This is true also of Bazeilles, which 
 was taken by discharges of musketry, and retaken several 
 times. The Duke of FitzJames was an eye-witness merely of 
 the ruins of the village, which he saw after the battle, as thou- 
 sands of others have seen, and deplored them. Everything else 
 in his account is derived from the stories of unfortunate and 
 embittered people. In a country where even the government 
 developes an unexampled and systematic capacity for lying, it 
 is scarcely to be expected that angry peasants, with the ruins 
 of their burnt houses before their eyes, should have any great 
 inclination to speak the truth about their enemies. It has been 
 established by official inquiry that inhabitants of Bazeilles, not 
 in uniform, but in blouses and shirt-sleeves, fired upon wounded 
 and unwounded German troops in the streets, and that whole 
 rooms full of wounded men were murdered in the houses. In 
 like manner it has been proved that women, armed with knives 
 and guns, committed the greatest cruelties against mortally 
 wounded soldiers, and that other women, certainly not in the 
 uniform of the National Guards, took part in the battle along 
 with the male inhabitants, loading their companions' guns, 
 and even themselves firing, and that while thus engaged they 
 were wounded or killed like other combatants. These circum- 
 stances were of course not told to the Duke by his informants, 
 but they would have perfe'ctly justified our setting fire to the 
 village, even if it had been done designedly to drive the enemy 
 from his position. But an intentional setting fire to the village 
 has not been proved. That women and children were driven 
 back into the fire is one of the malignant lies with which the 
 French alarm the population, and goad them to hatred against 
 us. They thereby cause the flight of the people, who usually
 
 Plundering German Prisoners. 103 
 
 return to their villages a few days after the advance of the 
 Germans, quite astonished that they have been better treated 
 by the latter than by French troops. Where fear does not 
 suffice to drive the inhabitants to flight, the Government sends 
 hordes of armed men in blouses, supported sometimes by Afri- 
 can troops, to drive the peasants from their dwellings with sabre 
 cuts, and to lay waste their homes as a punishment for their 
 want of patriotism." 
 
 M. L. congratulates himself on preserving his leathern purse. 
 This is the strongest proof that he was not plundered ; for 
 there is no soldier who does not carry money in such a purse 
 next to his skin at the present day, just as they did a hundred 
 and fifty years ago. If the German soldiers had meant to have 
 the money of M. L., they knew very well from their own ex- 
 perience where to find it on him. The few Germans who were 
 taken prisoners by the French can tell how quickly the hands 
 of their opponents tore open the uniform of the captives, and, 
 when the leather purse stuck too closely, cut into it with sword 
 or knife, without troubling about the skin. We declare the 
 assertions of the ill-treatment of prisoners taken at Sedan to 
 be shameless and unfounded lies. A great number of the 
 French prisoners perhaps a fourth of them were beastly 
 drunk, having plundered as they did in the last hours before 
 the capitulation, all the stores of wine aud brandy in the town. 
 That drunken men are more difficult to manage than sober ones, 
 is intelligible enough ; but acts of ill-treatment such as are re- 
 lated in that article occurred neither at Sedan nor anywhere 
 else, from the discipline which prevails among Prussian troops. 
 It is notorious that this discipline excited the admiration of the 
 French officers. 
 
 We cannot, alas, speak as favorably of the troops of the 
 enemy in this respect as of their bravery under fire. Often 
 the French officers were unable to restrain their men from mur- 
 dering the severely wounded as they lay on the ground, and 
 this was true, not merely of the African troops, but happened 
 even when officers of higher rank attempted to defend the 
 wounded Germans against the attacks of their own men. It is 
 well known that the German prisoners who were brought to 
 Metz were led through the streets, were spat upon, beaten, and 
 stoned , and when they were discharged, that the African troops 
 formed a lane and made them run the gauntlet, amid blo\\s 
 from sticks and whips.
 
 104 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 I note once for all First, it is held in England that the 
 razing of the French fortresses in the East is sufficient for our 
 security, but the obligation to demolish fortifications consti- 
 tutes a servitude which is always more grating than their 
 cession. Second, they pretend to infer in England that the 
 fact of Strassburg defending itself so long against us, proves the 
 devotion of its inhabitants to France But the fortress of 
 Strassburg is defended by French troops, not by the German 
 inhabitants. The obstinate defence, therefore, is no display of 
 German fidelity. 
 
 Just as we are at the soup one of the Royal servants comes 
 and announces that the Crown Prince proposes to dine and 
 stay the night, and he, the secretary, Fourier, or whoever it 
 was, adds the request that the Bureau and the large room up- 
 stairs next to the Chancellor's room should be given up to the five 
 gentlemen in attendance on his Royal Highness. The Chief 
 answers, " The Bureau 1 certainly not, that won't do. It is 
 needed for business." He then places at their disposal his own 
 dressing-room, and offers to take Blumenthal or Eulenberg into 
 his bedroom. He requires the drawing-room for the reception 
 of the French negotiators, and when Princes come to him. 
 The quartermaster retired with a long face. He had expected 
 an unconditioned yes, as a matter of course. 
 
 Count Lehndorf was present at dinner, and the conversation 
 was lively. When mention was made of the covering old Fritz 
 in the Linden with black, red, and yellow colors, the Minister 
 disapproved Wurmb having allowed the controversy about 
 colors to be raised. " For myself," says he, " when the North 
 German colors were accepted, the question was settled. Other- 
 wise the discussion about colors, is a matter of indifference to 
 me, green and yellow, or the colors of Mecklenburg-Strelitz ; 
 only the Prussian troops will have nothing to do with black, 
 red, and yellow." Reasonable people will not take it amiss in 
 him, when they remember the March days in B< in and the 
 badge of their opponents in the Mainfield campaign in 1866. 
 
 The Chief afterwards said, that peace was still far off. " If 
 they go to Orleans we shall follow them, even if they go fur- 
 ther still, to the sea." He then read out the telegrams which 
 had been received, and among them the list of the troops in 
 Paris ; " they are said to amount to 180,000 men, but there are 
 scarcely 60,000 real soldiers among them. The Mobile Guards 
 and National Guards, with their snuff-boxes, are not worth
 
 Table Talk. 105- 
 
 counting." The conversation then turned for a time on mat- 
 ters of the table, and it was said among other things that 
 Alexander von Humboldt, the ideal man of our democracy,, 
 was an enormous eater, who, at Court, heaped on his plate 
 whole mountains of lobster salad and other indigestible deli- 
 cacies and then swallowed them down." At the last course we 
 had roast hare, and the Chief remarked, " This French thing is 
 not to be compared with our Pomeranian hare ; it has no game 
 flavor. How different is our hare, which gets its fine flavor 
 from the heath and thyme on which it feeds." 
 
 About half-past ten he sent to inquire whether any one was 
 still at tea. He was told, "Doctor Busch." He came, drank 
 two cups of tea, with a little cognac, which he rightly consider- 
 ed wholesome when it is good, and ate, contrary to his usual 
 habit, some cold meat. He afterwards took away with him a 
 bottle of cold tea, which he seems to like to drink in the night, 
 for I have often, during the campaign, seen it in the morning 
 on his night-table. He remained till after mid-night, and for 
 the first time we were alone. After a time he asked where I 
 was born. I answered, in Dresden. Which town did I like 
 best ? Of course my native town ] I replied rather decidedly 
 in the negative, and said that, next to Berlin, Leipzig was 
 the town which suited me best. He answered, smiling, 
 Really ; I should not have thought that ; Dresden is such a 
 beautiful city." I then told him the chief reason why, in spite 
 of that, it did not please me. He was silent for a little. 
 
 I asked whether I should telegraph that some here think 
 they have heard the firing of cannons and rifles in the streets 
 of Paris. " Yes," he .said, " do so." " But not about the 
 conference with Favre ? " " Surely," and then he continued, 
 " Haute Maison, near what do you call it 1 Montry the 
 first time, then at Ferrieres the same evening, the second, 
 then a third interview the next day but one, but with no re- 
 sult, either as regards an armistice or peace. Negotiations- 
 with us have also been attempted on the part of some of the 
 other French parties," to which he added some remarks 
 leading me to infer that he was alluding to the Empress- 
 Eugenie. 
 
 The Chief praised the red wine standing on the table, from 
 
 the Baron's cellars, and drank a glass of it.. He then again 
 
 complained of the behavior of Rothschild, and thought the old 
 
 baron had better manners. I spoke of the crowds of pheasants 
 
 8
 
 106 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 in the park. Could we not have a shot at them ? " H'm," he 
 said ; " it is forbidden to shoot in the park ; but what can they 
 do if I go out and get some? They can't arrest me, for they 
 would have no one to see after the peace." He afterwards 
 talked of hunting : " I hunt sometimes with the King at Letz- 
 lingen, the old forest of our family. Burgstall, too, was taken 
 away from us three hundred years ago, simply on account of 
 the hunting. At that time there was nearly twice as much 
 wood as now. It was then worth nothing but for the hunting ; 
 now it is worth millions. . . . The indemnification given us 
 was trifling, not a fourth part of the value, and almost all of it 
 has vanished like smoke." 
 
 Another time, speaking of dexterity in shooting, he said 
 that , when he was a young man he was such a good shot that 
 he could hit pieces of paper at a hundred paces, and had shot 
 the heads off the ducks in the pond. 
 
 He remarked, on a subject to which he often recurred, "If I 
 am to work well I must be well fed. I can make no proper 
 peace if they don't give me proper food and drink. That is part 
 of my pay." 
 
 The conversation turned I no longer remember how on 
 the ancient languages. " When I was in the highest form at 
 school, I wrote and spoke Latin very well. Now it has be- 
 come difficult to me, and I have quite forgotten my Greek. I 
 .don't understand why people spend so much labor 011 them. 
 Perhaps merely because scholars do not like to lessen the value 
 of what they themselves acquired with so much difficulty." I 
 took the liberty of reminding him of the "mental discipline," 
 and remarked that the twenty or thirty meanings of the par- 
 ticle dv must be quite delightful to those who have them at their 
 fingers' ends. The Chief replied, " Yes, but if it is contended 
 that Greek gives the ' mental discipline,' Russian does so in a 
 still higher degree. People might introduce Russian at once 
 instead of Greek ; there would be immediate practical use in 
 that. It has innumerable niceties to make up for the incom- 
 pleteness of its conjugation, and the eight-and-twenty declen- 
 sions they used to have were capital for the memory. Now, 
 indeed, they have only three, but then the exceptions are all 
 the more numerous. And how the roots are changed ; in many 
 words only a single letter remains." 
 
 We spoke of the treatment of the Schleswi^-Holstein 
 question in the Diet in the years about 1850. Count Bis-
 
 The Cigar Stvry. 107 
 
 marck-Bohlen, who had joined us, remarked that it must have 
 beengoodto produce sleep. " Yes," saidthe Chief, "in Frankfort 
 they slept over negotiations with their eyes open. Generally a 
 sleepy, insipid set, only supportable when I came among them 
 like so much pepper." He then told an amusing story of Count 
 Rechberg, at that time ambassador of the Diet. 
 
 I asked about the " famous " cigar story. " "Which do you 
 mean? " " When, your Excellency, Rechberg kept on smok- 
 ing a cigar in your presence, and you took one yourself." "You 
 mean Thun. Well, that was simple enough. I went to him, 
 and he was working and smoking at the same time. He beg- 
 ged me to wait a moment. I did wait ; but when it seemed too 
 long, and he offered me no cigar, I took out one, and asked him 
 for a light, which he gave me with a rather astonished look. 
 But there is another story of the same kind. At the sittings 
 of the military commission when Rochow was the Prussian re- 
 presentative at the Diet, Austria alone smoked. Rochow, who 
 was a furious smoker, would certainly have liked to do it, but 
 did not venture. When I succeeded him, I too hankered after 
 a cigar ; and as I did not see why I should not have it, I asked 
 the Power in the President's chair to give me a light, which 
 seemed to give him and the other gentlemen both astonishment 
 and displeasure. It was evidently an event for them. That 
 time only Austria and Prussia smoked. But the other gentle- 
 men obviously thought the matter so serious that they reported 
 it to their respective Courts. The question required mature 
 deliberation, and for half a year only the two Great Powers 
 smoked. Then Schrenkh, the Bavarian envoy, asserted the 
 dignity of his position by smoking. Nostitz, the Saxon, had 
 certainly also a great wish to do so, but had not received 
 authority from his minister. When, however, he saw Both- 
 mer, the Hannoverian, indulging himself, at the next sitting, 
 he must for he was intensely Austrian, having sons in the 
 army have come to some understanding with Rechberg ; for 
 he also took out a cigar from his case and puffed away. Only 
 Wiirtemberg and Darmstadt were left, and they did not smoke 
 themselves. But the honor and dignity of their states impera- 
 tively required it, so that next time we met, Wiirtemberg pro- 
 duced a cigar I see it now ; it was a long thin light yellow 
 thing and smoked at least half of it, as a burnt-offering for the 
 Fatherland." 
 
 Friday, September 23. This morning the weather is glori-
 
 108 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 ous ; and after eleven o'clock exceedingly hot. Before the 
 Chief rose I took a ramble in the park, where, on the left of 
 the stream, I saw a large herd of roe-deer ; and further on a 
 splendid aviary, in the spacious wire-cages of which there were 
 a number of foreign birds, Chinese, Japanese, New Zealand 
 birds, rare pigeons, gold pheasants, and so on, and a quail- 
 house. When I returned I met Keudell in the passage. 
 " War ! " he cried. "A letter from Eavre, who rejects all our 
 demands." We shall prepare this, with commentaries on it, 
 for the press, and at the same time hint that the present inha- 
 bitant of Wilhelmshohe is after all not so bad, and that he may 
 be of some use to us yet. 
 
 Saturday, September 24- The Minister was led to speak at 
 dinner, of the show things in the great saloon upstairs which 
 he had just seen, for the first time. Among them, we heard, 
 that there was a throne or table which had casually stuck to 
 the fingers of some French marshal or general in China or 
 was it in Cochin China 1 and which had been afterwards sold 
 to our Baron, a remarkable object which in our visit to the 
 room I had stupidly not observed. The opinions of the Chief 
 on this display of luxury were almost the same as those which 
 I recorded in my journal two days ago : " Everything dear, 
 but little that is beautiful, and still less comfortable." He then 
 went on : "A property like this finished and complete, could 
 never give me any satisfaction. Not I but others would have 
 made it. There is indeed much that is beautiful, but the 
 satisfaction of creating and transforming is wanting. It is quite 
 different when I have to ask myself, Can I spend five or ten 
 thousand dollars upon this or that improvement 1 to what it 
 must be when one has not to think about money. To have 
 always enough and more than enough must at last be weari- 
 some." To-day we had pheasants (not truffled), and our wine 
 proved that the enlightenment and improvement of the house- 
 steward's inner man had made considerable progress. Further, 
 the chief purveyor of the mobilised Foreign-office which 
 honorable post was filled by the Count Bismarck-Bohlen an- 
 nounced that some benevolent Berlin friend had sent the Chief 
 a present of four bottles of curacao, of which a trial was made. 
 
 The Chancellor asked : " Do you know ?" I did not catch 
 
 the name. "-Yes." "Well, telegraph to him: 'Old Nord- 
 hauser quite indispensable at headquarters, two jars immedi- 
 ately. ' * Afterwards the subject of conversation at table was,
 
 The Ho'tiesty of the Jews. 109 
 
 the position of owners of estates ; when the Minister spoke of 
 the former and present condition of an estate at Schmoldin, and 
 expressed himself warmly as to the care the landlords ought to 
 show for the people under them. 
 
 In the evening it was again thought advisable to make some 
 communication in an article to our good friends the French 
 Ultramontanes, who in war, as formerly in peace, put forth all 
 their strength against the German cause, exciting the people 
 against us, spreading abroad lies about us in the newspapers, 
 and stirring up the peasants to join in the war, as they did at 
 Beaumont and Bazeilles. 
 
 Sunday, September 25. Quite an off day. Nothing of im- 
 portance to record. The Chief went to church in the morning 
 with the King, and in the afternoon he did not appear. Per- 
 haps he has some important thing specially on hand. 
 
 At dinner there was some talk about the Jews. " They 
 have still really no true home," said the Chief ; " but are a sort 
 of universal-European, cosmopolitan nomads. Their fatherland 
 is Zion," (to Abeken) " Jerusalem. Otherwise they belongto the 
 whole world, and hang together throughout the whole world. It 
 is only the Jew child that has a little home feeling. But there 
 are good honest people amongst them. There was one near us 
 in Ponierania, who dealt in skins and such-like articles. But, 
 for once, this did not succeed, and he was bankrupt. Then he 
 came to me and begged me to help him, and not bring forward 
 my claim ; he would repay me as soon as he could, bit by bit. 
 For old acquaintance' sake, I agreed, and he really paid me. 
 Even when I was at Frankfort as Envoy, I had remittances 
 from him, and I believe that I lost less than the others. Per- 
 haps there are not many such Jews now. But they have their 
 virtues ; respect for their parents, fidelity in marriage, and 
 charitableness. " 
 
 M'inilay, September 26. Early this morning I worked for 
 the press on different lines. At dinner, the King's physician, 
 Dr. Lauer, was present. The conversation turned for some time 
 on culinary and gastronomical matters. In the course of this 
 we learnt that cherries are the Chancellor's favorite fruit, and 
 next to them large blue plums, called " Bauernpflaume." The 
 four carp, which formed one of the courses at dinner, led the Chief 
 to speak of the carp's place among eatable fish, on which point 
 he expressed himself very fully. Among freshwater fish he 
 gave the first place to Maranen, not to be confounded with
 
 110 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 Murctnen, and to trout, of which last he had some, very fine, in 
 the streams about Varzin. Of the large trout which are so 
 prominent in banquets at Frankfort-on-the-Main, he thought 
 very little. He preferred sea-fish, and among them all he 
 placed the cod first. "A good smoked flounder is not at all 
 bad, and even the common herring is not to be despised when it 
 is perfectly fresh." Oysters were discussed, and he said, " In 
 my young days, when I lived at Aachen, I conferred a benefit 
 on the inhabitants such as Ceres did when she revealed the art 
 of agriculture to mankind : in fact, I taught them how to roast 
 oysters." Lauer begged for the recipe, and he got it. If I under- 
 stood rightly, the fish was strewn with, bread crumbs and Parme- 
 san cheese, and roasted in its shell on a coal fire. I stuck quietly 
 to my own opinion that the oyster and cooking have nothing to 
 do with each other. Fresh and nothing with them, that is the 
 only true recipe. The Chief then spoke as a thorough connois- 
 seur of wild fruits, bilberries, whortle-berries,' and moss-berries, 
 a/id of the numerous tribe of mushrooms, of which he had 
 eaten many in Finland, of kinds not known among us, but ex- 
 cellent. Then he spoke of eating in general, and said jocularly, 
 " In our family we are all great eaters. If there were many in 
 the country with such a capacity, the state could not exist. I 
 should emigrate." I remembered that Frederick the Great had 
 done great things in the same line. 
 
 The conversation then turned on military matters, and the 
 Minister said that the Uhlans were still the best cavalry. The 
 lance gave the man great confidence. It is said that it is 
 troublesome among trees, but that is a mistake. It is very 
 useful in moving aside the branches. He knew this from his 
 own experience, having served first with the rifles and after- 
 wards with the Lamhvehr Lance Cavalry. The abolition of 
 the lance in all the cavalry of the Landwehr was a mistake. 
 The bent sabre, especially when it is badly ground, is of very 
 little use. The straight cut-and-thrust sword is much more 
 practical. 
 
 After dinner there came in a letter from Favre, in which he 
 asked, first, that due notice should be given of the bombard- 
 ment of Paris, in order that the diplomatic body might have 
 time to get away : secondly, that correspondence with the outer 
 world should be permitted them by means of letters. When 
 he came down from the Chief with the letter, Abeken said that 
 he meant to answer it by way of Brussels. " Then," said
 
 Diplomatic Papers to be written in German. Ill 
 
 Keudell, " the letter will reach its destination late, or, perhaps 
 not at all : it will come back to us." " That does not matter," 
 replied Abeken. . . . The King wishes to see newspapers, and 
 the most important things are to be marked for him. The 
 Chief proposed to him the Nord-Deutzche Allgemeine Zeitung, 
 and I am to attend to the marking and to send up the numbers 
 to the Minister. 
 
 Jn the evening I am several times called up to the Chief to 
 receive my orders. I learn that "Favre's account of his conver- 
 sations with the Chancellor shows an anxiety to be truthful, 
 but at the same time is not quite exact, which under the cir- 
 cumstances, and considering that it is a report of three conver- 
 sations, is not to be wondered at. " In particular the question 
 of an armistice is put in the back-ground, whereas in reality 
 it \vas the prominent question. There was no talk of Soissons, 
 but of Saargemiind. Favre was prepared for a considerable 
 pecuniary indemnity. The question of a truce hung upon two 
 alternatives ; either the surrender to us of the portion of the 
 fortifications of Paris dominating the city, the Parisians having 
 free intercourse with the outer world ; or, the surrender of Strass- 
 burg and Toul. We claimed the latter, because in the hands 
 of the French it threatens our supplies. Upon the cession of 
 territory, on the conclusion of peace, the Chancellor spoke to 
 the effect that he could only explain himself on the ques- 
 tion of the frontiers after the principle was accepted. Then, 
 when Favre asked for some indication at least of our demands 
 in this respect it was remarked to him that we needed Strass- 
 burg, " the key to our house," and the Departments of the 
 Upper and Lower Rhine, also Metz and a part of the Moselle 
 Department for our security in the future. The Armistice 
 was to enable the French National Assembly to be consulted. 
 
 After dinner great news arrives : Rome is occupied by the 
 Italians, while the Pope and the diplomatists remain in the 
 Vatican. 
 
 Tuesday, September 27th. Bolsing showed me, by order of 
 the Chief, his answer to Favre's letter which he had re- written 
 and made shorter and firmer. It said with respect to the first 
 point : A notice beforehand is not the usage of war ; and as to 
 the second, a beleaguered fortress does not appear to be an ap- 
 propriate position for diplomatists. We shall allow open 
 letters, containing nothing objectionable, to pass through. In 
 this view of things we hope to have the concurrency of the
 
 112 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 diplomatic corps. This body may indeed go to Tours, where 
 we hear that the French Government intends to go. The 
 answer was written in German, a practice which Bernstorff had 
 begun, but which Bismarck has carried out more persistently. 
 In earlier days, so Bolsing says, most of the secretaries in the 
 foreign office belonged to the French colony, of which Roland 
 and Delacroix still survive, and almost every business was 
 transacted, even by the councillors, in French. Even the regis- 
 ters of exports and imports were kept in French. Ambassa- 
 dors usually sent in their reports in French. Now the language 
 of those "vile Gauls," as Count Bohlen calls the French, is 
 only used exceptionally for instance, to those Governments 
 and ambassadors whose mother-tongue we cannot read fluently 
 but the registers for years past have been kept in Ger- 
 man. 
 
 At dinner Prince Radziwill, and Knobelsdorff of the general 
 staff, were present. We were speaking of the passage in 
 avre's account of his negotiations with the Chief, where he is 
 said to have wept. " It is true," said the Minister. " He 
 seemed crying, and I endeavored in a fashion to console him ; 
 but when I looked a little closer, I positively believe that he 
 had not shed a tear. He intended, probably, to work upon 
 lay feelings with a little theatrical performance, as the Parisian 
 advocates work upon their public. I am almost convinced that 
 at Ferrieres, too, he was painted white, especially the second 
 time. That morning in his part of the injured and much- 
 suffering man he looked much greyer than he did before. It is 
 possible, of course, that he feels all this ; but he is no poli- 
 tician. He ought to know that bursts of feeling are out of 
 place in politics." After a little while the Minister went on : 
 " When I dropped a word about Strassburg and Metz. he made 
 a face as if he thought I were joking. I should like to have 
 I old him what the great Kiirschner once said to me in Berlin. 
 i went to his shop with my wife to ask the price of a fur 
 vloak, and when he mentioned a high price for one that pleased 
 tne, I said, 'You are joking!' 'No,' he replied ; 'in business, 
 never.'" 
 
 Later in the evening the American General Burnside was 
 announced. The Chief answered that he was now at dinner 
 and wished the General would be so kind as to call again 
 "In an hour or two?" "Ah ! as far as I am concerned, in 
 half an hour." Then he asked me, "Now, Doctor Busch, who
 
 General Burnside. 113 
 
 is this man 1" I said, " A very prominent General in the Civil 
 War, and, after Grant and Sherman, leaving the Confederate 
 generals out of account, the most important." 
 
 We then spoke of the occupation of Rome and of the Pope 
 in the Vatican ; and the Chief said of the Pope, " Yes ; 
 sovereign he must remain, only we are obliged to ask how. We 
 should be able to do much more for him if the Ultramontanes 
 were not always so active against us. It is my custom to pay 
 people back in their own coin." " I should like to know, too, 
 how our Harry (von Arnim, the North-German Ambassador at 
 the Papal Court) finds himself now 1 ? Probably to-day so, in 
 the evening, so, and in the morning again something quite dif- 
 ferent, like his reports. He would be too much of an ambas- 
 sador for a small sovereign, but the Pope is not merely the 
 Prince of the States of the Church ; he is the head of the 
 Catholic Church." 
 
 After dinner, as we were having our coffee, Burnside came 
 with an older gentleman, who wore a red flannel shirt and a 
 paper collar. The general is a rather tall, well-made man, with 
 thick bushy eyebrows, and singularly fine white teeth. With 
 his precisely-trimmed short cropped King William'* beard, he 
 might have been taken for an elderly Prussian major in plain 
 clothes. The Chief sat with him on the sofa to the left of the 
 window in the dining-room, and had an animated conversation 
 with him in English over a glass of Kirsch-wasser (cherry 
 cordial), which was replenished after a little. Meantime Prince 
 Radziwill talked with the other gentleman. When the Minis- 
 ter remarked to his visitor that he was rather late in coming to 
 the campaign, and Burnside had explained why, the Minster 
 told him that in July we had not had, neither the King nor 
 the people, the slightest intention of war, and when we were 
 surprised wtih the declaration of war, had not a thought of 
 conquests. Our army is excellent for a war of defence, but 
 not easy to use for plans of conquest, for the army is the peo- 
 ple, and the people are not desirous of glory. They need, and 
 they wish, peace. That is why the press, which is the voice of 
 the people, now demands a better frontier. Fr peace' sake we 
 must now, in presence of an ambitious people, greedy of con- 
 quest, think of our security for the future, and we can only 
 find it in a better defensive position than we have at present. 
 Burnside appeared to see this, and was emphatic in praising 
 our excellent organization and the heroism of our troops.
 
 114 Bismarck in the Franco- Gewt&n War. 
 
 Wednesday, September 28. About twelve o'clock I wished 
 to see the Minister, in order to ask him a question. In the 
 ante-room I was told that he was not at home. " Has he ridden 
 out, then 1" " No ; the gentlemen are shooting a few pheas- 
 ants. Engel was to go after them." " Have they taken their 
 guns?" "No, but Podbielski sent them on before." The 
 Chief came back about two o'clock, and he and Moltke and 
 Podbielski had been shooting, not in the park, but in the woods 
 to the north and north-east of it, but, as it seemed, with little 
 success. At dinner, when Count Lehndorff, and Landrath 
 Count Fiirstenstein, in the uniform >f a light-blue dragoon, with 
 yellow collar, and a Herr von Katt \vere our guests of whom 
 the two latter were to be prefects in the conquered French dis- 
 tricts the Chief told us that the spo *t in the morning had not 
 been very successful, which he attributed to some fault in the 
 cartridges. He had killed only one pheasant, and had wounded 
 three or four others, but had not got them. He said that when 
 he had been here before he had done better, at least with the 
 pheasants ; with the other game, however, it had not been so. 
 With Dietze, in Magdeburg, he had once, in five or six hours, 
 shot a hundred and sixty hares. After the sport was over he 
 had been with Moltke, where he had tasted a new kind of 
 drink, a sort of punch made with champagne, hot tea, and 
 sherry, which, if I heard rightly, was an invention of the greav 
 general, the man who thinks battles. 
 
 Graver conversation followed. The Chancellor complained 
 first, that Voigts-Rhetz had said nothing in his report about the 
 brilliant charge of the two regiments of dragoon-guards at Mars- 
 la-To,ur, which he himself suggested, and which had saved 
 the Tenth Army Corps. " It was a necessity, I must admit, but 
 he should not have passed it over in silence." He then began 
 a longer discourse suggested, as to the image which started 
 him off, by a spot of grease on the table-cloth, and which at 
 last assumed the character of a dialogue between the Ministei 
 and Katt. After remarking that the feeling that it is noble to 
 die for honor and the Fatherland, even without recognition, is 
 among us Germans spreading through the nation more and 
 more, Katt went on to say: "The non-commissioned officer has 
 essentially the same view and the same feeling of duty as the 
 lieutenant and the colonel. With us this runs through every 
 stratum of the nation." " The French are a mass easily brough* 
 under the influence of one leader, and are then very powerful
 
 The Chancellors Faith. 115 
 
 With us, every one has his own opinion ; and with Ger- 
 mans it is a great step gained when any considerable number 
 of them hold the same opinion if they all did so, they would 
 be omnipotent." " The feeling of duty in a man who submits 
 to be shot dead, alone, in the dark " (he meant, no doubt, 
 without thinking of reward and honor for steadfastly sticking 
 without fear and without hope to the post assigned to him), 
 " the French have not. It is due to what is left of belief in 
 our people ; from the fact, that I know that there is Some One 
 who sees me, when the lieutenant does not see me." " D.o you 
 believe, your Excellency, that they really reflect on this T 
 asked Fiirstenstein. " Reflect no, it is a feeling, a tone, an 
 instinct, I believe. If they reflect, they lose it. Then they 
 talk themselves out of it "... " How, without faith in a re- 
 vealed religion, in a God, who wills what is good, in a Supreme 
 Judge, and a future life, men can live together harmoniously 
 each doing his duty and letting every one else do his I do not 
 understand." " If I were no longer a Christian I would not 
 remain for an hour at my post. If I could not count upon my 
 God, assuredly I should not do so on earthly masters. Of 
 course I should have to live, and I should be in a good enough 
 position." " Why should I disturb myself and work unceas- 
 ingly in this world, exposing myself to all sorts of vexations, if 
 I had not the feeling that I must do my duty for God's sake ? 
 If I did not believe in a divine order which has destined this 
 German nation for something good and great, I would at once 
 give up the business of a diplomatist, or I would not have 
 undertaken it. Orders and titles have no charm for me." . . . 
 "I owe the firmness which I have shown for ten years against 
 all possible absurdities only to my decided faith. Take from 
 me this faith and you take from me my Fatherland. If I were 
 not a good believing Christian, if I had not the -supernatural 
 basis of religion, you would not have had such a Chancellor. 
 . . . Get me a successor on the same basis and I give up at 
 once but I live among heathens. When I say this I don't 
 want to make proselytes, but I am obliged to confess my faith." 
 " But the ancients," said Katt ; " surely the Greeks displayed 
 self-denial and devotion, surely they had a love for their coun- 
 try, and did great things with it j' and he was convinced "that 
 many people now do the same thing from patriotic feeling and 
 the consciousness of belonging to a great unity." The Chief 
 replied, " This self-denial and devotion to duty, to the State,
 
 116 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 and to the King, is only the survival of the faith of our fathers 
 and grandfathers transformed indistinct and yet active ; faith 
 and yet faith no longer." ..." How willingly I should be off. 
 I delight in country life, in the woods, and in nature. . . . 
 Take from me niy relation to God, and I am the man who will 
 pack up to-morrow and be off to Varzin to grow my oats." 
 ( Vide note at end of chapter.) 
 
 Friday, September 30. Another letter received from B. in 
 B., who continues to employ his talent and influence to express 
 the Chancellor's views in the papers. He was asked in answer 
 to make a stand against the absurdity some German journalists 
 are falling into, who while we are at war, and scarcely out of 
 the very thickest of it, prate so zealously about moderation. 
 These gentlemen are very free with their advice as to how far 
 we Germans may go in our demands, and plead in favor of 
 France, when they would show far more wisdom by pitching 
 our demands high. "By doing this," said the Minister, when 
 he complained of these articles, " we shall get at least what is 
 fair, though not everything we want. They will force me yet 
 to demand the Line of the Meuse." 
 
 The great people are having a feast to-day. They keep, it is 
 said, the Queen's birthday. We have again heard shots from 
 the neighborhood of Paris, and in the evening the Chief allowed 
 me to telegraph the news with the addition that a sortie had 
 taken place, and that the French had been driven with great 
 loss and in wild disorder back into the city. 
 
 Sunday, October 2. Count Bill came to visit his father. 
 Early in the morning I dispatched a telegram, and in the even- 
 ing two articles. Not much else to be noted to-day. 
 
 But at tea Hatzfeld mentioned that he had visited our 
 neighbor at Guernant on the road to Lagny, and that the pro- 
 prietor, the Marquis Tolosan or d'Olossan, a comfortable, 
 paunchy gentleman, had complained of the people quartered on 
 him. The Prussians, he said, were charming, but the Wiir- 
 tembergers were quite too familiar. No sooner had they 
 entered his house than they had slapped him on the stomach, 
 saying, "A splendid corporation." They made continual 
 demands. He had given them four thousand bottles of Bor- 
 deaux and the keys of his cellar, and yet they were always 
 looking about as if more were concealed. He had given them 
 two out of the three carriages in his coach-house, and only 
 wanted to keep quite a little one for himself, which he much
 
 Russian Life. 117 
 
 needed as it was difficult for him to get about. But they had 
 taken even that carriage out for the whole day, and when he 
 remonstrated they laughed, and said it was always the way in 
 war. 
 
 The conversation then turned upon Russia and the commun- 
 istic partition of land which exists there among the village 
 communities, and upon the families of the smaller nobility, who 
 used to lay out their savings in buying serfs, extorting rent from 
 them in the shape of obrok,* and of the incredible riches of many 
 of the old Boyard families. The Chief quoted many examples, 
 and spoke at length of the Jussupows, whose property, although 
 it had been several times half confiscated in punishment for 
 their conspiracies, was yet far greater than that of most German 
 princes, and had borne, without noticing the fact, two serfs 
 who acted sRs managers, draining three millions from it during 
 their time of service. The palace of the prince in St. Peters- 
 burg contains a large theatre, a ball room in the style of the 
 Wliite drawing-room in the palace at Berlin, and magnificent 
 halls in which three or four hundred persons can comfortably 
 dine. Old Jussupow, twenty years ago, kept open house every 
 day. A poor old retired officer had dined for many years in 
 the house daily without their knowing who he was. Once he 
 stayed away a longer time than usual and they inquired after 
 him from the police, when they learned the name and condition 
 of their guest of many years' standing. 
 
 Monday, October 3. Except for my journal, to-day was for 
 me a dies sine lima, for the Minister was invisible both before 
 and after dinner. At dinner, at which were Marshal of the 
 Household Perponcher and a Herr von Thadden, who was 
 designated as a member of the administration in Reims, the 
 Chief told several good anecdotes of old Rothschild in Frank- 
 fort. On one occasion he had spoken in his presence with a 
 corn merchant about a sale of wheat, when the merchant said 
 to Rothschild that being so rich a man he would never think 
 it necessary to put the highest price on his wheat. " What 
 rich man do you mean V replied the old gentleman. " Is my 
 wheat worth less because I am a rich man ?" "He used to give 
 dinners sometimes which were quite worthy of his great riches. 
 
 * The obrok was a rent levied by the proprietor, not on the tenants of indi- 
 Tidual farms biit on the whole communities. The institution was common 
 between 1830 and 1863, when the aerf were emancipated.
 
 118 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 I remember once when the present King was in Frankfort I 
 invited him to dinner. Later in the same day Rothschild also 
 asked his Majesty 'to dine with him, to which the King replied, 
 that he must settle matters with me, that for his own part he 
 did not care with which of us he dined. The Baron now came 
 and proposed that I should cede his Royal Highness to him 
 and that I should join them at dinner. I refused this, but he 
 had the naivete to suggest that his dinner might be sent to my 
 house, although he could not eat with us, as he only partook 
 of strictly Jewish fare. This proposal also I begged leave to 
 decline naturally, though his dinner doubtless was better than 
 mine." Old Metternich, who, by the way, was very kind to 
 me, told me that once when he had been visiting Rothschild, 
 the Baron gave him some luncheon to eat on the way back to 
 Johannisberg, with which there were packed six bottles of 
 Johannisberg wine. When they reached Johannisberg (Met- 
 ternich's estate) these bottles were taken out unopened. The 
 Prince then sent for his wine steward, and inquired how much 
 that wine cost him a bottle. " Twelve gulden," was the 
 answer. " Well, take those bottles, and the next order you 
 get from Baron Rothschild send them back to him, but charge 
 him fifteen gulden, for they will then be older." 
 
 NOTE. Compare the discourse of Herr von Bismarck on June 15, 1847, in 
 the United Diet. He said, "I am of opinion that the idea of the Christian 
 state is as old as the ci-devant Holy Koman Empire, as old as the whole 
 group of European states, that it is the very ground in which these states 
 struck their roots, and that every state which wishes to secure its own per- 
 manence, or to justify its existence, must rest on a religious basis. The 
 words, 'By the Grace of God,' which Christian sovereigns usually put after 
 their names, are, for me, no empty words. I see in them the confession 
 that these princes are to bear the sceptre put into their hands on earth by 
 God, in accordance with His will. I can only recognize as God's will what 
 is revealed in the Christian Gospels, and I believe myself justified in calling 
 a state Christian when it imposes on itself the mission of realizing the teaching 
 of Christianity. We can recognize nothing but Christianity as the religious 
 principle of the state. Take it away, and the state is nothing better than a 
 casual aggregate of rights, a sort of bulwark against a war of everyone 
 against everyone else, a conception familiar to ancient philosophy. Its 
 legislation will not derive a regenerating power from the fountain of eternal 
 truth. It will fashion itself according to the vague and uncertain exception 
 of Humanity as it is found in the minds of the men at the head of affairs. 
 I cannot see how such states can combat the ideas e.g., of the Communists 
 on the immorality of property, or the high moral value of theft, as an at- 
 tempt to restore the inborn right of the individual man to make himself some- 
 thing, when he feels conscious of the power to do so. These ideas are con- 
 sidered by those who hold them not merely humane, but as the first flower 
 of Humanity. Let us not, therefore, gentlemen, humiliate the Christianity
 
 Bismarck on Christianity. 
 
 119 
 
 of the people by showing that we do not think it necessary for their"law- 
 givers let us not take the conviction away from them that our legislation 
 comes from Christianity as its source that the state aims at the realisation 
 of Christianity, though it never attains its aim. When I think of a Jew as 
 a representative to me of the consecrated Majesty of the King, whom I am 
 to obey, I must confess that I feel myself deeply humiliated and depressed 
 and that the delight and the honorable self-respect with which I now fulfil 
 my duties to the state have a heavy burden laid on them.*
 
 120 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THl JOURNEY TO VERSAILLES THE HOUSE OP MADAME 
 JESSE OUR USUAL LIFE THERE. 
 
 WE left Ferrieres on the 5th of October about seven o'clock 
 in the morning. At first we drove by country 
 roads, in capital condition, through a great wood and a number 
 of pretty villages, which seemed to be quite deserted by their 
 inhabitants, and occupied only by German soldiers, past parks 
 and castles. Everything looked uncommonly rich and well-to- 
 do as rich as Brie cheese, in the native country of which I 
 believe we now are. In these villages we found first Wiirtem- 
 berg and farther on Prussian soldiers quartered. 
 
 It was after ten when we reached the upper edge of the 
 valley of the Seine, where we got down through a vineyard to 
 the low country on the banks of the river to a new and dread- 
 fully steep road, so steep that everyone had to get out of the 
 carriage, which was only kept, by careful tacking, from upset- 
 ting and breaking to pieces. Then we drove through the 
 charming town of Villeneuve Saint-George, the villas in which 
 have been shockingly devasted. In several of them which I 
 visited whilst our horses were resting after their fatigue, the 
 mirrors were broken, the furniture destroyed, and the linen and 
 papers scattered about. When we started again, our road took 
 us over a canal or tributary water out into the open country, 
 and then to a pontoon bridge across the Seine, at the end of 
 which great black and white flags were waving. The water of 
 the river was clear and green, so that one could distinctly see 
 the many weeds at the bottom, and its breath seemed much the 
 same as that of the Elbe at Pirna. On the other side we were 
 met by the Crown Prince and his retinue. He had ridden out 
 to meet the King, who mounted his horse here as he was going
 
 First Sight of Paris. 121 
 
 to review the troops. The Chancellor accompanied him, antl 
 we drove on alone. 
 
 For a long time I kept hoping for Paris to come in sight. 
 But on the right hand, where it must lie, the view was bounded 
 by a rather high wooded line of hills, on the sides of which a 
 village or little town could be seen here and there. At last 
 there was a depression in the ridge, a narrow valley, over which 
 a yellowish elevation with sharp edges, perhaps a fort, could 
 be seen, and to the left of it, over an aqueduct or viaduct, amid 
 the columns of smoke rising from factory chimneys, the bluish 
 outlines of a great dome-shaped building. The Pantheon ! 
 Hurrah, we are in front of Paris ! It can hardly be more than 
 seven miles from here. 
 
 Soon afterwards we came to the point on the great paved 
 Imperial road, where it was crossed by the high road into Paris. 
 A Bavarian picket was stationed there ; on the left was a wide 
 plain, on the right a continuation of the wooded hills, and half- 
 way up them a white town, Villejuif or Sceaux ] Then down 
 again, past two more villages, where the inhabitants have not 
 fled, but await us in considerable numbers. At last we drive 
 through iron gates with gilded spikes into a broad street, through 
 more streets full of life, across a straight avenue of old trees, 
 through a short street with three-storied houses, fine shops, and 
 a cafe, and up a second avenue and another street which drops 
 down into it. We are at our allotted quarters in Versailles. 
 
 On the 6th of October, the day after our arrival in the old 
 royal city of France, Keudell wagered me that our stay here 
 would probably extend to three weeks and this seemed to me 
 quite possible, for we had been accustomed to rapid successes 
 during this war. In fact, as the Minister anticipated, accord- 
 ing to a note which will be found in the next chapter, we 
 remained five whole months. As the house where we found 
 shelter was the theatre of most important events, a detailed 
 description of it will probably be welcome. 
 
 The house which the Chancellor occupied belonged to a 
 Madame Jesse, the widow of a prosperous cloth manufacturer, 
 who, with her two sons, had fled shortly before our arrival, to 
 Picardy or Sologne, and had left behind, as the protectors of 
 their property, only the gardner and his wife. It stands in 
 the Rue de Provence, which connects the Avenue de Saint- 
 Cloud, near its upper end, with the Boulevard de la Reine, and 
 is numbered 14. The street is one of the quietest in Versail- 
 9
 
 122 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 les, and in only a part of it do the houses stand close together. 
 The gaps between the others are gardens, separated from the 
 street by high walls, over which the tops of trees show here 
 and there. Our house, which was to the right hand of a per- 
 son coming from the avenue, has a tolerably wide open space 
 on both sides. It lies rather back from the street, above which, 
 in front, rises a little terrace with a balcony, ending with the 
 wall enclosing the whole. The entrance is through this wall on 
 the left hand by a gate of open ironwork, in which there is a 
 small door, louring the last months of our stay there waved 
 over it a flag of black, white, and red. On the right a noble 
 pine shades the whole building, which is a villa plastered yel- 
 low, with five windows in front fitted with white blinds. 
 Above the raised ground floor is a second story, and above that 
 an attic story, with Mansard windows, which, as well as the 
 sloping roof, is covered with slates. The house is approached 
 from the entrance through a court by means of stone steps lead- 
 ing up to the main door, which opens into an entrance hall. 
 On the right of this is the chief staircase ; on the left is the 
 door to a little back staircase, and two large folding-doors. 
 These lead into a middle-sized room, looking on the garden, 
 which was made into our dining-room. A third folding-door 
 opposite the entrance opens, into the' drawing-room, a fourth 
 to the right of that into the billiard-room, from which we step 
 into a winter-garden, a long room built of glass and iron, with 
 all kinds of plants and trees and a little fountain, whilst on 
 the opposite wall is a door which leads to a small room con- 
 taining the library of the late M. Jesse. Under the main 
 staircase, a passage leads to the kitchen, which lies below the 
 terrace. 
 
 In the drawing-room is a cottage piano, a sofa, easy chairs, 
 and two mirrors. In front of one of them is a little table, on 
 which stood an old-fashioned timepiece, surmounted by a 
 demon-like bronze figure, with great wings, and biting its 
 thumbs, perhaps a model of the family spirit of Madame 
 Jesse, who afterwards showed herself to be anything but an 
 amiable person. He watched with a sardonic grin the negotia- 
 tions which led to the treaties with the South German States, 
 to the proclamation of the German Emperor and Empire, and 
 later to the surrender of Paris and the settlement of the con- 
 ditions of peace treaties, all of which were signed in this 
 drawing-room, which is therefore a world-famous place. On
 
 Madame Jesse's House. 123 
 
 the little table in front of the other mirror lay, on the day 
 after our entrance, a small map of France, upon which the 
 movements of the French army were marked by pins with dif- 
 ferent colored heads. "Probably it belongs to Madame," 
 said the Chief, as I was contemplating it ; " but you see it is 
 not marked after Worth." 
 
 The billiard-room was fitted up as the Bureau for the Coun- 
 cillors, the despatch secretaries, and the cipherers. A part of 
 the winter garden, when the severe frost began in January, was 
 occupied by a detachment which furnished sentries for the en- 
 trance, and which, at first, consisted of infantry of the line, 
 and afterwards of Green Rifles. The library was appropriated 
 by orderlies and chancery messengers, and now and then a cor- 
 pulent leather despatch-bag, which sometimes was so obliging 
 as to carry things not official, like our winter clothes and, for 
 some days, by a heap of French letters which had formed the 
 freight of a balloon captured by our soldiers. 
 
 On ascending the main flight of stairs another fore-hall was 
 reached which had a square opening above, and over that a flat 
 window in the roof which admitted a kind of twilight. Two 
 doors led from it into the apartments of the Minister, two little 
 rooms communicating, neither more than ten paces long and 
 seven broad. One, the windows of which occupied the right 
 side qf the main front and looked out on the garden, served 
 both as his study and sleeping-room, and was rather barely 
 furnished. To the right by the wall, opposite the window, 
 stood the bed, and farther on in a sort of alcove the washhand- 
 stand. On the other side was a mahogany commode, with brass 
 handles to pull out the drawers by, on which, during the last 
 months, stood the boxes of cigars sent to the Minister by his 
 friends in Bremen. The window curtains were of flowered 
 woollen stuff on a dark ground. On the fourth wall was the fire- 
 place. A sofa, which was latterly sometimes drawn up to the 
 lire, a table in the middle of the room, at which the Minister 
 worked with his back to the window, and on which there was no 
 lack of maps of the country, and a few chairs completed the 
 extremely simple furniture. 
 
 The other room, which was furnished somewhat better but 
 by no means luxuriously, was, as well as the drawing-room on 
 the ground floor, to serve for the reception of strangers. It was, if 
 I remember rightly, the room of the elder son of the proprie- 
 tress, and, during the negotiations for the capitulation of Paris,
 
 124 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 it was devoted to Jules Favre, for his meditations and his cor- 
 respondence. 
 
 In the room, the door of which opens on the left of that 
 leading to the Chancellor's, Count Bismarck-Bohlen lived, also 
 with a look-out to the park and garden. Opposite to him was 
 Abeken, with a view into the street. Near the back stairs Sec- 
 retary Bolsing had a little room, whilst I was lodged on the 
 second floor, above Bohlen's room. 
 
 The park behind the house is not large, but very pretty, 
 with winding paths running under old trees, covered with ivy 
 and evergreens, and in the background between thick bushes 
 and shrubberies. " From the wall on the right, to which it is 
 brought by a pipe, a spring of water bubbles out among stones 
 covered with moss and overgrown with ferns and broad-leaved 
 plants. It forms a rivulet and a little pond for the ducks. On the 
 13ft, by the wall, rows of espalier fruit-trees ran out from a 
 ?oach-house, over which the gardner's people live, and in front 
 of them beds of flowers and vegetables, partly open, partly cov- 
 ered with glass. 
 
 In the bright autumn nights, we used in our walks in the 
 park, to see the tall form and the white cap of the Chancellor 
 issue from the shadow of the bushes into the moonlight, and 
 walk slowly up and down. What was the unsleeping man 
 thinking of 1 What ideas were revolving in the head of the 
 solitary wanderer ] What plans germinated or ripened in the 
 still midnight hours ? 
 
 Of course not all of the mobilised Foreign Office were quar- 
 tered in the house of Madame Jesse. Lothar Bucher occupied 
 a handsome abode in the Avenue de Paris, Keudell and the 
 cipherers were lodged in houses rather farther up the Rue de 
 Provence than ours, and Count Hatzfeld was not far from op- 
 posite them. More than once it was proposed to move the 
 Chancellor's quarters, and to give him a more roomy and better- 
 furnished house. But the matter dropped, perhaps because he 
 himself did not feel much need of a change, perhaps also be- 
 cause he liked the quiet which reigned in the comparatively 
 lonely Rue de Provence. 
 
 In the daytime his calm and repose was, however, not so 
 idyllic as many newspaper correspondents then represented it. 
 I do not mean on account of the drumming and fifing of the 
 battalions marching out and in, which we heard every ,day 
 even as far off as we were, nor of the disturbance occasioned by
 
 The Chancellor's Visitors. 12o 
 
 the sorties, two of which were made by the Parisians in our 
 direction ; nor even of the fury of the hottest days of the bom- 
 bardment, to which we became as much accustomed as the miller 
 to the sound of his clattering mill-wheels. I refer eepecially to 
 the many visits of every conceivable kind, in these eventful 
 months ; and among which some were unwelcome ones. For 
 many hours of the day our house was like a dove-cot, so 
 many acquaintances and strangers went in and out. From 
 Paris there were at first only non-official people who came to 
 hear or to bring news ; afterwards, as official negotiators, Favre 
 and Thiers occasionally, with a more or less numerous retinue. 
 From the Hotel des Reservoirs came princes, the Crown Prince 
 several times, and the King himself once. The Church too 
 was represented among the visitors by persons of great dignity, 
 Archbishops and other prelates. Berlin sent deputations from 
 the Reichstag, single leaders of parties, bankers and high offi- 
 cials. From Bavaria and the other South German States came 
 Ministers to assist in the settlement of the treaties. American 
 generals, members of the foreign diplomatic bodies in Paris, 
 amongst them a gentleman in black an envoy of the Imperi- 
 alists, all wished to speak to the busy statesman in his little 
 room upstairs. That the curiosity of English reporters should 
 try to intrude itself on him was a matter of course. Then 
 iield messengers with despatch bags full, or waiting to be filled, 
 Chancery messengers with telegrams, orderlies with news from 
 the general staff ; and besides all these, work in abundance 
 equally difficult and important. Weighing, inquiring, and 
 acting were necessary when obstacles, vexatious annoyances and 
 troubles occurred. Expectations were deceived which seemed 
 to be well grounded. Now and then we were not supported 
 or our views were not met half-way. There were the foolish 
 opinions of the German newspapers, which grumbled in spite 
 of our unheard-of successes, and the agitation of the Ultra- 
 montanes. In short, it was very difficult to understand how the 
 Chancellor amid all this, with all these claims on his powers of 
 work and patience, and all these disturbances and vexations 
 about serious matters and about trifles, preserved his health 
 he was only once seriously unwell in Versailles for three or four 
 days and the freshness of spirits, which he often displayed 
 even late at night in talk both grave and gay. 
 
 Of recreation the Minister allowed himself very little. A 
 ride between three and four o'clock, an hour at dinner, half an
 
 126 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 hour afterwards for coffee in the drawing-room, and sometimes 
 later, about ten o'clock a little rest for tea and a talk, some- 
 times long and sometimes short, with those who happened to 
 be there ; a few hours' sleep after the day began to dawn. 
 With these exceptions the whole day was given to study or 
 production in his own room, or to conferences and negotiations, 
 unless when a French sortie or some rather important military 
 business took him out to the side of the King, or to some point 
 of observation where he could be alone. 
 
 The Chancellor had guests at dinner nearly every day, and 
 in "this way we came to know by sight almost all the persons 
 whose names were famous or became celebrated in the course 
 of the war, and often heard their conversation. Favre dined 
 with us repeatedly, first with hesitation " because his country- 
 men were starving inside," then listening to sound advice, and 
 doing justice as heartily as the rest of us to the many good 
 things which the kitchen and the cellar provided. Thiers, with 
 his acute and clever face, dined with us once. On another oc- 
 casion the Crown Prince did us the honor of dining with us, 
 when the fellow-workers of the Chief, with whom he had not 
 been hitherto acquainted, were presented to him. Prince Al- 
 brecht also once dined with us as a guest. Of the other guests 
 of the Minister, I mention here the President of the Chancel- 
 lery, Delbriick, who remained several times for weeks in Ver- 
 sailles ; the Duke of Ratibor, Prince Putbus, von Benningsen, 
 Simson, Bamberger, von Friedenthal, and von Blankenburg, 
 then the Bavarian ministers, Count Bray, and von Liitz, the 
 Wiirtembergers, von Wachter and Mittnacht, von Roggen- 
 bach, Prince Radziwill ; and, lastly, Odo Russell, the English 
 ambassador to the German Court. The conversation when the 
 Chief was present was always animated and varied ; often very 
 instructive as to his mode of viewing men and things, or to 
 certain episodes and passages in his past life. Home furnished 
 some of the material good things, as presents and offerings, 
 which arrived in the shape of solids or fluids sometimes in such 
 excess that the store-rooms could scarcely contain them. A 
 present of the best wine of the Palatinate, if I remember right, 
 Deidesheimer Kirchenstiick and Forster Hofsttick, which Jor- 
 don, or perhaps it was Buhl, supplied to us, and gigantic trout 
 pasty, sent by Frederick Schultze, the landlord of the Leipzig 
 garden in Berlin, whose patriotic benevolence at the same time 
 provided us plentifully with excellent beer, were among the
 
 Madame Jesse. 127 
 
 noblest of these presents. Among the most touching, I reckon 
 a dish of mushrooms which some soldiers had found in a hollow 
 or cellar in the town, and reserved for the Chancellor. Even 
 more precious and poetical was a bunch of roses, which other 
 soldiers had gathered for him under the enemy's fire. 
 
 Madame Jesse showed herself only on the last days before 
 our return home, and made, as I have remarked, not a very 
 pleasing impression. She spread abroad all manner of stories 
 about our pillaging, which were repeated with pleasure by the 
 French press, and indeed even by those journals which gener- 
 ally in other respects exercised some discretion and showed 
 some sense of decency in what they stated. Among other 
 things, we were said to have packed up her plate and table linen 
 and carried them off. Count Bismarck, too, had wanted to 
 extort from her a valuable clock. The first assertion is a sim- 
 ple impertinence, as the house contained no silver plate, or if it 
 did, it must have been deposited in a walled-up corner of the 
 cellar which, at the express order of the Chief, was never 
 opened. The history of the clock was rather different from 
 what Madame represented it to be. The clock was one in the 
 drawing-room with a little bronze demon. Madame Jesse 
 offered this piece of furniture, of no great value in itself, to the 
 Chancellor, at an exorbitant price, under the idea that he 
 would value it as a memento of important transactions. I 
 believe she asked 5000 francs (200) for it. She did not get 
 them, as the offer of a woman, who showed no gratitude in her 
 greed for our exceedingly considerate usage of her house, was 
 rejected. " I remember," the Minister said afterwards, in 
 Berlin, " that I made the remark at the time, that the Kob- 
 old-like figure on the clock, with its grimaces, might perhaps 
 be valuable to herself as a family portrait, and that I would not 
 deprive her of it."
 
 128 Bismarck in the Fmnco-Geiwan War. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 AUTUMN DAYS IN VERSAILLES. 
 
 ON the day of our arrival at Versailles, a thick white fog, 
 which filled the air till close on ten o'clock, warned us 
 that autumn was about to show us its rough side, although the 
 trees were still quite green in the avenues and gardens, as well 
 as on the wooded heights round Paris. 
 
 Before dinner I paid a visit to the Palace. The town front 
 of this very handsome building is too much broken in detail ; 
 towards the park it is much more simple. The greater part of 
 it is now turned into a hospital. We looked into the galleries 
 filled with pictures, the lower rows of which are boarded over ; 
 the beds, full of the sick and wounded, being placed close in 
 front of them. The statues of gods and the groups of nymphs 
 by the great basin, between the park and the Palace, are won- 
 derfully beautiful. The second basin in front of the broad 
 staircase below, which may be about a mile long, and the one 
 which stretches away beyond, are similarly ornamented. More 
 to my taste are some of the marble columns on the walks lead- 
 ing from the second basin to the third. The park is very large, 
 and not so stiffly and architecturally laid out as I had imagined 
 from descriptions. But the trees and bushes cut into cones 
 .and pyramids near the staircase are exceedingly artificial and 
 unpleasing. 
 
 At dinner Count Bismarck-Bohlen did not appear, and differ- 
 ent reasons were given for his absence. In the morning Keu- 
 dell said to me that our stay in Versailles might last three 
 weeks ; that Metz must soon capitulate, as they had only horse- 
 flesh there, and no salt with it. In Paris greater confidence 
 prevailed, although many animals were dying, the cattle being 
 chiefly fed on compressed hay, a statement which Burnside, who
 
 "Absurd Lie." 129 
 
 meantime had been in Paris, confirmed in the Bureau. The 
 views of the Minister are not now so sanguine. 
 
 The question of the uniform for the secretaries again came 
 up, and the Chief thought, in connection with this, that the 
 war might last perhaps till Christmas, possibly till Easter, and 
 that part of the army might even have to remain in France for 
 years. They ought to have stormed Paris on the 18th Septem- 
 ber. He then said to his servant, " Look here, Engel ; send to 
 Berlin for my fur coat or better, for both of them ; the rough 
 fur, and the light thin one." The conversation then turned to 
 the life led by their Highnesses of the different Headquarters 
 in the Hotel des Reservoirs, and to the question whether the 
 expenses of their maintenance should be paid by the King, by 
 themselves, or by .the town. 
 
 In the Daily Telegraph, " An Englishman at the headquartes 
 at Meaux " relates that the Chief said, at the close of his con- 
 versation with Mallet, " What I and the King most fear is the 
 influence of a French Republic upon Germany. We know 
 well what influence Republicanism in America has had upon 
 Germany ; and if the French fight us with a Republican pro- 
 paganda, they will do us more damage by that than by their 
 arms." The Minister has written on the margin of this quota- 
 tion, " Absurd lie." 
 
 Friday, October 7. This morning, soon after daybreak, I 
 heard several shots from heavy artillery, which appeared not 
 much more than a couple of miles from here. Later in the day 
 I was enabled to announce to Berlin that our losses in the last 
 action had not been, as the French falsely asserted, much 
 greater, but far less than those of the French. The French 
 were said to have had about 400, and we 500 killed and 
 wounded. In fact they left, in front of the 12th Division 
 alone, 450, and upon the whole field, about 800 men ; whilst 
 we had only eighty-five killed. 
 
 The Greek ambassador in Paris has come out to us, Hatzfeld 
 told us at breakfast, with a " family " of twenty-four or twenty- 
 five persons, on his way to the Delegation of the Govern- 
 ment of National Defence in Tours. The Ambassador's boy 
 told the Count that he was not at all pleased with Paris, 
 and when asked why not, answered, because he got so little 
 meat to eat there. 
 
 In the afternoon I again walked in the park at the Palace, 
 taking on this occasion not the way by the Avenue de Saint
 
 130 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 Cloud and the Place d'Armes, but by the Boulevard de la 
 Reine, towards the basin of Neptune, over which this god, with 
 his wife and all manner of grotesque water deities, is enthroned. 
 At some distance from this spot, in a very lonely place, we met 
 the Chancellor and Hatzfeld on horseback no escort to be seen. 
 What are they here for 1 
 
 At dinner Hatzfeld complained that the Greeks, who wanted 
 to get away, tormented him with lamentations. From what 
 he afterwards said, it was evident that they and other visitors 
 from Paris had excited suspicions as to their intentions. After 
 this the talk turned upon the exhausted condition of the town 
 of Versailles, which had been put to great expense during the 
 last two weeks. The new mayor of the town Monsieur Rameau, 
 had asked and obtained an audience with the Chief, about 
 which the Chief went on to speak. " I told him that they 
 should raise a loan. 'Yes,' he replied, ' that would be very well ; 
 but then he must ask to be allowed to travel to Tours, because 
 for such a measure he needed the authority of his Government. 
 This, however, I could not promise him. He might not get 
 the permission he was going there to ask probably they 
 thought in Tours that it was the duty of the people in Ver- 
 sailles to starve, so that we might starve with them. But they 
 do not consider that we are the stronger, and will take what 
 we want. They have not the least notion what war is." The as- 
 sembly of a Constituent French Assembly in Versailles was 
 afterwards discussed, and its possibility was doubted there 
 was no hall here large enough for the purpose, the Palace 
 being occupied with the wounded. The Assembly of 1789 
 first met as a whole in a church, and then in different places, 
 according to its Three Estates. Ultimately, the gentlemen 
 had all met together in a ball-room which, however, no longer 
 exists.* 
 
 The Minister then spoke of the Palace, with its park, prais- 
 ing the beautiful Orangery of the terrace with the two great 
 nights of steps. He said, however, "What are these trees in 
 tubs to the orange groves of Italy V 
 
 Some one now brought up the subject of Toleration, and the 
 Chancellor expressed himself as he had done before in Saint- 
 Avoid. He declared himself very decidedly for toleration in 
 
 * A mistake (see below) ; but this place would not hold any very grea 
 number of people.
 
 The Presbyterians and Thomas Paine. 131 
 
 matters of faith ; but, he continued, the "illuminati" "are not 
 tolerant ; they persecute those who believe, not, indeed, with 
 the scaffold, for that is not possible ; but with contempt and 
 insolence in the press. And among the people, so far as they 
 belong to the unbelieving party, Toleration has made but little 
 way. I should not like to see how delighted they would be 
 here to have Pastor Knak hanged." 
 
 It was mentioned that the old Protestantism itself taught 
 nothing of Toleration, and Bucher pointed out that, according 
 to Buckle, the Huguenots were zealous reactionaries, and that 
 this was true of the Reformers of those days generally. " Not 
 exactly reactionaries," replied the Chief, " but little tyrants. 
 Every pastor was a little Pope." He cited Calvin's persecution 
 of Servetus, and added, " even Luther was the same." I ven- 
 tured to remind them of his treatment of C'arlstadt, and of the 
 disciples of Miinzer, as well as what the Wiirtemberg theo- 
 logians after him had done, and of Chancellor Krell. Bucher 
 said that the Scottish Presbyterians, at the end of last century, 
 condemned anyone who only lent Thomas Paine's book on the 
 " Rights of Man" to banishment for twenty -one years. I again 
 referred to the Puritans of the Xew England States, with their 
 strong intolerance to those who differed from them in opinion, 
 and to their tyrannical liquor law. "And the 'keeping holy 
 the Sabbath day,'" said the Chief, "that is perfectly horrible 
 tyranny. I remember, when I first went to England, and 
 landed in Hull, that I began to whistle in the street. An 
 Englishman, whom I had got acquainted with on board, told 
 me that I must not whistle. 'Pray, sir, do not whistle.' 
 ' Why not ; is whistling forbidden here V ' No,' said he, 'it is 
 not forbidden ; but it is the Sabbath.' This so disgusted me 
 that I at once took my ticket by another steamer going to 
 Edinburgh, as I did not choose not to be able to whistle when I 
 had a mind to. Before I started I had made acquaintance 
 with something exceedingly good r-toasted cheese, Welsh 
 rabbit, for we had got into an inn." When Bucher remarked 
 that Sunday in England is in general not so bad, and that for 
 himself he had always delighted in its quiet, after the noise and 
 bustle of the week-days in London, where the theatre is not 
 o%'er till the early morning : " I, too," Bismarck went on to say, 
 " am not at all against the observance of the Sunday ; on the 
 contrary, I do all I can, as a landed proprietor, to promote it, only 
 I will not have people constrained. Each man must know best
 
 132 Bismarck in the 1 ,unco-German War. 
 
 how to prepare himself for a future life. On Sunday no work 
 should be done ; not so much because it is against the command- 
 ment of God, as on man's account, who needs some repose. This 
 of course, does not apply to the service of the state, especially 
 not to diplomatic service, for despatches and telegrams arrive 
 on Sunday, which must be attended to. Nor is anything to be 
 said against our peasants bringing in their hay or corn on a 
 Sunday in the harvest after long rain, when tine weather 
 begins on a Saturday. I could not find in my heart to forbid 
 this to my tenants in the contract, although I should not do it 
 myself, being able to bear the possible damage of a rainy 
 Monday. It is thought by our proprietors rather improper to 
 let their people work on a Sunday even in such cases of neces- 
 sity." 
 
 I mentioned that pious folk in America allow no cooking on 
 the Sunday, and that in New York I was once asked to dinner 
 and got only cold meat. " Yes," replied the Chief, "in Frank- 
 furt, where I was still freer, we always dined more simply on 
 Sunday, and I have never used my carriage, for the sake of my 
 servants." I allowed myself one remark more, that in Leipzig 
 during the Sunday all business, with the exception of the 
 bakers and many cigar shops, were closed. " Yes, and so it 
 should be ; but I would have no one constrained. I could, 
 perhaps, manage in the country to buy nothing from the baker ; 
 but, then, everything must be particularly good, otherwise I 
 do -not know if I could get on. But care should be taken 
 that noisy work, as in blacksmiths' shops, &c., &c., should not be 
 carried on too near the churches on Sunday." 
 
 Saturday, October 8. In the morning, before the Minister 
 rose, I walked to the Palace of the Bourbons, over the centre 
 of which the black and white Prussian colors were waving, 
 and close beside them the flag with the red cross. I find that 
 the French heroes in marble in the court in front of it, when 
 they are more closely inspected, are mostly very moderate per- 
 formances. Among them are Bayard and Dugusclin, Turenne, 
 Colbert, Sully, and Tourville. The naval heroes attitudinise 
 like second-rate actors, and one fears that they may fall from 
 their pedestals and come to grief on the pavement. The bronze 
 Louis XIY. is much finer, but I prefer the Great Elector in 
 Berlin by Schl liter. 
 
 Sunday, October 9. Bad weather, cold, and rainy. The 
 eaves fall fast. A sharp north-west wind sweeps over the
 
 Bravery of a Princess. 133 
 
 plateau. In spite of this I take a walk through the town, 
 which must be gradually explored, by the Rue Saint-Pierre to 
 the prefecture in the Avenue de Paris, where King William 
 lives, and then down another^treet to the monument erected 
 to the teacher of the deaf and dumb, Abbe 1' Epee. On the 
 way back I meet Keudell, whom I ask whether he has heard 
 nothing as yet of the commencement of the bombardment of 
 Babylon. He thought that the next week, probably on the 
 18th, our heavy artillery would make itself heard. In the 
 course of the forenoon I was three times with the Chief ; and 
 had his commands executed by the afternoon. At breakfast 
 Delbriick was again present, and the Minister seemed to be 
 highly delighted with his appearing. We drink, among other 
 excellent things, very old corn-brandy, on which the President 
 of the Chancery pronounced an intelligent panegyric, for in the 
 science of what tastes well he has evidently made successful 
 studies. 
 
 Monday, October 10. This morning, between seven and eight 
 o'clock, about a dozen shots were heard, and Willisch thought 
 he also heard at the same time a musketry fire. I was sum- 
 moned this morning twice to the Chief. Somewhat later he 
 went to the Crown Prince, with whom he remained to break- 
 fast. At table they spoke particularly of the conversation of 
 the King with Napoleon in the Maison Bellevue, near Sedan, 
 of which Russell has given a circumstantial account in the 
 Times, although no <*ne was present at it but the King and the 
 Emperor, and even the Chancellor knew only so much of it that 
 the King had assured him that not a word of politics had been 
 spoken. Then some one, I do not know why or how, turned 
 the conversation on dangerous and sensational travelling adven- 
 tures, and the Minister told us of several "rash exploits of his 
 under this head. 
 
 "I remember," said he, "I was once at Pont du Gard, in 
 South France, with some people, among whom were the Orloffs. 
 There is there an old Roman aqueduct, which is carried across 
 a valley by several tiers of arches. Princess Orloff, a lively 
 lady, proposed that we should walk along the top of it. There 
 was a very narrow footway by the side of the conduit, only 
 about a foot and a half broad, then the deep-cut conduit, and 
 on the other side again a wall with stone slabs at the top." 
 " It looked rather serious, but I could not be outdone in cour- 
 age by a lady. So we both made the venture. Orloff, how-
 
 134 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 ver, went with the others in the valley below. For some time 
 we walked on the slabs, and then we got on very well along a 
 narrow ledge, from which we looked down more than a hundred 
 feet ; then we came to a place wHfcre the slabs had fallen, and 
 we had to walk on the bare wall itself. Further on were slabs 
 again, but soon only the dangerous wall with its small stones. 
 Then I plucked up courage, stepped quickly up to the lady, 
 seized her with one arm and jumped with her down into the 
 conduit, some four or five feet down. But our friends below, 
 who suddenly lost sight of us, were thrown into the greatest 
 anxiety, till we came out again at the end." 
 
 In the evening the Chief had me called to his room to give 
 me something to do with regard to Garibaldi, who, Ave learnt by 
 telegraph, had arrived at Tours and had offered his services to 
 the French Republic. Then the Chancellor continued: "But 
 tell me now why you have lately been so clumsy, I mean, in 
 what you have been writing. I do not mean merely about 
 text of the telegram, but what you said lately about the Ultra- 
 montanes was very strong in its expressions." I took leave to 
 reply that I could also be civil, and that I thought I was rather 
 good at fine malice. " Well then," said he, " be fine, but with- 
 out malice. Write diplomatically ; even, in declaring war peo- 
 ple are quite polite." 
 
 At half-past nine o'clock Burnside and his companions came 
 again and stayed till half-past ten with the Chancellor, who 
 then gave me another commission. La*er still we saw him 
 walking up and down the garden in the bright moonlight till 
 the ghostly hour of midnight, whilst from the direction of 
 Paris there came the thunder of guns, and once, too, a heavy 
 repo.rt as of an explosion. 
 
 Tuesday, October 11. In the afternoon, when the Chancellor 
 had ridden out, I paid a flying visit to the great picture-galler- 
 ies on the side of the Palace, where the church is, and be- 
 held, immortalised by pencil and chisel, the " Famous deeds of 
 France " (Toutes les gloires), to which, according to the inscrip- 
 tion over the entrance-hall, this wing of the building is dedi- 
 cated. On the ground-floor are mostly pictures of scenes in 
 the ancient history of France, amongst them some very good 
 things, some ordinary pictures of the time of Napoleon I. and 
 Louis XIV., battle-pieces, sieges, and such-like. Upstairs are 
 the gigantic canvasses on which Horace Vernet has depicted 
 the "gloires" of his countrymen in Algeria, as well as more
 
 A Congress of German Princes. 135 
 
 modern pictures from the wars in the Crimea and in Italy, with 
 marble busts of the generals who commanded there. The days 
 of Worth, Metz, and Sedan will probably not make their ap- 
 pearance here. We will look at these again more at our leisure, 
 but even in our hasty visit to-day, we observe that there is a 
 system in these galleries, and that on the whole they are more 
 like the hatching oven of an ambitious Chauvinist, swollen 
 with insolence, than a museum for the triumphs and delights 
 of art. 
 
 According to the talk at table, there has been an intention 
 for some time of assembling a congress of German Princes at 
 Versailles. It is hoped that the King of Bavaria may come ; 
 and Delbriick thinks that some of the historical rooms of the 
 Palace should be appropriated and furnished as a suitable resi- 
 dence for his Majesty. He was told, however, that, unhappily, 
 this could not be done, as the greater part of the Palace was now 
 turned into a hospital full of typhus. The Chief dined to-day 
 with the Crown Prince, and did not come home till ten o'clock, 
 when he had an interview with Burnside. 
 
 Wednetday, October 12. A damp disagreeable day. In the 
 morning, two letters from an English general of hussars were 
 translated and extracts made from them for the King. In 
 these we were advised to employ the bridge at Sevres to dam 
 up the Seine, and in this way to flood Paris. Then I prepared 
 an abridgment of a report of a German Companion of St. John, 
 very gratefully recognizing the kind treatment of our wounded 
 soldiers in Bouillon by the people of Belgium. Lastly, I wrote 
 a paper on the hostile position which the Ultramontanes had 
 taken up towards us in this war. When I read it over to the 
 Chief, he said, " Still you do not write politely enough for me ; 
 and yet you told me you were a master of fipe malice. Here 
 there is more malice than fineness. You must reverse this. 
 You must write like a politician ; and in politics it is not one's 
 object to affront people." 
 
 In the evening a gentleman came to beg admittance to the 
 Chancellor. He was a Spanish diplomatist who had come out 
 of Paris, and, like other gentlemen, could not get back again. 
 He remained a long time with him. Some of. us think his 
 coming rather suspicious. While we were at tea, Burnside 
 -came in. He is going from here to Brussels, to settle his wife 
 there, who is now at Geneva. We hear from him that Sheridan 
 also is travelling in Switzerland and Italy. There is indeed
 
 136 Bismarck in the Franco- German War. 
 
 nothing more for the Americans to do here. The general 
 wished to visit the Chief this evening once more. I represented 
 to him, and persuaded him, that though the Chancellor, in his 
 predilection for Americans, would receive him if he were an- 
 nounced, one ought to remember the little time he has at his 
 command. He needs five or six hours more than the twenty- 
 four for his daily, business, so that he is forced to sit up late 
 into the night and to curtail as much as possible conversation 
 even with Crowned Heads. 
 
 Thursday, October 13. At breakfast a lieutenant of hussars, 
 von Ulsar, was introduced to us by Hatzfeld. He came from 
 the outposts, and told us that where he was, every time that a 
 single rider or the head of one of our men was seen by them, 
 half-a-dozen of the iron sugar-loves from the Paris forts were 
 hurled at him, but almost always without doing any damage. 
 They appeared, at any rate, not to be suffering from want of 
 ammunition. 
 
 Rain about one o'clock. After this I was in the Petit 
 Trianon. Hundreds of thrushes were sitting on the tops of 
 the trees, on the right of the great avenue leading to it. We 
 visited the sitting-room of Marie Antoinette. Different pic- 
 tures represent her as a child, in a group with her sisters, and 
 as a queen. There is a portrait of her husband, some old rococo 
 furniture which she used, and her sleeping-room, with its bed 
 and other articles which the conscientious French guide sub- 
 mitted to our inspection, with friendly explanations. 
 
 Friday, October 14- Busy up till noon for the post. Later 
 I telegraphed to London and Brussels in reference to Ducrot's 
 false assertions in La Liberte. It was announced in the same 
 way that General Boyer, Bazaine's first adjutant, had arrived 
 from Metz at Versailles as a negotiator. The Chief appears, 
 however, to wish to undertake nothing serious with him to- 
 day. He said in the Bureau, " What is to-day ?" " The 14th, 
 your Excellency." " Well, that was Hochkirch and Jena (both 
 on 14th October). A bad day for settling any business." No 
 doubt he reflected it was Friday, too. 
 
 During dinner, the Chief, after thinking for a moment, 
 smiled and said, " I have a charming idea ready for the time 
 when peace is concluded. It is this, to establish an Interna- 
 tional tribunal, to try those who instigated this war news- 
 paper writers, deputies, senators, ministers." Abeken added, 
 " Thiers, too, indirectly, and indeed especially for his Chauvin-
 
 The Authors of the War. 137" 
 
 istic ' H's'ory of the Consulate and the Empire.'" "The 
 Emperor, too, who is not so innocent as he pretends to be," 
 added the Minister, " I thought of an equal number of judges, 
 from each of the great Powers, England, America, Russia, 
 &c., &c., and that we should be the accusers." "The English 
 and the Russians would, of course, not enter into this proposal ; 
 and then we might form the Court from the nations who have 
 most suffered from the war ; from French and German repre- 
 sentatives." He said, further, " I have read the article of the 
 Independence, which is said to be Gramont's. He blames us 
 for not letting Napoleon go after Sedan, and he is not pleased 
 that we mai-ched upon Paris instead of merely occupying Elsass 
 and Lothringen as material guarantees. I thought at first that 
 the article was by Beust or some other good friend in Austria, 
 but I am quite persuaded that the author is a Frenchman." 
 He gave his reasons for this opinion, and then went on : " He 
 would be right if his assumption were correct, that we really 
 did not wish for Elsass but only for a money indemnity. It 
 will be much better if besides Elsass, we have Paris also as a 
 guarantee. When a specific object is wanted, the guarantee 
 cannot be too great." 
 
 Mention was made of Boyer, who has excited much notice 
 in Versailles in his French general's uniform, which has not 
 been seen here for a long time, and which was saluted by the 
 masses with loud cries of, " Vive la France /" It is said that 
 he has expressed himself to this effect: "That the army in 
 Metz adheres to the Emperor and will have nothing to do with 
 the Republic of the Paris advocates." This is what the Chan- 
 cellor himself said, and he added : " The General is one of 
 those men who suddenly grow thin when anything excites 
 them ; he can turn red too." He then said : " Let us remem- 
 ber that Gambetta meanwhile urges war a entrance ; that the 
 Parisian press almost daily recommends some new infamous 
 action ;* that recently, various horrible deeds of these bands of 
 
 * The following was not the worst of them, in the Petit Journal of the 
 14th September. Thomas Grimm, after complaining that the Prussians 
 knew how to plunder methodically, and wreck by rule : that they had, 
 everywhere, at Nancy, Bar-le-Duc, Reims, Chalons, and Troyes, left a- 
 desert behind them ; that they murdered husbands and shot down fathers 
 to be able to dishonour their wives and daughters, concluded his peroration 
 with the following tirade : " Rise workmen ! peasants ! citizens ! Let the 
 Francs-tireurs be armed and organized, and understand what they have to 
 do. Let them gather in crowd?, or in little groups, to weary out and ex- 
 10
 
 138 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 Francs-tireurs have been brought to light ; and let us not forget 
 the proverb, ' When the hunter's horn is heard in the wood it 
 will soon be heard outside it.' The idea of letting those 
 treacherous Francs-tireurs off !" 
 
 Count Bismarck-Bohlen thereupon told us, that the village 
 of Hably, where the Schleswig Hussars had been attacked 
 eight days ago by Francs-tireurs, acting in concert with the 
 inhabitants, and had come back with only eleven horses, had 
 been utterly burned down, and the Chief, as was reasonable, 
 praised this energy. At the end some one said that quite re- 
 cently, in the twilight, two shots had been fired quite close to 
 our house, and that one of the men on guard had been sent 
 out to ascertain the cause. " It was a sentry, perhaps," said 
 the Chief ; " perhaps some suspicious fellow had been seen. I 
 remember," he said, " that the night before last, when I was 
 taking a turn in the garden, late, I found a ladder and at once 
 felt an irresistible impulse to mount the wall. Suppose, now, 
 a sentry had been standing there 1 " 
 
 " I had some conversation with the sentinel at the door. 
 He had served in the campaign of 1866, and was thoroughly 
 up in it. I asked him whether he thought that we should get 
 into Paris. He said, yes, we could if it were not for the great 
 fort on the left of Saint Cloud. I told him that it would not 
 help them much if hunger should appear in the city." 
 
 In the evening, the body-guard with the long beard, told me 
 in the anteroom below, ' We have got that Spaniard, Doctor." 
 "Ah," said I; "what Spaniard do you mean?" "The man 
 who was with his Excellency yesterday or the day before, 
 and his servant too. He is a spy ; he has been seized, and a 
 plan of the position of our troops found on him." I heard 
 afterwards that the man's name was Angelo de Miranda. 
 
 haust the enemy. Let them imitate those who track out wild animals, lying 
 in wait for them at the edge of the wood, in the ditches, behind the hedges ; 
 let the narrowest footpath and the darkest corner serve for their meeting- 
 place, All means are good, for it is a holy war. The rifle, the knife, the 
 scythe, and the club, are permitted weapons against the enemy who falls 
 into our hands. Let us place wolf -traps for them ; let us tumble them down 
 wells, throw them to the bottom of cisterns, burn them in the woods, drown 
 them in the rivers, burn the huts they are sleeping in over their heads. Let 
 us have everything which can kill, in whatever way it can do it. Be on the 
 watch ! Make ready to fly at them ! " 
 
 The Combat, the organ of Citizen Felix Pyat, wishes to collect subscrip- 
 tions for a presentation rifle to be given to the man who removes the King 
 of Prussia out of the way by assassination.
 
 French Enthusiasm.. 139 
 
 About ten o'clock, Moltke and another high officer, the War 
 Minister, I think, came to the Chief to confer with him, proba- 
 bly on the mission of Boyer. 
 
 Saturday, October 15. In the morning I wrote an article on 
 the destruction of the Palace of Saint-Cloud, which was set on 
 fire by the French without any rational cause, whilst our 
 soldiers busied themselves in saving the works of art and other 
 valuables. Then a second on Jacoby's imprisonment, in much 
 the same sense as the former article on that subject, but with 
 this addition, that in carrying out these general principles, no 
 judgment ought to be passed on the timeliness of the action in 
 taking this particular case. 
 
 About half-past two o'clock, Boyer had another audience of 
 the Chief. Outside, in front of the open ironwork gates, a 
 number of people waited for him, and when he came out, about 
 four o'clock, they took off their caps and hats and cried " Vive 
 la I ranee f" which the Minister, when this was mentioned at 
 dinner, "could not blame them for." I had meantime made a 
 tour through the park round the Palace, where I saw on one of 
 the marble vases the following poetical effusion by an angry 
 Gaul on the unity of feeling among the Germans : 
 
 "Badois, Saxons, Bavarois, 
 Dupes d'um Bismarck plein d'astuce^ 
 Vous le faits bucher tous trois 
 Pour le Roi de Prusse. 
 
 41 J'ai grand besoin, mes chers amis, 
 De mourrir Enapereur d'Allemagne, 
 Que vos manes en graksant la campagne 
 Mais que mes vceus sont accompli.?."* 
 
 Ihe same sort of thing was to be found on a marble seat close 
 by, for the custom of scribbling on walls, benches, pedestals, 
 with pencils or chalk, seems to have found many friends here. 
 On more than ten walls in the town I have read during the last 
 few days, " \4 bos les Prussians" (Down with the Prussians) 
 and worse. 
 
 At four o'clock, a slight and well-dressed negro called on the 
 Minister. On his card was " General Price, Envoy of the 
 Republic of Hayti." The Chief regretted that he could not 
 receive him, on account of pressing business (Moltke and Roon 
 were again upstairs with him) ; would he be good enough to 
 
 * I copied this exactly, errors included.
 
 140 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 write what he wanted ? About five o'clock the Crown Prince 
 came to join the conference of the Chancellor with the generals. 
 There seems to be considerable difference of opinion between 
 the people here and at Metz. 
 
 On other si les, too, there were difficulties in the way of 
 carrying out what the Chancellor had in view as a politician. 
 As he said at table, "It is very annoying that every plan I 
 have must be first talked over with five or six persons, who 
 understand very little about the matter, and yet whose objec- 
 tions I must listen to and meet politely. Thus I have lately 
 had to give up three whole days to settle a matter which under 
 other circumstances I could have finished in three minutes. It 
 is just as if I were to give my advice about the placing of a 
 battery here or there, and as if the embarrassed officer had to 
 give an explanation to me who know nothing of his business." 
 " rhas an excellent head, and I am convinced that what- 
 ever he might have undertaken he would have become some- 
 thing exceedingly respectable in it. But having occupied him- 
 self for years, only with one and the same thing, he has now 
 feeling and interest for that alone." He did not allow a single 
 word to escape him about the negotiations with Boyer, or what 
 was likely to result from them. Hatzfeld and Keudell too, 
 knew nothing about them, and only guessed. 
 
 Sunday, October 16. This morning in the Avenue de Saint- 
 Cloud, I met Borck just arriving, in the uniform of a major. 
 He told me that Soissons had fallen, and that the bombardment 
 of Paris was to begin on the 28th. Almost the whole of the 
 park of artillery has arrived, and in three days they hoped 
 (that is, he did) to destroy it. The stout gentleman thinks 
 that we shall be back in Berlin, at the latest, by the 1st of 
 December. He said, too, that a congress of princes in Ver- 
 sailles was under serious consideration, and that they were 
 getting the Trianon ready for the King of Bavaria. 
 
 We learn that discord reigns in Paris. The Reds, under 
 Blanqui and Flourens, do not like to see the Blue Republicans 
 at the helm they attack them violently in their papers, and 
 on the 9th the mob had uttered cries of " Vive la Commune ! " 
 in front of the Hotel de Ville. We hear that Seebach, who 
 was once, I think, Saxon ambassador in Paris, and who is 
 acquainted with Leflo and Trochu, intends to offer the Chan- 
 cellor his assistance towards procuring an understanding with 
 the Parisians.
 
 Music. 141 
 
 While we were taking our coffee Keudell played some soft 
 music to the Minister on the piano. In answer to my enquiry 
 whether the Chief was musical, he said, "Certainly, although 
 he does not play himself. You. must have remarked that 
 he sings softly when I play. It is good for his nerves, which 
 are much affected to-day." 
 
 In the evening the Nuncio Chigi came with a companion 
 also in clerical costume. He had a long conversation with the 
 Chancellor, and will go on to-morrow to Tours. Of ambassadors, 
 there are now in Paris, they say, only the Belgian, the Dutch, 
 the Portuguese, the Swiss, one from the United States, and 
 some from South America. The Spaniard lately arrested here 
 is, to give him his full title, Angelo de Yallejo-Miranda, and he 
 was arrested, not for the reason given by the man on guard, 
 but because, in Versailles, he only gave his first name, and repre- 
 sented timself as a Spanish secretary of legation, whereas he 
 belongs to the Spanish Debt Commission. His companion, 
 who passed as his servant was one Oswald, a joint editor of the 
 Ganlois, which is very hostile to us. By all these lies and 
 misrepresentations the gentlemen had managed to get them- 
 selves suspected of being spies. He is said to be a friend of 
 Prim, which is very compatible with what Stiber said of him 
 yesterday in the Bureau.* 
 
 After eleven o'clock two important telegrams arrived. Bour- 
 baki, who had gone from Metz to London, does not return to 
 Metz, but places himself at the disposal of the Government of 
 National Defence ; and next Wednesday, Bray and Pranckh, 
 with the approval of King Louis of Bavaria, will start for 
 Versailles. 
 
 Monday, October 17. Two articles written in the forenoon. 
 Before dinner an excursion to the Grand Trianon, where there 
 is a beautiful marble group in the great reception room. Ita 
 is represented as thanking France for the assistance given he, 
 against the Austrians. The Milanese presented it to Eugenie. 
 Delbriick and Lauer dined with us. The Chief again expressed 
 himself very energetically in favor of the inexorable punish- 
 ment of villages which had been guilty of treachery. They 
 must be made responsible if a traitorous attack takes place in 
 them. Otherwise what will become of our poor soldiers ] 
 
 * The fellow was afterwards taken to Mainz. Here he gave his word of 
 honor not to escape, in order that it might not be necessary to resort to 
 imprisonment. But after a few days he nevertheless ran away.
 
 142 Bismarck in tlie Franco-German War. 
 
 The discussion now turned on things culinary, when it ap- 
 peared that the Chancellor liked good mutton, and preferred 
 the part of beef called in Berlin the " brisket." He did not care 
 much for fillet or for roast beef. 
 
 In the evening, we were warned to pack up our trunks, and 
 in case there should be an alarm in the night the carriages 
 were to be drawn up in the Prefecture, in front of the King's 
 quarters. A sortie has been expected since yesterday. 
 
 Tuesday, October 18. The night is over and nothing has 
 happened. A splendid axitumn morning. I sent off a contra- 
 diction of the French reports that our troops have bombarded 
 Orleans. This is the birthday of the Crown Prince, and the 
 Chief and the Councillors go, about 1 2 o'clock, to congratulate 
 him. They have sent us a number of the Kraj, in which it is 
 asserted that the Minister not long ago had a conversation with a 
 nobleman of Gallicia, in which he advised the Poles to abandon 
 the Austrians. I learned, on inquiry, that this is untrue ; that 
 for a long time he has not spoken with any Gallician and cer- 
 tainly with no Pole. I contradict the story in the press. 
 
 The Chief breakfasted with us for once, and remarked (we 
 will not leave even such little traits -unnoticed) " that he was 
 very fond of hard-boiled eggs ; that now he could only manage 
 three, but the time was when he could make away with 
 eleven." Bohlen boasts of having once eaten fifteen plover's 
 eggs. " I am ashamed to say what I have done in that line," 
 replied his cousin, who, in conclusion, recommended Delbriick 
 to provide himself with hard-boiled eggs for his journey, as he 
 is soon going back to Germany, which Deilaruck declined to 
 do, as he cannot endure them hard-boiled. The Chief then 
 read us some of the specially edifying private letters to the 
 Emperor Napoleon which the Provisional Government has pub- 
 lished, with commentaries on them which throw side lights on 
 the characters of several personages in Berlin. 
 
 Thursday, October 20. Both morning and afternoon I was 
 very diligent, and worked at different articles and telegrams. 
 At table the conversation again turned on the imprisonment of 
 Jacoby by the military authorities, and the Chief said, as be- 
 fore, that he had strong doubts whether the measure had been 
 well timed. One of the gentlemen expressed his delight that 
 " the lazy babbler was shut up." But the Chancellor answered, 
 quite in keeping with his usual feeling, " I do not rejoice at it 
 in the very least. A party man may do so because his zeal for
 
 French Sortie. 143 
 
 vengeance is satisfied. The politician may not, for in politics 
 he knows no such feelings. He asks only whether it is useful 
 that political adversaries should be ill-used." 
 
 Friday, October 21. This morning, about eight o'clock, 
 firing was heard from the heavy artillery, more vigorous and 
 long-continued than usual ; but we did not allow ourselves 
 to be disturbed by it. Different articles were prepared ; among 
 them, one on the departure of the Nuncio and the other diplo- 
 matists from Paris. At breakfast Keudell would have it that 
 the French had battered down the porcelain manufactory close 
 by, in Sevres. Hatzfeld told us that his mother-in-law, an 
 American lady who remained behind in Paris, had sent him 
 good accounts of the ponies, of which he had often spoken to 
 us. They were exceedingly fat. We wondered whether they 
 would be eaten. He said, for heaven's sake, let them do it; 
 but he reserves the right to get back the price of the animals 
 when the terms of peace are settled with the French Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Meanwhile the artillery fire outside continued, and between 
 one and two it seemed as if an action were going on in the 
 woods to the Xorth of the city. The firing became still more 
 vehement ; the cannon shots followed each other, bang after 
 bang, and mitrailleuses were also to be heard. It seemed as if 
 a regular battle had developed itself, and .was drawing nearer 
 us. The Chief got into his saddle and rode away. The rest of 
 us set off in the direction where the battle appeared to rage. 
 On the left, above the wood through which the road leads to Jardy 
 and Vaucresson, we saw the well-known white clouds rise and 
 burst from the shells. Orderlies galloped up the street. A 
 battalion marched off to the scene of action. The fighting last- 
 ed till past four o'clock. Then we heard only a few single shots 
 from the great fort on Mont Valerien, and at last this too was 
 silent. We now learned that the French had not been so near 
 us as they seemed : their sortie had been directed against our 
 positions at La Celle Saint-Cloud, and Bougival, villages, 
 the first of which was at least four miles from Versailles, and 
 the second seven. During the afternoon there was, of course, 
 great excitement among the French in the town, and the groups 
 which formed themselves before the houses expected every 
 moment, as the noise came nearer and nearer, to see our troops 
 in full flight before the Red-breeches. Later in the afternoon, 
 however, they made long faces and shrugged their shoulders.
 
 144 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 At dinner the Chief said that he would celebrate his parlia- 
 mentary Jubilee either to-day or one day soon. About this 
 time five-and-twenty years ago he had become a member of the 
 provincial diet of Ponierania. " I remember," he continued, 
 "it was frightfully tedious there. I had, as my first subject, 
 to treat of the excessive consumption of tallow in the poor- 
 house. Only to think of the number of stupid speeches I have 
 heard there, and afterwards in the National Diet, and," after 
 a pause, smiling, "have myself made." 
 
 .We spoke of the magnificence of the Prefecture here, and 
 that it cost two million francs. " None of our public offices in 
 Berlin are to "be compared with it," remarked the Chancellor, 
 " not even the War Office, which however, is rather imposing. 
 The office of the Ministry of Commerce may also pass ; but we of 
 the Foreign Office seldom has a Minister been so poorly 
 housed. Where we sleep, the' room was originally about twice 
 as big as this, and out of it they have made three ; one toler- 
 able-sized one for myself, a little one for my wife, and one 
 where my sons have slept hitherto. When I receive people, 
 E must do like the small country gentry, borrow chairs, and 
 turn everything about, even my study." Some one joked about 
 bhe Chinese carpet in the great hall at Berlin. " Ah ! you may 
 laugh," said the Chief ; " when the State can make no further 
 use of it, I shall buy it for Schonhausen. It is an old friend 
 Df mine ; we have gone through a good deal together, and it is 
 really beautiful in its way." 
 
 Between half-past seven a"nd half-past eight, the mayor of 
 Dhe town was again with the Minister. Afterwards an article 
 apon the uncourteous behavior of our host at Ferrieres was sent 
 yft to Germany. It was to the following effect : 
 
 " In a letter dated Paris, Place de la Madeleine, 70, some 
 one writes to the Countess Moustier among other untruths the 
 .following : ' The Prussians demanded pheasants from us. 
 Rothschild tells me that they had some at his chateau, but that 
 they wanted to beat the steward because they were not truffled. 
 To every one who saw the royal housekeeping at Ferrieres, the 
 impression of its unusual simplicity and of the careful regard 
 for everything belonging to Rothschild so predominated, that 
 comparisons on the treatment of the property of this millionaire, 
 who was protected by the good fortune of the King living in 
 his house, and the inevitable hardships a poorer man has to 
 Dear, forced themselves upon him. Considering that the pres-
 
 The French Baron Rothschild. 145 
 
 ence of the King constituted a protection, his Majesty did not 
 even permit the game in the park, including the pheasants, to 
 be shot so long as he was there. Baron Rothschild, formerly 
 Prussian consul-general, who resigned that office in an uncourt- 
 eous way, when he still hoped for the victory of France, had 
 not even so much politeness as once to inquire through his ser- 
 vants, during the whole stay of the King in Ferrieres, about 
 the wants of his royal guest. None of the Germans who lived 
 at Ferrieres can say that they enjoyed the hospitality of the 
 possessor even to the extent of a piece of bread, and yet the 
 preceding proprietor of this seat notoriously left behind him, 
 according to the computation of the stamp office, 1 700 millions 
 of francs. Should Baron Rothschild really have uttered the 
 lying complaint against any one quoted in the above letter, we 
 can only hope that troops may yet be quartered upon him, who 
 will make him feel the difference between the modest claims of 
 the Court and the rights of troops in quarters in war time, so 
 far as this is possible for the heir of 1700 millions." The 
 attack of the Parisians, undertaken by some twenty battalions 
 of the line and Mobile guards, protected by the fire of Mont 
 "Valerien, was directed chiefly against the village of Bougival on 
 the Seine. It was occupied by our outposts, who retired upon 
 their supports, and the French made themselves masters of the 
 place, but were soon afterwards attacked and driven out again 
 by one of the divisions of the fifth German army corps. In 
 this action, a considerable number of the prisoners and two 
 pieces of artillery fell into the hands of our people. The 
 prisoners, some hundreds in number, passed through the town 
 to-day, which led to disturbances, so that the Yellow Dragoons 
 were forced, it is said, to charge the crowd and strike them 
 with the fiat of their swords. 
 
 The Chief said yesterday evening, that we ought not to allow 
 groups to be formed in the streets during a battle ; that the 
 inhabitants should be required in such cases to remain in their 
 houses, and that the patrols must be ordered to fire at once on 
 those who offered any opposition, which has now been done. To- 
 day the commandant of Versailles, von Voigts Rhetz, proclaim- 
 ed, that after the alarm signal all inhabitants of the town are 
 to go home without delay, and that the troops have been ordered 
 to use their arms against those who disobey. 
 
 Before dinner, accompanied by Bucher, drove through the 
 forest of Fausses Reposes to the little town Ville d'Avray,
 
 146 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 pleasantly situated between Sevres and Saint-Cloud, to visit 
 the Ville Stern, whence a good view of Paris is to be had. 
 The sentry posted there, however, did not admit us ; but we 
 found, on the other side of the valley, close to a park, a 
 thatched summer-house, which answered our purpose. Across 
 the suburbs of Paris we saw with the naked eye a great part of 
 the city itself lying in the yellowish evening light, with the 
 straight white line of the enceinte, the dome of the Invalides, with 
 its golden ring, the low towers of Notre Dame, the cupola of 
 the Pantheon, and, quite on the right, Val de Grace. While 
 we were watching the scene, a train passed over the viaduct 
 near the ramparts. 
 
 On starting for our drive to Ville d'Avray, I saw Bennigsen 
 coming down the Rue de Provence, and when we returned we 
 found that he had left his card on the Chief. The latter dined 
 to-day at four o'clock with the King, and then made his ap- 
 pearance at our table for half an hour. It was mentioned that 
 Metz would probably surrender in the course of the next week. 
 Famine had appeared in the city, which suffered also from a 
 want of salt. " Deserters eat it by spoonfuls, in order to 
 restore the necessary quantity to their blood," said the Chief. 
 Prince Friedrich Karl desires a capitulation, if I understand 
 rightly, on the conditions of Sedan and Toul, but the Chancel- 
 lor, from political motives, is disposed to a -{milder treatment of 
 the garrison, and the King appears to hesitate between the 
 two. 
 
 The Chief said yesterday to the Mayor of Versailles, " No 
 Elections, no Peace ; but the gentlemen in Paris will not hear 
 of them. The American generals who went into Paris to sug- 
 gest this told me that nothing was to be done with them. 
 Trochu had only said they were not yet so far reduced as to be 
 obliged to negotiate, while the others would not hear of any 
 elections, or of the country being appealed to." " I then said 
 to the Mayor, finally, No other course will be left to us but to 
 come to terms with Napoleon, and to force him upon them 
 again. This he thought we should not do ; a greater insult 
 could not be offered them. I replied that it might become the 
 interest of the conqueror to leave the conquered to a power 
 which could only support itself by the army, for in that case 
 they would not be able to think of foreign wars. I advised 
 him, in conclusion, not to give way to the mistaken idea that 
 Napoleon has no roots in the country. He has the army on
 
 Garibaldi and Fro/ace. 147 
 
 his side. Boyer treated with me in the name of the Em- 
 peror Napoleon, and it is still a question how far the present 
 Government has really struck root. In the flat country districts 
 there were few who did not feel that they ought to think of 
 peace. The Mayor then gave me his own ideas of a peace ; the 
 razing of their fortresses and of ours, disarmament on both 
 sides, in proportion to the population, and so forth. These 
 people have not yet, as I told him from the beginning, any suf- 
 ficient notion of what the war is." 
 
 The Nouvelliste, as it is now the only newspaper food of the 
 people of Versailles, and naturally does not ask too much of them, 
 is not despised here. L. reports that the number of the copies 
 sold varies ; that of some numbers no copies remain ; of others 
 from thirty to fifty, and of the number before the last a hun- 
 dred and fifty are left in his hands. His weekly account, how- 
 ever, hitherto shows no loss. 
 
 In the evening I wrote an article, to show that the election 
 of a body representative of the will of France is the first con- 
 dition which the Chancellor proposes to the different parties 
 who have treated with him on the subject of peace. He has 
 made the same demand of the emissaries of the Republicans, 
 the Imperialists, and of a third party. He will facilitate in 
 every possible way such an appeal to the people. The form of 
 Government is absolutely indifferent to us ; only we must 
 have a real Government to deal with, recognized by the 
 nation. 
 
 Sunday, October 23. The following thoughts will appear in 
 a French dress in the Nouvelliste of to-day : " Things are con- 
 stantly met with in the present day in France which are flag- 
 rantly opposed to sound sense and moral feeling. People who 
 were formerly Papal Zouaves, not merely those who by their 
 nationality are French, become at once soldiers of a republic 
 which is governed by Voltairians. Garibaldi makes his appear- 
 ance in Tours, and offers, as he himself expresses it, what is left 
 of him to the service of France. He has, probably, not forgotten 
 that this same France, twenty years ago, crushed the Roman 
 Republic by force of arms, and he must have a still fresher 
 recollection of the strange events of Mentana. He must dis- 
 tinctly remember that Nice, his own birthplace, was torn by 
 this same France from Italy, and that the State of Siege alone 
 keeps it at this moment from withdrawing itself from the rule 
 of France."
 
 148 Bismarck in the Franco-German Heir. 
 
 About one o'clock the Minister of Wiirttemberg, Mittnacht 
 and Suckow, paid their visit to the Chancellor. 
 
 I had seen soldiers brought from the hospital to the church- 
 yard several times these afternoons three the day lief ore yester- 
 day ; two yesterday. To-day a long procession came from 
 the Palace across the Place d' Amies into the Rue Hoche. 
 There were five biers. On the first, under a black pall, an of- 
 ficer of the 47th Regiment ; and on -the others, covered with 
 white sheets, common soldiers. A band of music, in front, 
 played a chorale ; then followed the muffled drums. There 
 was a minister with the procession. As the coffins passed by 
 the French took off their hats and caps a touching custom ! 
 
 At dinner Delbriick directed attention to the fact, that the 
 Prussian officials here felt the necessity, very soon after their 
 institution, of devoting themselves seriously to the duties 
 committed to their care, to discover what was best for the in- 
 habitants placed under their charge, and to secure the preser- 
 vation of order in the districts assigned to them, except where 
 our interests are directly concerned. Thus, for instance, 
 Brauchitsch is exceedingly put out at the quite shameless 
 thieving of wood carried on in the forests here, and wishes 
 to take vigorous measures against these malpractices, in the in- 
 terest of the French Ministry of Woods and Forests. We 
 learned that FreydorfF, Jolly, and a third, whose name escaped 
 me, were soon to be expected from Baden, and this led to our 
 speaking of TJsedom. 
 
 Delbriick mentioned that, in the preliminary negotiations 
 upon a new organisation of Germany, Bavaria had raised a claim 
 to a kind of joint representation of the Bund in foreign countries, 
 of such a character that, if the Prussian, or rather the German, 
 ambassador were absent, the Bavarian might transact business. 
 The Chief said, " No ; anything else but that, ; for unless we 
 are to have two Ministers of Foreign Affairs for Germany, 
 everything must depend, not on the ambassador, but on the in- 
 structions he receives." On this matter he dwelt at greater 
 length, and explained it by examples. 
 
 Monday, October 24- In a telegram from England intended 
 for Wilhelmshohe, there occurred this passage: "Much time 
 will be lost, I am afraid." " Is lost," the Chief wrote on the 
 margin with his pencil. I sent a notice to be forwarded to the 
 English newspapers upon the murder, in Rochefort, of Captain. 
 Zielke, of the German ship Flora.
 
 The Reds in Marseilles. 149 
 
 Strange news arrived from Marseilles. The Reds appear to 
 have got the upper hand. Esquiros, the resident prefect of the 
 Mouths of the Rhone, belongs to the theatrical section of the 
 French Republicans. He has suppressed the Gazette du Midi, 
 because the clubs of his party asserted that the paper favored 
 the candidature of the Comte de Chambord, whose proclama- 
 tion it had printed. He has, moreover, expelled the Jesuits. 
 A decree of Gambetta hereupon dismissed the prefect, and an- 
 nulled the measures against the newspaper and against the 
 Jesuits ; but Esquiros, supported by the working men, has 
 paid no attention to these orders of the Government in Tours. 
 He keeps his post, the Gazette du Midi remains suppressed, and 
 the Jesuits are still expelled. Nor was more regard paid to 
 the decree of Gambetta which dissolved the Citizens' guard, re- 
 cruited from the ranks of the Red Republicans and which is 
 distinct from the National Guard of Marseilles. The Chief 
 said, " Well, civil war seems already to have begun there and 
 possibly there may soon be a Republic of the South." I 
 worked up these accounts for some articles written in the spirit 
 of this comment. 
 
 About four o'clock, a M. Gautier, who came from Chisle- 
 hurst, called on the Chancellor. . . . We have to-day Count 
 Waldersee at dinner ; the Chief dines with the King. In the 
 evening, between seven and eight, a great fire must, we think, 
 have broken out in Paris; the whole northern heaven was over- 
 spread with a red glare, and in fact I see, above the woods to 
 the north of the city, the reflection of an enormous burning. 
 However, gradually it was evident that we were deceived. The 
 red light grew into shapes, pillar-like beams shot out from 
 it, and at last we became aware that it was the Northern 
 Lights, which streamed magnificently above the horizon. 
 This is a sure sign that we shall soon have winter and dry, 
 cold weather. 
 
 Sunday, October 25. Good news received and sent out. 
 Yesterday the fortress of Schlettstadt capitulated, and the day 
 before, General Wittich with the 22nd division occupied Char- 
 tres. Among the fragments of the French Army of the Loire, 
 according to a letter from Tours, great want of discipline pre- 
 vails. Drunken soldiers are said often to refuse obedience to 
 their officers, whom they accuse of incapacity and treachery. 
 The surrender of Metz will take place to-morrow or the day 
 after, and portions of the German armies detained there will
 
 150 Bismarck in the Franco-Gem/ian War. 
 
 be able in eight days to support the troops fighting in the dis- 
 trict of the Loire. This morning the Chief said, in reference 
 to the article in the Pays, which placed the war indemnity at 
 one and a half milliards, " Nonsense, I will require much more 
 from them." 
 
 During dinner to-day, the conversation turned, I cannot now 
 say how, upon William Tell, and the Minister confessed that 
 even as a boy he could never endure him, first, because he had 
 shot at his son ; next, because he had killed Gessler in an as- 
 sassin-like manner. "It would have been far nobler and more 
 natural," he added, " if, instead of shooting at the boy, whom 
 the best of marksmen might have hit instead of the apple, he 
 had once shot the Landvogt himself." " This would have been 
 just anger at a cruel demand. TelFs hiding himself and lying 
 in wait for Gessler does not please me. It is not becoming in 
 a hero, not even in Francs-tireurs." 
 
 Two copies of the Nouvelliste are stuck up at different street 
 corners, and although people, when they stand to read it in 
 groups, criticise it when the Germans are passing, with " Men- 
 songe " " Impossible" yet they read it. To-day some one had 
 written on the copy near the prefecture, "Blague" but Stieber's 
 people or other watchers had seized the fellow in the act. He 
 was an artisan, and it is said that he is to be deported to 
 Germany. 
 
 Wednesday, October 26. In the morning, I translated 
 Granville's despatch for the King, and afterwards extracted a 
 portion of it for the press, accompanying it with the remark 
 that we had already twice offered a truce under favorable 
 conditions through Favre, and on October 9 through Burnside, 
 but that they had refused it, simply because we offered it. I 
 then telegraphed to London that Theirs had received a free 
 pass to our headquarters, and the permission to go thence to 
 Paris. Further, that the Comte de Chambord had had a 
 meeting at Coppet with the Comte de Paris. 
 
 In the afternoon, when the Chief had ridden out, I went, 
 accompanied by B., an Englishman, who writes for the 
 Inverness Courier, and an American war correspondent of a 
 paper in Chicago, to a farm near the Chateau Beauregard, in 
 order to visit H., who had recovered from the wound which he 
 had received at Worth, and rejoined his regiment, the forty- 
 sixth. We met there a number of officers, nice bright fellows, 
 with whom we soon became intimate and had much pleasant
 
 The Fall of Mctz. 151 
 
 talk. Bl., meantime drove to Bougival with First-Lieutenant 
 von H, ; and as they were later in returning than they had 
 promised, I was too late for dinner at home, which the Chief 
 does not approve of. He only asked, however, at table : 
 "Where can little Busch be 1 ?" (Wo das Buschchen sei?) And 
 when he returned later from the King he again asked if I was 
 -Mid expressed apprehension that the sentries might fire 
 on me.* 
 
 aday, October 27. The capitulation of Metz will prob- 
 ably be signed in the course of to-day. The whole army there, 
 including the officers of all grades, will be sent prisoners to 
 Germany, whither we shall then have transported with the 
 exception of about 60,000 men the entire army of Imperial 
 France. In the morning I telegraphed that it was observed by 
 our troops before Paris, that an artillery fire had been opened 
 from Moiitmartre upon the suburb of La Villette. Musketry 
 fire, lasting for hours, had also been heard in the streets ; per- 
 haps a rising of the Radicals. I then wrote a second article 
 upon the interference of Beust in our affairs with France. 
 
 In the evening, Hatzfeld told us that he had been to-day at 
 the outposts, where a number of American families had arrived 
 from Paris, determined to turn their back upon the besieged 
 city, in which things had become uncomfortable. There were 
 a dozen carriages of them with white flags, taking the road to 
 Yillejuif ; the members, too, of the Portuguese embassy have 
 now left Paris on their way to Tours. 
 
 Friday, October 28. In the course of the afternoon Moltke 
 telegraphed to the Chief, that the capitulation of Metz had 
 been signed to-day at 12.45. The French army thus captured 
 numbers all in all 173,000 men, of whom 16,000 are sick and 
 wounded. Von Bennigsen, von Friedenthal, and von Blank- 
 eiiburg, the last a friend of the Chiefs youth, dined with us. 
 From the French officers who had become our prisoners at Metz, 
 and their deportation to Germany, the conversation turned 
 upon General Ducrot and his shameful flight from Pont-a- 
 Mousson, "Yes," said the Minister, "he has written me a 
 long letter in which he explains, that the reproaches which we 
 make against him for his treacherous escape, were unfounded ; 
 but in spite of> this I adhere to my former opinion." He then 
 related that a negotiator from Gambetta had been with him 
 recently, who asked him at the end of the. conversation, whether 
 he would recognize the Republic. "Without doubt or hesita-
 
 152 Bismarck in ike Franco-German War. 
 
 tion," I replied ; " not merely a Republic, but if you like a 
 Gambetta Dynasty, only that dynasty must give us a secure and 
 advantageous peace " "and, in fact, any dynasty, whether of 
 Bleichroder or of Rothschild," he added, whereupon these two 
 gentlemen became for a short time the subject of conversation 
 with his guests. 
 
 In the evening comes L., as usual, to get information for 
 himself. I heard from him that Legationsrath Samwer, once 
 premier of Duke Frederick VIII. , has followed his late and 
 present master hither, and has been staying here for some time. 
 He provides correspondents of newspapers with news. The 
 Nouvelliste is to depart this life. A journal of more imposing 
 form will take its place, to be called the Moniteur Officiel de 
 la Seine-et-Oise, and will appear at the expense of the Govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Saturday, October 29. In the transformation of the 
 Nouvelliste to the Moniteur Officiel, certain preliminaries do 
 not appear to have been well arranged, or there is some intrigue 
 on hand. This morning, whilst I was at work, a M. Theodor 
 N., collaborateur du Moniteur Officiel de la Seine- it-Oise, sent 
 in his card to me. Following his card came a young man, who 
 said he had been sent to me by the Prefect, and wished to get 
 from me notes for leading articles. I remarked to him that L. 
 was sufficient for this object ; that he would remain with the 
 journal in. his old capacity, and that I could only communicate 
 with him at the request of the Chancellor. He asked whether 
 he should tell the Prefect that he might converse on this matter 
 with Count Bismarck. " The Prefect must be perfectly aware 
 that I can say nothing to such a request." 
 
 At breakfast St. Blanquart said he knew that Thiers would 
 come to us to-morrow, and Bolsing afterwards asserted that 
 preliminaries of peace were in the very air. We shall take 
 the liberty to doubt it till the Chief intimates the good news. 
 We hear also that Moltke has been made a " Count," and that 
 the King has made the Crown Prince and his nephew, the con- 
 queror of Metz, field-marshals. 
 
 At dinner the Chief asked, when we were about to attack 
 the soup, whether this were not pease sausage soup, and when 
 he was told it was he praised it as quite excellent, an opinion 
 in which Delbriick agreed. Then the talk was of the great 
 success at Metz. " This just doubles the number of our prison- 
 ers," said the Minister. " No, it does more ; we have now in
 
 A Whist Party. 153 
 
 Germany the army which Napoleon had in the field at the date 
 of Weissenburg, Worth, and Saarbriicken, with the exception 
 only of those who have been killed. Those whom the French 
 now have, have been brought since from Algiers and Rome, or 
 are new levies. To these may be added Vinoy, who escaped 
 before Sedan with a few thousand men. Their generals are 
 almost all prisoners." 
 
 He then said that Napoleon had asked for Marshals Bazaine, 
 Lebceuf, and Canrobert, who were in Metz, to be sent to Wil- 
 helrnshohe. " If this is a whist party," said he, " I have noth- 
 ing to say, and will recommend it to the King." Then he said 
 that so many strange things happen, which nobody before could 
 have dreamt of, that we may consider the most wonderful 
 things as possible. " It might be possible, for instance, that 
 we should hold the German Imperial Diet at Versailles, whilst 
 Xapoleon assembled the Corps Legislatif and the Senate at 
 Cassel to consult about peace. Napoleon has the conviction, 
 against which not much is to be said, that the old national re- 
 presentation still subsists de jure, and that he may summon it 
 to meet where he will, of course only in France. About Cassel 
 there might be some dispute." He then remarked that he had 
 summoned hither Friedenthal, JBennigsen, and Blankenburg, 
 the representatives of parties with whom one is bound to con- 
 sult, in order to hear their opinion about the meeting of our 
 Parliament in Versailles. "The ' Fortschritt ' (Progress) party 
 I must disregard, for they want only what is not possible ; 
 they are like the Russians, who eat cherries in winter and will 
 have oysters in summer. When a Russian comes into a shop, 
 he asks, 'Kak nje bud,' which means, ' What is there, out of 
 season V " 
 
 After the first course Prince Albrecht, the father, with his 
 adjutant was introduced and sat down at the right hand of the 
 Chief, in the first place to drink a glass of Magdeburg beer 
 with us (a present to the Chief, and exceedingly good), and 
 then champagne. The old gentleman had pressed on even as 
 far as Orleans with his cavalry, like a genuine Prussian Prince, 
 ever bold and true to duty. The battle at Chateaudun had 
 been, he said, a " fearful " one. He praised the Duke of 
 Meiningen warmly, whom no dangers or sacrifices daunted. 
 " May I ask," safd the Prince, "how the Countess is?" " Oh, 
 she is quite well, now that her son is better, only she suffers 
 still from her bitter hatred of the Gauls, all and sundry of 
 II
 
 154 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 whom she would like to see shot and stabbed, even the little 
 children, who are not responsible for having such horrible par- 
 ents." He then spoke of the state of Count Herbert, whose 
 wound on the shoulder had at first gone on very well, but had 
 then become much worse, so that the Physician thought that 
 the ball had been, poisoned.
 
 M. Tiaera. 155 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THIERS AND THE FIRST NEGOTIATIONS FOR AN ARMISTICE. 
 
 ON October 80, as I took a walk in the early morning 
 through the Avenue de Saint-Cloud, I met Bennigsen, 
 who was to return home that day with Blankenburg. In reply 
 to my question how far our people there had got with the 
 unity of Germany, he said they had got well on, and that in 
 Bavaria the only point on which there was any difficulty was 
 the separate position of the military people. The feeling of the 
 majority of the public was all that could be wished. 
 
 When I got back, perhaps a little after ten, Engel told me 
 that Thiers had been there a little before, but had at once gone 
 away again. We were told afterwards that he came from 
 Tours, and wished only a safe-conduct to enable him to pass 
 through our lines, as he wanted to get into Paris. During 
 breakfast Hatzfeld told us that he had breakfasted with him 
 at the Hotel des Reservoirs, and had afterwards brought him 
 round in the carriage, which was to take him as far as the 
 French outposts under the escort of Lieutenant von Winter- 
 feldt, and that he was " the same clever and amusing man as 
 ever, although as soft as a baby." He had first discovered him 
 among us in the house, and told him that the Chief was just 
 getting up, after which he took him below into the salon, and 
 reported his arrival to the Minister, who got ready at once, and 
 came downstairs very soon after. They talked together only a 
 couple of minutes, of course alone. The Chief then summoned 
 Hatzfeld, and gave him directions to make ready what was 
 necessary to enable Thiers to pay his visit to Paris. He told 
 him afterwards that Thiers had at once said, after they had 
 saluted each other, that he had not come to talk to him. " I 
 think that quite natural," said Hatzfeld ; " for though Thiers 
 would like greatly to conclude peace with us, it would then,
 
 15$ Bismarck in the Franco- German War. 
 
 of course, be M. Thiers' peace, and though he is frightfully 
 anxious to get the credit of it, he does not know what the 
 people in Paris would say." 
 
 In the meantime the Chief went with his cousin to the re- 
 view of nine thousand Landwehr Guards, which the King held 
 this morning. While we were still at breakfast, he came in 
 and brought with him a little round gentleman with smooth- 
 shaven face and black-striped waistcoat, who as we heard after- 
 wards, was the Saxon Minister von Friesen. 
 
 He dined with us ; and as Delbriick was present, we had the 
 honor to dine with three Ministers. The Chief spoke first of 
 the Landwehr, who had arrived to-day, and said they were 
 broad-shouldered fellows, and must have made an impression on 
 the Versaillese. " The front of a company," he added, " is at 
 least five feet broader than a French company, especially in the 
 Pomeranian Landwehr." Turning then to Hatzfeld, he said, 
 "I suppose no mention of Metz was made between Thiers and 
 you 1 ?" "No, he said nothing though no doubt he knew about 
 it." "Certainly he knew, but I did not mention it either." 
 Hatzfeld then said that Thiers had been very charming, but 
 that he had lost none of his old vanity and self-satisfiedness. 
 He had told him for instance, how he had met a countryman a 
 few days ago, whom he asked whether he wished for peace. 
 "Yes, indeed, badly." Whether he knew who he was 1 ? "No." 
 Well, he was Monsieur Thiers ; did he not know about him ? The 
 man said "No" to that too. Then a neighbor came up. and the 
 old countryman asked him who might M. Thiers be '{ and was 
 told that he must be 'one of them from the Chamber.' Hatz- 
 feld added that "Thiers was obviously vexed that they knew no 
 more than that about him." 
 
 His Excellency Friesen, gave us a good illustration of the 
 reckless haste with which some of the Versailles people took to 
 flight and of the honesty of the German soldiers. He told UK 
 that he had found, to-day, in his quarters, where at least three 
 or four sets of soldiers had been quartered previously, a com- 
 mode unlocked, in which he discovered, besides ^all sorts of 
 women's finery, caps, linen, and ribbons, first one and tfceu 
 another " rouleau" of 50 napoleons each. He wanted to hand 
 over these 2000 francs to the porter, who said however that he 
 would rather that he, Friesen, should take them himself. The 
 money was then sent, I believe, to the office established for the 
 safe-keeping of such treasure-trove.
 
 The Pen with which Treaty of Peace was Signed. 157 
 
 The Chief went out of the room for an instant and came back 
 with the case in his hand containing the gold pen presented to 
 him by a jeweller at Pforzheim to sign the treaty of peace "with. 
 He admired it greatly, especially the feathers. This work of art 
 was about six inches long and set on both sides with small 
 brilliants. After it had gone round the table and been suffi- 
 ciently admired as it deserved, the Chancellor opened the 
 dra wing-room door, saying to Delbriick and Friesen, "I am at 
 your service now, gentlemen." " Well," said Friesen, looking 
 at Delbriick ; "I have been discussing the matter with his 
 Excellency in the meantime," and they went into the salon. 
 The rest of us spoke of Thiers again, and Hatzfeld said that he 
 would come back in a day or two, and that he had not wished 
 to pass through the gate on the road from Charenton into Paris. 
 " He thinks the fellows there might hang him," said Bohlen ; 
 "I should like them to do it." "What for 1 ?" we asked our- 
 selves without answering him. 
 
 Monday, October 31. I wrote several articles in the morn- 
 ing, one of them in approval of the idea of establishing an 
 International Court to sit upon the crimes of those who had 
 urged on the war against us ; and a hue-and-cry after M. 
 Hermieux, a French commander of battalion, who, like Ducrot, 
 has broken his word of honor by making his escape from a 
 hospital, and is now being pursued by warrant of caption. 
 About twelve o'clock Gauthier appeared again, and had a long 
 talk with the Chief. At breakfast we learned that on the day 
 before, the village of Le Bourget, on the east of Paris, which 
 fell into the hands of the French on the 28th, had been recov- 
 ^ered by storm. It must have been a severe struggle. We 
 made over a thousand "red-breeches" prisoners, but we lost 
 some three hundred men killed and wounded, thirty of whom 
 were officers. Count Waldersee's brother is said to have fallen. 
 We then spoke of Thiers ; and Hatzf eld and Delbriick wagered 
 with Keudell and Bismarck-Bohlen that he would be back in 
 "Versailles before twelve o'clock to-morrow night. Both the 
 others believed that the French authorities would not let him 
 out. Hatzfeld won his wager. He was able to report at tea 
 that the old gentleman had arrived, and that he himself had 
 spoken with him. He had told him that he had been discuss- 
 ing matters with the gentleman of the Provisional Government, 
 from ten last night till three this morning ; that he had got up 
 at six, and spent his time till two this afternoon in paying all
 
 158 Bismarck in the Franco- German War. 
 
 sorts of visits, after which he had driven back here. He wan- 
 ted a conference with the Chancellor of the Confederation to- 
 morrow morning. "He was beginning to mention," said Hatz- 
 feld, "that there had been disturbances in Paris yesterday, but 
 an incautiously emphatic 'indeed? which escaped me, made 
 him break off. " 
 
 Tuesday, November 1. In the early morning twilight there 
 was tolerably active firing again from the heavy guns. About 
 eleven, Deputy Bamberger paid me his visit. He had taken 
 two whole days in travelling from Nanteuil to Versailles. At 
 breakfast we talked of the battle of Le Bourget, and some- 
 body said that the French had behaved treacherously, making 
 as if they wanted to surrender, and when our officers came up 
 unsuspectingly, shooting them down. Somebody spoke of 
 over 1,200 prisoners we had taken, and it was mentioned that 
 some of them were Francs-tireurs: the Chief said "Prisoners! 
 That they should ever take Francs-tireurs prisoners ! They 
 ought to have shot them down by files." 
 
 At dinner, besides Delbriick, there was a Count Oriola in a 
 red Companion of St. John uniform, with a great black beard 
 and strongly marked oriental features. This afternoon he had 
 been with Bucher at the aqueduct of Marly, when they had an 
 admirable view in the evening light of the fort which we re- 
 cently attacked unsuccessfully, and of a section of Paris. The 
 princely personages of the Hotel des Reservoirs, the Dukes of 
 Weimar, Coburg and so on, had also been there. Some one 
 mentioned Friesen's treasure-trove, and the order of the War 
 Minister or of the commandant of the town that all articles of 
 value found in the houses abandoned by their inhabitants were 
 to be publicly advertised, and after a certain time, if not 
 claimed by their owners, to be confiscated for the benefit of the 
 military chest. The Minister thought this quite right, " For," 
 he added, " properly, such houses would be burned down, but 
 that would be an injury to the rational people who have stayed 
 at home, so that unfortunately it does not suit." He told us 
 that Count Bray intended to pay him his intended visit thi 
 evening. After a while he mentioned that Thiers had been 
 with him about midday for more than three hours to negotiate 
 an armistice, but that they could not agree on the conditions. 
 During the conversation Thiers had begun once to speak of the 
 amount of provisions still left in Paris. He had interrupted 
 him there, saying, " Paixlon me, but we know better about
 
 What the Chancellor Eats. 159 
 
 that than you do. You have been only a day in the city. 
 They have provisions till the end of January." What a look 
 of astonishment ! I had only been feeling his pulse, but his 
 amazement betrayed that there was not so much." 
 
 At dessert he spoke of the amount he had eaten. "To-day 
 a beefsteak and a half, and two slices of pheasant. It is a 
 good deal, but not too much, as it is my only meal. I break- 
 fast, certainly ; but only on a cup of tea without milk, and a 
 couple of eggs ; after that nothing till the evening. If I eat 
 too much then, I am like the boa constrictor, but I can't sleep." 
 " Even as a child, and always since then, I have gone late to 
 bed, seldom before midnight. Then I usually fall over quickly, 
 but I waken up soon after to discover that it is hardly more 
 than one or half-past, and all sorts of things come into my 
 brain, especially if any injustice has been done me. I have to 
 turn them all over. I then write letters and despatches, nat- 
 urally without getting up, in my head. Formerly, shortly 
 after I was first made Minister, I used to get up and write 
 them down.- When I .read them over in the morning, they 
 were worthless, mere platitudes, trivial confused stuff, as you 
 might find in the Vossische. I don't want to do this, and 
 would much rather sleep. But thinking and speculating keep 
 going on in my brain. When the first grey dawn begins to 
 shine on my bed, I fall over again, and sleep straight on till 
 ten o'clock and sometimes later." 
 
 iFedtiesday, November 2. Engel tells me that the Chief got 
 up during the furious cannonade last night, which, however, is 
 nothing unusual with him. In the morning, before nine, I 
 take a run out through Montreuil on the Sevres road as far as 
 the railway viaduct with the five arches which crosses it at 
 Viroflay. While I was out, the Minister who was still in bed, 
 had wanted rne. When I got home, about ten, Bronsart, an 
 officer of the general staff, was with him to take him back to 
 the King. After he returned he told me to telegraph to Ber- 
 lin and London that Thiers had spent three hours with him 
 yesterday, that what was discussed in the conversation had 
 been considered at a military council at which his Majesty had 
 been present, this morning, and that Thiers was to come back 
 to him this afternoon. 
 
 About two o'clock I saw him below in the entrance hall. He 
 is below the middle height, with grey hair and no beard, an in- 
 telligent face which suggests sometimes a merchant and some-
 
 160 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 times a professor. As he was likely to remain a good while, 
 and there was nothing for me to do, I repeated my morning's 
 excursion, and passed through the villages of Montreuil, Viro- 
 flay, and Chaville, the two last forming one continuous street 
 about three miles long. I came immediately after Chaville to 
 Sevres. I wanted to go through the great battery or fortifica- 
 tion on the right, and across the town, but the sentry at a place 
 where the roads divided would not let me. No officer even, 
 he says, is allowed farther without special permit from the 
 general. I chatted a bit with the soldiers before the canteen. 
 They had been under fire at Worth and Sedan. Tn one of 
 these battles one of them had his cartridge-pouch exploded by 
 an enemy's shot, and the contents spattered over his face. An- 
 other told ine how they had recently surprised French soldiers 
 in houses, and that he had given no quarter. I hope they were 
 Francs-tireurs. In the villages along the road there were 
 numerous public-houses. Most of the inhabitants have stayed 
 at home ; they appear, almost all of them, to be poor people. 
 Very little was to be seen of the wreck which is said to have 
 overtaken the French sugar places in Sevres, and the ruined 
 porcelain manufactory must be a mere fable. The soldiers say, 
 that not more than ten shells can have fallen there, and they 
 only seem to have knocked a couple of stones out of the wall 
 and smashed a few doors and windows. 
 
 When I returned, about half-past four, to the Rue de Pro- 
 vence, I learned that Thiers stayed with the Chief till a few 
 minutes before my return, and that he looked tolerably con- 
 tented when he went away. The Chief went out for a turn by 
 himself in the garden. From four o'clock onwards there was 
 more heavy firing. , 
 
 To-day's dinner was graced by a great trout pasty, the love- 
 gift of a Berlin restaurant-keeper, who sent the Chancellor of 
 the Confederation a cask of Vienna March beer along with it, 
 and his own photograph ! During dinner the Minister talked 
 about his visitor, and said, "He is an able and likeable man, 
 witty and ingenious, but with hardly a trace of diplomatic 
 quality too sentimental for business. Beyond question he is 
 a superior kind of man to Favre ; but he is not fit to make a 
 bargain about an armistice hardly fit, indeed, to buy or sell a 
 horse. He is too easily put out of countenance ; he betrays 
 his feelings ; he lets himself be pumped. I got all sorts of 
 things out of him ; for instance, that they have only three or
 
 The Armistice Negotiations. 161 
 
 four weeks' provisions left inside." The Berlin pasty reminded 
 him of the quantity of trout in the Yarzin waters ; and he told 
 us how, some time before, he had caught in a pond, supplied by 
 a few little springs, a five-pound trout, so long (showing us with 
 his hands) : and all the gamekeepers of the neighborhood 
 said that they could not explain how it got there in a natural 
 way. 
 
 In connection with the attitude we shall have to assume 
 about the elections which must be held in France, I take 
 occasion, in the newspapers, to remind people of the follow- 
 ing precedent, which may decide the matter for us, and to 
 which we may ask the attention of those people who consider 
 the exclusion of Elsass-Lothringen from the voting something 
 unprecedented. An American tells us that in the last war be- 
 tween the United States and Mexico an armistice was concluded, 
 with the view of allowing the Mexicans to elect a new Govern- 
 ment, which might make peace with the United States ; and it 
 was stipulated that those provinces which the States wanted 
 given up to them should not take part in the election. This 
 is the only precedent absolutely on all fours with ours, but it 
 certainly appears to be so. ' 
 
 Thursday, November 8. Fine clear weather in the morning. 
 From seven o'clock onwards, the iron lions on Mont Yalerien 
 again growl furiously down into the surrounding wooded valleys. 
 I make extracts for the King from the Morning Post of the 28th 
 and 29th. There are two articles on the Empress Eugenie, which 
 must have been inspired by Persigny or Prince Napoleon. The 
 assertion they make, that in our negotiations with her commis- 
 sioners, only Strassburg and a narrow strip of land in the dis- 
 trict of the Saar, with perhaps a quarter of a million inhabitants, 
 were claimed by us, rests, the Chief tells me, on a misunder- 
 standing. I am told to telegraph that, after the Council of 
 yesterday, the Chancellor offered M. Thiers an armistice for 
 twenty-five days on the basis of the military status quo. 
 
 Thiers came back about twelve and stayed with the Chief till 
 half-past two. The French demands are exorbitant. We learn 
 at breakfast that besides twenty-eight days' armistice, to allow 
 of the elections, of their verification, and of the settlement by the 
 National Assembly, the Provisional Government asks nothing 
 less than the right to re-provision Paris and all the other 
 fortresses at present in their possession and besieged by us, and 
 it requires freedom of election in the eastern Departments to
 
 1G2 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 which we lay claim as our future possessions. Re-provisioning 
 and military status quo differ a good deal from each other, accord- 
 ing to ordinary reasoning. 
 
 At dinner we talked of the Berlin elections, and Delbriick 
 thought they would turn out better than usual, and that 
 Jacoby, at all events, would not be re-elected. Count Bis- 
 marck-Bohlen said he took a different view, a$d expected little 
 improvement. The Chancellor said, " The Berlin people must 
 always be in opposition, arid have their independent opinion. 
 They have their virtues numerous and highly respectable 
 ones. They think things over ; but they would feel themselves 
 very common persons if they could not know everything better 
 than the Government." That, however, he went on to say, was 
 a failing not peculiar to them. All large towns had something 
 of it, and many were much worse than Berlin. They were cer- 
 tainly less practical than the country districts, which had more 
 to do with life, and more direct contact with nature, and 
 which in this way had more correct judgment of what was 
 really possible, better corresponding to the facts as they deve- 
 loped themselves. 
 
 " When so many people live close together," he said, " indi- 
 vidualities naturally fade out and melt into each other. All 
 sorts of opinions grow out of the air, from hearsays, and talk 
 behind people's backs ; opinions with little or no foundation in 
 fact, but which get spread abroad through newspapers, popular 
 gatherings, and talk in beer-shops, and get themselves established 
 and are ineradicable There is a second, false nature, an over- 
 growth on the first, a sort of faith or superstition of crowds. 
 People talk themselves into believing the thing that is not ; con- 
 sider it a duty and obligation to adhere to their belief, and ex- 
 cite themselves about prejudices and absurdities." " It is the 
 same in all big towns. In London, for instance, the Cockneys 
 are a quite different race from the rest of Englishmen. It is 
 the same in Copenhagen in New York, and, above all, in 
 Paris. With their political superstitions they are a very pecu- 
 liar people in France ; narrow and limited in their views, which 
 seem to them to come from some sacred source, but which when 
 looked at closely are mere shifty phrases." How admirably this 
 characterises what our popular democrats and fashionable poets 
 delight to call the " Soul of the People." 
 
 The Minister told us little about Thiers, except that shortly 
 after the commencement of their conversation to-day he had
 
 Two Balloons. 163 
 
 suddenly asked him the question whether he was yet provided 
 with the necessary full powers for carrying on the negotiations. 
 " He looked quite amazed at me, and I told him that our out- 
 posts had reported to us, that after he set out there had been 
 a Revolution in Paris, and that a new government had been 
 summoned into power. He was manifestly startled, and I in- 
 ferred that he considered a victory of the Reds possible, and 
 that Favre and Trochu had no very secure footing." 
 
 Friday, November 4- I n the morning the weather was won- 
 derfully fine and clear. At the request of the Minister I an- 
 swered the mis-statements of an article which appeared in the 
 Daily News about his conversation with Napleon at Donchery. 
 He had spent three-quarters of an hour at the very least inside 
 the weaver's house, in the room above, and was only a very 
 short time outside talking with the Emperor in the open air,, 
 as he told the King in his official report. In his conversation 
 with Napoleon he never struck the forefinger of his left hand 
 into the palm of his right hand, as that was not a trick of his. 
 He did not speak German with the Emperor, " though I have 
 at other times, but not then. I talked German," he said, " with 
 the people of the house, as the husband knew a little of it, and 
 the wife knew it pretty well." 
 
 Thiers is again in conference with the Minister from 
 eleven o'clock. Yesterday he sent his companion, a M. Cochery,. 
 into Paris, to learn whether the Government of September 4r 
 was still in existence ; and the answer given, as we learned at 
 breakfast, was Yes. After Blanqui with his Reds had got pos- 
 session of the Hotel de Ville, and kept some of the members of 
 the ministry prisoners there for several hours, Picard relieved 
 the gentlemen Abeken says with 106 battalions, probably 
 with the 106th battalion and the Government was re- 
 established. 
 
 I was wakened up early with the news that a balloon, com- 
 ing from the north, was passing over the town. As the wind 
 was favorable, a second followed in the afternoon. The first 
 was white, the second was painted the colors of the French Tri- 
 color. Bamberger was with us at dinner. The Chief said, 
 " I notice that the papers are blaming me for putting off the 
 Bombardment ; I am said to wish nothing serious to be done 
 before Paris, and I won't allow firing into the town. Rubbish ! 
 They will some day complain of me as to blame for our losses 
 during the investment, which have certainly not been small.
 
 164 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 We have lost here in little skirmishes more soldiers probably 
 than we should have done had we stormed the place. That is 
 what I wanted, and what I want now." We talked then of 
 what officers of the general staff had previously said, that in 
 thirty-six hours or so they could silence the two or three forts 
 which would be the first objects of attack. Afterwards we 
 spoke again about summoning the Riechstag here, and the 
 Chief remarked that perhaps the Customs Parliament would 
 follow it. Among other things of interest mentioned in the 
 course of dinner, Bohlen told us that an official in Versailles 
 I think he said an attorney-general had been surprised in a 
 correspondence by letter with Paris. How he managed it is 
 not known ; possibly through some secret outlet of the sewers, 
 which are said to run under the Seine as far as here and then 
 across the river to the bank on this side. 
 
 At tea Bismarck-Bohlen entertained us with an anecdote 
 from the outposts. A few days ago a man came to one of the 
 commanding officers here, and went with him into a house, 
 from which he emerged immediately after in the dress of a 
 Frenchman, making his way through the hedges, and at last 
 running clean away. The sentries fired on him, but he managed 
 to get safe to the bridge of Sevres, off which he jumped into the 
 river, and by swimming and wading got to the other side, where 
 he was heartily welcomed by the French as a brave friend 
 of his country. "He is said to be one of our best spies," said the 
 narrator of this anecdote in conclusion.* 
 
 Saturday, November 5. At dinner we had none of the Ex- 
 cellencies at first but Delbriick. Afterwards the Chancellor 
 came in ; he had previously dined with the King. He asked 
 Engel to pour him out a glass of corn-brandy, and then told us of 
 an amusing saying : Not long ago if I am not mistaken it 
 was in Ferri&res a general talking of drinks, had laid down 
 the principle, "Red wine for children, champagne for men, 
 Schnaps for generals." He then complained, as he has often 
 done, that certain eminent personages worry him with all sorts 
 of questions, and make all kinds of claims. Just then a tele- 
 graphic despatch was handed to him which declared that Favre 
 and the other ministers in Paris had got on their high horse 
 
 * This anecdote has a suspicious resemblance to another which was given 
 afterwards by the French papers in which, however, not the French but our 
 people are represented to have been deceived. The hero of the anecdote in 
 that account was called Bonnet, and was a forester.
 
 The Emperor Napoleon in 1866. 165 
 
 again, and proclaimed that there could be no question at pres- 
 ent of any territorial compensation, that the only duty of 
 Frenchmen was the defence of their country. The Chief .said, 
 "Well, that gets us rid of any more negotiations with Thiers." 
 "Yes," said Delbriick ; " with such obstinate imbecility there 
 will naturally be no farther talk about that." After a little the 
 Minister said to Abeken, that Prince Adalbert meant to write 
 to the Emperor (of Russia 1 ?) and proposed to address him as 
 "my cousin," which was not right. Taglioni asked whether 
 the Emperor had first called him so. "Even then he ought not 
 to address him so," said the Chief. "He should call him, 
 perhaps, 'my uncle.'" Many German princes, even those who 
 are not related to him, address the Emperor as " my uncle." 
 Finally he ordered an inquiry to be despatched by telegram to 
 Berlin about the usual form of address. 
 
 Somebody mentioned that excellent wine had been discovered 
 in the Chateau Beauregard, and that it had been confiscated 
 for the troops. Bucher remarked that -this charming estate 
 of the Emperor's had been laid out for Miss Howard. Some- 
 body else said, Yes, but it now belongs to a Duchess or Countess 
 Bauffremont. "That re'minds me of Thiers," said the Min- 
 ister. " He probably means still to write something in 
 history. He protracted our negotiation, perpetually dragging 
 in all sorts of extraneous matter. He told me what he had 
 done or advised on such-and-such an occasion, asked me the 
 real situation of so-and-so, and wanted to know what would 
 have been my course in such-and-such circumstances. He re- 
 minded me, for instance, of a conversation I had with the Due 
 de Bauffremont in the year 1867. I had then said that the 
 Emperor had not understood his game in 1866, that he might 
 have got some advantage for himself, though not in German 
 territory," &c. " That was substantially correct. I remember 
 it ; it was in the gardens of the Tuilleries, and a military band 
 was playing at the moment." In 1866 Napoleon had not the 
 courage to take what in his position he would have been entitl- 
 ed to do. He might have at that time he should have laid 
 hold of what was the subject matter of the Benedetti proposal 
 and held it provisionally as a material guarantee for what 
 might happen. We could not then have prevented him, and it 
 was not likely that England would have attacked him at all 
 events he could have awaited the issue. When we had con- 
 quered, he should have set himself back to back with us,
 
 1G6 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 and encouraged us to proceed to excesses. But" (turning to 
 Delbriick) bending a little forward, and then pulling himself 
 straight again, as his habit is on such occasions, "he is as he 
 continues to be, a Tiefenbacher (a respectable Philistine 
 Schiller's Wallenstein."} 
 
 We hear that Keudell wants to be a deputy if I understand 
 rightly he means to come forward as a candidate in the district 
 of Nieder Barnim. After a conversation with Trochu and 
 Ducrot on the bridge of Sevres, Thiers came back and had a 
 conversation with the Chief, lasting from half-past eight till 
 after half-past nine. At tea it was said that Ducrot and Favre 
 considered our conditions of armistice inadmissible, but that the 
 opinion of their colleagues was to be taken, and that Thiers would 
 bring back the final answer of the Ministry to-morrow morning. 
 
 I interrupt the narrative of my diary to insert here a few 
 matters which may throw light on what was said above about 
 Napoleon and Belgium in 1866. 
 
 That France at that time wanted to acquire Belgium, 
 although in a way requiring less resolution than that indicated 
 above, is well known. An unanswerable proof of the fact was 
 the draft of a treaty on the subject which Benedetti handed to 
 the Chancellor of the Confederation, which was published by 
 the Foreign Office shortly before the outbreak of the war. In 
 his book Ma Mission en Prusse Bennedetti attempted to disavow 
 it. He says there, p. 197 : 
 
 "It will be remembered that on August 5, 1866, I laid be- 
 fore M. de Bismarck the draft of a treaty with reference to 
 the Maine and the left bank of the upper Rhine, and I need 
 not say that M. Rouher refers to this communication in the 
 second paragraph of his letter on the 6th. But it also proves, 
 and this is what it is important to establish against the assertions 
 of M. de Bismarck, that nobody in Paris dreamt of making 
 Belgium pay for the concessions which were indispensable to 
 France, and to use the very words of the Prussian ambassador, 
 ' were due to her.' " 
 
 Count Benedetti was ignorant when lie wrote this that dur- 
 ing the war certain secret papers had fallen into the hands of 
 the German troops, which contradicted him. But the Foreign 
 Office did not hesitate to use this defensive weapon against 
 him. On October 20, 1871, it answered his disavowal pretty 
 much as follows :
 
 France and Belgium. 1G7 
 
 " He (Benedetti) attempts here, and in the following state- 
 ments, to mix up two distinct phases of the protracted nego- 
 tiations which the Prussian Minister President conducted with 
 him during several years. He confounds the demand for a 
 cession of German territory including Mainz, which he address- 
 ed to the Minister President on the 5th and 7th of August 
 1866, with the later demand for Belgium, and attempts to 
 make the papers found in the Tuilleries, and already published, 
 relate solely to the former, though that incident was really 
 closed by the letter he gives on page 181 of his book, addressed 
 by the Emperor to the Marquis de la Yalette. But the differ- 
 ence in his understanding of the two phases is clearly established 
 by his own report, now in the hands of the Foreign Office. 
 He wrote a report on the Maine episode, on August 5, 1866, 
 the first part of which runs thus : 
 
 " ' M. LE MINISTER, 
 
 " ' On my arrival I found your telegraphic despatch 
 awaiting me, in which you communicate the text of the secret 
 agreement, which you instruct me to present for the acceptance 
 of the Prussian Government. Your Excellency may rest 
 assured that I shall spare no effort to secure that all of these 
 instructions are favorably received, however vehement may be 
 the resistance which I am sure to meet. Convinced that the 
 Emperor's government is acting with moderation in confining 
 itself, in view of the future aggrandisements demanded by 
 Prussia, to the stipulations for its own security mentioned in 
 your draft, I should be most unwilling to admit any modifica- 
 tions in it, even to the extent of reporting them to you for 
 your consideration. My opinion is that in this negotiation 
 firmness is the best, I might almost add, the only argument, 
 which I can properly use. I shall show my settled resolution 
 to reject every inadmissible proposal, and I shall do my best to 
 point out that if Prussia denies us the pledges, which the ex- 
 tension of her territories forces us to demand of her, she will 
 be chargeable with refusing to recognize what justice and pru- 
 dent foresight require a task which appears to me easy. 
 Meanwhile, I must also be prudent, and considering the kind 
 of man the Minister President is, I think it best not to be pre- 
 sent the first moment when he discovers for certain that we 
 demand the bank of the Rhine up to and including Mainz. 
 With this view, I have this morning sent him a copy of your
 
 168 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 draft, and written a private letter to accompany it, of which I 
 enclose a copy. I shall try to see him to-morrow morning and I 
 shall inform you of the disposition in which I find him.' " 
 
 This letter was followed by a conversation to which Benedetti 
 briefly refers in his letter, but in such a way as to avoid as far 
 as possible coming forward himself as the narrator; otherwise 
 he could not have helped giving some indication of the fact that 
 he himself approved of the demand made by his Minister, and 
 cordially supported it. He replied to the Minister President's 
 observation that this demand meant War and that he we uld do 
 well to go off at once to Paris to prevent the War, that he 
 would go to Paris, but that it was impossible for him on his 
 own personal conviction, to recommend the Emperor not to per- 
 sist in his demand, as he himself believed that the Dynasty 
 would be in danger if public opinion in France were not satisfi- 
 ed by some such concession on the part of Germany. The last 
 expression of the views of the Minister President, which Bene- 
 detti took with him on his road back to Paris, was something in 
 this fashion. 
 
 " Point out to his Majesty the Emperor that in certain circum- 
 stances such a war might have to be fought with Revolutionary 
 weapons, and that in presence of Revolutionary dangers, the 
 German Dynasties are confident that they would prove them- 
 selves more solidly established than that of the Emperor 
 Napoleon." 
 
 These communications were followed by a letter of with- 
 drawal from the Emperor on the r2th, with which the curtain 
 dropped on the demand for concessions of German territory. 
 Four days afterwards the second act of the drama opens, in- 
 volving Belgium. In a letter dated August 16th, brought to 
 Count Benedetti from Paris by a certain M. Chauvy, which 
 contained " le resume le plus succinct et le plus precis pos- 
 sible " (" the briefest and clearest possible summary ") of his 
 instructions, it is said : 
 
 " 1. The negotiation must be of a friendly nature. 
 
 " 2. It must be essentially confidential (and the persons 
 are expressly named to whom the knowledge of it is to be 
 confined). 
 
 " 3. According to your prospects of success, your demands 
 will pass through three successive stages. You must, in the 
 First place, point out the essential connection between the 
 questions of the boundaries of 1814 and the annexation of
 
 The French Secret Instructions. 160 
 
 Belgium ; you must require the cession of Landau, Saar- 
 Louis, and Saarbriicken, and of the Grand Duchy of Luxem- 
 burg, in a public treaty, and demanded that Prussia shall 
 make a secret treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, one 
 article of which shall authorise us ultimately to incorporate 
 Belgium. Secondly, if it appears to you impossible to secure 
 these bases, you must give up Saar-Louis and Saarbriicken, 
 and even Landau, that wretched old barracks (vieille bicoque} 
 which German sentiment is attempting to set up against us, 
 and confine your public treaty to the Grand Duchy of Luxem- 
 burg, and your private treaty to the incorporation of Belgium 
 with France. Thirdly, if the complete and immediate incorpor- 
 ation of Belgium with France raises too serious difficulties, you 
 must accept an article in which, in order to soothe away the 
 opposition of England, you are to consent to make Antwerp a 
 free town. But you must in no event allow -the interference 
 of Antwerp to Holland, or that Maestricht to Prussia. Should 
 M. de Bismarck ask what advantages such an arrangement 
 offei's him, your answer will be simple ; he acquires for him- 
 self an important ally, he secures all his recent acquisitions, he 
 consents only to the taking away of what does not belong to 
 him in return for the advantages which he wishes, he is not 
 asked to make any important sacrifice. To sum up : an osten- 
 sible treaty whieh concedes at least Luxemburg to us ; a secret 
 agreement for an offensive and defensive alliance, permitting us 
 to incorporate Belgium in which it must be recognised as 
 essential that Prussia shall expressly promise to stand by us, 
 even to the extent of armed support these are the bases of 
 the treaty which you are never to lose out of sight." 
 
 Benedetti replied to this instruction from Paris on August 
 i'3 in a letter which is all in his own handwriting, in which he 
 submitted the sketch of the Treaty which he was charged to 
 negotiate. This sketch is also in his own writing. It is now 
 in the possession of the Foreign Office in Berlin, with the 
 autograph side-notes of the emendations made in Paris. After 
 these alterations it agrees entirely with the copy which Bene- 
 detti laid before the Minister-President, and which he published 
 in the summer of 1870. 
 
 Benedetti's letter of August 23 begins as follows : 
 " I have received your letter, and I conform myself to the best 
 of my abilities to the views it expresses. I send you my draft in 
 this inclostire. I need not tell you why Landau and Saarbriicken
 
 170 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 are not mentioned in it, for I am convinced that if we ventured 
 to include them we should encounter insuperable difficulties, so 
 that I have confined myself to Luxemburg and Belgium." 
 
 In another passage he says : 
 
 "As* a matter of course it is a first draft that I am sending 
 you, and we shall modify it if necessary." 
 
 The letter goes on in another place : 
 
 " You will notice that instead of drafting two agreements I 
 have only sent you one. When I came to write it out I was 
 compelled to recognise that it would have been difficult to ex- 
 press stipulations which could be published about Luxemburg. 
 I might perhaps make the proposal to give Article IV., the one 
 referring to Belgium, the form and character of an article in a 
 Secret Appendix, by putting it at the end. Do you not think, 
 however, that Article V. ought to be as little known as the 
 contracting parties to it ?" 
 
 A draft of the answer to this letter of Count Benedetti's lies 
 in the Foreign Office, also written on official paper. It is 
 obvious from it that Benedetti's draft was approved in Paris, 
 but that it was thought necessary to take a little longer time 
 to turn the matter over. It discusses the case of the King of 
 the Netherlands requiring some compensation for Luxemburg 
 from the territory of Prussia. The pecuniary sacrifices which 
 the treaty may require are weighed. The view is put forward 
 that the right of occupying the Federal fortresses according to 
 former Federal Constitution was extinguished, and that their 
 maintenance in Southern Germany was no longer reconcileable 
 with the independence of the states there. They give up 
 Landau and Saar-Louis, but they point out that it would be " an 
 act of courtesy" if Prussia were, by razing the works in these 
 two fortresses, to take away their aggressive character. It is 
 pointed out at the same time that people in Paris regard the 
 Unification of Germany as an inevitable eventuality which 
 must come to pass pretty soon. Article IV. must not, how- 
 ever, be made absolutely dependent on Article III. It was 
 obvious that the extension of the Supremacy of Prussia beyond 
 the Maine would be to France a natural, almost a compelling 
 reason for making herself mistress of Belgium. But other op- 
 portunities might arise the exclusive right to judge of them 
 must be claimed for her perfectly clear and accurate expres- 
 sions in the draft would preserve for France a liberty in this 
 respect which might be very valuable.
 
 Prussia in search of Allies. 171 
 
 It is repeatedly stated, clearly and precisely, that the acqui- 
 sition of Luxemburg is the immediate, and that of Belgium the 
 ultimate object of the agreement to be made with Prussia, but 
 that this and the Offensive and Defensive alliance are both to 
 be kept secret. The paper goes on to say : 
 
 " This combination puts everything right ; it relieves the 
 strain of public feeling in France by giving it an immediate 
 satisfaction, and by directing the public mind to Belgium, as 
 this action naturally does. It preserves the necessary secrecy, 
 both in respect to the project of alliance and the proposed 
 annexations. Should they be of opinion that even the giving 
 up of Luxemburg ought to remain a secret till the moment 
 Ti-hen we lay our hands on Belgium, you must combat this view 
 by observations in detail. To put off the exchange of territory 
 for a longer or shorter period of indefiniteness might involve a 
 momentous acceleration of the Belgian question." 
 
 At the end of the letter Benedetti is empowered, if he 
 thinks it necessary, to go to Karlsbad for some time. Count 
 Benedetti answered this letter on August 29th. It is at this 
 time that he first expresses his doubt whether they could reckon 
 on Prussia's sincerity in the transaction. He remarks that 
 Count Bismarck had signified to him some doubt whether the 
 Emperor Napoleon might not make use of such negotiations to 
 produce ill-feeling against Germany in England. He remarks 
 upon that, " What sort of reliance can we have on our side on 
 people accessible to such calculations ? " He mentions General 
 Manteuffel's mission to St. Petersburg, and is afraid that 
 ; ' Prussia may have been looking out elsewhere for strengthen- 
 ing alliances, which may enable her not to face the necessity of 
 reckoning with France. Prussia requires as M. de Bismarck 
 asserts that the King once said an alliance with one of the great 
 Powers. If they show themselves disinclined to France, it is 
 because they have another already quite or very nearly ready." 
 In order to wait for light on the subject, Benedetti, thinks the. 
 moment opportune for him to go off for a fortnight to Karlsbad, 
 where he will hold himself in readiness to return to Berlin on 
 the receipt of any telegram whatever from Count Bismarck. 
 During his absence, however, the Minister President also left 
 and did not return till December. 
 
 The secret negotiations accordingly remained in abeyance for 
 several months. They were re-opened later, on various occa- 
 sions, always by Benedetti. In his book he says (p. 184), that
 
 172 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 it is a mistake for M. de Bismarck to displace the negotiations 
 about Belgium in the year 1866, and to put them in 1867 ; but 
 the fact is merely this, that the French ambassador re-opened 
 the negotiations interrupted in the previous year, and the 
 representatives of Prussia took part in them only with the view 
 to put off an attack from France, confining them, however, to 
 Belgium alone after the failure of his attempt on Luxemburg. 
 The attitude of France at the time of the dispute about the 
 Belgian railways, taken along with what has been said, makes it 
 seem not incredible that even at that time she had not given 
 up the hope of procuring the consent of North Germany to her 
 
 favorite project. 
 
 * * * * *'* * * * 
 
 We return to 1870, and to extracts from the chronicle of our 
 life in Versailles : 
 
 Simday, November 6. We learn in the morning that one of 
 the air-balloons which recently escaped, after crossing the town, 
 has fallen into the hands of our hussars at Chartres. The 
 soldiers had hit it, so that it came down. The two aeronauts who 
 were sitting in the car were made prisoners, and the letters and 
 papers, which were confiscated, are to be sent on here for our 
 perusal. 
 
 Monday, November 7. The Chief orders me this morning to 
 telegraph to London : " During five days of negotiation with 
 Thiers, he has been offered an armistice on the basis of the 
 military status quo for any length of time up to twenty-eight 
 days, so as to hold the elections, which were to be allowed even 
 in the occupied portions of France. Ultimately, he was offered 
 permission and facilities for holding the elections even without 
 an armistice. But after further consultation with the Parisian 
 authorities, held in the outpost lines, he was not empowered to 
 accept either. He insisted above all things that Paris should 
 be re-provisioned, but he was unable to offer any military equiva- 
 lent. This demand could not be granted by the Germans for 
 military reasons, and yesterday M. Thiers had orders from Paris 
 to break off the negotiations." 
 
 From other sources we learned the following additional par- 
 ticulars of the course of these events, and the present situation. 
 The order reached Thiers in a short dry letter from Favre, which 
 sent him back to Tours, whither he went to-day. He was very 
 much depressed at the foolish stiff-neckedness of the Minister 
 in Paris with which he himself could not sympathise, and which
 
 The Capture of the Balloons. 173 
 
 seemed not to animate several of the members of the Provisional 
 Government. Favre and Picard, especially the latter, are eager 
 for peace, but are too weak compared with the others to carry 
 their object. Gambetta and Trochu want no elections, as in all 
 probability these would make an end of their domination. This 
 domination is itself, however, on a very weak footing. It may 
 be overthrown in Paris any day, and the provinces are also 
 unsteady in their support. In the South, Marseilles, Toulouse, 
 and a number of Departments no longer recognise the Govern- 
 ment of National Defence, which is not Radical enough for 
 them, that is to say, that it is not Communist. There and 
 everywhere else, among all who belong to tho propertied classes, 
 the prospects of the Imperialist party are steadily improving. 
 
 At table, where we had Major von Alten, Adjutant-Major 
 to the King, Count Bill, and Lieutenant Philip von Bismarck, 
 the Minister's nephew, we talked of the delay of the bombard- 
 ment, and the Chancellor declared the rumor now going the 
 round of the newspapers, that he did not want it, while the 
 military authorities were urging it on, to be thoroughly " un- 
 reasonable and inexplicable." "It is just the other way," he 
 said. " Nobody urges and presses it more than I do, and it is 
 the military people who do not want to begin. A great part of 
 my correspondence is spent on the effort to remove the scruples 
 and objections of the military authorities." 
 
 The conversation seemed to make it clear that the artillery 
 still wanted more preparation, and that they thought they had 
 not enough ammunition. Some one spoke of ninety wagon 
 loads every day. At Strassburg, too, they had insisted on more 
 than was really needed, and in the end, though they used up an 
 enormous quantity of powder and shot, two-thirds of the accumu- 
 lated ammunition was left over. Alten said that if we had 
 occupied the forts we should have been exposed to the fire of 
 the enceinte, and would have had to begin everything over again. 
 " It may be so," said the Minister, " but in that case it ought 
 to have been well known to them beforehand, for there is no 
 Fortification with which we have been so thoroughly well 
 acquainted from the time the war began as with Paris." 
 
 Some one said that two air-balloons had been caught, in the 
 one of which two prisoners had been taken, and in the other 
 three. The Chief said that there was no doubt that they must 
 be treated as spies. 
 
 Alten said that they would be brought before a military
 
 174 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 tribunal, and the Chief replied, " Then certainly nothing will 
 be done with them." He then spoke of Count Bill's being so 
 well in health, and so strong, and that at his years 'he himself 
 had been slim and lean. 
 
 Tuesday, November 8. A telegram was sent off in the 
 morning to order the persons captured in the air-balloons to be 
 sent on to a Prussian fortress, and then brought before a mil- 
 itary tribunal, and further stating that the letters confiscated 
 in the balloon car compromised diplomatists and other persons 
 to whom communication with outside Paris had been hitherto 
 allowed out of respect to their Position and their sense of 
 honor. This communication, an article founded on these facts 
 said, could no longer be permitted. 
 
 About half-past ten, when we were at breakfast, the Chief 
 received a visit from an elderly gentleman wearing a silk cloak 
 and a scarlet cap, with a scarf of the same color. He was 
 Archbishop Ledochowski from Posen, and we should have 
 liked to know whether his business was about the Pope's offer 
 to intervene in our interests with the French Government. 
 Probably they hope in that way to procure an intervention of 
 the German Government in the interests of the Pope. The 
 Archbishop stayed till about three o'clock, and after he left the 
 Chief went off to the King. He dined afterwards with the 
 Crown Prince, where the Grand Duke of Baden, who had just 
 arrived, was also dining. 
 
 Wednesday, November 9. A broken and cloudy day. I 
 wrote an article. Then we read, marked, and made extracts 
 from the Times, as usual. It was pleasant to come across 
 passages in the Kolnische like : " The tooth of Time has 
 peopled the walls with moss." A picturesque writer wrote : 
 " The great ditch at Sedan, whose grey lips shut themselves 
 down in thunder on the greatness of France." Well roared, 
 lion! 
 
 In the evening L. tells us that Chateaudun has again been 
 evacuated by our troops, and occupied by the vanguard of the 
 French ; and he believes he knows that there was a sortie of 
 the Parisians to-day against the part of our line held by the 
 Bavarians. 
 
 At tea the rumor was mentioned that the influence of ladies 
 had contributed to put off the bombardment. After half-past 
 ten the Chief came to us out of the salon, where he had been 
 talking with the Bavarian general, von Rothmer, and had, it
 
 Where ivill the Pope retire to? 175 
 
 appears, been discussing military questions in connection with 
 the larger Unity of Germany, which is now in progress. He 
 stayed perhaps an hour with us. When he sat down he called 
 for a glass of beer. Then he sighed, and said, " I wished once 
 more to-day, as I have often wished before, that I could say for 
 even five minutes, this is to be or it is not to be. One has to 
 bother about whys and wherefores, to convince people, to entreat 
 them even about the simplest matters what a worry is this 
 eternal talking and begging for things !" 
 
 Hatzfeld asked, "Has your Excellency noticed that the 
 Italians have broken into the Quirinal ?" " Yes," said the 
 Chief, " and I am curious to see what the Pope will do. Will 
 he leave the country, and where will he go ? He has already 
 asked us to ascertain for him from Italy whether she would 
 allow him to leave the country, and whether it might be done 
 in a reasonably dignified way. We did so, and they replied 
 that they would be careful throughout to respect his position, 
 and would act in the same way if he determined to leave 
 Italy/' 
 
 " They would be very unwilling to let him go," said Hatz- 
 feld. " It is for their interest that he should remain in Rome." 
 The Chief said, " Certainly ; but perhaps he may have to go, 
 notwithstanding. Then where will he go to 1 Not to France, 
 for Garibaldi is there. He does not wish to go to Austria. 
 There is Spain, of course. I offered him to Bavaria. He 
 thought for a moment, and then said, ' There is nothing left for 
 him but Belgium, or North Germany.' In fact, we have 
 often been asked whether we could secure him an asylum. I 
 have no objection to the Cologne or Fulda. It would be an ex- 
 traordinary turn, but it would not be an unlikely one, and for 
 us it would be a great advantage that we should appear to the 
 Catholics as we really are, the only power in the present day 
 willing and able to offer security to the supreme prince of their 
 church. Then Stofflet and Charette and their Zouaves might 
 at once go home. Every pretext for the opposition of the 
 Ultraniontanes would disappear ; and in Belgium and Bavaria r 
 too, Malinkrott would have to support the Government." 
 
 "People with lively imaginations, especially women, when: 
 they are in Rome, with the incense and the splendor of Catho- 
 licism about them, and the Ppjpe on his Throne dispensing; 
 blessings, feel an inclination to become Catholics. In Germany, 
 where they would have the Pope before their eyes as an old
 
 176 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 man in want of help, a good kind gentleman, one of the bishops 
 eating and drinking like the others, taking his pinch, perhaps 
 even smoking his cigar, there would be no such great danger. 
 And, finally, even if some people in Germany did go back to 
 Catholicism there would not be much to grieve about, as long 
 as they continued good Christians. People's confessions don't 
 make the difference, but their beliefs. One ought to be toler- 
 ant." He developed these views further in the most interest- 
 ing way, but I cannot reproduce it here. 
 
 Then we turned to other matters. Hatzfeld said that his 
 Highness of Coburg had fallen off his horse. " Fortunately 
 without hurting himself," added Abeken, who had just hurried 
 in, with a happy look on his face. The Chief was tempted 
 to tell us about similar misfortunes which had befallen 
 himself. 
 
 " I believe," he remarked, " that if I say that I have fallen 
 off my horse fifty times I am not up to the mark. To fall off 
 your horse is nothing, but it is bad to fall with him, and to have 
 him lying on the top of you. The last time I had that was in 
 Varzin, when I broke three of my ribs. I thought then 
 that it was all over. There was not so much danger as ap- 
 peared, but it was frightfully painful." 
 
 " Once before, I had a remarkable tumble, which proves 
 how people's power of thinking depends on the matter of the 
 brain. I was on the road home with my brother, and we were 
 riding as fast as the horses would go. Suddenly my brother, 
 who was a little in front, heard a frightful crack. It was my 
 head, which had knocked on the road." 
 
 " My horse had shied at the lantern of a wagon which was 
 coming up, and reared backwards, and fallen with me, on its 
 own head. I lost consciousness, and when I came out of this 
 state it was only a half recovery, that is to say, a part of my 
 thinking machinery was quite clear and sound, but the other 
 half was not there. I felt over my horse, and found that the 
 saddle was broken. Then I called my groom, ordered him to 
 give me his horse, and rode home. When the dogs there bark- 
 ed at me a friendly greeting I took them for strange dogs, 
 and was vexed with them, and scolded them. Then I said that 
 the groom had fallen with the horse, and that he must be 
 brought back on a litter. I was very angry when, on a sign 
 from my brother, they did not carry out niy orders. Did they 
 mean to leave the poor man lying in the road? I did not know
 
 Suspended Brain Power. 177 
 
 that I was myself, and that I had got home, or rather I was 
 myself and the groom at the same time. I then asked for some- 
 thing to eat, and went to bed. In the morning, after I had 
 slept it off, I was all right. It was a singular case ; I had look- 
 ed at the saddle, had got myself another horse, and had done 
 other things like that, everything, in fact, that was practical 
 and necessary. In all this the fall had produced no confusion 
 in my ideas. It is a curious example to show what different 
 powers of the mind the brain accommodates. Only one of mine 
 was benumbed for any length of time by the fall. " 
 
 "I remember another tumble. I was riding fast through 
 young brushwood in a great forest, a good bit away from home. 
 I wanted to get on by a near cut right through the wood, but I 
 fell, with my horse, and lost consciousness. I must have lain 
 there three hours or so, insensible, for it was getting dark when 
 I woke up. The horse was standing close by. The locality, 
 as I told you, was quite away from our property, and unfami- 
 liar. I had not yet properly recovered my faculties; but I did 
 what was necessary here, too. I loosened the martingale, which 
 was in two bits, put it in my pocket, and rode off by a way 
 which, as I then understood, was the nearest it crossed a river 
 by a pretty long bridge to a neighboring farm, where the 
 tenant's wife ran away when she saw a big man ride up with 
 his face covered with blood. But the husband came out and 
 washed the blood off. I told him who I was, and that I had 
 ten or twelve miles to ride to get home, that I was not very 
 able to do it, and that I should like him to drive me over which 
 he did. I must have stumbled forward fifteen paces when I 
 came to the ground and tumbled over the root of a tree. When 
 the doctor examined my hurts, he said it was contrary to all 
 professional rules that I had not broken my neck. " 
 
 Thursday, November 10, Winter is upon us, and it has been 
 snowing, with a rather low temperature, for several hours in 
 succession. In the morning the Chief tells me to telegraph 
 that there have already been calamitous results for the poor, 
 and that more are to be anticipated from the Provisional Gov- 
 ernment's deliberate misappropriation of the funds of Savings 
 Banks and of corporations for the purposes of the war. After- 
 wards I am to study for my own information the documents 
 relating to the unsuccessful peace negotiations. 
 
 Thiers has put on record how he and the Ministers of 
 France whom he represented understood the basis of the
 
 178 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 armistice which was to have been made. Their line was as 
 follows : The object of the agreement was to be to put an end 
 as soon as possible to the eflusion of blood and to summon a 
 National Assembly, which, as expressing its wishes, would re- 
 present France before the Powers of Europe, and which might 
 sooner or later conclude a treaty of peace with Prussia and her 
 allies. The armistice would have to last twenty-eight days at 
 least, twelve of which would be needed for summoning the 
 electors, one for the voting on the candidates, five for the 
 assembling of those elected in some place to be determined on, 
 and ten for the validation of the elections and the constitution 
 of a Bureau. The place of meeting might for the present be 
 Tours. Free and undisturbed elections must be permitted, even 
 in the districts of France at present occupied by the German 
 armies. Military operations must stop on both sides, but both 
 sides were to be permitted to bring up recruits, to undertake 
 defensive works, and to construct camps. The armies were to 
 be allowed to supply themselves by any means at their disposal, 
 but requisitions must cease, " being a war measure which must 
 necessarily stop with hostilities." The fortified places were to 
 have liberty to re-provision themselves for the period of the 
 armistice, in proportion to the numbers of the population and 
 garrison shut in. With this object, Paris was to be supplied, 
 by four specified railways, with cattle and various other neces- 
 saries as follows: 54,000 oxen, 80,000 sheep, 8,000 swine, 
 5,000 calves, and the necessary fodder for these animals, con- 
 sisting of 400,000 tons of hay and straw ; 5,000 tons of salted 
 beef, 10,000 tons of meal, 1,500 tons of dried vegetables, 100,- 
 000 tons of coals, 640,000 cubic yards of wood for fuel : the 
 population of Paris being reckoned for the purposes of this 
 calculation at 400,000 of a garrison, and 2,700,000 to 2,800,- 
 000 within the lines of investment. 
 
 These demands of the French were not to be listened to. If 
 the Germans had conceded them, they would have given away 
 the larger and better half of the advantages they had secured 
 by great efforts and sacrifices during the seven weeks just past. 
 In other words, they would have put themselves back in essen- 
 tially the game position as on September 19th, the day when 
 our troops completed the investment. We were to let Paris 
 be supplied with provisions, though she was then suffering from 
 want, and would soon be driven of necessity, either to endure 
 a famine or to surrender. We were to give up our operations,
 
 Why ilie Negotiations Failed. 179 
 
 at the very time when Prince Frederick Charles's army had just, 
 been set free, by the fall of Metz, for further operations, 
 which could be prosecuted with still greater effect. We were 
 to sit still and permit the levies and the recruiting, by which 
 the French Republic hoped to create a new army for itself in 
 the field, to go quietly on while our own army was in no want 
 of recruits. While we were asked to allow Paris and the rest 
 of the French fortresses to re-provision themselves, we were to 
 leave our army to supply itself without the requisitions per- 
 mitted in an enemy's country. All these demands we were to 
 concede, without our opponents offering us a single military or 
 political equivalent such, for instance, as the evacuation of 
 one of several of the forts round Paris, as the price of allow- 
 ing it to be re-provisioned ; and without their putting forward 
 any assured prospect of peace. To procure through the 
 armistice a general election of a Constituent Assembly to re- 
 store order and establish a government such as all might recog- 
 nize, the object which Thiers' memorial puts forward as the first 
 thing to be got by it, would certainly be far more in the in- 
 terest of the French than in ours. When we remember the 
 inflamed state of the public mind in France, kept up by the 
 continual stimulating proclamations of the Provisional Govern- 
 ment, it is impossible to feel that there was any security for us. 
 If the existing Government had really wished the elections, 
 they could have obtained what they wished without the elabor- 
 ate apparatus of an armistice. 
 
 With such proposals, it was useless for the Germans even to 
 begin to treat. Everything must be put quite differently : and 
 the Chancellor accordingly offered M. Thiers an armistice on 
 the basis of the military statics quo, to last for twenty-five to 
 twenty-eight days, and which the French might employ in 
 quietly calling their electors together, and in summoning the 
 resulting Constituent Assembly. This itself was a concession on 
 our side, all the advantages of which were with the French. If, as 
 Thiers asserted, Paris was really supplied with provisions and 
 other necessaries for several months and this was scarcely 
 doubtful about the one article of meal it was not intelligible 
 how the Provisional Government should have allowed the ne 
 gotiations for an armistice, which at the worst prevented the 
 French from making further sorties, to break down on this 
 question of the reprovisioning of Paris. France would have 
 had the immense advantage of confining the otherwise inevit-
 
 180 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 able occupation of French territory, which the army just set 
 free after the siege of Metz was preparing to accomplish, within 
 a line of demarcation. Thiers, however, rejected this very liberal 
 offer, and insisted on regarding the re-provisioning of Paris as 
 the condition sine qud non of an agreement. He was not even 
 ultimately authorized to offer any military equivalent for it, 
 such as the evacuation of one of the forts of Paris. 
 
 As we were going in to dinner, the Chief told us that theMin- 
 ister of war was seriously ill. He was feeling very weak and 
 had not been able to get up for fourteen days past. Afterwards 
 he joked about the washing water in the house " The occupants 
 of the water pipes here seem to have their seasons like other 
 people. First come the centipedes, which I don't like at all, 
 with their hundred feet going all together ; then there are the 
 cockroaches, which I can't bear to touch, though they are 
 harmless creatures enough I would rather handle a serpent ; 
 then we have the leeches. I found a quiet little one to-day, 
 which had rolled itself up like a button. I tried to develop 
 him, but he would not move, and remained a mere button. At 
 last I poured spring water over his back, when he pulled him- 
 self out as long and as fine as a needle and got away." We 
 then talked of all sorts of simple dainties, none the less excel- 
 lent on that account : herring, fresh and salt, new potatoes, 
 spring butter, &c. The Minister said to Delbriick, who paid 
 his tribute also to these good things, "The sturgeon is a fish 
 which is not appreciated, though it is thought much of in 
 Russia, and is getting more in favor with us. In the Elbe, for 
 instance, about Magdeburg, it is constantly caught, but it is 
 eaten only by fishermen and poor people." He then explained 
 his own preferences, and came to talk of caviare, the different 
 kinds of which he characterised with the feeling of an amateur. 
 After a while he said : "How many points of resemblance there 
 are between these Gauls and the Slavs! It struck me to-day 
 again very forcibly, after the snow. The same broad streets, 
 the same closely-packed houses, the same frequently flat roofs, 
 as in Russia. Nothing but the green-onion looking church 
 spires is wanting. And there are other points. The verst and the 
 kilometre, and the ardschine and the mHre are the same. There 
 is the same tendency to centralisation, the same absolute iden- 
 tity in everybody's views, the same Communistic strain in the 
 National character." He then spoke of the wonderful world of 
 to-day, which turned everything that used to stand on its feet-
 
 Cups and Puzzle-bottles. 181 
 
 upside down, and showed the roost extraordinary displacement 
 of relations." "When one thinks of it," he said, "that the 
 Pope may perhaps end his days in a little Protestant town in 
 Germany" ("Bradenburg on the Havel," interposed Bohlen) 
 " that the Pveichstag may be in Paris, the Corps Legislatif in 
 Cassel, that in spite of Mentana Garibaldi is a French general, 
 that Papal Zouaves are fighting side by side with him ;" and he 
 enlarged a while longer on the same subject. 
 
 " To-day I had a letter from Metternich," he said suddenly. 
 " He wants me to let Hoyos go in to bring out the Austrians in 
 Paris. I told him that since October 25th they have been 
 allowed to come out, but that we now let nobody whomsoever 
 go in not even a diplomatist. Nor do we receive any in 
 Versailles, only I would make an exception in his case. He 
 will then probably bring up once more the Austrian claims on 
 the Confederation property in the German fortresses." 
 
 We spoke about doctors and the way in which Nature occas- 
 sionally puts herself to rights ; and the Chief said that once when 
 he had been on a hunting party for two days, with the Duke 
 of (I could not catch the name), he had been " all wrong there 
 in his inner man." " Even the two days' hunting and the fresh 
 air did nothing for me. I went the day after to the cuirassiers 
 at Brandenburg, who had been getting a new cup" (I think he 
 added that they were celebrating a jubilee). "I was to drink 
 out of it first and handsel it, and then it was to go round. It 
 might hold a bottle. I held my breath, drank it to the last 
 drop, and set it down empty. I astonished them greatly, for 
 they don't expect much from men of the pen. But it was the 
 Gottingen way. The remarkable thing, though perhaps there 
 was little in it, was that I was never so right inside as in the 
 four weeks after that. I tried to cure myself in the same way 
 on other occasions, but I had never again so delightful a success. " 
 " I remember too, once when we were with the Letzlingen hunt, 
 under Frederick William IV., one of these puzzle bottles, of the 
 time of Frederick William I., was emptied at a draught. It 
 was a staghorn, so made that the drinker could not put the 
 mouth of the horn, which might hold three-quarters of a bottle, 
 to his lips, and yet he was not allowed to spill a single drop. I 
 took it up and emptied it, though it was very dry champagne, 
 and not a single drop went on my white wasitcoat. The com- 
 pany stared when I said, 'Another.' But the King said, ' No, 
 there mu.st be no more,' and the thing had to remain so."
 
 182 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 " Formerly, feats of that sort were the indispensable passports 
 into the diplomatic service. They drank the weak-headed ones 
 below the table, then they asked them all sorts of things, which 
 they wanted to know, and forced them to make all sorts of con- 
 cessions which they had no authority to make. They then made 
 them sign their names, and when the poor fellows got sober 
 they could not imagine how their signatures got there." 
 
 The Minister then remarked, though I forget what occasioned 
 him to do so, that all the families in Pomerania which rose to 
 the rank of Count died out. " The country cannot tolerate the 
 name," 'he added. "I know ten or twelve families with whom 
 it has been so." He mentioned some, and went on to say, "So 
 I struggled hard against it at first. At last I had to submit, 
 but I am not without my apprehensions, even now. 
 
 When the roast came on, the Chief asked, " Is it horse 1 ?" One 
 of us at the table said, "No, it is beef." He said that it was 
 very "odd that people won't eat horseflesh unless they are 
 forced to do so, like the people inside Paris, who will soon have 
 nothing else left. The reason, perhaps, is that the horse seems 
 to come nearer to us than any other animal. "When he is 
 riding, the man is almost one with the horse. 
 
 " ! Ich hatt' einen Kameraden. 
 Als war's ein Stuck von mir.' 
 
 ('I had a comrade, who was like a piece of myself.) It is 
 nearest us in intelligence. It is the same thing with the dog. 
 Dog-flesh must taste well enough, but we never eat it." One of 
 the gentlemen expressed himself unfavorably, and another said 
 a word for dog-steaks. The Chief went on with his parable : 
 "The liker anything is to us, the less can we eat it. It must be 
 very loathsome to have to eat monkeys, which have hands so 
 like men's." Somebody reminded him that the South American 
 savages ate monkeys, and then we began to talk about cannibals. 
 "Yes," he said, "but that must have been commenced at first 
 through hunger, and I believe I have read that they prefer 
 women, who are, at least, not of their own sex. Man really 
 does not care for the food of many animals, savage brutes, for 
 instance, like lions and wolves. To be sure he likes bears, but 
 they live rather on vegetable than on animal food. I can't eat 
 a bit of a fowl which takes on fat, not even its eggs." 
 
 Friday, November 11. This morning, to judge from the noise 
 of a furious cannonade by Ballerjan (Valerien), coming from the
 
 Fate of a German Journalist. 183 
 
 north-west, our friends of the 46th are in particularly bad tem- 
 per, and seem to be spitting back fire and flame. On our side 
 we are always the same tame set, without a bark in our voice. 
 The chief tells me to telegraph the capture of Neu Breisach, 
 and wishes me to speak to the English correspondent, Robert 
 Conningsby, who has asked him for an audience as the corres- 
 pondent of several newspapers. I was to tell him that the Chan- 
 cellor regretted he had no time to spare. Then he handed me the 
 Brussels Indiscrete. " " There is a wonderful biography of me 
 there, which is extremely comical. They would find it as true 
 to my character as the pictures are to the text which they 
 illustrate. Possibly something in it might be made use of for 
 our own papers " (Frederick the Great also made lampoons on 
 himself more accessible to the public). 
 
 At breakfast we learned that Orleans was again evacuated 
 by our troops, and that the Bavarians there under von der 
 Tann were 16,000. and the French 40,000 strong. "No oiat- 
 ter. " said Bohlen ; " the day after to-morrow Prince Frederick 
 Charles will be thef e, and the Gauls will be cut to pieces. " 
 
 The Chief is not with us to-day. All day long we have 
 changeable weather. Sometimes it is sleet or snow, then there 
 is blue sky and the sun comes out. In the evening L. brings 
 us the news that HofT. the writer, who was formerly associated 
 with him as editor of the Nouvelliste, has poisoned himself, and 
 is to be buried to-morrow. He had been warned by the com- 
 mandant of the town to leave Versailles immediately for hav- 
 ing complained a few weeks before, in a letter to the National 
 Zeitung from the seat of war, that the English correspondents 
 were more favored at headquarters than the Germans which, 
 by the way, was the fact, though it was not our fault in the 
 Rue de Provence. Iloff was the son of an eminent Baden 
 member of parliament, and brother of the Dtisseldorf painter. 
 He wrote also in the Hamburger A'achrichten, and in the 
 Augsburger A.llgemeine Zeitung, and since 1864 always in a 
 patriotic sense. The Grand Duke of Baden, to whom he had 
 appealed, or the people about him, had said they could do noth- 
 ing, and the poor fellow felt himself threatened with disgrace, 
 and saw his means of livelihood cut off as he would lose his place 
 as a correspondent by being sent away from here. When I 
 told him the story the Chief remarked, "It is a great pity, but 
 he was a fool for his pains; if he had applied to me he would 
 have been let off. "
 
 184 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 Bohlen, who seemed in a particularly communicative mood 
 to-day, told us several pleasant stories about the personages in 
 the Hotel cles Reservoirs, ending with an anecdote of our Min- 
 ister, which I may note, though I imagine that the story-teller 
 has imported into it a little of his own, or I should rather say, 
 given it his own tone. Be that as it may, the Count told us 
 that a woman had come to the Minister at Commercy to com- 
 plain that her husband had been put in prison for having struck 
 a hussar in the back with his spade. The Minister looked pleas- 
 ant, and heard her story out, and said my authority " when 
 she had done, he said to her, in the kindliest tone, 'My good 
 woman, you may take my word for it, that your husband and 
 he drew his fingers around his throat will be hanged at once." 
 
 The new Impei'ialist journal Sitiiation may have its faults, 
 but it has some merits. What it said a few days ago about 
 Garibaldi's intervention in this war, for instance, is perfectly 
 correct. " Gambetta's presence in Tours," it writes. " has 
 inspired some confidence there. It is hoped that he may infuse 
 a little activity into the defence. In the meantime the first 
 act of the so-called young Dictator has made no particular im- 
 pression. It is the nomination of Gaiibaldi as Commander-in- 
 Chief of the Francs-Tireurs in the East. Garibaldi has never 
 been regarded in France as a serious phenomenon. He will be 
 looked upon as a general of the Comic Opera, and people are 
 impatiently asking themselves, ' Have we really fallen so low 
 that we have to go to this political theatre-puppet for help ? ' 
 Under pretext of awakening enthusiasm and putting vigor 
 into the nation, its self-respect is cruelly wounded. But it 
 must be remembered that the people who have undertaken to 
 govern us are advocates, fond of pompous discourses, high- 
 sounding phrases and coups de thedtre. The nomination of 
 Garibaldi is one of those stage effects which can be tricked 
 out in effective language. In 'the mouth of the Government of 
 the National Defence, it signifies the Union of Free Nations, 
 the Solidarity of Republiog. It is possible, however, that M. 
 Gambetta, worried by Garibaldi's ways, and not liking his 
 presence in Tours, where he might easily have become a cause 
 of dissension, may have despatched him to the East, merely to 
 get him out of his own road. We are very doubtful whether he 
 will accomplish anything, but these people, who are never at a 
 loss for an argument, say, ' His is a name of glory,' and think 
 that that answers all objections."
 
 Arnim Boitzenburg. 185 
 
 Saturday November 12. A clear sky in the morning. The 
 Chief is complimented with an hour's early military music. I 
 am summoned afterwards to receive his instructions. I draw 
 reports on the past history of Cluseret, the old soldier of the 
 Red Revolution, who is now to organise the forces of resistance 
 of the Southern Federation which is about to be created ; and I 
 give him again the numbers of the French soldiers who have 
 fallen into our hands as prisoners since the capitulation of Metz, 
 so that the Chief may see them at a glance. Nearly 14,000 
 men surrendered at Schlettstadt, Fort Mortier, Neu Breisach, 
 Le Bourget, Montereau, Verdun, and in several smaller affairs, 
 and are now on their road to Germany. , 
 
 Wollmann, who has just arrived, is at breakfast. At dinner 
 we have Dr. Lauer with us. We have smoked salmon, Pom- 
 eranian goose-breast an institution of Bucher's, who has 
 had it as a love-gift from Rodbertus Magdeburg sauerkraut, 
 and Leipzig larks probably also presents from home. The 
 Chief is called away when the salmon is on the table. He goes 
 back through the salon and comes back through the one door 
 opening on the hall, accompanied by an officer in Prussian uni- 
 form, wearing a big beard, into the dining-room, through 
 which they then go into the salon. We hear that the officer is 
 the Grand Duke of Baden. After about ten minutes the Min- 
 ister comes back to us. 
 
 We happened to speak of Arnim Boitzenburg, the ex-minis- 
 ter. The Chief said that he had been his own predecessor in 
 Aachen. He described him as " amiable and talented, but 
 disinclined for any steady work or energetic action." " Like 
 an indiarubber ball, which goes up and down, bounding and 
 rebounding, always getting feebler, till it stops altogether. 
 First he had an opinion, then it got weaker when he had to 
 meet his own objections, then an objection to his objections 
 occurred to him, till in the end there was nothing left, and the 
 whole thing came to an end." Delbriick said the son-in-law 
 was a well-trained and ingenious man, but thought he was 
 wanting in sympathy and energy. " Yes," the Chief said ; 
 " there is not much of the rocket at the back of him." He 
 added : " Otherwise he has a good head ; but his reports, this 
 way to-day, that way to-mora-ow, often with two essentially 
 different views on the same day, there is no relying on 
 him/' 
 
 From Arnim's want of ambition somebody took occasion to
 
 186 Bismarck in the Franco-Germa;i War. 
 
 bring us round to the subject of titles and orders, and Abeken 
 took eager part in it as a connoisseur and amateur of these de- 
 licacies, sitting all the time bent in two, and with his eyes 
 drooped, only casting a sidelong glance now and then in the di- 
 rection of the Minister. The Chief said that his first decoration 
 had been the medal of the Humane Society, for taking a servant 
 out of the water. " I became an Excellency first, " he said, 
 "in the castle yard at Konigsberg in 1861. I was one in 
 Frankfort certainly ; not a Prussian, but a Confederation Ex- 
 cellency. The German Princes had decided that every ambas- 
 sador from a Confederated parliament must be an Excellency. 
 However I did not concern myself much about it, and I have 
 not thought much of these matters since. I was a man of rank 
 without the title. " 
 
 Sunday, November 13. The Minister stayed in bed an un- 
 commonly long time to-day, and he did not go to church. He 
 appeared to be nervous and in bad form, perhaps a consequence 
 of last night. Ate only his soup and a little ragout with us be- 
 fore going off in his general's uniform, and with his helmet and 
 several orders on, to dine with the King. In the evening he 
 told me to contradict the false report in a South German paper, 
 that Count Arnim had been on a visit to headquarters before 
 he left for Rome. 
 
 I made a note the day before yesterday of an instance illus- 
 trating the way in which the French calumniate us. To-day I 
 happened, in the newspapers, upon a collection of examples of 
 their lying throughout this war. The compiler has sent the Post 
 the sum total of the men whom the war has cost us according 
 to the French bulletins. It is impossible to believe one's eyes 
 when one sees what marvellous execution chassepots and 
 mitrailleuses have done among our troops. According to these 
 reports we lost, up to the end of October, neither more nor 
 fewer than about a couple of millions of men, and they include 
 a crowd of distinguished and illustrious names. Prince Al- 
 brecht, Prince Karl, Prince Friedrich Karl, and the Crown 
 Prince are dead, carried off by shots or illness. Treskow has 
 been cut down ; Moltke is buried ; the Duke of Nassau died 
 the death of a hero for his country though he has never happened 
 to be in the field ; the Chancellor of the Confederation fell shot, 
 or cut down by sabres, trying to appease a mutiny among the 
 the Bavarian troops ; the King, tortured by his conscience for 
 having brought the scourge of war on the "holy soil" of France,
 
 Governmental Shipwreck of France. 187 
 
 f 
 
 has become insane. And these shameless liars presume, with 
 no very striking wit, to call L.'s Jfoniteur, Menteur. 
 
 Monday, November 14 The Chief is not well, and not to be 
 seen till dinner-time. At tea Hatzfeld tells us that the attitude 
 of Russia causes him anxiety. She seems to wish to take the 
 opportunity of the present war to annul the Peace of 1856, 
 and serious consequences may follow. I wonder whether the 
 Chief takes the same view ? 
 
 From the numerous entries in the old papers one might con- 
 clude that the French had lost all political sense, and spoke only 
 from passion and infatuation. Yet there are exceptions, pos- 
 sibly many, who not yet having taken leave of their five senses, 
 are still in a condition to use their reason. A letter which is to 
 be published in the Moniteur one of these days, expresses ideas 
 which look as if the writer might be one of these exceptions. 
 It is a little rhetorical, but the meaning is intelligible enough. 
 
 "How are we to get out of the blind alley into which France 
 has run herself ] A great country dismembered, split to pieces, 
 paralysed by the government in possession, and even more so by 
 disorders which are of its own making ; a whole nation without 
 a government, without a supreme authority, without a recog- 
 nised central power, without a man who can represent it or who 
 can speak for it that is our situation. Can it go on forever 1 
 Assuredly not. But how are we to get out of it 1 That is the 
 question every intelligent man is asking himself, a question put 
 to us on all sides, and to which no answer seems to be forth- 
 coming. But an answer must be found, must be found soon, 
 and must be decisive. 
 
 " When we ask what authority is left standing after this 
 terrible shipwreck, there is only one to which the country can 
 cling, as its last hope we mean the General Councils. They 
 are the only authorities to which France can rally in her desper- 
 ate condition, because at present they are the only authorities 
 emanating from the nation. From their constitution, through 
 the experience and social distinction of the men who are mem- 
 bers of them, and their knowledge of the wants, the interests 
 and the feelings of the people in each of the departments which 
 they represent, and among whom they live, these bodies are 
 .alone in a position to exercise an undisputed moral influence on 
 those from whom they received their mandate. 
 
 "But what part can the General Councils take in our present 
 relations 1 It appears to me that their part is prescribed to
 
 188 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 them by the position of affairs. Let them meet in each of our 
 departments, and associate with themselves the deputies chosen 
 at the last election. Let them use all possible means both in 
 the departments still free, and in those occupied by German 
 forces, to meet each other in different localities, and to come to 
 a common understanding. Let them issue a distinct and intel- 
 ligible proclamation appealing to the sober senses of the masses 
 of the people. (And certainly it will not be easy to bring so 
 many bodies to a single plan and a common profession of faith ; 
 and it will, at all events, take some time.) Let a universal 
 vote, an expression of the national will be asked for and organ- 
 ised. The nation, whose sovereignty is appealed to, has by 
 three solemn decisions, set aside one goverment ; it belongs to 
 it alone to say clearly what it has done, and, if necessary to 
 choose another government. Who could dare to dispute its 
 right 1 Who could venture, without justification, to substitute 
 himself for the country and to take upon himself to decide on 
 the destinies of the nation without its instructions ? 
 
 "I know the objections that will be raised. I know well 
 enough what difficulties and dangers this magnificent mani- 
 festation of the public will would encounter. But it must be 
 made in spite of them, for there is no other way out. It is a 
 sorrowful truth, but it must be spoken, for it is the fact. I am 
 convinced that it is just in the departments now occupied by the 
 Germans that the public will would find its fullest and freest ex- 
 pression. The reason is that the Germans have as deep an 
 interest as we have in speedily obtaining an enduring peace, 
 and that nothing but their presence will be sufficient to prevent 
 agitators from falsifying through violence the free expression of 
 the national will. As for the other departments those parts of 
 France where every element of disorder and anarchy is at present 
 active and dominant even there, I believe that the free expres- 
 ion of the national will, whatever it may be, is still possible. Do 
 we not know that the agitators, the terrorists, the elements of 
 destruction and intimidation are everywhere yes, everywhere, 
 even in Paris, their headquarters in a contemptible minority 
 (which however, is active and audacious, while the reasonable 
 people, the friends of order, will venture nothing, and leave things 
 to take their course), and that it has always sufficed to throw 
 these people back into their original nothingness, when those 
 who wish things to go in a well-ordered way choose to come 
 forward to the front ?"
 
 Preparing for an Emergency. 189 
 
 The article concludes : "If the nation cannot comprehend 
 this momentous necessity, if in its apathy and dejection it can 
 resign itself to despair, we shall have to bow our heads, confess- 
 ing, not that we are beaten, but that we are annihilated, and the 
 only hope of our salvation will be from some impossible miracle." 
 
 Tuesday, November 15. The Chief is still out of sorts. 
 Catarrh of the stomach, some call it, others say it is a bilious 
 attack. "The people at Court have their things ready packed 
 up to-day," Theiss tells us. and the news is confirmed at break- 
 fast, with this addition, however, that Kanski may perhaps 
 only be putting his subordinates to the test, and getting them 
 in training for what may possibly be wanted. 
 
 For the time being matters between this and Orleans are not 
 in the state we could wish. The Minister himself, when he 
 came down to dinner with us, said that it was possible we might 
 have to retreat, and evacuate Versailles for some time. An 
 advance on us here from Dreux. in concert with a great sortie 
 from Paris, is not out of the que^ti'-n, and even a layman can 
 understand that a successful attempt of this kind, the con- 
 sequence of which might be that not merely the Court and the 
 general stafi, but the most important pieces of our siege artillery 
 might be in danger of falling into the hands of the enemy, 
 offers the only prospect of relief for Paris, and may consequently 
 very well be in contemplation, He then told Hatzfeld, after 
 reading through a despatch from Paris, to say that the Ameri- 
 cans mentioned may get out, but the Roumanians, for whom a 
 permit to pass through our lines had been also asked, are not to 
 get it he had his reasons, he said. 
 
 We are afterwards told that the pastor of Barwalde, in 
 Pomerania, has sent a magnificent love-gift of six roast geese 
 in tinned boxes, one for the King, one for the Crown Prince, 
 one for the Chief, one for Moltke, and so on. We are living 
 here every day much as if we were in Canaan. We get pres- 
 ents almost daily of smoked goose-breast, game, pasties, or no- 
 ble sausages, and cigars, fine wines and brandies. The store- 
 room is sometimes hardly able to hold the baskets, bottles, and 
 casks, full of these and other supplies. 
 
 In the evening I read through several balloon letters. One 
 of them, dated November 3rd which will do for insertion ir 
 the Moniteur and elsewhere was the expression of the opinion 
 of a man of rank on the present situation in Paris. I omit the 
 address and the signature :
 
 190 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 ' MY DEAR JOSEPH, 
 
 " I hope you got my last letters all right. In the first of 
 them I told you my forebodings, all of which have since been 
 fulfilled ; in the second, I advised you of my arrival in Paris, 
 for which I started when I learned that it would be attacked ; 
 in a third I told you how nobody is less free than under the 
 Government of Freedom ; how impossible it is to go out with- 
 out risk of being set upon as a spy, and, lastly, how the com- 
 mon people seem to think they have the right to insult ordinary 
 citizens, under the pretence that they are their equals. To-day 
 I will give you my account of myself and the siege, although 
 you probably are as well informed about the latter as I am. 
 
 " My business as a National Guard is certainly not always 
 pleasant. I have often to be seven-and-twerity hours on guard 
 on the walls, which involves the duty of marching up and down 
 all night backward and forward, on the bastions, shouldering 
 my musket. When it rains it is very disagreeable, and it is 
 always tedious, the more so, that when I come back to the 
 guard house, I have to lie down in straw full of vermin, and 
 have every small shopkeeper, publichouse man, and servant in 
 the quarter as my bedfellows. So far from being any good to 
 me, my name and position do me harm by making them envious 
 and jealous, and they do not try to conceal their feelings. If 
 there is a nasty place, where our common straw is unusually 
 filthy, or where it is always rained upon, it is assigned to me, 
 on the pretext that no preferences must be allowed. But the 
 feeling that I am doing my duty raises me above all these 
 annoyances. What J like worst is having to mount guard in 
 the neighborhood of the powder-mills inside the town. It seems 
 to me that that is the duty of the new town police, who, by- 
 the-way, do nothing at all, from fear of disturbing the comfor- 
 table repose of the inhabitants. 
 
 " I went at six the other morning in an icy fog to practise 
 firing behind the polygon of Yincennes. Next day I had once 
 more to get up at five to go to the Mairie, where my porter was 
 to be elected corporal. Finally, on October 29th, I had to 
 mount guard for seven-and-twenty hours in the Cirque de 1'Im- 
 peratrice, which is now turned into a cartridge factory. I 
 thought I had earned a little rest ; but suddenly the alarm-drum 
 went through all the streets on the evening of the 31st, and I 
 had to put on my uniform once more, and repair to the Hotel 
 de Ville. There we stood from ten at nisrht till five the next
 
 A Diplomatist in toe National Guard. 191 
 
 morning. I happened to be placed right before the famous 
 door which the Mobiles tried to break in, some fifteen steps 
 away. If they had succeeded, there would assuredly have been 
 a fight just there, and I should have been hit for certain at the 
 first volley. Fortunately some means were found of getting in- 
 to the building by some underground passage, and we left it by 
 the same way with a dozen balls, which however, hurt nobody, 
 whistling after us, as a parting salute. Our battalion is always 
 on the order of the day. It is the 4th, and its commandant is 
 your colleague, M. I was fortunate enough to get safe through 
 a day which will no doubt be famous in history, and to have 
 contributed to its happy issue. 
 
 "On the evening before the day when the Committee of Pub- 
 lic Safety met, I went about five o'clock, to the square before 
 the Hotel de Ville to get a little fresh air and exercise. I saw 
 there a raging spouter, surrounded by a considerable crowd of 
 people. He was stirring them up against the priests, and point- 
 ing to the Cathedral ; ' There,' he said, is the enemy. Our 
 foes are not the Prussians ; they are the Churches, the Priests, 
 the Jesuits, who demoralise and brutalise our children. We 
 must pull down and destroy the cathedral, and make a causeway 
 of the stones.' All is quiet to-day, thanks to the cannon and the 
 troops (Mobiles and National Guards), who line the whole road 
 through the Champs Elysees up to the Tuileries. 
 
 " What a war, my dear Joseph ! There is no precedent for 
 it in the world's history, for Caesar took seven years to conquer 
 Gaul when it was in a state of barbarism, and in three months 
 we have been invaded and utterly ruined. 
 
 " It seems all over with the Imperial family. This makes 
 one party the less, at any rate, and there may be some advantage 
 in that. 
 
 " Till now I have not been compelled to eat horseflesh ; but 
 the beef is of a melancholy toughness, and the buffalo flesh, 
 which comes from the Botanic Gardens, some of which was 
 served up to me the other day, is not much better. I am quite 
 alone here, which does not sound nice ; but, thanks to music 
 and books, to which I give all my spare time, I never weary. 
 
 " If there should be an armistice, and you can write to me, 
 do not forget, for it is of great importance for me to learn 
 what you think about all that is going on. I should like to 
 give you some right again to honor the name of a French diplo- 
 matist, which has for the present become a laughing-stock."
 
 192 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 IXCBEASTXC ANXIETY FOR T^riSTVE ACTION IN SEVEPAL 
 DIRECTIONS. 
 
 ABOUT the middle of November I wrote home': "It is 
 still possible that we may get back before Christmas. 
 From expressions attributed to the King in the last few days 
 many think it likely. For my own part I don't put much 
 faith in it, although everything is going well, and Paris will 
 probably be reduced to meal and horse-flesh, in three or four 
 weeks^ and must accordingly ' sing small,' especially when 
 Hindersin's big guns begin to assist to rapid decisions a gov- 
 ernment made reasonable by starvation. I can understand 
 how our good friend S. finds the thing slow. Certainly the 
 war makes no account of his comfort or that of those who feel 
 with him. Let him possess himself in patience a while longer, 
 like our soldiers, who have to wait for the end in hunger and 
 dirt, while he and other fine people in Berlin lie on comfortable 
 sofas and have their cups and platters full. These omniscient 
 critics of the bar and the tap-room, with their eternal grumb- 
 ling and fault-finding, are a queer sort, ridiculous and very un- 
 satisfactory." 
 
 In all this there was certainly some truth. But when it 
 became clear that the Parisians had been provisioned for longer 
 than we believed, when the big guns of General Hindersin kept 
 silence for weeks after, and the German question would not get 
 solved in the way we wanted, the discontent, even in the house 
 in the Rue de Provence, increased daily, while rumors that 
 people who had no business to interfere were preventing the 
 beginning of the bombardment gained greater and greater force 
 week after week. 
 
 Whether these rumors were well-grounded I must leave an 
 open question. It is certain, however, that there were other
 
 Number of German Army be/we Paris. 193 
 
 
 causes also at work to prevent the bombardment beginning 
 as soon as people wished, and that the effectual blockade of 
 Paris itself was something unprecedented. Let me quote, for 
 instance, what Major Blume said of it in 1871 : 
 
 " Foreign military critics had declared the blockade of Paris 
 absolutely impossible till it actually took place, and they had 
 very good grounds for their opinions. When the inhabitants 
 were first shut in, there were nearly 400,000 armed men in the 
 city, some 60,000 of whom were line troops, and nearly 100,- 
 000 Gardes Mobiles of the city and the neighboring depart- 
 ments. The line and the Mobiles were armed with a chasse- 
 pot, and whatever the defects of their military training, they 
 were certainly capable of defending themselves behind walls 
 and ditches, and, if properly led, of making dangerous sorties. 
 
 The fortified enceinte of Paris was 18 miles, the line connect- 
 ing the forts, 34 miles, the line through the most advanced 
 outposts of the besieging army, 50 miles long ; the direct tele- 
 graph line, which joined up with each other the headquarters 
 of the several army corps, extended for not less than 90 miles. 
 The German army, which completed the investment on Sept. 
 19, consisted of no more than 122,000 infantry, 24,000 cavalry, 
 and 622 guns. The effective strength of the different divisions 
 had been greatly reduced by the battles they had fought and 
 their march as far as Paris. The Guards, for instance, num- 
 bered only 14,200, and the Fifth Army Corps only 16,000 in- 
 fantry. Thus the investment of Paris was a bold undertaking, 
 far more so than even the French used then to represent it, and 
 a very little self-examination would convince them now how 
 little right they have to comfort themselves with fine-sounding 
 phrases about the glorious defence of their capital. For four 
 long weeks there was only a single German foot-soldier per 
 yard over the enormously long line of investment. Gradually 
 the Eleventh North German, the First Bavarian Army Corps, 
 and the relief troops melted in to fill up the gaps. The fall of 
 Strassburg freed the Guards' division of the Landwehr, and at 
 the close of October our two armies round Paris numbered 
 202,000 infantry, 33,800 cavalry, and 898 guns. Besides the 
 strain of outpost duty, and the perpetual necessity of strength- 
 ening the line of investment, these troops had every now and 
 then to spare strong detachments to sweep'clear the immediate 
 neighborhood of the besieging army. Taking all things into 
 account, the number of the German troops directly engaged
 
 194 Bismarck in the Franco- German War. 
 
 i 
 
 in the investment of Paris hardly ever exceeded 200,000 
 men." 
 
 Blume proceeds to explain what he believes to have been the 
 reasons why no attempt was made in September to take .phe 
 city by assault, and why a regular siege was not opened against 
 it afterwards. The forts and the enceinte which protected the 
 city could not have been carried by storm. As to a regular 
 siege, or even an artillery attack on single forts, the chief ob- 
 stacle, apart from the numerical weakness of the troops who 
 would have had to undertake it, was our great poverty in suit- 
 able siege guns. These could not be brought up till after Toul 
 fell and the railway was opened to Nanteuil which was not till 
 the last week of September. Nanteuil was still fifty miles 
 from Paris, and after the railway up to it "had been cleared for 
 traffic, the first thing was to provide suitably for the health and 
 comfort of the troops. Round Paris itself there were no stores 
 or warehouse, little indeed but wine-shops. The army had to 
 live from hand to mouth. Reserve magazines had to be or- 
 ganized and filled, and till that was done the siege guns had to 
 wait. Even after the guns had got to Nanteuil, there was 
 plenty of trouble. Nearly 300 cannon of the heaviest calibre, 
 with five hundred rounds of shot and ammunition for each of 
 them, " necessary as a first supply," had to be dragged fifty 
 miles on waggons "over execrable roads." The necessary four- 
 wheeled carts could not be collected in France, and long columns 
 of ammunition waggons had at last to be brought from Ger- 
 many. Through these causes and others Major Blume asserts 
 that in December, when the preparations began for the artillery 
 attack on Mount Avron and the forts on the south of Paris, 
 the park of artillery was of very moderate strength. Besides 
 the forty rifled six-pounders, there were only 235 guns, nearly 
 half of which were rifled twelve-pounders. They were hardly 
 fit, as Blume says, to do more than make a sort of moral im- 
 pression on the city. But that, he adds, "was all that was 
 wanted, and in the circumstances it was no use arranging for a 
 regular siege, or for parallels of investment for the reduction of 
 the forts." 
 
 "About the middle of January 123 guns were playing on 
 the southern front of Paris. They threw into the city from 
 two to three hundred grenades daily, sufficient to make every 
 place on the left bank of the river ' lively,' and to drive most 
 of the inhabitants from their houses. The actual material
 
 Courtesy of a French Prisoner. 195 
 
 damage was certainly trifling. After the fall of Mezieres, how- 
 ever, a good many more heavy guns were placed in position, 
 and the successes of our batteries in the north enabled us to 
 prepare an attack of decisive moment against Saint-Denis, and 
 to bring the northern half of Paris also under fire. The powers 
 of resistance had, however, by that time been completely ex- 
 hausted. Shortly after the last unsuccessful sortie on January 
 19, the city laid down its arms, and the armistice and peace 
 followed in due course." 
 
 I return to the middle of November, and 1 shall leave my 
 journal to speak for itself as much as I can. 
 
 Wednesday, November 16. The Chief is still out of sorts. 
 People attribute it partly to worry over our negotiations with 
 several of the South German States, which seem once more to 
 be hanging fire, and to his annoyance with the military author- 
 ities, who are supposed not even to have asked his opinion 011 
 several points which involved more than merely military 
 questions. 
 
 After three o'clock I spent some time again with the officers 
 of the 46th, who have been run from the outposts into this 
 haven of rest for a few days, and are making themselves com- 
 fortable in the Chateau of Chesnay. H., who will now prob- 
 ably soon get his iron cross, tells us a pretty little anecdote of 
 the last few weeks. In the struggle near Malmaison they had 
 to get over a breach in the wall of a park, which, however, 
 was still too high for him to climb without laying aside his 
 drawn sword. He was in some perplexity, when he noticed on 
 the other side a handsome, strapping French lad, who had been 
 taken prisoner and disarmed. Calling him up he asked him to 
 hold the sword. The lad laughingly did as he was told, returned 
 him his weapon afterwards with a smile and a bow, and did the 
 same good turn for the sergeant-major who was clambering up 
 behind H. Naturally the soldiers would have shot the nran 
 down on the slightest sign of an inclination to keep the sword. 
 These Gauls let themselves be taken prisoners now, H. thinks, 
 without making any difficulty. The reason of this is no want 
 of food in the Paris army so far. The deserter Zouave sergeant 
 caught at the outposts at La Celle looked an extremely well- 
 nourished person. Everybody here is eager and impatient for 
 the beginning of the bombardment, and everybody maintains 
 for certain that it has been so far prevented by some ladies of 
 high station interceding that the city should be spared. To-day
 
 196 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 people expected from what signs or on what grounds I omitted 
 to inquire a great sortie of the Parisians. I tell them that 
 such an attempt would have far fewer chances of success now 
 than some weeks ago, as Prince Frederick Charles and his , 
 troops are already at Rambouillet. 
 
 Count Waldersee dines with us. The Chief again complains 
 that the military authorities don't inform him of everything of 
 importance that goes on. It was after repeated entreaties that 
 he got them to agree to send him, at all events, what they were 
 telegraphing to the German papers. In 1866 it was a dillerent 
 story. He was then summoned to every consultation. " And 
 so I ought to be," he says ; " my business requires it ; I need 
 to know all that goes on in military matters, so that I may be 
 able to make peace at the right time." 
 
 Thursday, November 17. After breakfasting with us, Del- 
 Briick, who lived two or three doors away, towards the Avenue 
 de Saint-Cloud, set out to-day for Berlin, where the Reichstag 
 is to open its sessions. At breakfast we learned that Keudell 
 had been elected, but that he would soon come back to 
 us. Before breakfast I had looked through several French 
 balloon letters, also a heap of Paris newspapers, and among 
 them La Patrie of the 10th, with an interesting attack on the 
 provisional government by About saying pretty much the 
 same thing as Figaro has been saying recently the Gazette de 
 France of the 12th, and the Liberte of the 10th. Afterwards 
 I sent to Berlin a translation of the letter which the president 
 of the Roman JuAta has directed to the Allgemeine Ztiilung. 
 In the afternoon we heard that Prince Frederick Charles had 
 arrived at Orleans. 
 
 Alten and Prince Radziwill were the Chiefs guests at din- 
 ner. Somebody said that there was a rumor that Garibaldi, 
 with his 13,000 "free companions," had been taken prisoner. 
 The Minister said, "That would be very serious; 13,000 
 JFrancs-tireurs, who are not even Frenchmen, made prisoners 
 why on earth were they not shot?" He complained once more 
 that the military authorities so seldom ask his opinion. " There, 
 for instance, is this capitulation at Verdun, which I should cer- 
 tainly not have advised. They have promised to give back the 
 arms after peace is made, and the French magistrates are to or- 
 der and settle everything meanwhile as they think proper. The 
 first is a trifle, for in making peace we may stipulate that the 
 arms are not to be given back. But ' as they think proper !'
 
 Russia and the Treaty of 1856. 197 
 
 Our hands are tied fast, and meantime they can go against us 
 in everything and act just as if no war were going on. They 
 might openly encourage a rising for the Republic, and according 
 to the agreement we could not protect ourselves. " 
 
 Somebody then spoke of the article of the Diplomatist in the 
 Independence Beige, which prophesies the return of Napoleon. 
 "No doubt, " said the Chancellor, "if he has read the article, he 
 is picturing sometliing of the kind to himself. After all, it is 
 not quite impossible. If he made peace with us he might re- 
 turn with the troops he has in Germany. It is something like 
 our Hungarian legion on a large scale. He is really the regu 
 lar government. After the restoration of order he would not 
 need more than 200,000 men to maintain it. It would not be 
 necessary to overawe the large towns with troops, except Paris. 
 Perhaps Lyons and Marseilles should be made safe ; but he could 
 trust all the rest to the National Guard, and if the republicans 
 rose he could shoot them down. " 
 
 A telegram stating what Granville had said about the Rus- 
 sian declaration respecting the Treaty of Paris was brought in, 
 and the Prince began upon it at once. "It means pretty much 
 this, that Russia claims the right to set herself free from a part 
 of the Treaty of 1856, and on her own initiative takes what can 
 only be given her by the collective powers. England cannot 
 allow a pretension like this, which would make any and every 
 treaty worthless. Future complications are much to be feared. " 
 The Minister laughs, saying; " Future complications! Parlia- 
 mentary speeches ! Risk nothing ! The accent is on the word 
 ' Future. ' That is the sort of talk when people mean to do 
 nothing at all. No, nothing is to be feared, as four months 
 since nothing was to be hoped from these people. If at the be- 
 ginning of the war the English had said to Napoleon, ' Don't 
 fight, ' this would never have happened. " After a while he 
 went on ; " People have always said that the Russian policy is 
 diabolically artful full of shuffles, and quirks and dodges. It 
 is nothing of the kind. Dishonest people would have made no 
 such declaration ; they would have gone on quietly building war 
 ships in the Black Sea and waited till somebody asked them 
 about it. Then they would have said they knew nothing about 
 it, they had ' sent to inquire, ' and they would have wriggled 
 out. They might have kept that sort of thing up a long time 
 in Russia, till at last everybody had got used to things as they 
 were. " Bucher said, " They have already three war ships in
 
 198 Bismarck in ike Franco-German War. 
 
 the Black Sea built in Sebastopol ; and if they were told, You 
 can't have any here, they might answer that they really couldn't 
 get them away, as the passage of the Dardanelles was closed 
 against them in 1856." 
 
 The evening edition of the National Zeitung of the 15th, 
 under the head of Great Britain, has notices of Regnier and his 
 visits to us in Metz and to Eugenie. He is a well-to-do pro- 
 prietor, married to an Englishwoman, and a friend of Madame 
 Lebreton, one of the Empress's ladies, who escaped from France 
 before the war. He seems a volunteer diplomatist, and as we 
 had previously guessed among ourselves, he appears to have 
 undertaken his role of mediator on his own prompting. At dinner 
 the guests were Count Bray, the Minister von Lutz, and von 
 Mancler, a Wiirtemburg officer. Bray is a tall, lanky man, with 
 long, smooth-hanging hair plastered down the side of his head 
 and behind his ears, clean-shaven all but a short poverty-stricken 
 whisker, with thin lips, very thin hands and uncommonly long 
 fingers. He says little, radiates a chill all around him, and 
 certainly does not feel himself at home where he is. He might 
 easily be taken for an Englishman. The usual Jesuit of our 
 comic papers is very much his sort of figure. Lutz is the exact 
 oposite, middle-aged, round, ruddy, with a black moustache, 
 dark hair brushed high back from his forehead, with spectacles, 
 brisk and talkative. Mancler is an uncommonly handsome 
 young fellow. The Chief is very good-humored and sympa- 
 thetic, but the conversation this time has no particular signifi- 
 cance, turning mostly on beer questions, in discussing which 
 Lutz was much interested, and gave us a great deal of infor- 
 mation. 
 
 Sunday, November 20. The band of a Thuringian regi- 
 ment woke the Chief with a morning serenade. He sent them 
 down something to drink. Afterwards he came out to the 
 door, and took a glass in his hand saying: "Prosit/ (good 
 luck!) We shall drink to our speedy return to ouj mothers." The 
 conductor asked him whether it would be long till that time. 
 The Minister answered : " Well, we shan't spend our Christmas 
 at home, though the Reserves may. The rest of us will have 
 to stay here among the French. We have a great deal of 
 money to get out of them. But we are sure to get it pretty 
 soon," he added, laughing. 
 
 At dinner our guest was General von Werder, a long man 
 with dark moustache, who is a Prussian Military Plenipoten-
 
 Jupiter Gagern. 199 
 
 tiary at St. Petersburg. Soon after he came in, the Chief said, 
 with a look of gratification on his face, "It is possible that wo 
 may yet come to terms with Bavaria." "Yes," cried Bohlen, 
 " something of the sort is already mentioned in the telegrams 
 of one of the Berlin papers, the Volkszeitung, the Staatsburger- 
 Zeitung, or one of that kind." The Minister said, "I don't 
 like that. It is too soon. After all, with the lot of respectable 
 people who have nothing to do and who find things dull, there 
 is little wonder that nothing can be kept quiet." Afterwards, 
 I can't now recall in what connection, he happened to mention 
 this anecdote of his youth : " When I was quite small, there 
 was a ball or something of the sort given at our house, and when 
 the company sat down to table, I looked out for a place 
 for myself and found one somewhere in a corner where 
 several gentlemen were seated. They puzzled over the little 
 guest, and talked to each other about me in French : 'Who can 
 the child be T 'Cfest peutetre un fih de la inaison, ouuneji' 
 (' Perhaps it is a boy of the family, or a girl'). ' C'est un fih, 
 monsieur* (' It is a boy, sir'), said I, quite unabashed, and they 
 were not a little astonished." 
 
 The conversation then turned on Vienna and Count Beust, 
 and the Chief said that Beust was apologising for the uncivil 
 note which had just appeared, declaring that Biegeleben, and 
 not he, was the author. The conversation passed from him to the 
 Gagerns, and finally to Heinrich Gagern, of whom people once 
 thought so much. Talking about him the Chief said, "He lets 
 his daughter be brought up as a Catholic. If he thinks Catho- 
 licism the right thing there is nothing to be said ; but then he 
 ought to become a Catholic himself. What he is doing is mere 
 inconsistency and cowardice." " I remember that, in 1850 or 
 1851, Manteuffel had been ordered to try to arrange an under- 
 standing between Gagern's people and the Conservatives of the 
 Prussian party for as far, at least, as the King was willing to 
 go on the German question." " He tried it with me and Gagern 
 and one day we were invited to his house to supper for three. 
 Politics at first were hardly mentioned. Then Manteuffel made 
 some excuse and left us together. As soon as he had gone, I 
 tackled Gagern about politics, and explained my whole position 
 in a very sober and business-like way. You should have heard 
 Gagern. He put on his Jupiter face, lifted his eyebrows, 
 bristled up his hair, rolled his eyes about, fixed them on the 
 ceiling till they had all but cracked, and talked at me with his
 
 200 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 big phrases as if I had been a public meeting. Of course that 
 got nothing out of me. I answered him quite coolly, and we 
 remained as far apart as ever. When Manteuffel came back 
 to us, and Jupiter had had time to disappear, Manteuffel asked 
 me, 'Well, what have you made up with each other]' 'In- 
 deed,' said I, 'nothing is made up. He is frightfully stupid 
 and takes me for a public meeting, the mere phrase- watering-pot 
 of a fellow ! Nothing is to be done with him." 
 
 We spoke of the bombardment?, and the Chief said, " I said 
 to the King once more, so late as yesterday, that it was now 
 full time for it, and he had nothing to say against me. He told 
 me that he had ordered it, but the generals said they were not 
 ready. 
 
 After a little the Chancellor asked his guest, " What may 
 every visit to the Emperor cost you now 1" I don't remember 
 what Werder replied ; but the Chief went on : "In my time 
 it was always a pretty dear thing, especially in Zarskoje. I 
 had always at that time to pay fifteen or twenty, sometimes 
 five-and-twenty roubles, .according as I went at the request of 
 the Emperor or on my own account. In the former case it was 
 dearer. The coachman and footman who had fetched me, the 
 house-steward who received me and when I had been invited 
 he had his sword at his side the runner who preceded me 
 through the whole length of the castle to the Emperor's room, 
 and that must have been a thousand yards, all had to get some- 
 thing. You know him, of course, the fellow with the high 
 round feathers on his head, like an Indian. He certainly 
 earned his five roubles. And I never got the same coachman 
 to take me back again. I could not stand these drains. We 
 Prussians had very poor pay 25,000 thalers (,3750) salary, 
 and 8000 thalers (1200) for rent. No doubt I had a house 
 for that as big and fine as any palace in Berlin. But the 
 furniture was all old, faded, and shabby, and if I count in 
 repairs and other expenses, it came to quite 9000 thalers 
 (1350) a year. I found out, however, that I was not expect- 
 ed to spend more than my salary, so I eked it out by keeping 
 no company. The French ambassador had 12,000 a year, and 
 was allowed to charge his government with the expenses of all 
 company which he could at all consider official." " But of course 
 you had free firing, which comes to a good deal a year in St. 
 Petersburg," said Werder. "I beg your pardon," answered 
 the Chief, " I had to pay for that myself. But the wood would
 
 The Negotiations luith Bavaria: 201 
 
 not have been so dear if the officials had not made it dear. I 
 remember once seeing a fine load of wood on a Finland boat ; I 
 asked the people their price, and what they named was very 
 moderate. I was about to buy it, when they asked me (he said 
 this in Russian) whether it was for the Treasury. I was im- 
 prudent enough to say not for the Imperial treasury, but (he 
 again used the Russian words) for the Embassy of the King of 
 Prussia. When I came back to settle and get the wood taken 
 home, they had all run away. If I had given them the address 
 of a merchant with whom I could have come to a private under- 
 standing, I should have had it for the third of what I should 
 
 otherwise have paid. The " (he used again the Russian 
 
 word for the Prussian ambassador) "was in their eyes another 
 officer of the Czar's, and they thought, ' No, when he has to 
 settle with us he will say that we have stolen the wood, 
 and throw us into prison till we let him have it for nothing. ' " 
 He went on to tell other stories of the way in which the 
 Tchinovniks torment and plunder the peasants, and came round 
 again, to the wretched pay of the Prussian ambassador corn- 
 pared with the others. "It is the same thing," he added, 
 "in Berlin : a Prussian Minister gets 10,000 thalers (1500), 
 while the English ambassador gets 63,000 (9450), and the 
 Russian, 44,000 (6600) ; then he charges his government 
 with the expense pf all official entertainments, and when the 
 Emperor stays with him he usually gets a full year's extra 
 salary. No wonder we cannot keep pace with them." 
 
 Monday, November 21. The negotiations with Bavaria don't 
 yet seem to be quite concluded, but he hopes he has brought 
 them to a good end on essential points. The way in which it 
 has been managed is not to be made out from what one hears. 
 It seems clear to me that the result is a compromise in which 
 we have maintained what is essential and given way to the 
 wishes and demands of others in everything else. No sort of 
 pressure certainly has been put upon them. It is conceivable 
 that the question whether Elsass-Lothringen is to be retained 
 or given back, has constrained them to settle. Elsass-Lothrin- 
 gen can only be asked from France in the name of and for all 
 Germany. The north has no immediate need of it, but to the 
 south, as history can tell the Particularists, it is as necessary 
 daily bread. Bavaria is a sharer in the benefit. It is only 
 through her complete union with the north, which '.rill show 
 14
 
 202 Bismarck in tJie Franco-German War. 
 
 every consideration for all her wishes, that Bavaria can secure 
 this wall of defence for herself in the west. 
 
 About one o'clock the Chief has a conference with Odo Rus- 
 sell, who was previously accredited from the Court of St. James's 
 to Rome. He has probably to discuss with the Minister the 
 pretensions of Russia in respect to the Black Sea. After three 
 when the Chief goes to the King, I start with H. for the Hotel 
 de Chasse, where we drink middling French beer among a crowd 
 of officers and army doctors, and chat with the conversable 
 landlady who dresses in black silks and manages her business 
 from her pulpit-like throne. The Minister distributes among 
 us a good many out of a parcel of three thousand cigars which 
 he received, I believe, as a present from Bremen. I get 'my 
 share. They are Prensados and excellent. The Chief is not 
 with us ; we have Knobelsdorff as our guest. 
 
 Tuesday, November 22. While we are sitting at late break- 
 fast Lutz has a talk with the Chief in the salon. The latter 
 opens the door once and asks, " Can any of you gentlemen tell 
 me how many members Bavaria has in the Customs parliament 1 ?" 
 I go to look it up in old Weber's Illustrated Calendar, but found 
 no information in what is usually a good authority on such 
 points. There must, however, have been forty-seven or forty 
 eight. After three the Russian General Annenkoff spends 
 nearly an hour and a quarter with the Minister. At dinner we 
 have . Prince Pless and a Count Stolberg. The talk runs on a 
 great discovery of fine wines which were hidden in some hill or 
 cellar in Bougival. It has been duly confiscated according to 
 the rules of war, as it falls under the head of sustenance. B., 
 who is our high steward, complains that none of it has come our 
 way. And, indeed, on every occasion the foreign office is served 
 as shabbily as can be. They seem to try to palm off the most 
 inconvenient lodgings on the Chief, and to succeed pretty gen- 
 erally in finding them. "Yes," says he, laughing. "They 
 certainly don't behave nicely to me. It is most ungrateful of 
 these military people whose interests I have always defended 
 in the Reichstag ! They will find me a changed man soon. 
 When I started for the war I was all for them, when I get 
 back I shall be a complete parliamentarian. " Prince Pless 
 praises the Wiirtemberg troops, who make an admirable im- 
 pression, and who come next our own men in soldierly bearing. 
 The Chancellor agrees with him, but must put a word in for 
 the Bavarians. It seems to gratfy him particularly that they
 
 Shooting First 203 
 
 make such short work in shooting down the Franc-tireur rob- 
 bers. " Our North Germans go too much by the letter. When a 
 bushranger of that sort shoots at a Holstein dragoon, the soldi- 
 er flings himself from his horse, runs after the man with his 
 heavy sabre, catches him and brings him to his lieutenant, who 
 either lets him off" or hands him over to his superior officer, who 
 is sure to do so. The Bavarian knows better, and makes war 
 in the good old way, not waiting till he has been shot at from 
 behind, but shooting first. " We have caviare and pheasant 
 pasty on the table, the one provided by the Baroness von Keu- 
 dell and the other by the Countess Hatzfeld ; and Swedish 
 punch is handed round. 
 
 Wednesday, November 23. Early this morning 1 said to one 
 of the councillors, " Do you know how matters are now getting 
 on with the Bavarian negotations ? Will the affair be settled, 
 do you suppose, this evening 1" "Yes" he said, " unless some- 
 thing new turn up; but any trifle might break them off. " "Do 
 you know what was the point on which the negotiations nearly 
 came to grief a short time ago?" "You would never guess; it 
 was the question of collars or epaulettes. " As I was called 
 away at the moment, I could not solve this riddle ; but I learn- 
 ed afterwards that the question had been whether the Bavarian 
 officers were in future to wear the mark of their rank, as hith- 
 erto, on their collars or on their shoulders, like the North 
 Germans. 
 
 There was some talk about the Duke of Cobnrg, and after- 
 wards about the aqueduct at Marly, which had not been touch- 
 ed by the guns of the forts ; and then Prince Putbus spoke of a 
 certain Marchioness Delia Torre, who had, he said, had a some- 
 what stormy past, who liked campaigning, who had been with 
 Garibaldi before Naples, had been staying here with us for some 
 time, and was going about with the Geneva Cross. Somebody 
 spoke of the picture which had been ordered from Bleibtreu, 
 and another of the guests spoke of the rough sketch of a picture 
 representing General Reille bringing Napoleon's letter to the 
 King on the hill before Sedan. They said that the General was 
 taking off his hat as if he was about to shout Hurrah ! or Vivat! 
 the Chief remarked ; " He behaved himself throughout with 
 propriety and dignity. I had a talk with him alone while the 
 King was writing the answer. He represented to me that we 
 ought not to impose hard conditions on so large an army which 
 had fought so well. I shrugged my shoulders. Then he said
 
 204 Bismarck in tJie Franco-German War. 
 
 that before they would give in to such conditions, they would 
 blow themselves up sky-high with the fortress. I said, 'Do it 
 if you like.' 'Faites sauter.' Then I asked him whether the 
 Emperor was quite sure of his army and his officers. He said, 
 ' Certainly!' And whether his orders would still be obeyed in. 
 Metz. Reille said they would, and we have since seen that at 
 that time he was right. If he had made peace then, I believe 
 he would now have been a reigning sovereign ; but he is as I 
 said sixteen years since, when nobody would believe me stupid 
 and sentimental. " 
 
 About ten o'clock I went in to tea, and found Bismarck-Bohlen 
 and Hatzf eld still there. The Chief was engaged with the three 
 Bavarian plenipotentiaries in the salon. After a quarter of an 
 hour or so, he threw open the folding-doors, put his head in, 
 looked round kindly, and, when he saw that there were several 
 of us, came up to us and sat down at the table with a glass in 
 his hand. " Now," said he excitedly, " the Bavarian business 
 is settled, and everything signed, We have got our German unity, 
 and our Emperor." There was silence for a moment. Then 
 I begged to be allowed to take the pen, with which he had 
 signed the document. " In God's name," said he, " Take all 
 three of them, if you like ; but the gold pen is not there." I 
 went and took possession of the three pens which were lying 
 beside the document, two of them still wet. (W. afterwards 
 told me thattheone the Chancellor had used was that with feathers 
 on both sides.) Two empty champagne bottles stood on the 
 table. " Bring us another," said the Chief to a servant, " it is 
 a great occasion." After musing a little, he remarked, "The 
 newspapers won't be satisfied, and a historian writing in the or- 
 dinary spirit may very likely condemn our convention. He 
 may say [ I am giving his exact words, as I always do where I 
 use quotation marks ], " The stupid fellow might easily have 
 asked for more ; he would have got it ; they would have had to 
 give in to him ; his might was his right.' I was more anxious 
 that these people should go away heartily satisfied. What are 
 treaties worth which people are forced to sign 1 I know that 
 they went away satisfied. I don't want to press them, or to 
 take full advantage of the situation. The convention has its 
 defects, but it is the stronger on account of them. I count it 
 the most important thing which we have accomplished during 
 recent years. '' , . "As for the Emperor, I reconciled them 
 to that during the negotiations by representing that it would
 
 Capitulation of Thionville. 205 
 
 be much pleasanter and easier to concede certain points to the 
 German Emperor than to the neighboring King of Prussia. " 
 . . . Afterwards, over a second bottle which he drank with us 
 and Abeken. who had come in, in the meantime, he began to 
 talk about his death, and mentioned the exact age at which it 
 would happen. ..." I know it, " he said, when somebody re- 
 monstrated, " it is a mystic number. " 
 
 Friday, November 25. Before breakfast, I telegraphed the 
 capitulation of Thionville, which happened during the night. 
 I prepared for the King's reading an article in the Neue 
 Freie Presse, describing Granville's note as feeble and color- 
 less, and I took care that all our newspapers should repro- 
 duce the telegrams of July last, assuring Napoleon of the 
 concurrence of the French people in the declaration of war he 
 then sent us. 
 
 In the afternoon I spent an hour with W. in the gallery of 
 historical portraits in the chateau, which of its kind is of the 
 greatest value, and which includes a very interesting half length 
 of Luther. Afterwards we had a walk through the principal 
 streets of the town to the two chief churches , and to Hoche's 
 monument. We met, as usual, crowds of priests, nuns and 
 monks, and marvelled at the number of wine-shops and coffee- 
 houses which supply Versailles. One of these establishments 
 is called the "Smoking Dog" (Au chien quifume), a dog with 
 a tobacco pipe in his mouth being painted on the signboard. 
 The people at the door-steps, and especially the women, were 
 everywhere polite. The newspapers say that mothers and 
 nurses turn their backs when a German pats a child on the 
 cheek. I have never seen anything of the kind ; on the con- 
 trary, they were always quite pleased, and said, "Faites minette 
 a monsieur f ("Curtsey to the gentleman"). No doubt, the 
 upper classes are seldom seen in the streets, and when they do 
 appear the ladies are in mourning -for the misfortunes of their 
 country, of course and because black is becoming. 
 
 Saturday, November 26. Wrote several articles ; one on the 
 extraordinary list of honorable mentions by Trochu in the 
 Figaro on the 22nd. The Chief read out to me portions of 
 passages which he had marked in pencil, saying, " Many of the 
 heroic deeds of these defenders of Paris are such commonplace 
 affairs that Prussian generals would never think them worth 
 mentioning. Some of them are mere brag ; others manifest 
 impossibilities. Trochu's heroes have made more prisoners, if
 
 206 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 you count them up, than the French have done altogether during 
 the whole siege of Paris. Captain Montbrisson distinguished 
 himself by marching at the head of an assaulting column, and 
 getting himself lifted over a park-wall to make a reconnais- 
 sance as it was his bounden duty to do. Then you have the 
 farce of a soldier called Gletty, who made three Prussian prison- 
 ers par la fermete de son attitude. It was the firmness of his 
 attitude which brought our Pomeranians to their knees ! It 
 might be all well enough in a Paris theatre on the Boulevards, 
 or in a circus, but fancy it in real life ! Then there was Hoff, who 
 killed neither more nor fewer than seven-and-twenty Prussians in 
 different single combats. This three-times-iiine man must cer- 
 tainly be a Jew, perhaps the cousin of Malzhoff in one of the 
 Wilhelmstrasses. At all events he is a miles gloriosus. Lastly, 
 we have Terreaux, who captured &fanion (color) along with the 
 staff to which it was fastened. Properly . speaking that is the 
 color of a company, which we do not have in Germany. Such 
 is the stuff a commander-in-chief publishes officially. The list 
 of honorable mentions reminds me of the battle-pieces of 
 "Toutes les Glories de la France" (in Versailles), where every 
 drummer-boy from Sebastopol and Magenta has had his por- 
 trait taken for beating his drum. 
 
 Count Schimmelmann (a light blue hussar, with a face of a 
 somewhat Oriental type, apparently in his last twenties) and 
 Hatzfeld's brother-in-law (a brisk and self-confident American) 
 were the Chancellor's guests to-night. He said to us : "I was 
 yesterday the victim of a whole swarm of mishaps, one after the 
 other. First, I was to have had a conversation with Odo Russell, 
 who had important business. I sent him a message to wait a 
 couple of minutes for me, as I was occupied with another press- 
 ing matter. After a quarter of an hour I came out, and found 
 him gone, and the peace of Europe may perhaps have depended 
 upon it. Then about twelve I got off to wait on the King, and 
 
 fall by the way into the hands of , who compels me to listen 
 
 to a letter, and holds me prisoner a long while. In that way I 
 lose a whole hour, during which telegrams of great importance 
 ought to have been despatched. The people concerned may 
 perhaps not have got them to-day at all, and decisions may have 
 been come to and relationships established in the meantime which 
 may have very serious consequences for the whole of Europe, 
 and may completely alter the political situation. All this hap- 
 pened," he said, "because it was a Friday."
 
 Mr. Home, the Spiritualist 207 
 
 Afterwards he asked, " Have any of you gentlemen told the 
 Mayor to provide properly in the Trianon for the King of 
 Bavaria T Hatzfeld replied that he had himself seen the Mayor 
 about the matter. The Chief replied, " Excellent ; I hope he 
 will come. I never imagined that I should have to play the 
 part of house-steward of the Trianon. What wouhi Napoleon I. 
 and Louis XIV. have said to that T Somebody remarked that 
 the American spiritualist, Home, had been here several days, 
 and had been invited to dine with the Crown Prince. Bucher 
 described him as a dangerous man, and added that he had been 
 condemned in England for some underhand business about a 
 legacy. After dinner he told me that, according to the news- 
 papers, Home had some time ago swindled a legacy in his own 
 favor out of a rich widow, that the lawful heir had prosecuted 
 him, and that he had ultimately been condemned by the court 
 to pay a large sum in damages. It was to be feared that he 
 had been sent here now by somebody to influence important 
 personages to our injury, and Bucher said he would try to induce^ 
 the Chief to get the fellow turned away. 
 
 Sunday, November 27. In. the morning we received the 
 speech made at the opening of the Reichstag. I sent it imme- 
 diately to L., so that he might translate it and get it printed in 
 the newspapers. After twelve, Russell appeared again. The 
 Chief asked him to wait for ten minutes, and spent that time 
 walking up and down with Bucher in the garden. 
 
 Count Lehndorf and a Bavarian officer (Count Holnstein) a 
 handsome, straight-built man, with a full red face and a pleasant 
 open manner, apparently, we thought, about thirty years of age, 
 were at dinner. I hear that he is the Master of the Horse to 
 King Ludwig, and one of his confidants. The Chief spoke first 
 about the Russian affair, and said : " Vienna, Florence, and 
 Constantinople have kept quiet about it so far ; but Petersburg 
 and London, which have spoken, are the important places. It 
 will all come right in the end." Then he told several anecdotes 
 of his sportsman's life of chamois-hunting, "for which he has 
 not breath enough now " of the heaviest wild boar he had killed, 
 "the head alone weighed between 99 and 101 Ibs. ;" and of the 
 biggest bear he had shot. 
 
 After dinner, at which we always smoke, the Minister gives 
 us each a big, full-flavored, first-rate cigar, saying, "Pass the 
 bottle." His grateful countrymen have recently been particu- 
 larly mindful to supply him with cigars, and on his sideboard
 
 208 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 stands box upon box of weeds, so that, God be praised, lie lias 
 enough of what he likes in that way. 
 
 L. told us that Home left yesterday, if I understood him 
 rightly. He has ordered the Moniteur to be sent after him to 
 London, having subscribed to the paper for a month. Perhaps 
 this and the whole affair of his journey to our head-quarters may 
 have been only a ghostly spiritualist hocus-pocus ; but it looks 
 suspicious that this Cagliostro from Yankee-land should have 
 asked whether he might speak to the son of Worth, the great 
 London tailor, who " lets duchesses wait in his salon," and who 
 was caught in one of the balloons. It is said that Home will 
 come back again.
 
 Home and Garibaldi. 209 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THE DIFFICULTY IN THE REICHSTAG ABOUT THE CONVENTION 
 WITH BAVARIA REMOVED THE BOMBARDMENT PUT OFF. 
 
 MONDAY, November 28, Early in the morning I tele- 
 graph the capitulation of La Fere, with 2,000 men, and 
 the victory of Manteuffel on the Somme at Ladon and Maizi- 
 eres. Afterwards I prepared an article on the Convention, with 
 Bavaria. The Chief asks about Home, and I tell him that he 
 is gone, but is expected back. He orders me to write at once 
 to the military authorities that if Home returns without a per- 
 mit, he is to be immediately put in prison, and word brought 
 to the Chief. If he appears with a permit, he is to be watched 
 as a treacherous spy and swindler, and his arrival reported at 
 once to the Minister. 
 
 In the afternoon Bucher and I made a carriage excursion to 
 St. Cyr ; Prince Pless and Count Maltzahn were with us at 
 dinner. The Minister spoke, first of all, of the American 
 spiritualist, and told us what he thought of him, and what he 
 had arranged to have done about him. Bohleii said : " And 
 you know, too, that Garibaldi also has taken himself off." 
 Somebody said : " If we could catch him he ought to be shot, 
 for he had no business to shove himself into this war." "He 
 should first be put in a cage and exhibited publicly," said 
 Bohlen. " No," said the Minister, " I would try another plan. 
 I would send the prisoners to Berlin, with bits of pasteboard 
 round their necks, and the word ' Gratitude ' printed on them. 
 After which they should be sho^n through the town." Bohlen 
 said : " And then to Spandau." The Chief answered, " Or you 
 might write on the card ' From Venice to Spandau.' " 
 
 Afterwards we talked about Bavaria, and the situation in 
 Munich. Somebody, in what connection I don't recollect, once 
 more referred to the circumstances of Reille's appearanca at
 
 210 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 Sedan, and it seemed as if the King then expected more from 
 the letter of the Emperor Napoleon, as, indeed, according to 
 what the Minister said once before, he had been justified in 
 doing. The Emperor ought not to have surrendered himself 
 a prisoner there with no object ; he shotiH have concluded peace 
 with us. The generals would have stood by him. Then we 
 talked about the bombardment, and, in connection with it, of 
 Bishop Dupanloup and his present intrigues, and afterwards of 
 the part he had played in the opposition at the Council. " I 
 remember," said the Chancellor, " that the Pope read a very 
 clear letter to the French Bishops, or to several of them, order- 
 ing them not to mix themselves up with the Garibaldians." 
 Somebody said that something lay very much at his heart. 
 The Chief answered, " What is nearest my heart just now is 
 what may be going on at the Villa Coublay. If they would 
 give me the command-in-chief for four-and-twenty hours, and I 
 were to take the responsibility on myself, I should give you 
 just one order 'Fire!'" The Villa Coublay is a place not 
 very far from here, where the siege artillery is collected in a 
 park, instead of being brought into the forts and batteries, and 
 the Chancellor has made the most urgent representations to 
 hasten the bombardment. " You have 300 guns, all told," he 
 went on ; " and fifty or sixty mortars, and for every piece you 
 have five hundred rounds surely that is enough. I have 
 spoken to artillerists who say that at Strassburg'they did not 
 use half of what is already piled up here, and, compared with 
 Paris, Strassburg was a Gibraltar." " Perhaps you might have 
 to fire some Barracks in Mont Valerien, and overwhelm Forts 
 Issy and Vanvres with your grenades, so as to clear them out. 
 The enceinte is very weak, and the ditch no bigger than the 
 length of this room." " I am convinced that if we could throw 
 grenades for four or five days into the town itself, and they 
 once saw that we can fire further than they can, namely, 9,000 
 yards, they would sing small in Paris. No doubt the fine quar- 
 ters lie on this side of the town, and the people in Belleville 
 would not care a straw though they were all wrecked. Indeed, 
 they would rub their hands O-\%T the destruction of the houses 
 of the rich." "We might certainly have left Paris alone, and 
 gone further, but now that we have begun it we must put it 
 through. The plan of starving them out may take a long while 
 yet, perhaps till the beginning of the year. They have certain- 
 ly meal up till January. If we had only begun the bombard-
 
 The Vital Point 211 
 
 merit four weeks ago, we should in all probability have been by 
 this time in Paris, which is the vital point. As it is, the Paris- 
 ians fancy that London, St. Petersburg, and Vienna are keeping" 
 us from tiring, and the neutral Powers believe, in their turn, 
 that we can't do it. Some day, however, the real reasons will 
 be revealed." 
 
 In the evening I telegraphed to London that tue Reichstag 
 had again voted a hundred million thalers (15,000,000) to- 
 wards the prosecution of the war with France, and that eight 
 social democrats only voted against it, also that Maiiteuffel had 
 ocupied Amiens. Afterwards several articles were prepared, 
 one to defend the Chancellor and explain how satisfactory his 
 position had been in the negotiations with Bavaria, and how 
 much had been due both to his moderation and his sagacity. 
 The vital point, as I said, was not that any particular concession 
 should be got out of the Munich people, but that the South 
 German States should feel at home in the organization of the 
 new German State. Any pressure or constraint to extract 
 further concessions from them would be ingratitude, especially 
 as they have fully discharged their patriotic obligations. It 
 would, besides, be bad policy to press any more urgent claims 
 on our allies. The discontent which would be the inevitable 
 consequence would do us far more harm than half-a-dozen slightly 
 improved paragraphs in a treaty could ever do us good. It 
 would at once reveal to the neutral powers, Austria and the 
 rest of them, the place where a wedge might be driven home, 
 which might loosen and in the end split to pieces the unity just 
 realized. 
 
 Tuesday, November 29. In the morning the mouths of the 
 French cannon growled out to us a savager salute than ever, 
 while I have the gratification to telegraph new triumphs of the 
 German arms. Yesterday, for instance, Garibaldi had severe 
 losses at Dijon, and Prince Frederick Charles's troops defeated 
 the more numerous French army opposed to them at Beaune la 
 Rolande. When I laid the second of these telegrams before the 
 Chief, he said, " To say many hundred prisoners is to say nothing ; 
 many hundreds means at least a thousand. To -put our loss at 
 a thousand men, and say nothing more of the enemy than that 
 he sustained severe losses, would be a piece of clumsiness of 
 which we ought to have too much sense to be guilty. I beg you 
 in future to make up your telegrams more carefully." 
 
 At breakfast we learn that the thunder of the cannon was to
 
 212 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 support a sortie of the Parisians in the direction of Villeneuve, 
 where the Bavarians are, which was repulsed. A few shots 
 were, still to be heard from the forts as late as one o'clock. 
 Something more seems to have been expected, for several bat- 
 teries are standing ready to start, on the Avenue de Saint- 
 Cloud. 
 
 In the afternoon I sent off another article on the convention 
 with Bavaria, which is to be reproduced in various forms in 
 Berlin. A grudging dissatisfaction seems to be the prevailing 
 mood there. Afterwards I ran off to the little place at Chesnay, 
 where my lieutenants are having all sorts of fun. I found them, 
 for instance, singing the song of the eleven thousand virgins of 
 Cologne. 
 
 We had Lieutenant-Colonel von Hartrott at dinner. The 
 conversation turned on the distribution of the Iron Cross, and 
 the Chief observed, " The doctors ought to have it on their black 
 and white sashes ; they are under fire, and it takes much more 
 courage and sense to let yourself be shot at without doing any- 
 thing than to go with a storming party." Blumenthal said to 
 me that he at any rate could not earn one, for it is his duty to 
 keep himself out of danger of being shot. Accordingly he always 
 looks out for a place from which he can have a good view of 
 everything, with very little chance of being hit ; and he is quite 
 right ; a general who exposes himself needlessly ought to be put 
 under arrest. We talked next of the handling of the army, and 
 he said, " Modesty and moderation are the only things to ensure 
 victory ; conceit and insolence bring certain defeat." Then he 
 asked Hartrott whether he was a Brunswicker. " No," he said, 
 "I am from the district of Aschersleben." "I make out from 
 your accent," said the Minister, " that you came from the Harz, 
 but not from which side." Aschersleben suggested Magdeburg, 
 which reminded him of his friend Dietze, of whom he said, " He 
 is the most estimable man I know, his house is the pleasantest 
 and most comfortable for a visitor I have ever been in. There 
 is good hunting and capital keep, and his wife is perfectly charm- 
 ing. Then he is full of that genuine native heartiness the 
 politesse de cceur nothing made up. What a difference between 
 the hunting party given by a man who goes out without a gun. 
 and whose delight it is to see his friends shoot well, and one 
 where it is perfectly understood that the master is to have most 
 of the shooting, and that bad temper and swearing at the servants 
 are a matter of course, if he does not get it." Abeken wondered
 
 Theatrical Pardoning of a Soldier. 213 
 
 whether politesse de cceur was native French or imported. " Not 
 a doubt," said the Chief, "that the >hrase was borrowed from 
 us. The thing itself exists only among the Germans. I should 
 eall it the courteousness of good- will and of kindly feeling in the 
 best sense of the word the courteousness of a man inclined to 
 be helpful to one. You come across it among our common 
 soldiers, often certainly in the clumsiest forms. But the French 
 have none of it ; their courteousness is begotten only of hatred 
 and envy." He went on to say that the English had something 
 of the sort, and praised Odo Russell, whose natural and straight- 
 forward ways were thoroughly to his liking. " One thing only 
 made me at first a little suspicious of him. I had always heard, 
 and my own experience had confirmed it, that an Englishman 
 who could speak good French was a doubtful character, and Odo 
 "R iie-All speaks French quite admirably. But then he speaks 
 German just as well." 
 
 ^u ucaiicit lie said, "I see that I eat too much, or perhaps 
 too much at a time. I can't get out of the stupid habit of eating 
 only once a day. Some time ago it was even worse. I used to 
 drink my cup of tea early in the morning, and tasted no food at 
 all till five o'clock at night. I smoked ' even on,' and it did 
 me a great deal of harm. Now my doctors make me take at 
 least a couple of eggs in the morning, and I don't smoke much. 
 But I ought to eat oftener, only if I take anything late I am 
 kept awake all night digesting it." 
 
 In the evening I had again to telegraph the news of our 
 victory at Beaune, the French attempt to break through in the 
 direction of Fontainbleau, with the bulk of the Loire army, 
 having been utterly baffled. Afterwards I was directed to send 
 off a telegram to the War Ministry in Berlin, requesting them 
 to issue letters of caption, and to send them to us for publication 
 in the French papers, after all the French officers who have 
 broken their parole and made their escape from captivity, a 
 practice which is becoming alarmingly frequent among these 
 gentlemen. Afterwards he showed me a report from an adju- 
 tant of Keratry, the commander of the Breton army, on the 
 absurd and theatrical pardoning of a soldier, which I was told 
 to reproduce, with a little commentary, in our Moniteur, and 
 which I give here as a specimen of the way in which these new- 
 fangled dilettanti officers show off, and how they get themselves 
 noticed and praised in the newspapers. A few days ago, Count 
 Keratry authorized the following publication :
 
 214 Bismarck in Hue, Franco-German War. 
 
 "CAMP DE CONLIE, November 18, midnight. 
 
 "The General commanding (Keratry) authorizes me to send 
 you the following despatch : ' This -was a day never to be for- 
 gotten in the army of Brittany. A soldier who had been con- 
 demned to be shot at two o'clock was pardoned. He had been 
 guilty of great insubordination to the Commandant of the 
 Camp, General Bonedec. Since his condemnation, the army 
 chaplain and officers of the General staff had interceded on his 
 behalf. General Keratry's answer was that it was out of his 
 power to pass the thing over. Accordingly all the troops in 
 camp were gathered about one o'clock to-day, to be present at 
 the execution of the sentence. About two, everything was in 
 readiness. The condemned man stood between two field chap- 
 lains, expecting every moment would be his last. He had 
 shown considerable fortitude the whole day, as he knew that 
 there was no longer the faintest hope of pardon. At the ap- 
 pointed hour, the sentence was read before all the troops. Then 
 came the first rattle of the drum : at the second all would be 
 over. The coffin was ready, and the grave dug. It was a 
 frighful moment. Just when the last signal was to have been 
 given, Monsieur de Keratry stepped forward, cried 'Halt !' and 
 in a clear ringing voice said (really just as in a genuine melo- 
 drama), 'Officers and men of the army of Brittany ! One of 
 our soldiers guilty of an act of insubordination, has been sen- 
 tenced to death by court-martial ; I grant him at free pardon ; 
 but in future every offence against discipline will be punished 
 without mercy. I hope that this lesson may be sufficient to 
 prevent any offence against the Articles of War or disobedience 
 to the. orders of your officers, and that I shall be rewarded for 
 my leniency by a discipline beyond reproach. That justice may 
 be impartial, I remit all the other sentences at present in force.' 
 This speech was received with tremendous acclamations, and 
 shouts of ' Yive Keratry' (just as in the theatre). The officers 
 of the general stafi who had asked for the man's pardon, were 
 deeply touched. All the troops then marched past the General 
 commanding ; and although ordered to march in silence they 
 kept shouting ' Long live Keratry 1' In the evening the officers 
 of the general staff expressed their gratitude to the Count. His 
 gracious act has made a deep impression on the soldiers. The 
 result will, I hope, be that they will give him a confidence never 
 to be shaken."
 
 Wtiat might have been. 21 5 
 
 The ludicrously theatrical nature of the people at present in 
 authority in France could not be better illustrated than by the 
 publication of such a document. The brave French soldiers 
 who have to fight for the maintenance in power of such stage 
 heroes, are much to be pitied. 
 
 After ten o'clock the French began another furious cannon- 
 ade from their forts, with what object, nobody can make out. 
 At tea, when the Chief was with us, fuller favorable accounts 
 came in of yesterday's battle. We then spoke of the delay of 
 the bombardment a subject coming every day more promin- 
 ently into the foreground and of the Geneva Convention, of 
 which the Chief remarked that we must tolerate the thing, but 
 that it was nonsense, and that war could not be carried on that 
 way. It appears that Delbriick has not telegraphed quite dis- 
 tinctly what are the prospects of the arrangements with Bavaria 
 being carried in the Reichstag. It seems as if the Reichstag 
 could not make up its mind to decisive action, and the con- 
 vention concluded at Versailles were to be attacked both by the 
 Progress party and the National Liberals. The Chief said : 
 " As for the Progress fellows, they are quite consistent. They 
 would like us back in 1849. But these National liberals ! If 
 they will not take what at the beginning of the year they 
 were struggling for with all their might and what they 
 may now have by putting out their hand, we must dis- 
 solve their Reichstag. The Progress party would be 
 weakened by a new election, and several of the National 
 Liberals would not come back either But the conven- 
 vention would for the present be torn to pieces. Bavaria would 
 reconsider her position ; Beust would stick his finger in the pie, 
 and nobody knows what might happen. I can't well go off 
 to Berlin. It is very inconvenient, and takes up a good deal 
 of time when I am really wanted here." In this connection he 
 spoke also of the state of matters in 1848 : "At that time things 
 looked well for a time for a union of Germany under Prussia. 
 The little princes were mostly powerless and in despair. If 
 only they could have had a good deal of property secured to 
 themselves domains, appanages, <tc. most of them would 
 have willingly consented to everything else. The Austrians had 
 their hands full with Hungary and Italy. The Emperor Nicholas 
 would, at that time, have made no protest. If before May, 
 1849, we had put our backs into it, been decided, and settled 
 up with the minor princes, we might have had the south, for
 
 216 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 the armies of Bavaria and Wtirtemberg were inclined to side 
 with the revolution in Baden, which at that time was not an 
 impossibility. But time was lost through delays and half 
 measures, and the opportunity was gone." 
 
 About eleven a telegram came in from Verdy about the sortie 
 this morning. It was directed against La Haye, and about five 
 hundred red-breeches were taken prisoners. The Chief com- 
 plained bitterly that they would go on taking prisoners, instead 
 of shooting them down at once. 
 
 "We had .more than enough prisoners," h said, "already, 
 and the Parisians were relieved of so many 'consumers,' whom 
 we should have to feed and for whom we had no room." 
 
 Prince Putbus and Odo Russell dined with us, and the Prince 
 told us of the only time he had made an attempt to speculate 
 in stocks on the strength of his knowledge of state secrets and 
 of the bad luck he had had of it. "I had been charged," he 
 saifj, " to talk over the Neuenburg (Neufchatel^ business with 
 Napoleon, in the spring of 1857, I believe. I was to ascertain 
 his attitude, and I knew that he would express himself favor- 
 ably, and that that would point to a war with Switzerland. 
 On my way through Frankfort, where I then resided, I went 
 accordingly to see Rothschild, whom I knew personally, and 
 told him to sell out a certain stock which he held for me, as it 
 would certainly not rise. ' I should not advise you to do it,' 
 said Rothschild, ' the stock has good prospects, and you will see 
 that soon.' ' Well,' said I, ' if you knew what I know, you 
 would think differently.' However that might be he said, he 
 should not like to advise selling out. Of course I knew better, 
 so I sold my stock and went off. In Paris, Napoleon was quite 
 clear and very amiable. He could not accede to the King's 
 wish to be allowed to march through Elsass and Lothringen, as 
 that would have roused too much feeling in France. Other- 
 wise he entirely approved of the enterprise, and it would give 
 him nothing but^ratification to see that Democrats' nest routed 
 out. So far I had succeeded perfectly. But I had not calcula- 
 ted on our own policy in Berlin, which had meanwhile shifted 
 in another direction probably in view of Austria so that the 
 thing was given up ; there was no war, the stock kept steadily 
 rising in the market, and I could only regret that it was no 
 longer my property." 
 
 Then we spoke of the bombardment, of the Villa Coublay, 
 and of what seemed the impossibility of getting the necessary
 
 Ambassadors and Ministers. 217 
 
 ammunition forward quickly. The Chief said, " I have told 
 the gentlemen twice over that we have lots of horses, which 
 have ever}* day to be exercised to keep them in health, and 
 which might surely be employed for once in another way. . . ." 
 Somebody told us that the Villa Caffarelli had been pur 
 chased for our embassy in Rome, and Russell and Abeken said 
 it was a very handsome one. The Chancellor said " Yes indeed, 
 and we have some fine houses in other places, as, for instance, 
 in Paris and London. But according to our continental ideas, 
 the latter is too small. Bernstorff has so little space that when 
 he receives or is at work, or has any grand affair on, he has to 
 get his room cleared out for it. His Secretary of Legation has 
 a better room in the house than Bernstorff himself." The resi- 
 dence of the Embassy in Paris is a fine house very comfortably 
 arranged. It is certainly the best house any of the Embassies 
 have in Pai is, and it is worth so much that I once asked mysell 
 the question whether I ought not to dispose of it and give th 
 Ambassador the interest of the capital to pay his rent with. 
 The interest on 2 ^ million francs (=80,000) would be a nice 
 addition to his income, which is only 100,000 francs (4000). 
 But the more I turned it over, the less I liked it. It is not 
 seemly or worthy of a great power, that its ambassadors should 
 have to rent a house which they might get notice to quit, when 
 all the state papers would have to be trundled through the 
 streets in wheel-barrows during the flitting. We must have 
 houses of our own, and we ought to have them in every embassy 
 town. The house in London is in a very peculiar position. It 
 belongs to the King, and everything turns on the energy witk 
 which the ambassador of the day looks after his own interests. 
 It may happen occasionally it does happen that the King 
 
 gets no rent at all " The Chief praised Napier, who 
 
 was formerly English ambassador in Berlin. " It was very 
 easy to get on with him," he said ; " Buchanan, too, was a good, 
 dry man, but trustworthy. Now we have Lofkus. The posi- 
 tion of an English ambassador in Berlin raises curious questions 
 and involves special difficulties on account of the relationship 
 between the two Royal Houses. It needs great tact and discre- 
 tion (a quiet hint probably that Loftus does not answer these 
 demands and requirements)." The Minister (perhaps to mark 
 still more clearly his opinion of the character * of the then 
 representative of Her Britannic Majesty) then turned the con- 
 versation to Gramont, saying " He and Ollivier always seem to 
 15
 
 218 Bismarck in the Franco- German War. 
 
 me the real people. If such a thing had happened in my hands, 
 after doing mischief like that, I should at least have enlisted or 
 become Franc-tireur on my own account, though I might have 
 been hanged for it. That big strong fellow, Gramont, is very well 
 made for soldiering. Russell said he had once seen him in Rome 
 in blue velveteens at a hunting party. "Yes," said the Chief," he 
 is a good sportsman. He has the right build of muscles for it. 
 He would have been a capital head gamekeeper. But Minis- 
 ter of Foreign Affairs one can hardly conceive how Napoleon 
 could have appointed him to such a position." 
 
 Thursday, December 1. This morning only a couple of shots 
 were fired from the forts. I telegraphed that yesterday's sortie 
 had led to a desperate struggle with the Wiirternberg Division, 
 the larger half of the 12th, and portions of the 6th and 2nd 
 Army Corps, and that the result had been that the enemy had 
 been repulsed along the whole line. The wounded had 
 declined to avail themselves of the permission to return to Paris. 
 Afterwards there was the usual study of the journals with 
 pencil marking and extracts. 
 
 At breakfast Abeken appeared with his I .air cut. He asked 
 Bismarck-Bohlen how he looked. The answer was, "Admir- 
 ably, Privy Councillor, but the lock on the one side is longer 
 than on the other." " No matter for that, I always wear it so. 
 But have you really nothing else to say against it 1 ?" "It is 
 quite perfect, Privy Councillor." The old gentleman went away 
 whistling, greatly pleased with himself and Hatzfeld watched 
 him as he went out with a wondering smile. 
 
 At dinner we had a First Lieutenant von Saldern who was 
 present as Adjutant at the last engagements of the 10th Army 
 Corps with the Army of the Loire. According to him this 
 Corps was for a long time surrounded by a superior body of 
 French, who were trying to break through one wing of our 
 troops towards Fontainbleau. They defended themselves for 
 seven hours against the enemy's assaults with magnificent 
 courage and firmness. The troops under Wedel, and above all 
 those of the 16th Regiment, specially distinguished themselves. 
 " We made over 1600 prisoners, and the total loss of the French 
 is estimated at from 4000 to 5000 men," said Saldern. " Yes," 
 said the Chief, " but prisoners are now a serious trouble to us, 
 an extra burden" . . . When Saldern told us, in the course of 
 his narrative, that one of the French soldiers was shot only ten 
 paces in front of our needle-guns, the Chief said, " But he teas
 
 Bismarck and the Hospitals* 219 
 
 shot." Afterwards he gave Abeken his instructions for the 
 report he was to make for him to the King, ' and say to his 
 Majesty," said he finally, " that if we permit a Frenchman to 
 appear in London (in the Conference then being held for the 
 revision of the peace of 1856), we are not bound to do so, as 
 the Goverment has never been recognised by the Powers, and 
 cannot be long in existence. We may allow it, to gratify 
 Russia, on this question only, but if anything else is brought 
 forward, he must leave the room." 
 
 The Chief then told us the following incident : " After being 
 with Roon to-day, I took a walk which may have done some 
 good. I went to see Marie Antoinette's rooms in the chateau, 
 after which I thought to myself, You should take note how the 
 wounded are getting on. I asked one of the sentinels, ' What 
 do the people get to eat 1 " ( Well,' he said, ' not very much, 
 a little soup, meant for broth, with some bits of bread and 
 pickles of rice in it, not boiled very soft, and very little fat.' 
 ' And about the wine,' I said, ' and do you get beer 1 They got 
 about half a glass of wine a day. I asked another, afterwards, 
 who had got none at all. A third told me he had had some 
 three days ago, but none since. I questioned about a dozen, 
 including some Poles, who did not understand me, and could 
 only express their delight to have anybody asking for them, by 
 smiling. Also the poor wounded soldiers did not get what they 
 ought, and the rooms were cold, because they were not allowed 
 to be heated for fear of spoiling the pictures on the walls. As 
 if the life of a single soldier were not worth more than all the 
 lumber of pictures in the chateau. Then the servants told me 
 that the oil lamps were only allowed till eleven, and that after 
 that the men had to lie in the dark till the morning. I had 
 previously talked with an officer severely wounded in the foot. 
 He said he ought to be satisfied, though things might be 
 managed better. People took pretty good care of him, but for 
 
 the reslj . A Bavarian companion of St. John plucked up 
 
 heart and told me that beer and wine were given out, but pro- 
 bably half or more went a-missing somehow, as well as warm 
 things and other gifts from friends at home. Then I went off 
 to the head doctor. ' What about the provision for sick,' I 
 said ; ' do they get proper things to eat ] ' ' Here is the official 
 list of returns.' Don't show me that,' I said, ' people can't eat 
 apper do they get their wine 1 ' ' Half a litre daily.' Pardon 
 me, the people say that is not so. I have askSd them, and it is
 
 220 Bismarck in the Franco- German War. 
 
 hardly to be supposed they are lying when they say they have 
 got none.' ' Here, sir, is my proof that everything is done pro- 
 perly, and according to my orders. Come with me, and I shall 
 ask them about it before you.' ' I must excuse myself, I said, 
 ' but they shall be asked by the auditor whether they get what 
 goes to the inspector for them.' ' That would be a great reflec- 
 tion on me,' said he. ' Yes,' said I, of course, ' but I shall take 
 care that the matter is inquired into, and at once.' " * He 
 went on to say, " Frauds happen mostly among two classes, the 
 meal-worms, who have to do with the provisions, and the build- 
 ing people, especially the hydraulic engineers. Unfortunately, 
 too, there are some among the doctors. Not long ago, perhaps 
 a year and a half since, I remember that there was a great 
 investigation into frauds in the supply of the soldiers, and to 
 my astonishment I found that about thirty doctors were in- 
 volved." Then he asked suddenly, " Does any of you know 
 who is Niethammer ? He must come of a very learned family." 
 Somebody thought he was a philologian, another said there was 
 a friend of Hegel's of that name, Keudell remembered that 
 there was a diplomatist so-called, who had no good- will to us. 
 The Chief said he must have been in relation with jHarless, a 
 Bavarian theologian, who was an enemy of ours. 
 
 In the evening Dunker's interpellation on the imprisonment 
 of Jacoby, as it appeared in the National Zeitung, was prepared 
 for the King's reading. 
 
 The Chancellor came in later, after half-past ten, when we 
 were at tea. After a while he said, " The papers are not 
 pleased with the Bavarian Convention ; I expected as much. 
 They are out of humor because certain officials, who will have 
 to conduct themselves entirely according to our laws, are to be 
 called Bavarian. It is the same thing, essentially, with the 
 military people. The beer tax is not to their mind, as if we 
 had not had the same thing for years in the Customs Union. 
 They would cavil in this way over every detail in the treaty, 
 though everything essential has been obtained and properly 
 secured. They are behaving as if we had been at war previously 
 with Bavaria, as we were with the Saxons in 1866, instead of 
 
 * \Veshaliseeafterwarclsthatlittlemore came of this suspicion, which 
 appearances abundantly justified than that some small defects were dis- 
 covered in the }>' nvision for looking after the sick throughout. I have told 
 the story as an evktence of the Minister's sense of justice and kindly feeling 
 for people.
 
 Bulk of the War Indemnity.^ 221 
 
 the Bavarians being our allies, and fighting at our side. Rather 
 than see any good in the Convention, they would prefer to wait 
 till they could have their unity in a form agreeable to them- 
 selves. They would have to wait a long while. Their course 
 leads to nothing but distraction, while the matter must be set- 
 tled at once. If we put off, Time, the old enemy, will come in, 
 and sow tares among our wheat. The Convention secures us a 
 great deal, and those who want everything will make it possible 
 that we may get nothing whatever. They are not content with 
 what is in their hand they want more uniformity if they 
 would only think of five years back, and what they would then 
 have been satisfied with. ... A Constituent Assembly ! But 
 the King of Bavaria might decline to allow one to be elected. 
 The Bavarian people would never force his hand, and neither 
 should we. Yes, criticism is easy when people don't in the 
 least realise the real circumstances." 
 
 He then turned to a different subject : " I have seen the 
 account," he said, " of the surprise of the Unna Battalion. 
 Inhabitants of Chatillon took part in it, and others undoubtedly 
 added to the difficulties of our troops. If they had only burnt 
 down the place in their first rage ! Afterwards, in cold blood, 
 it is not so easy to do." 
 
 A little after, he took up some gold pieces, and played with 
 them in his hands for awhile. " It is startling," he said, " how 
 many well-dressed people go about begging here. It was the 
 same in Rheims, only it is much worse here. How seldom one 
 sees gold pieces now of Louis Phillippe's, or Charles the Tenth's ! 
 I remember when I was young, in my twenties, one still saw 
 pieces of Louis the Sixteenth and Eighteenth, the thick ones. 
 Even the name, Louis d'or, has almost gone out, though with 
 us it is still the correct thing to talk of Friedrichs d'or." He 
 balanced a gold Napoleon on the tip of his middle finger, as if 
 he were weighing it, and went on : "A hundred million double 
 Napoleons would be about the amount of the war indemnity 
 so far, in gold it will come to more after a bit 4,000 million 
 francs. Forty thousand gold thalers make a hundredweight, 
 thirty hundredweights are the load for a good two-horse cart 
 I know that I once had to take 14,OQO gold thalers home, and 
 how heavy they were ! That would take about eight hundred 
 carts." " We should get those faster than the carts for the ammu- 
 nition for the bombardment," said somebody, whose patience, 
 like that of most of us, was about worn out over the putting off
 
 222 Bisftiarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 of the bombardment. " Yes," said the Chief," but Roon told us 
 a few days ago, that he has several hundred lerries at Nanteuil, 
 meant for the transport of the ammunition. We might use four 
 horses for awhile, for carriages which have now six, and spare 
 the extra two for the transport of ammunition. We have 
 already 318 cannon, but we want forty more, and he might get 
 them also, said Roon. But others won't hear of it." After- 
 wards, Hatzfeld said ; "They have been refusing to hear of it 
 for six or seven weeks now. Bronsard and Verdy said, so long 
 ago as at Ferrieres, that we could lay Forts Issy and Vanvres in 
 ruins in six-and-thirty hours, and then advance on Paris itself. 
 Yet, after all that, nothing is done." I asked what Moltke 
 thought about the matter. " Oh, he does not trouble himself," 
 said Hatzfeld ; but Bucher said, " Moltke wants the bombard- 
 ment." 
 
 Before going to bed, I cast my eye over our Moniteur, with 
 a whole column full of names of French officers who had been 
 taken prisoners, broken their parole, and got off from the 
 places where they had been interned. There were captains 
 and lieutenants, infantry and cavalry, northern Frenchmen and 
 southern Frenchmen. Two had got away from Dresden, and 
 no fewer than ten from Hirschberg. If we can trust the re- 
 ports in the English and Belgian" newspapers, there is little 
 enough already in Paris, of what holds body and soul together ; 
 but things are still bearable, at all ovents, for well-to-do people. 
 They have plenty of bread, dried vegetables and preserved 
 meats. There is very little fresh beef, and it is very dear. 
 Horse and donkey-flesh, " both better than they are called," says 
 a letter, have to serve for it with most of the Parisians. The 
 rat is beginning to bo much in request. Dogs and cats are 
 articles of luxury, and can no longer put out their noses with 
 impunity on the Boulevards at night. 
 
 The stock of oil is abeut done, there is no more wood for 
 firing, and the supplies of coal are running low. About the 
 middle of November a pound of butter cost twenty-five to 
 twenty-six francs, a goose thirty-five, a pound of horse-flesh 
 three to four francs, and fresh vegetables and milk were no 
 longer within the reach of people of moderate means. 
 
 Friday, December 2. Alten, Lehndorff, and an officer in 
 dragoon uniform were the Chief's guests at dinner. The officer 
 was a Herr von Thadden, a son of Thadden-Treglaff. The 
 Chief said that after coming back from a carriage round he had
 
 Two Love Gifts. 223 
 
 just been looking to the better quartering of our soldiers on 
 guard. " Up to to this time the fellows have been billeted," 
 he said, " in Madame Jesse's coach-yard, where they can get no 
 fire. I could not allow that any longer, and ordered the gard- 
 ener to clear out the half of the hothouse for them. ' But 
 madame's plants will be frozen,' said the gardener's wife. 'It 
 is a pity,' I said, ' but it is better than that the soldiers should 
 be.' " He then spoke of the danger that the Reichstag might 
 disallow, or at least modify, the convention with Bavaria. " I 
 am most anxious about it," said he. " These people have no 
 idea of the real situation. We are standing on the point of a 
 lightning conductor ; if we lose our balance, after I have had 
 the greatest difficulty in getting it, we tumble to the bottom. 
 They want more than what was got without using any pressure, 
 and what they would have been delighted with, or with the 
 half of it, in 1866. They want amendments, they want to put 
 in more unity and uniformity. If they alter a single comma, 
 we shall have the negotiations all over again. Where are they 
 to be held ] Here in Versailles ? And if we are not finished 
 by the 1st of January, which would be delightful to many in 
 Munich, the unity of Germany is done for, perhaps for years, 
 and the Austrians can do what they like in Munich." 
 
 The first dish after the soup was mushrooms, served up in 
 two different ways. " You must eat these with much feeling," 
 he said : " they are a love-gift from the soldiers, who found 
 them in some quarry or cellar, where a crop of mushrooms is 
 being raised. The cook has fitted with them a capital sauce, 
 first-rate ! Even a better love-gift, certainly a more unusual 
 one, was sent me by the soldiers : what regiment was it that 
 sent me the roses V " The 47th," said Bohlen. " Yes, that 
 bouquet of roses was gathered under fire, probably in the garden 
 of the outpost circle. By the bye, that reminds me that in the 
 hospital I came across a Polish soldier, who could read no Ger- 
 man. A Polish prayerbook would be a comfort to him ; has 
 anybody such a thing 1 ?" Alten said no, but he could supply 
 him with some Polish newspapers. The Chief replied : " No 
 good ; he would not understand them, and they Avould put 
 him up against us. Perhaps Radziwill has something. A Polish 
 novel, ' Pan Twardowski,' or something of that sort, might do." 
 Alten said he would make a note of it. 
 
 The conversation then turned on to-day's sortie, as twice 
 over we heard the thunder from the Seine. Somebody said,
 
 224 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 " The poor Wiirtemberg fellows have no doubt lost a great 
 many men this time,too." " Most likely the poor Saxons also," 
 said the Chief. Somebody mentioned Ducrot, who was prob- 
 ably in command of the sortie, and said he ought to take care 
 not to get taken prisoner. " Certainly," said the Minister, 
 " he should either get killed in battle, or if he has no mind for 
 that he should take himself off in a balloon." . . . The Chief 
 looked round : " Where is Krausnik 1 He has surely not for- 
 gotten to bring the apple-poultice for the soldier which I prom- 
 ised him. He was wounded only in the arm, but he looked a 
 miserable object, and had fever suppuration, I am afraid." 
 
 We began to talk of speculation in stocks, and the Minister 
 again repeated that very little could be made out of it, through 
 the possession of which must always give one a very restricted 
 forecast of political events. Such things only produce their 
 effects on the exchange a little later, and nobody can guess on 
 what day the effect will begin. " Yes," he went on, " and if 
 one could procure a fall of stocks by intrigues of that sort, it 
 would be a disgraceful affair. The French Minister G. did so, 
 as R. recently told us. He doubled his capital by it it might 
 almost be said that the war was promoted with that object. M., 
 too, as they say tried the same business not on his own ac- 
 count, but with the money of his mistress and when it was 
 likely to turn out well, he died under suspicious circumstances. 
 A man who wants to make use of his position will arrange to 
 have the Bourse telegrams for all the Exchanges sent on along 
 with the political despatches to suitable officials at the various 
 legations. Political telegrams have precedence, and twenty or 
 thirty minutes might be gained that way. Then you must have 
 a Jew who can run fast, to take propev advantage of the extra 
 time. There are people, doubtless, who have done it. In this 
 way one might earn his 500 or 5,000 thalers daily, which in a 
 couple of years would come to a good deal of money. My son 
 shall never say that his father made him a rich man in any such 
 fashion. He may get rich some other way, if he wants. I 
 was better off' before I was Chancellor of the Confederation 
 than I am now. I was ruined by the Dotation. Since that 
 time I have been a man in difficulties. I considered myself 
 before as a simple country squire, but after I came to belong 
 in a sort of way to the peerage, the demands on me have in- 
 creased, and my estates don't bring it in. The time when I 
 always had something to the good was when I was ambassador
 
 Heavy Cannonading. 225 
 
 at Frankfort, and in St. Petersburg, when I needed to keep no 
 company and kept none." Then he told us of his ground-fir 
 and wood pulp concerns in Yarzin, out of which he seemed to 
 expect to make a good deal. His tenant paid him interest on 
 the capital which he had sunk in the mills and other plant. 
 "How much might it be?" said somebody. "Forty to fifty 
 thousand thalers. He pays me 2,000 thalers," he added, " for 
 a water-power, which was of no use before ; he buys my pine 
 logs which I could hardly sell previously, and after thirty years 
 he is to hand me back the whole of the mills in the condition 
 in which he received them. At present there is only one, but 
 there will soon be another where the water falls with greater 
 force, and afterwards a third." "And what may your tenant 
 make of it?" "Pasteboard for book-covers, paper for packing 
 and for making boxes and so on, especially for Berlin, and cakes 
 of ground-pine flour which are sent to England, dissolved 
 there, mixed up with other stuffs, and turned into paper." All 
 this he explained to us in detail, as knowing all about the 
 processes. 
 
 Saturday, December 8. During the night there was heavy 
 firing again in the north, but, in the course of the day, only 
 single shots came from the big guns. Yesterday there must 
 have been severe fighting on the east and north-east of Paris, 
 with heavy losses on our side too. Apparently the French had 
 established their footing at night in the villages of Brie, Vil- 
 liers, and Champigny. which were included within our lines. I 
 forward by telegraph to Germany a communication from the 
 General Staff about these events, which leaves the continued 
 occupation of these positions by our troops ambiguous, speaks 
 only of the repulse of the French, who burst out in heavy 
 masses, by the Saxons (who seem to have lost a whole battalion), 
 the Wiirtemberg troops, and the 2nd Army Corps, and goes on 
 to describe a victory at Longwy and at Artenay. At half-past 
 one the Chief goes to visit the Grand Duke of Baden, whose 
 wife's birthday it is, and afterwards dines with the King. We 
 have Count Holnstein with us, who went off last Saturday 
 night to see the King of Baden at Hohenschwangau and got 
 back here at midday to-day. " A journey that can never be 
 forgotten," said Bohlen to him. I asked Bucher about it. 
 " The Count was absent while the Emperor question was going 
 on, and he brings back good news," he answered. We were 
 struck to-day by the French firing four cannon-shots some six
 
 226 BismarcK 'in the Franco-German War. 
 
 times in the course of the day, two at intervals of about four 
 seconds, and two almost simultaneously. 
 
 The Gaulois, which has emigrated from Paris to Brussels, 
 seems an accurate sort of print. Its editors, one of whom was 
 that amiable person, Angelo de Miranda, go on as if they were 
 still writing in Paris, shut off from all the world. For example, 
 these children of the father of lies tell us, that about the mid- 
 dle of October Prussia paid 450,000 thalers (67,500), through 
 a London house, to certain people living in France, on which 
 account these people are supposed to be Prussian spies. They 
 say that Moltke died and was buried three weeks since, but 
 that any German soldier who mentions the fact is at once shot. 
 To get out of the way of the serious business which there is 
 likely soon to be about Paris, King William has it seems, taken 
 himself off to Germany, probably to open the Reichstag. 
 Lastly thirty-six heads of families at Mutzig, near Strass- 
 burg, whose sons are with the French afmy, have been 
 put to death, their ears and noses cut off, and their corpses 
 fastened on the church walls, where they have been for a month 
 past. In other respects the chief editor, Tarbe, is not at all 
 bad. He attacks Gambetta, whom he calls a tyrant, and whom 
 he charges particularly with acting in the interest only of the 
 republic, not of France, the republic meaning nothing but his 
 own dictatorship and absolute sovereignty ; and with sacrificing 
 his country to secure his own power. In Paris Tarbe appears 
 not to have been in a position to express these views with suf- 
 ficient distinctness. So he left Paris, and tried to slip through 
 the German lines with three of his sub-editors. He succeeded, 
 but he could not start his paper again in any of the French 
 provincial towns, as he might not have been allowed to attack 
 Gambetta even there. So he is going to fight and lie from 
 Belgium. Notes about this mendacious print were communi- 
 cated to the Moniteur and the German papers. 
 
 Sunday, December 4- The Barvarian ex-minister Von R-og- 
 genbach, first lieutenant Von Sarwadsky, and the Bavarian 
 companion of St. John, von Niethaminer, a man with an un- 
 commonly noble countenance, whose acquaintance the Prince 
 made recently in the hospital, were at dinner. The Minister 
 first mentioned that he had again been visiting the wounded in 
 the chateau. Then he said, " Frankfort and Petersburg ex- 
 cepted, I have never been as long in any strange place as I 
 have been here. We shall certainly spend our Christmas here,
 
 Possible Difficulties in negotiating Peace. 227 
 
 and a little ago we did not expect that. At Easter we may be 
 still in Versailles seeing the trees once more growing green, 
 and keeping our ears always open for news of the army of the 
 Loire. If we had known, we should have had asparagus beds 
 in the garden out there." Afterwards, turning to Roggenbach. 
 he said, " I have seen the extracts from the newspapers. How 
 they are wrestling over the Convention ! They don't leave 
 one good hair on its head. The National Zeitung, the Koln- 
 ische, the Weser Zeitung, which is as it always is, the most 
 rational of all. Well, criticism must please itself. But I am 
 responsible if nothing comes of it all, and the critics are not. 
 It is all one what they say against me if the thing can only be 
 put through in the Reichstag ; history may say, if it pleases, 
 that that poor creature of a Chancellor ought to have made 
 something much better out of it, but then I was responsible. 
 If the Reichstag amends it, every South German country diet 
 may do the same, and a peace such as we want, and need, is 
 done for. Elsass cannot be claimed from France, unless a 
 political personality has been meanwhile created, and there is a 
 Germany to recover it for." 
 
 We spoke of the peace negotiations which would likely 
 spring out of the soon-expected capitulation of Paris, and of 
 the difficulties that might ensue. " Favre and Trochu," the 
 Chief began, " may say." ' We are no longer the Government ; 
 we once were, but we have resigned and are merely private 
 individuals I am only Citizen Trochu.' I should soon bring 
 the Parisians to their senses. I should say, You two millions 
 of people are answerable to me with your lives. I shall leave 
 you to starve for four-and-twenty hours till we get what we 
 want out of you. And twenty-four hours on the top of that, 
 for what happens is all one to me. The delay will do me no 
 harm, but ... I could manage well enough with myself, but 
 there is something standing behind me, behind my back, or 
 rathher lying on my chest, so that I cannot breathe. . . Ah ! 
 if I were squire, I could answer for my own hardheartedness ; 
 but I am not squire. Within the last few days something very 
 foolish has come up through sentimental feeling for the people 
 inside. Great magazines of provisions are to be prepared for 
 the Parisians. They are to be brought over from London and 
 Belgium, tho magazines are to be between our lines, and our 
 soldiers are only to look on, and not to help themselves out of 
 them when they are in want. It is to save the Parisians from
 
 228 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 starving after the capitulation." " We have certainly enough 
 in tha house here, but the troops outside are often hard to put 
 to it, and they are suffering that the Parisians may be able, 
 when they know they are looked after outside, to put the cap- 
 itulation off till they have really swallowed their last loaf and 
 slaughtered their last horse. I am not asked about it, else I 
 should be hanged rather than give my consent." " But I have 
 myself to blame ; I was imprudent enough to invite people's 
 attention, only the diplomatic world's to be sure, to famine as 
 inevitable." (I had also had to do the same in the news- 
 papers.) 
 
 Swiss cheese was handed round, and somebody asked whether 
 cheese went well with wine. " Some kinds of cheese with 
 some sorts of wine," said the Minister ; " high-flavored 
 cheeses like Gorgonzola or Dutch, don't suit. Others suit well. 
 When people used to drink hard in. Pomerania, some two cen- 
 turies or so since, the Rammin folk were the hardest drinkers. 
 One Stettin man had once got wine which did not taste right 
 to him, and he wrote to the wine merchant about it. The 
 answer he got back was, ' Eet Kees to Wien, Herr von Ram- 
 min, denn smekt de Wien. wie in 5tettiii ook to Rammin.' 
 (' Take cheese to your wine, like a Kammin man, for the wine 
 tastes the same in Stettin as in Rammin.')" 
 
 I went down to tea after half-past ten. Bismarck-Bohlen 
 and Hatzfeld were sitting there with three sharp-shooters, who 
 were waiting for the orders of the Chief. It was half an hour 
 later before he came back from the Grand Duke of Baden's. 
 He wrote rapidly a letter in pencil to the general commanding 
 the Fourth Army Corps, which one of the sharp-shooters took 
 away with him. Then he told us how the Grand Duke had just 
 had the news from the King that our people were now in pos- 
 session of the Forest of Orleans and close up to the town. 
 After the others and the sharp-shooters had left, I asked, 
 " Your Excellency, should I telegraph the good news straight 
 off to London 1 " " Yes," he said, smiling, " if the general 
 staff will allow us to say anything about the movements of the 
 army." He then read Reuter's telegram with accounts from 
 the French side. He stopped at the word " tarde," which was 
 probably a mistake in writing out, saying, " A Saxon must 
 have telegraphed this." Then, with a look at me, " I beg your 
 pardon." 
 
 The gentlemen came in with Abeken who had had the hon-
 
 Victories at Orleans and Amiens. 
 
 or to drink tea with the King. We spoke of GortchakofFs 
 note, of England, of Count Holnstein's journey and its happy 
 results, of his audience by King William. Bohlen said, "They 
 are quite beside themselves in Germany. It will be a splendid 
 spectacle to-morrow with their Emperor. They will illumin- 
 ate ; they are already making preparations for a feast of 
 dazzling magnificence." "Well," said the Chief, "it may have, 
 I fancy, a good effect on the Reichstag. It was very good of 
 Roggenbach to be ready to go off to Berlin at once " (to preach 
 reason to those of the members of parliament who were dis- 
 satisfied). 
 
 Monday, December 5. Charming weather, but this morn- 
 ing very cold. While he was still in bed the Chief had a writ- 
 ten report from Bonsart, that the Third and Ninth Army 
 Corps under Prince Frederick Charles had had a great victory, 
 that the railway station and one of the suburbs of Orleans had 
 been taken by Mannstein ; that the Grand Duke of Mecklen- 
 burg had appeared in the west of the town*; that over thirty 
 cannon and several thousand prisoners had fallen into our 
 hands. All sorts of w*ar material, including nine cannon, had 
 also been captured by our troops at Amiens, after a victory 
 there. Finally, here, before Paris, the French had been driven 
 back behind the Marne. I telegraph this in our usual fashion, 
 and this time the Minister had no fault to find with my long 
 despatch. 
 
 Soon after he called me back, and I wrote out a polemical 
 article on the Bavarian affair, in which the ideas I had put for- 
 ward hitherto were somewhat differently given. 
 
 The Royal messenger Bamberger sat at dinner on the Chiefs 
 left. He was thinking of starting for Berlin to persuade peo- 
 ple to accept the conventions with South Germany without al- 
 teration. Besides him, the Minister had as his guests a dra- 
 goon officer with a yellow collar, Colonel von Schenk, and a 
 lieutenant or captain of the light-blue hussars. The latter, a 
 grey-headed gentleman with moustaches, was the von Rochow 
 who killed Hinkeldey in a duel. The conversation first turned 
 on doctors, and their knowledge of things, and the Chief thought 
 very little of them. Then we talked of the conventions, and 
 somebody said that the attitude of the princes in the matter 
 had been right. " Yes, but the attitude of the Reichstag," in- 
 terrupted the Chancellor, " I can think of nothing but, gentle- 
 men, gentlemen, you are spoiling the whole of our fowling.
 
 230 Bismarck in the Franco-German V ir. 
 
 You remember Kaiser Heinrich. But it turned out well there 
 in the end. Well, if this fails, man after man of them might 
 offer himself to be shot dead on the altar of his country, but it 
 would be of no use to anybody." Then he thought a moment, 
 and went on with a half smile, " People should make members 
 of Parliament as responsible as ministers, no more and no less, 
 on a footing of perfect equality. There might lie a law that 
 they could be put on trial for high treason, for obstructing im- 
 portant State agreements, or, as they have done in Paris here, 
 for approving a war made without just cause, and in lightness 
 of heart (they were all for it, except Jules Favre). Some day, 
 perhaps, I shall introduce such a law." 
 
 We spoke again of the delay in the capitulation of Paris, 
 which was to have taken place in four weeks at latest. " Yes," 
 sighed the Chancellor, "if it would only come to that, all my 
 troubles would be over." Bamberger suggested, "I suppose we 
 shall not allow them merely to capitulate ; we shall require them 
 to make peace with* us?" " Quite so, " said the Chief, " that is 
 my view, too, and we must force them to it by starving them. 
 But there are people here who want to be praised for their hu- 
 manity above everything and who spoil everything with it ; 
 besides which, our first duty of humanity is to think of our own 
 soldiers, and see that they don't suffer needless misery, and are 
 
 not killed for nothing." " 's view of the bombardment is 
 
 just the same. Then they spare the potato-grubbers, who ought 
 to be shot, of course, if we want to force the city to submit by 
 starvation." 
 
 After eight o'clock I was repeatedly called for by the Chief, 
 and wrote two longish articles. The second was founded on a 
 note in the Independance Beige, and pointed out that there was 
 nothing in the circumstance that the House of Orleans was 
 connected with that of Habsburg Lothringeii through the Duc- 
 d'Aleno9n, to make us Germans inclined to give it any prefer- 
 ence, or to regard it at all more favorably. 
 
 While we were drinking tea, and after Bucher and Keudell 
 and I had been sitting awhile together, the Chief came in, and 
 Hatzfeld afterwards. The latter had been with the King, and 
 told us that he had learned that in the battle near Orleans, and 
 during the pursuit which followed, Prince Frederick Charles 
 had captured seventy-seven guns, several mitrailleuses, and four 
 gun-boats. Some 10,000 un wounded prisoners fell into our 
 hands. The enemy's troops dispersed in different directions.
 
 Aleaxwufar von Humboldt 231 
 
 All the important points were taken by storm, and we suffered 
 considerable losses in consequence, the 36th, for instance, hav- 
 ing lost a great many, it is beiieved as many as 600 men. In 
 the last battle before Paris, also, we lost heavily, in consequence 
 of the overwhelming numbers of the enemy. You may ima- 
 gine, Hatzfeld went on to say, that we did not have a very 
 lively time at the King's. " The Russian state conncillor, 
 Crimm, told us all sorts of feebly interesting things about 
 Louis XIV. and Louis XV. The Weimar man proposed a 
 riddle to which nobody could give the correct answer." " Eado- 
 %vitz was a great man in finding out these things," said the 
 Minister. " He used to give his solution of every possible 
 thing with the utmost confidence, and that was the way in 
 which he won most of his successes at Court. He could tell us 
 exactly what la Maintenon or la Pompadour wore on such and 
 such a day. She had this or that round her throat, her head- 
 dress was ornamented with humming-birds, or bunches of grapes; 
 she wore a pearl-green or a parrot-green dress with such or such 
 flounces and laces all quite as well as if he had been there 
 himself. The ladies were all ears for this toilette lecture, which 
 came trippingly from his tongue." 
 
 The conversation turned afterwards on Alexander von Hum- 
 boldt, who, if we can trust to what was said about him, must 
 have been a courtier not at all of the entertaining kind. " In 
 the time of his late Majesty," the Chief told us, " I was the on- 
 ly victim when Humboldt used of an evening to entertain the 
 company in his own fashion. He used to read aloud to us 
 often for an hour at a time- -a biographical account of some 
 French scholar or architect in whom nobody but himself took 
 any interest. There he stood, holding his paper close up to the 
 lamp. Occasionally he let his hands drop, to interpose some 
 learned expansion of what he had been saying. Nobody listen- 
 ed to him, but he kept on without a pause. The Queen work- 
 ed steadily at some tapestry work, and certainly did not hear a 
 word of his discourse. The King'looked over pictures cop- 
 per-plates and wood-cuts making a good deal of rustli; >g in turn- 
 ing them over, with the quiet purpose apparently of prevent- 
 ing himself having to listen to anything that was being said. 
 The young folks kept at the side and in the background, talking 
 quite unrestrainedly, tittering, and occasionally overpowering 
 the voice of the lecturer, who went rippling on all the same for 
 -ever like the brook. Gerlach, who was usually present, sat on
 
 232 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 a little round stool, over the edge of which his portly person 
 overflowed on all sides, and he slept and snored so loud that 
 the King once wakened him up, saying, ' Gerlach, don't snore 
 so any longer.' I was his only patient audience, for I kept 
 quiet, as if I were listening to the discourse, while I was think- 
 ing of other things. At last, we had in the cold meat and the 
 white wine." "It vexed the old gentleman very much when 
 he could not get speaking. I remember once that somebody 
 present took up all the conversation, quite naturally, as he was 
 telling us in a charming way about things that interested us all. 
 Humboldt was beside himself. He moodily heaped on his 
 plate so high," (showing us with his hand) "pate de foie gras, 
 fat eels, lobster claws, and other indigestibles a regular 
 mountain of them it was marvellous what that old man 
 could eat. When he was able for no more, he began to be rest- 
 less again, and made one more attempt to run away with the 
 conversation. ' On the peak af Popocatepetl,' he began, but it 
 was no use, the story-teller was not to be put down. ' On the 
 summit of Popocatepetl, 14,000 yards above the level of the 
 sea,' he repeated, in a loud, excited voice. It was still no use; 
 the story-teller went on just the same, and the company gave 
 their attention to him alone. It was unheard of an outrage ! 
 Humboldt sat down storming, and fell a-musing sadly on the 
 ingratitude of mankind, even at Court." 
 
 "The Liberals made a great deal of him, and counted him 
 one of themselves. But the breath of his nostrils was the 
 favor of princes, and he never felt himself comfortable except 
 in the sunshine of royalty. That did not prevent him from 
 gossiping about th'e Court afterwards with Varnhagen, and 
 telling all sorts of evil stories about it. Varnhagen made books 
 of them, which I bought like other people. They are frightfully 
 dear when one thinks of the dozen lines in big type that sprawl 
 over- a page. Keudell said he supposed, however, that for his- 
 tory they were indispensable. "Yes," said the Chief, "in 
 a certain sense they are. There are points on which they are 
 not worth much, but as a whole they express the acrid tone of 
 Berlin society at a time when there was no good in it. Every- 
 body about that time used to talk with the same malicious im- 
 potence." "WitHbut such books, it would be quite impossible 
 for one nowadays to have the least conception of the kind of 
 world it was unless one had seen it. Plenty of appar- 
 ent, but no real good-breeding. I can remember, though I
 
 Moltlce and Trochu. 233 
 
 was then but a little fellow (it must have been in the year 1821 
 or 1822), the Ministers of the day were frightful creatures, 
 much stared at, and full of a mysterious importance. There 
 happened to be a great gathering at Schuckmann's, what was 
 called at that time an 'Assembly.' What a frightful creature 
 of a Minister that man was ! My mother went to it. I can 
 remember her as if it were yesterday. She had long gloves on, 
 up to here" (pointing up past his elbow), "a short- waisted gown, 
 her curls done up in pads at both sides, and a big ostrich 
 feather on her head." Whether or not he had meant to tell UP 
 some story, he broke off here and went back to Humboldt. 
 " Humboldt," he said, "had really much to tell one that was 
 worth listening to, when ons was alone with him about the 
 time of Frederick William III. and especially about his own 
 first residence in Paris. He had a kindness for me as I was 
 always so respectful a listener, and I got a great many good 
 anecdotes from him. It was just the same with old Metter- 
 nich. I spent a couple of days with him once on the Johannis- 
 berg. Thuii saidHo me, some time after, 'I don't know what 
 glamor you have been casting over the old prince, who has 
 been looking down into you as if you were a golden goblet, and 
 who told me that he had no insight at all, if you and I did not 
 get on well together.' 'Well,' said I,. ' I will tell you ; I listen- 
 ed peaceably to all his stories, only pushing the clock several 
 times till it rang again. That pleases these talkative old men.' " 
 Hatzfeld remarked, that Moltke had written to Trochu, to tell 
 him the real state of things at Orleans. "He gave him liberty 
 to send out an officer to convince himself of the truth, offering 
 him a safe conduct to Orleans." The Chief said, "I know. I 
 should have liked better that they had let the proposal origin- 
 ate with him. Our lines are at present thin in several places , 
 and, besides, they have their carrier-pigeon post. When we in 
 vite them to come out and see for themselves, it looks as if we 
 were in a great hurry for the capitulation." 
 
 Tuesday, December 6. Before breakfast, I telegraphed par- 
 ticulars of the battle at Orleans to Berlin and London. After- 
 wards I drew up articles for the Moniteur, and for several 
 German papers, on the breach of their parole by several captive 
 French officers, some of whom are again to be pursued with 
 letters of caption. Eveft General Barral, now in command of 
 the army of the Loire, made his escape in this disgraceful fash- 
 ion. He gave a written promise on his word of honor, aftf r 
 16
 
 234 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 the surrender of Strassburg, not once but twice over, that he 
 would not in this war bear arms against the Prussians and their 
 Dallies, and that he would do nothing whatever to the injury of 
 the German armies. He then went off to Colmar, and from 
 thence to the Loire, when he re-entered the French service an 
 unprecedented infamy. The gentlemen of the Tours goverment 
 made no objection to him. These gentlemen, whom the Belgian 
 papers are never tired of praising up as honest folk, men of 
 honor, and so forth, went even farther than that. They dis- 
 patched a certain M. Ricard to the French officers now interned 
 in Belgium, who gathered them together in the house of 
 Taschard, the representative of MM. Gambetta and Favre in 
 Brussels, and then urged and threatened them to break 
 the word of honor they had given the Belgian authori- 
 ties, to make their way back to France, and to take service 
 there once more against the Germans. Even in Silesia such 
 emmissaries seem to have over-persuaded some officers of low 
 character. In the history of warfare cases like these are cer- 
 tainly not numerous. But the affair has anotner aspect ; these 
 disgraceful proceedings must give the German authorities great 
 reason to question how far they can trust a government like 
 that of the National Defence. When a government stoops to 
 invite officers to break their word of honor ; when it employs 
 and makes use of officers who have done so, on its own initiative, 
 proving by so doing that it shares and ' excuses these low con- 
 ceptions of the value of solemn promises, we must, as a matter 
 of course, treat it as in the last degree untrustworthy, so long 
 as it goes on tempting its captive officers to break their parole, 
 and employing and making use of them, after they have done 
 so. 
 
 Dr. Lauer and Odo Russell were at table. The conversation 
 was of no special interest, and almost no politics were talked at 
 ;all. But we had some delicious wines from the Palatinate 
 Deidesheimer Hof stiick and Foster .Kirchenstiick the best 
 Wood of the grape, rich in every virtue, fragrant and fiery. 
 "From fire man's spirit was created." Even Bucher, who usu- 
 ally drinks only red wine, did honor to this heavenly dew from 
 the Haardt mountains. 
 
 In the evening, Consul Bamberg, the new editor of our Ver- 
 sailles journal an elderly man in a sort of sea-captain's uniform, 
 flying the ribands of a couple of orders paid us what is after 
 this to be a daily visit. The recent inspection of the hospital
 
 Diseased Paris. 235 
 
 in the chateau by the Chief has given rise to an inquiry, and 
 if I understand rightly, he has had had a letter from the war 
 ministry informing him that everything is in perfect order, that 
 the sick have been getting what was proper for them, and that 
 +1,^ <vr^tj nP i AV ho told him of the alleged neglect had been suit- 
 ably punished.* 
 
 According to English accounts from Paris things began, quite 
 a fortnight since, to be very uncomfortable there. Several 
 kinds of disease have broken out, and the death cases are con- 
 siderably more numerous than in ordinary times. Anxiety and 
 disheartenment, as well as want of food, have contributed. In 
 the first week of September there were 900 deaths ; in that 
 ending the 5th of October, nearly twice as many ; in the follow- 
 ing week, 1900. Small-pox rages in the town, and is carrying 
 off many victims ; and a great number of people have died of 
 bowel disease. Home-sickness has broken out like an epidemic 
 among the battalions recruited from the provinces. An English 
 correspondent who visited the hospital "du Midi" in the last 
 week of October, noticed a placard above the entrance-gate, on 
 which was printed, " Any person bringing in a cat, a dog, or 
 three rats, will get his "breakfast and dinner. N.B. It is abso- 
 lutely essential that the animals be brought in alive." Similar 
 placards are said to be quite common at the gates of the Paris 
 hospitals. 
 
 It wants still five minutes of midnight. The Minister is al- 
 ready off to bed very early for him. The candles in the bottles 
 I use for candlesticks are nearly burnt out. Mont Valerien 
 thunders down a frightful salute into the valley below it. With 
 vrhat object ? Perhaps it is only to tell the Parisians it is about 
 twelve o'clock, a sort of night watchman calling the hour : 
 otherwise all this shooting is much ado about nothing. l>uring 
 the last two days of battle, Abeken was told to-day that the 
 forts threw about 6000 bombs and grenades, but only fifty-three 
 of our men were hurt by them, and several of them only slightly 
 wounded. 
 
 * For details see a subsequent page.
 
 236 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 PROSPECTS BEFORE PARIS IMPROVE. 
 
 TTTEDNESDAY, December 7. Disagreeable weather. Only 
 W now and then a shot fired from the forts or the gun- 
 boats. The lies with which Gambetta and his people have been 
 trying to stop up the hole which the defeat of the "red-breeches" 
 at Orleans has knocked in the hopes the people cherished of a 
 great victory over us, induced us to send the following note to 
 the Moniteur: "The members of the Government of Tours 
 have published accounts of the defeat of the Army of the Loire 
 which read like fragments of the ' Arabian Nights.' For in- 
 stance, their telegram says, 'The retreat of the Army of the 
 Loire was accomplished without loss, except that we left the 
 heavy ships' guns spiked in the entrenched camp.' In reality, 
 1 2,000 unwounded prisoners fell into the hands of the German 
 troops. The Tours dispatch goes on to say, ' we lost no field 
 artillery.' Forty-seven field-pieces, and several mitrailleuses, 
 were captured by the conquerors. The German people, remem- 
 bering the virtues of the Catos, Aristideses, and other Republi- 
 cans of antiquity, were disposed to hope that the Republic 
 would have wiped lying out of the list of its means of operation, 
 and fancied that it would lie less, at all events than the Empire. 
 It was evidently wrong. These Catos of the . present day have 
 put to shame all previous attempts to substitute untruth for 
 truth. When they have anything disagreeable to lie aAvay, the 
 advocates of Tours are much more unblushing than the generals 
 of the Empire." Afterwards I telegraphed the new advances 
 of our armies in the north, and the occupation of Rouen. 
 
 After three o'clock I went with Wollman across the Place 
 d'Armes towards the court of the chateau, where fourteen of 
 the bronze guns taken at Orleans are ranged under the very 
 fyes of the equestrian statue of Louis XIV., directly below the
 
 Austrian Diplomatists. 237 
 
 inscription, 'A toutes les gloires de la France ' (to all the glories 
 of France), an ironical comment upon that expression of Gallic 
 conceit and swagger. The guns were some of them twelve and 
 some four pounders, and behind them were ranged gun-carriages 
 and ammunition carts. The French guns have each a name 
 one, for instance, is called "Le Bayard," another, "Le Lauzun," 
 a third, J' Le Boucheron /' while others are " Le Maxant," 
 " Le Repace," " Le JBrisetout," or similar horrors. On several 
 there is a scrawl, stating that they were captured by the 4th 
 Hussar Regiment. 
 
 Counts Holnstein and Lehndorf were with us at dinner. 
 We had the fine Deidesheimer again. The Chief began to 
 talk, inter alia, of his recollections of Frankfort. " I got on 
 well with Thun ; he was an honest man. Rechberg was not 
 bad upon the whole ; at least, he was personally honorable, 
 though he was very violent and effervescing one of those 
 furious very fair folks." He went on to say : " No Austrian 
 diplomatist of the school of that day troubled himself very 
 much about the exact truth. The third of them, Prokesch, was 
 not at all the man for me. He had brought with him from the 
 East the trick of the most miserable intrigues. Truth was a 
 matter of absolute indifference to him. I remember once, in a 
 large company, there was some talk of an Austrian assertion 
 which did not square with the truth. Prokesch raised his 
 voice, and said, so that I should hear him distinctly, ' If that 
 were not true I should have been lying (and he emphasized the 
 word), in the name of the Imperial Royal Government.' He 
 looked me straight in the face. I returned the look, and said 
 quietly, ' Quite so, your Excellency.' He was obviously 
 shocked ; but when on looking round he perceived nothing but 
 down-dropped eyes and solemn silence, which meant to say that 
 I was in the right, he turned on his heel and went into the 
 dining-room, where covers were laid. After dinner he had re- 
 covered himself, and came across to me with a full glass, for 
 otherwise I should have supposed that he was going to call me 
 out. He said, ' Come, now ; let us make friends.' ' Why not?' 
 said I ; 'but the protocol must of course be altered.' ' You are 
 incorrigible,' he replied, smiling. It was all right. The pro- 
 tocol was altered, so that they recognized that it had contained 
 an untruth." Afterwards we spoke of Goltz, and the Chief 
 once more told the Beaumont story of his unpopularity with 
 his people, and asked Hatzfekl whether he had had anything
 
 238 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 to complain of from Goltz. Hatzfeld said " No ; but it was 
 quite true that Goltz did not get on well with the people of the 
 Embassy." 
 
 Hatzfeld told us at tea that numerous prisoners had passed 
 through to-day, and that there had been considerable disturb- 
 ance and disorder because civilians, especially women, had 
 pressed in among the people, so that the escort had been driven 
 to make use of the butt ends of their muskets. . . . We 
 then spoke of the bombardment, and the gentlemen agreed that 
 the King really wished it, and that there was a hope that it 
 would begin very soon. . . . Moltke, it was added, wished it too. 
 He had recently received an answer from Trochu to the letter 
 he had sent, the sum and substance of which was, " Many thanks j 
 but, for the present, we had better leave things as they are." 
 
 Thursday, December 8. A great deal of snow fell, and it 
 was tolerably cold, so much so, that, in spite of the big beech 
 logs which were burning in my fireplace, I could not get reason- 
 ably warm in my room. . . . Prince Putbus was with us at 
 dinner. Besides other good things, we had omelettes with 
 mushrooms, and, as several times previously, pheasant and sauer 
 kraut boiled in champagne. There was also Froster Kirchen- 
 stiick and Deidesheimer Hofstiick. The Minister said that he 
 preferred the former. " The Forster," he said, " is undoubted- 
 ly a higher style of wine than the Deidesheimer." Finally, be- 
 sides this and other excellent drinks, we had an admirable old 
 corn brandy. Putbus suggested that sauer kraut was not whole- 
 some, and the Chief said, " I do not think so. I eat it precise- 
 ly because I believe it to be wholesome. But, Engel, give us a 
 schnaps " (a drop of Brandy). The Minister then showed 
 Putbus the menu, and, during conversation about it, it was 
 mentioned that a young diplomatist in Vienna had carefully 
 collected all the menus of his chief, and preserved them ii\two 
 finely-bound volumes, in which some most interesting combina- 
 tions were to be found. 
 
 Later on, the Chancellor remarked that the French must now 
 have got one or two very big guns in one of the forts nearest 
 us. " One can make that out by the report, which is much 
 louder, but they may very likely hurt themselves with them. 
 If they use a very heavy charge, the gun will either turn round 
 and shoot straight into the town, or blow itself to pieces, though 
 of course it might sometimes go off right, and then the shot 
 might reach us at Versailles."
 
 Sivells, Snobs, and Cockneys. 239 
 
 Somebody asked what was the position of the Emperor of 
 Germany question, and the Chief said : " We have had trouble 
 about it, with telegrams and letters ; but the most important 
 were those which Count Holnstein brought us a very intelli- 
 gent person." Putbus asked what office he held. "Master of 
 the Horse. He made a journey to Munich and back again in 
 six days. In the condition of the railroads he must have made 
 a great effort to manage it. Certainly he had a capital consti- 
 tution to help him ; and he went, not merely to Munich, but 
 as far as Hohenschwangau. King Ludwig, too, contributed 
 very much to the speedy settlement of the affair. He took the 
 matter up at once, and gave a decisive answer without putting 
 off time." 
 
 I do not know how it came about that the conversation hap- 
 pened upon the expressions, " swells, snobs, and cockneys," 
 which were then discussed at length. The Chief called a certain 
 gentleman in the diplomatic service a " swell," and went on to 
 say : " It is a capital word, the force of which we cannot quite 
 give in German. It is something like ' stutzer ' (a dandy), but 
 it includes, besides, a puffed-out chest, and a sort of general 
 blown-up-ness. 
 
 " ' Snob ' is quite different, and we have no exact expression 
 for that either. It signifies different things and properties, 
 especially one-sidednes, narrowness and Philistinism, and that a 
 man cannot get out of mere local or temporary views. The 
 snob is a sort of bourgeois person. All this is not quite a 
 complete description. He cannot get beyond the interests of 
 his family ; his circle of vision in political questions is extreme- 
 ly limited : he is shut in by the ways of thinking and the pre- 
 judices in which he has been brought up. There are snobs, and 
 very decided snobs too, of the female sex. We may also speak 
 of party snobs those who cannot help placing the higher poli- 
 tics on the same basis as questions of individual rights, radical 
 snobs (fortschrittsnobs). 
 
 " A Cockney again is different. The word is applied chiefly 
 to Londoners. There are people there who have never got out- 
 side their walls and streets, their bricks and mortar who have- 
 never seen a green thing, who have learned life only in town r 
 and heard nothing beyond the sound of Bow bells. We have 
 people in Berlin also who have never been away from it ; but 
 compared with London, and even with Paris, which also has its 
 cockneys, though they have a different name there, Berlin is a
 
 240 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 little place. In London, hundreds of thousands of people have 
 never seen anything beyond the city. In such big towns views 
 sprout up, ramify, and harden into permanent prejudices for 
 those who live in them. It is in these great centres of popula- 
 tion, where there is no experience, and consequently no correct 
 idea in many cases not even a conception of anything outside 
 of them, that this simpleton sort of narrowness is born. A 
 simpleton who is not conceited is tolerable enough, but a sim- 
 pleton who is impracticable, and conceited besides, is not to be 
 endured. People in the country districts have a much better 
 chance of understanding life as it really exists and grows about 
 them. They may have less education, but what they know they 
 usually do know. There are snobs, of course, in the country. 
 Well, for instance" (turning to Putbus), "a first-rate hunts- 
 man, who is thoroughly convinced that . he is the first man in 
 the whole world, that hunting is really everything, and that 
 people who understand nothing about it are worth nothing at 
 all ; and a man on an estate outside there, where he is every- 
 body, and where all the people depend entirely upon him. When 
 he comes in from the country to the wool-market, and finds that 
 nobody in the town takes him at the value at which he is esti- 
 mated at home, he gets low, sits down on his woolsack and sulks, 
 and takes no interest afterwards in anything but wool." 
 
 The conversation dropped away soon after this into stories 
 about horses and horsemanship. The Chief told us about his 
 brown mare, which he had not at first thought much of, but 
 which carried him for thirteen hours at Sedan at least fifty- 
 five English miles and which was quite fit for service next 
 day. Then he gave us other stories of horsemanship ; telling 
 us, for instance, how once, when he was out riding with his 
 daughter, he had come up to a ditch which he himself certainly 
 would never have liked to take, but which the Countess, her 
 horse having got into his stride, took quite easily, and so 
 forth. 
 
 At tea Keudell said I was in future to get not merely the 
 rouo-h draughts and sketches of important political matters 
 which the Chief gave me, I was to see everything ; he would 
 talk the matter over with Abeken, who holds the position of 
 secretary of state here, a piece of news which I heard with much 
 gratification. Bucher told me that the Minister had given them 
 a very interesting discourse in the salon when coffee came on 
 the table. Prince von Putbus had spoken of his wish to travel
 
 The Reichstag and the Bavarian Agreement. 241 
 
 in very distant countries. " Yes, and we might help you," said 
 the Chief ; " we might send you to notify the establishment of 
 the German Empire to the Emperor of China and the Tycoon 
 of Japan." 
 
 Friday, December 9. I telegraph the victory, the day before 
 yesterday, of our 17th Division at Beaugency over a French 
 corps of about sixteen battalions, with six-and-twenty cannon, 
 and I contradict the story of the Gazette de France about Galvez, 
 the Ambassador of Peru. 
 
 At breakfast we were told that Prince Trubetzkoi, a relation 
 of Orloff's, wanted protection for his villa_f rom our army police, 
 and had also asked the Chancellor that our troops should be 
 taken away from the neighborhood of his property, as their 
 being massed there raises the price of the necessaries of life. 
 His letter will go to the waste-paper basket. The Commandant 
 of Versailles, General von Voigts-Rhetz, was with us at dinner. 
 I believe he is a brother of hyn who was governor-general in 
 Hanover in 1866, and who has now won the battle of Beaune 
 la Rolande, a long man .with dark beard and eagle nose. The 
 conversation, which turned principally on the recent battles be- 
 tween Orleans and Blois, was of no particular importance. The 
 Chief was absent, being unwell, and it is believed that he has 
 pains in his leg. 
 
 Saturday, December 10 The Chief is not yet right. At 
 dinner the Chief, Bismarck-Bohlen, who has been suffering for 
 three days, and Abeken, who has had the good fortune to be 
 commanded to dine with the Crown Prince, were all absent. 
 In the evening I prepared for the King an article in the 
 National Zeitung, which shows that they are speaking even in 
 the Reichstag of the delay in the bombardment, and which 
 also expresses a wish for some explanation of the reasons of the 
 delay. 
 
 Having been sent for by the Chief, I took the liberty before 
 leaving to ask how things were going on in the Reichstag 
 about the treaties. He replied, "All right ; the agreement 
 with Bavaria will either be adopted to-day, or voted upon to- 
 morrow, and the address to the King too." I then permitted 
 myself to ask how he was in health. " Better," he said, " it 
 is a varicose vein in the leg." I said, would it trouble him 
 long 1 "It may go away in a day, or it may bother me for 
 three weeks." 
 
 Keudell told us at tea that the Reichstag had decided to send
 
 242 Bismarck in the Franco- German War. 
 
 a great deputation to Versailles, charged to present its con- 
 gratulations to the King on the unity of Germany, and on the 
 restoration of the dignity of Emperor. Abeken did not like 
 this. He said, sulkily, "It is frightful for the Reichstag to 
 send us thirty fellows here a deputation of thirty people is really 
 dreadful." He gave us no hint of his reason for being annoyed. 
 Thirty wise Bonzes with the title of Privy Councillors might 
 possibly not have been frightful, but thirty Marshals of the 
 Household are enough to excite one. Hatzfeld expressed him- 
 self anxious about our immediate future in a military point of 
 view. He believes that there is room for anxiety about our 
 position in the west. Von der Tann, he says, has only 25,000 
 left of his 45,000 men, and the armies which have sprung out 
 of the ground at the 'stamp of Gambetta's foot, are continually 
 growing in number. News has come in at the Bureau that the 
 French have got together two very large armies, and that the 
 seat of Government has been removed from Tours to Bordeaux. 
 It is doubtful, of course, how long this energy of Gambetta 
 will meet with a response in the capacity for resistance in the 
 country, and its readiness to submit to further military drains. 
 In the southern departments people appear to be very much 
 discontented and thoroughly exhausted with this destructive 
 war. 
 
 Sunday, December 11. In the morning, at nine o'clock, we 
 have five degrees of cold, the garden below is covered with 
 hoar-frost, and the moisture is frozen in delicate thread-work 
 on the branches of the trees and shrubs. I pay Bismarck-Boh- 
 len a sick visit, his illness having taken another form. The 
 Chief, too, has not yet quite recovered, but he must be better, 
 for he drives out about two o'clock. Half an hour later, I 
 take a walk through the park of the chateau, where about fifty 
 persons, some of them ladies of doubtful character, and three 
 or four whose characters are not at all doubtful, are skating on 
 the big central reservoir. As I came back, I heard somebody 
 scolding furiously in French. Looking round, I noticed 
 walking right behind me an elderly man, who limped a little, 
 and who was abusing an over-dressed and over-painted female 
 who was going mincingly past us. " Shameless woman, who 
 bring disgrace into our families, and ruin on our young people; 
 they ought to be driven out of the town," he said, turning to 
 me as if he wished to bring me into the conversation. Then he 
 came close up, constantly scolding, and ultimately coming to a
 
 Balloons drawn by Eagles. 243 
 
 person of the male sex, whom he called the destroyer of France, 
 declaring that the misery into which these men had plunged their 
 country was a frightful spectacle, which cried aloud to 
 Heaven. I said to him, " But France, you know, wanted the 
 war, and must accept the consequences." He allowed that,, 
 but still burst out in furious abuse of the Republic and its 
 leaders, especially Gambetta ; Trochu, Favre, Gambetta, and 
 the whole of them, were good-for-nothing blood-suckers. The 
 Republic meant government in the interests of the dregs of the 
 people, who looked askance at the comforts of their neighbors, 
 and would like to distribute the plunder amongst themselves. 
 He would rather see the King of Prussia master of France, and 
 the country mutilated, cut up small, and broken into fragments, 
 than the Republic. The Emperor, too, had been good for noth- 
 ing. He was a mere usurper. Louis Philippe had pleased 
 him just as little ; he was not the right heir. But the Republic 
 was the worst of all ; and so on. I accompanied the enraged 
 Legitimist as far as the Place Hoche, where I left him, after 
 he had told me his name and address, and I had promised that 
 I would pay him a visit soon. 
 
 The Chief dined with us to night, but spoke little, and com- 
 plained of headache. Hatzfeld told us that Hartrott had just 
 informed him that 4400 horses and 1000 wagons were on the 
 way from Germany to be used in the transport of ammunition. 
 The bombardment of Paris would begin in eight or ten days. 
 The Chief answered, " It ought to have begun sooner, and, as 
 for the eight days, that has often been promised us." 
 
 Our Moniteur gives us another list of the French officers 
 who have escaped by breaking their parole. There are no 
 fewer than twenty-two of them, ten of whom escaped from 
 Hirschberg. I see from the same paper that the Pall Mall 
 Gazette has accepted as genuine coin, and passed into circul- 
 ation, a joke in the manner of Baron Mimchausen. Moved by 
 the mischances that have happened to several of the air-bal- 
 loons sent up from Paris, the French are supposed to have put 
 their calculating finger to their nose, and to have solved the 
 problem of guiding these conveyances in the following manner. 
 It is as simple as the egg of Columbus. They harness eagles to 
 them. The correspondent of the newspaper writes, " However 
 extravagant the idea of making birds guide balloons to their 
 destination may appear, people in Paris have gone into the 
 matter seriously. It is said that satisfactory experiments have
 
 244 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 been made with eagles from the Botanic gardens, harnessed to 
 the car. These experiments took place in the presence of the 
 Postmaster-General Ramport, of M. Chassinat, of the chief of 
 the postal service in the Department of the Seine, and of the 
 Receiver-General Mattet. Four or six powerful birds were 
 harnessed to the balloon, and were guided by an aeronaut by 
 means of a piece of raw flesh fastened to the end of a long stick, 
 which was held in front of their beaks. The greedy birds keep 
 struggling in vain to reach it, as it moves through the air with 
 the same velocity as they do. When the aeronaut wishes the 
 balloon to move in a different direction, he turns the stick, with 
 the beef-steak at the end, to the right or left. If Jie wants to 
 go down, he drops it ; if to ascend, he lifts it up." The editor 
 of the Moniteur adds the remark, " We are afraid that these 
 eagles were geese." 
 
 Hatzfeld told me at tea all sorts of interesting things about 
 his experiences and observations in Paris. In 1866 Napoleon 
 said to Goltz, that he could not allow a complete incorporation 
 of Saxony with Prussia, but if only the name and a small por 
 tion of the kingdom Dresden, for instance, with a few square 
 miles in th neighborhood were left, he would be quite con- 
 tent. If that be true, I have reason to think that the Chief's 
 advice was to take no advantage of this offer. At first the Em- 
 press could not endure Goltz, for the following reason. During 
 the interim between Goltz and his predecessor, Prince Reuss 
 represented the embassy, and the Court was very much attach- 
 ed to him ; he was ^n high consideration, especially as coming 
 of a princely family. Eugenie would have liked him to 
 have been ambassador, but he was sent off to Brussels, 
 and the Empress attributed that to Goltz, disliked him 
 for it, received him with. marked coldness, never invited 
 him to her select parties, and only saluted him, not speaking to 
 him at all, upon public occasions. Goltz, who was supposed to 
 have been much smitten with her, often went away in a regular 
 fury. Once, however, when he happened to be invited to such 
 a select evening, she had been compelled to say something to 
 him, and in her perplexity, nothing occurred to her but the 
 question, " What is Prince Reuss doing now 1" When Goltz 
 went home, he is 1 said to be in a frightful rage, and to have used 
 a disagreeable epithet. . . . Afterwards, however, the relation- 
 ship between them improved, and Goltz ultimately stood so 
 well with the Emperor, that Jie (Hatzfeld) was of opinion that 
 

 
 The Empress and the Restoration. 245 
 
 if Goltz had been alive in 1870, there would have been no war 
 between us and France. 
 
 I asked what sort of woman the Empress was. He said, 
 " Very beautiful, not over middle height, splendid bust, fair, 
 with much natural intelligence, but little acquired learning, 
 and few interests in intellectual matters." She had once taken 
 him, with other gentlemen, through her rooms, and even into 
 her sleeping apartment, but he had nowhere seen a book, or even 
 a newspaper. Hatzfeld is of opinion that things will come round 
 in the end to Xapoleon's restoration. After all, he was not so 
 bad as people represented him ; and certainly by nature, he was 
 the very reverse of truculent, being rather soft. If the French 
 should see that they cannot pull through with their Republic 
 of advocates, through whom they are falling more and more in- 
 to ruin, they would invite him back again some day. As a second 
 time the Saviour of Society, he might venture to treat with us 
 upon the basis of what we require in order to make peace. 
 His services in securing order night then make up for the loss 
 in power and authority, which would be the necessary conse- 
 quence of his giving up Elsass and part of Lothringen. 
 
 Monday, December 12. The Chief appears to be worse again, 
 and he is said to be in a very fretful temper ; Dr. Lauer has 
 been with him. The Times contains an article, which is all we 
 could wish, the principal points of which I may note here. It 
 is as follows ; "In the present crisis it is not the duty of the 
 Germans to show high feeling or sympathy, or magnanimously 
 to forgive their defeated enemy. The question rather is of a 
 simple piece of business and of prudence. What will the enemy 
 do after the war, when he has recovered his strength ! People 
 in England have but a faint recollection of the numerous cruel 
 lessons which Germany has had from France during the last 
 four centuries. For 400 years no nation has had such bad 
 neighbors as they have found in the French who were always un- 
 sociable, irreconcileable, greedy of territory, not ashamed to take 
 it, and always ready to assume the offensive. During this 
 whole time Germany has endured the encroachments and usur- 
 pations of France. To-day when she has won the victory and 
 has conquered her neighbor, it would in our opinion be very 
 foolish of her not to take advantage of the situation, and not to 
 acquire for herself a boundary likely to secure peace for her in 
 the future. As far as we know there is no law in the world 
 entitling France to retain the territories which were formerly
 
 246 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 annexed by her, after the owners, from whom they were taken, 
 have laid their hands upon the thief. The French complain 
 bitterly to those who will listen to them that they are exposed 
 to losses which threaten their honor, and they incessantly and 
 earnestly entreat people not to dishonor poor France, to leave 
 her honor unstained. Will her honor, however, be preserved, 
 if France refuses to pay for her neighbor's windows which she 
 has broken? The real fact is, that she lost her honor when 
 she broke her neighbor's windows, and only her deep repen- 
 tance, and her honest determination not to repeat the offence, 
 can restore it. 
 
 " We must say with all frankness, that France has never 
 shown herself so senseless, so pitiful, so worthy of contempt 
 and reproach, as at the present moment, when she obstinately 
 declines to look the facts in the face, and refuses to accept the 
 misfortune her own conduct has brought upon her. A France 
 broken up in utter anarchy Ministers who have no recognised 
 chief, who rise from the dust in their air balloons, and carry 
 with them for ballast shameful and manifest lies and proclama- 
 tions of victories that exist only in their imagination a 
 government which is sustained by lying and imposture, and 
 chooses rather to continue and to increase the waste of human 
 life than to resign its own dictatorship and its wonderful 
 Utopia of a Republic that is the spectacle which France pre- 
 sents to-day. It is hard to say whether any nation ever before 
 burdened itself with such a load of shame. 
 
 " The quantity of lies which France, official and unofficial, 
 has been manufacturing for us since the month of July, in the 
 full knowledge that they are lies, is something frightful and 
 absolutely unprecedented. Perhaps it is not much after all in 
 comparison with the immeasurable heaps of illusions and un- 
 conscious lies which have so long been in circulation among the 
 French. Their men of genius, who are recognised as such in 
 all departments of literature, are apparently of opinion that 
 France outshines other nations in a superhuman wisdom, 
 that she is the New Zion of the whole world, and that the 
 literary productions of the French for the last fifty years, 
 however insipid, unhealthy, and often, indeed devilish, contain 
 a real Evangel, rich in blessing for all the children of men." 
 
 The article concludes in these words: "We believe that Bis- 
 marck will take as much of Alsace, and of Lorraine too, as he 
 and that it will be the better for him, the better for us,
 
 The Condition of Paris. 247 
 
 the better for all the world except France, and the better in the 
 long run for France herself. Through large and quiet measures 
 M. von Bismarck is aiming with eminent ability at one single 
 object the well-being of Germany and of the world. If the 
 large-hearted, peace-loving, enlightened, and earnest people of 
 Germany grow into one nation, and Germany become mistress 
 of the continent in place of France, which is light-hearted, am- 
 bitious, quarrelsome, and over-exciteable, it will be the most 
 momentous event of the present day, and all the world must 
 hope that it may soon come about." 
 
 It is an admirable article, and we shall bring it to the know- 
 ledge of our friends in Versailles through the Moniteur. 
 
 The Chief stayed a long time in bed to-day, and it was not till 
 the afternoon that he was able to transact business. He was 
 also absent at dinner. Hatzfeld told us there that he had 
 talked with several of the diplomatists who had just come in 
 from Paris the Russian General- Adjutant,. Prince Wittgen- 
 stein; the English Military Plenipotentiary, Claremont; and a 
 Belgian. They left Paris yesterday morning early, and got here 
 this afternoon by Villeneuve Saint-Georges, with the ponies 
 and some other horses. Claremont, Hatzfeld said, impressed 
 him as s sensible man, well acquainted with the condition of 
 things in Paris. He said that he himself had not had to eat 
 any horseflesh or to endure any hardships, that all the cabs and 
 omnibuses seemed still to be plying in the city, that people 
 were still playing pieces in the theatre at the Porte Saint- 
 Martin, and that concerts were given twice a week at the 
 Opera House. According to his account the gas lamps and 
 street lanterns are still burning, though only one in five of the 
 latter is lighted, as indeed is usual here in Versailles ; and the 
 only difference is and it is only among the well-to-do classes 
 that people regularly go to bed about ten o'clock, whereas before 
 the city was blockaded they used not to go till midnight. The 
 villages inside the French line have all suffered worse than 
 those inside ours. He supposes they may have provisions for 
 two months ye;.. Abeken, on the other hand, had learned 
 from Voigts-Ilhetz that Moblots had come out in crowds to 
 surrender. They had been fired upon, but a number of them, 
 not frightened by that, had forced us to take them prisoners, 
 and when they were examined had declared that they had suf- 
 fered great misery, as only the regular troops were properly 
 .supplied with food.
 
 248 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 L. came in after eight, and claimed to know " on excellent 
 authority," as usual, that the King did not care for the as- 
 sumption of the Imperial dignity, and that the arrival of the 
 thirty-man deputation from the Reichstag especially had not 
 been to his liking. He- is supposed to have said, " I dare say I 
 owe this dignity after all to Herr Lasker." 
 
 Afterwards I wrote an article for the press, by the Chief's 
 direction, pointing out that we are now fighting, not merely 
 against France, but against those cosmopolitan Red Republicans 
 Garibaldi, Mazzini, (who is now with Garibaldi, acting as his 
 adviser) and the Polish, Spanish, and Danish members of the 
 same party. The object for which this agreeable company is 
 striving is set forth in a letter from the son of the prefect Or- 
 dinaire, who describes himself as an officer of Garibaldi's gen- 
 eral staff". This letter, dated Autun, November 16, and 
 directed to the editor of the journal Rights of Man, says : 
 
 "From the postmark you will see where we are in the worst 
 den of priestcraft in all France. Autun is one of the chief 
 centres of the monarchical reaction. It looks more like an im- 
 mense monastery than a town, with its great blank walls and its 
 iron-barred widows, behind which monks of every description 
 are praying and conspiring for the true cause and its right 
 divine. Everywhere in the streets the red shirt comes in con- 
 tact with the priest's black gown ; and even the shop people, 
 like everything else in the place, have a mystic look of having 
 been saturated with holy water. We are on the 'Index' here, 
 and slanderous stories are told about us too many for even 
 the waters of the flood to wash away. Every breach of discip- 
 line and some are unavoidable with volunteers and free com- 
 panions is at once represented as a great crime. An outrage 
 worthy of death will be manufactured out of nothing. The 
 mountain, of course, brings forth its mouse, but the bad effect 
 produced on public opinion remains, notwithstanding. 
 
 " Could you believe it? The authorities themselves aggravate 
 the situation. The authorities make themselves, I hope unwit- 
 tingly, the echo of these slanderers, and regard us with evil eyes, 
 so that our army almost seems to be considered by our fellow 
 citizens a band of robbers. Yes, believe me, the Monarchists 
 of every shade have intermitted none of their pernicious activi- 
 ties, and hate us because we have sworn to leave none of those 
 market-place stalls standing from which Kings and Emperors 
 dictate their commands and caprices to the nations. Yes, we
 
 The United States of Europe. 
 
 proclaim it openly, we are the soldiers of the Revolution ; and, 
 I will add, not merely of the French, but of the Cosmopolitan 
 revolution. Italians, Spaniards, Poles and Hungarians under- 
 stood, when they hurried here to fight under the banner of 
 France, that they were in reality defending the Universal Re- 
 public." 
 
 " The significance of the struggle is already clear. It is be- 
 tween the principle of Divine right, of authority, of monarchy, 
 and that of the sovereignty of the people, of civilisation, and 
 of freedom. The Fatherland vanishes in tJie presence of the 
 Republic. 
 
 "We are citizens of the world, and we are ready, each accord- 
 in to his capacity, to fight to the death for the realisation of 
 the grand idea of the United States of Europe, the brotherhood 
 of all free peoples. The monarchical reactionists know this, 
 and their enmity as good as doubles the Prussian armies. At 
 our breasts we have the bayonets of the foreigner, and treachery 
 at our backs ! Why are all these ancient officials not chased 
 away ? Why are these former generals of the Empire, with 
 their persons more or less decorated with their plumes, their 
 orders, and their gold lace, not one and all cashiered without 
 mercy 1 Can the Government of the National Defence not see 
 that they will betray it ; that with their hypocritical manoeuvres, 
 their shameful capitulations, their incomprehensible retreats, 
 they are preparing the way for a Bonapartist restoration, or at 
 least for an Orleans or a Bourbon ascending the throne ] 
 
 " Let the government which has undertaken to liberate the 
 soil of our country polluted by the hordes of the foreigner, be- 
 ware. Let it rise to the height of its own mission. Living in 
 an epoch like ours, in the frighful circumstances in which we 
 stand, it is not enough to be an honest man. One must show 
 some energy, and must not loose his head, or drown himself in 
 a glass of water. Let the Cremieuxs, the Glais-Bizoins, the 
 Fourichons, recollect how men acted in 1792 and 1793. To- 
 day we need men of the convention, a Danton, a Eobespierre. 
 Up, gentlemen, and room for the Revolution ! She alone can 
 help us. Great crises must be met by great means and great 
 measures. 
 
 " Let us never forget that internal organisation must contri- 
 bute to our defence against the outside world. It is a great 
 matter to have nothing to trouble us when AVC march against 
 the enemy ; it is worth something to know that we are sus-
 
 250 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 tained by Republican officials, and that the army is not in the 
 hands of men who are ready to sell it. What signify the for- 
 malities of a military hierarchy 1 ? Choose your generals if 
 necessary, from the ranks of your soldiers, and especially from 
 among your young soldiers. Infuse a little fresh blood into 
 the veins of the Republic, and the Republic will rescue herself 
 and redeem all Europe from the yoke of the tyrants. Rise ! A 
 single effort, and long live the Universal Republic ! " 
 
 The Fatherland vanishes in the presence of the Republic ! 
 Use the same great weapons as Danton and Robespierre did ; 
 cut off everybody's head who differs from you in politics or re- 
 ligion ; let the guillotine be declared a permanent institution. 
 Generals Chanzy, Bourbaki, Faidherbe, Vinoy, Ducrot and 
 Trochu, are to be sent about their business, and men from the 
 ranks to take their places. This is what is preached by the son 
 of a prefect, in the department of the Doubs, an officer of Gari- 
 baldi's general staff. I wonder how many will say Amen to 
 these proposals when they read them a few days after this in 
 the Moniteur. 
 
 Tuesday, December 13. The Chief's health is a trifle better, 
 but he still feels" himself very limp. At breakfast the Chan- 
 cellor's possible retirement was talked over ; we amused our- 
 selves over a Lasker Ministry, saying that " Lasker would turn 
 out a kind of Ollivier," and, half joking, half serious, we dis- 
 cussed Delbriick as the probable Chancellor of the Confeder- 
 ation, "a very sensible man, but no politician." I thought it 
 inconceivable that they could allow the Chief to retire, even at 
 his own request. The gentlemen thought it not impossible. I 
 said that if things here went on four weeks longer they would 
 be forced to recall him. Bucher doubted whether in such a 
 case he would come back, and said positively that from his 
 knowledge of him he felt sure that he would never come back, 
 if he once retired. He enjoyed Varzin far too thoroughly 
 when he was away from business and bother of every kind. 
 He was happiest in the woods and in the country. " Believe 
 mo," the Countess had once said to him, "a wruke (a turnip) 
 interests him more than all your politics," a mot which one 
 must accept with some reserve, and consider applicable only in 
 his occasional moods. 
 
 At half-past two I went to him for business. He desired 
 me to direct people's attention to the King of Holland's per- 
 plexity about new Ministers, and to point out that it was a
 
 England and the Black Sea. 251 
 
 consequence of the parliamentary system which forces the 
 King's advisers to retire, whatever may be the circumstances, 
 when the majority of the representatives of the people are 
 against them on any single question. He remarked, " I re- 
 member that, when I was Minister, these people were having 
 their twentieth or twenty -first ministry since the introduction 
 of their parliamentary system. When people hold stri ;tly to 
 the principle that the Minister must be sent about his business 
 if the majority goes against him, too many politicians get used 
 up ; they have then to go to the second-raters. In the end 
 there is nobody left willing to devote himself to the kind of 
 work. The moral is, either that the salary of ministerial 
 officers ought to be raised, or that people must a little relax the 
 severity of parliamentary practice." 
 
 The Chief drove out about three, after having Russel again 
 with him, and he also came, God be praised ! to dinner with 
 us, where he drank a little beer and a couple of glasses of 
 Vichy water with champagne. We had turtle-soup, and, among 
 other delicacies, a wild boar's head and a compote of raspberry 
 jelly and mustard, which was excellent. The Minister said, 
 l - Things were very bad with me this time. I was troubled with 
 varicose veins in 1866 also. I lay full-length on the bed, and 
 had to answer letters of a very desperate sort very distract- 
 ing for me with a pencil. They " (he meant the Austrians) 
 " then wanted to disarm on the northern frontier, but to keep 
 their armies together farther down, and I had to convince them 
 that that would not do for us at all." 
 
 He then spoke of his negotiations with Russel, and of 
 Gortchakoflfs demands. "The people in London," he said, 
 " don't want to return a straightforward ' Yes ' to the proposal 
 to restore to Russia and Turkey the Black Sea, and complete 
 sovereignty over their own coast lines. They are afraid of 
 public opinion in England ; and Russia returns perpetually to 
 the idea that some sort of equivalent should be offered. He 
 asked, for instance, whether we could not adhere simpliciter to 
 the agreement of April 16, 1856. I told him that Germany 
 had no real interest in it. Or whether we might not pledge 
 ourselves to remain neutral, if it came to a conflict ? I said I 
 was no friend of conjectural politics, under which class such a 
 pledge would come ; and that it would all depend on the cir- 
 cumstances. At present we saw no reason to trouble ourselves 
 about it. That ought to be enough for him. For the rest, I
 
 252 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 was not of opinion that gratitude was without its place in poli- 
 tics. The present Emperor had always shown himself friendly 
 and well disposed to us ; while Austria had never shown her- 
 self trustworthy, and had occasionally been very uncertain. As 
 for England, he knew well enough how much we had to thank 
 her for. The friendliness of the Emperor, I said, was a relic 
 of old relationships which originated partly in the family con- 
 nection ; but it rested also on the recognition of the fact that 
 our interests were not in collision with his. Nobody knew how 
 that might be in future, and it was better not to talk about it." 
 ..." Our position, I represented, was different from what it 
 ' had been. We were the only power that had reason to be con- 
 tent ; we had no call to do anybody a favor when we did not 
 know whether he would do us a service in return." 
 
 " He came back to his equivalent, and asked me whether 
 there was nothing I could propose to him. I suggested the 
 opening of tha Dardanelles and the Black Sea to all nations. 
 It would probably be agreeable to Russia, as it would give her 
 access to the Mediterranean from the Black Sea ; and to Turkey, 
 as she would then have her friends close to her ; and to the 
 Americans, who would lose one of the reasons which draw them 
 towards Russia, in the realization of their wish for the free- 
 dom of all the water highways of the world. He seemed to 
 take that in." " The Russian?," added the Chancellor, "ought 
 not to have been so modest in their requirements ; if they had 
 asked for more, they would have had had no difficuly in getting 
 what they want about the Black Sea." 
 
 The conversation then turned on the four principles of the 
 new law of the ocean : no fitting out of privateers ; no seizure 
 of goods except contraband of war ; that a blockade is only to 
 be valid when it is effective, and so on. One of these had been 
 flagrantly infringed, the Chief said, by the French when they 
 burned German vessels ; and he closed our discussion of the 
 subject, saying, " Yes, we must see how we can get rid of all 
 this nonsense." 
 
 Wednesday, December 14- In the morning, by the Chief's 
 orders, I telegraphed the occupation of Blois hy our troops and 
 the capitulation of Montmedy. The Centralists in Germany 
 are still expressing their disatisf action with the convention with 
 Bavaria. 
 
 The Chief dined with us, and his guest was Count Holnstein. 
 The conversation did not turn upon politics. The Minister
 
 A Country Squire in Pomerania. 253 
 
 talked in the kindliest and most good-humored fashion of all 
 sorts of things. He said, for instance, that as a young man he 
 had been a fast runner and a capital jumper, whilst his sons 
 had unusual strength in the muscles of their arms. He would 
 not like to try them in a stand-up wrestle. He then brought 
 out the case with the gold pen presented to him by Bissinger, 
 the jeweller, to show to his guest, and he told us that the 
 countess had written to know the truth about it, thinking it 
 might turn out like the story about the clown at Meaux, a 
 story which I now heard for the first time, about the newborn 
 child of a French soldier who had recently fallen, being de- 
 posited one morning 011 the Chief's bed, and which was, of 
 course, an invention of the newspapers. Somebody said that 
 the deputation from the Reichstag had got as far as Strassburg, 
 and would be here the day after to-morrow. The Chancellor 
 remarked, " Then we must think seriously what answer we are 
 to give them. Simson will manage the thing very well. He 
 has several times before had similar things to do on the first 
 deputation about the Emperor and at the Hohenzollernburg. 
 He likes to speak, and on such occasions speaks well and agree- 
 ably. Abeken remarked that the deputy Lowe had said that 
 he had gone through this experience once before, and had the 
 opportunity afterwards of reflecting on the matter, far from 
 Madrid, " Really, was he there 1^1849 V asked the Minister. 
 "Yes," said Bucher, "he was President of the Reichstag." 
 "So, then," said the Chief, "it was not on account of the Em- 
 peror's journey that he had to remain away from Madrid, but 
 because of the trip to Stuttgart, which was a very different 
 affair." At that time, according to him, he was first in the 
 Hohenzollernburg, where all the branches of his family had 
 separate apartments, then in another old castle in Pomerania 
 where all the Dewitzes had formerly had a right of tenancy, 
 but which had now became a picturesque ruin, the people of the 
 next small town having made use of it for a quarry, and after 
 that again with the owner of an estate in the country who had 
 got his money in a peculiar way. 
 
 " He had always been apparently in difficulty and want, at 
 one time up to the neck, the caterpillar having devoured his 
 woods, a fire having burnt doAvn a good part of them, and a 
 hurricane finally levelling many of his trees to the ground. 
 The wood had to be sold, and to his surprise he got a large sum 
 for it fifty or sixty thousand thalers sc that he was at once
 
 254 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 set on his feet again. It had never occurred to him that he had 
 his wood to cut down." 
 
 The Chief then told us of another remarkable person, a 
 neighbor of his own. "He had ten or twelve properties, 
 but never any ready money, and often wanted to dispose of 
 something. Whenever he gave a formal breakfast party, he 
 used to have to sell one of his properties. At last there were 
 one or two left. His peasants bought one of them for fifty- 
 three thousand thalers. They paid him fifteen thousand 
 thalers down, and immediately sold off ship's timber to the 
 amount of twenty-two thousand. He had never happened to 
 think of that." 
 
 He talked next of the dragoon guards in Munich, whose 
 bigness and whole style had given him the impression that they 
 must be capital judges of beer. Then he talked of his son 
 Count Bill, who was the first German to ride into Rouen. 
 Some one said he would be a conclusive evidence to the inhab- 
 itants, that our troops had not so far been badly looked after, and 
 the Chancellor again descanted on the strength of his " lads." 
 They had uncommon strength for their age, he said, " "though 
 they had had no gymnastic training. I had no feeling against 
 it certainly, but there had been no opportunity for it away from 
 home." While we were smoking our after-dinner cigars, he 
 asked whether the gentlemen of the office smoked. " They all 
 do it," said Abeken. " Well," he said, " Engel must distribute 
 the Hamburg cigars among them. I have had so many sent 
 me that I shall still have some left to take home, even if the 
 war lasts another twelvemonth." 
 
 After 9 o'clock in the morning I was twice called to the 
 Minister. A note was sent for the press stating that Tarbe, 
 the editor of the Gaulois, which now appears in Brussels, got 
 out of Paris and through the Prussian lines by purchasing his 
 passport from a Swiss for 10,000 francs. " Say nothing about 
 the other Swiss (who we are informed sold his pass through the 
 circle of our outposts to another Parisian for 6,000 francs),'* 
 said the Chief. " It might look as if we wanted to worry 
 Switzerland, which we have no intention of doing." 
 
 Thursday, December 15. The weather was mild. Hardly 
 any firing from the forts. Counts Frankenberg and Lehndorf 
 were our guests at the beginning of dinner. Half an hour 
 afterwards Prince Pless came in. The Minister was extremely 
 chatty and good-humored. We talked first ab 3ut the question
 
 The Reichstag and the German Empire. 255 
 
 of the day, when the bombardment was to begin, and the Chief 
 said he thought probably in eight or ten days from now, but 
 that it would have little effect for a few weeks, as the Parisians 
 had had time to make their preparations to meet it. Franken- 
 berg said that People in Berlin, especially in .the Reichstag, 
 spoke of nothing so much as of the reasons which had made us 
 put off the bombardment of Paris so late as this. Everything 
 else fell into the background. "Well," said the Chief, "now 
 that Roon has taken the thing in hand something will be done. 
 There are a thousand wagons on the way here, adequately 
 horsed. Ammunition for transport, and some of the new 
 mortars have already arrived. We may look out for something 
 soon now." 
 
 We then began to talk of the way in which the restoration of 
 the German Empire had been brought before the Reichstag, and 
 several of those present said that in their opinion it had not 
 been managed as they should have liked. The thing had been 
 badly arranged The Conservatives had had no notice of the 
 intended communication, so that it reached them just as they 
 were at breakfast, and Windhorst, with his usual ability in 
 turning circumstances to account, had been quite entitled to 
 remark that he should have expected more sympathy from the 
 Assembly. "Yes," said the Chief, "there ought to have been 
 a more effective mise en scene for such a piece. . . . Somebody 
 might have come forward to express dissatisfaction with the 
 Bavarian Convention. It wanted this, and omitted that. Then 
 he should have said, that if any counterpoise for these defects 
 could be found, anything in which the unity of Germany would 
 find adequate expression, it might alter the case, and at that 
 point the Emperor might have been brought out." "After all, 
 the Emperor has more power than many fancy." " I don't for 
 a moment deny that the Bavarian Convention has its faults and 
 deficiencies ; that is easily said by people who have no responsi- 
 bility. How would it have been if I had refused to meet the 
 Bavarians half-way, and nothing had come of the whole affair ? 
 It is impossible to realise the difficulties we should have got 
 into, so that I was frightfully anxious about the freedom from 
 prejudices of the centralistic party among the deputies of the 
 Reichstag." " This is the first time for many a day that I have 
 had a couple of hours' sound and satisfying sleep. I used at 
 first to lie awake full of all sorts of thoughts and troubles. Then 
 Varzin would suddenly come up before me, perfectly distinct in
 
 "256 Bismarck in the 'Franco-German War. 
 
 the minutest particulars, like a great picture with even all its 
 colors fresh the green trees, the sunshine on the stems, the 
 blue sky above. I saw every individual tree. I struggled to 
 shake the thing off, but it came- back and worried me, and when 
 at last I ceased to see it, other things came in reports, notes, 
 despatches, and so on, till I fell over about morning." 
 
 The conversation then turning on the fair sex in this country, 
 the Chief said, " I have travelled a good deal through France, 
 during peace, too, and I don't recollect that I ever saw anywhere 
 a single nice-looking country girl, but I have seen frightfully 
 ugly creatures often. I believe that there are a few, only the 
 pretty ones go off to Paris to make their market there." To- 
 wards the end we talked of the enormous destruction the war 
 had entailed on France, and the Minister said, " I can imagine 
 that the country might become empty and masterless, and ; that 
 after the emigration of the people we might have to let the 
 estates out to deserving Pomeranians and Westphalians." 
 
 In the evening, at tea, Bucher was at first alone with me ; 
 then Keudell came in, who was a good deal troubled, and anxious 
 about Gambetta's gigantic levies, which were estimated, as he 
 had heard from the general staff, at 1,300,000 men. He had 
 been told also by Moltkes people, that we were to get 80,000 
 or 90,000 new troops, but he thought we ought to have had 
 half a million. What would happen if the French with 300,000 
 men from the south-east were to fall on the thin line of our 
 communications with Germany ? ' We might then easily be 
 compelled "even to give up Paris. Certainly this is too melan- 
 choly a view of the situation.
 
 What the French say of the Germans. 257 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 OHAUDORDY AND FACTS OFFICERS BREAKING THEIR PAROLE 
 FRENCH MISCONSTRUCTIONS THE CROWN PRINCE ENTER- 
 TAINED BY THE CHIEF. 
 
 , December 16. Weather mild and sky clouded. 
 Jj In the morning I wrote several articles on Chaudordy's circu- 
 lar despatch about the barbarous way in which we are repre- 
 sented to be carrying on the war. My line was as follows : 
 
 " To the slanders which the French press has been circulat- 
 ing for months in order to excite public opinion against us, we 
 have now to add an official document emanating from the Pro- 
 visional Government of France, the object of which is to induce 
 foreign courts and cabinets to take part against us by exaggera- 
 ted and distorted statements of our proceedings in this war. 
 An official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, M. de Chaudor- 
 dy, has taken occasion to complain" of us in a circular letter to 
 the neutral powers. Let us look at the main points of his in- 
 dictment, let us then state the real facts of the cases he de 
 scribes, and leave the world to judge whether the French or we 
 are more open to the reproach of barbarism. 
 
 " He asserts that our requisitions are immoderate and that 
 we demand from the towns and communes which have fallen 
 into our hands exorbitant contributions. We are said even to 
 have laid hold of the private property of individuals. We are 
 accused of savagely wrecking and burning down towns and vil- 
 lages where the inhabitants have fought against us or even been 
 helpful in the slightest way to the French who are defending their 
 country. Our accuser says, ' To punish a town for the offence 
 of a single inhabitant whose sole crime was that he rose against 
 the foreign invader, superior officers have ordered it to be set 
 on fire and plundered, thus shamefully abusing the unquestion- 
 ing discipline exacted from their soldiers. Every house where
 
 258 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 a Franc-tireur had hidden or had a meal has been burnt down. 
 What becomes of private property?' The circular goes on to 
 say that in bombarding open towns we have introduced a prac- 
 tice which has no precedent in history. Family, among other 
 outrages of which we have been guilty, we have taken hostages 
 with us in the railway trains to secure ourselves against the 
 rails being lifted and other damage and injury done to the 
 lines. 
 
 "We answer these charges thus; If M. de Chaudordy had 
 known anything of war, instead of complaining of the sacrifices 
 our operations require from the French population, he would 
 have been astonished at our comparative reasonableness. The 
 German troops respect private property" everywhere, but it is 
 not to be wondered at if, after forced marches or hard fights 
 where they have been exposed to cold and hunger, they insist 
 on getting lodged as comfortably as possible and on requiring 
 of the inhabitants whatever is of immediate necessity food, 
 drink, and firing, for instance or if they take them, in cases 
 where the inhabitants have fled. There is evidence, that so 
 far from attacking private property, as M. de Chaudordy says 
 they do, they have often done the very opposite, and have, at the 
 risk of their own lives, rescued for the owners objects of special 
 or artistic value, exposed to injury from the French guns. We 
 are charged with having burned down villages. Has our ac- 
 cuser never heard of the reason : of the Francs-tireurs, assass- 
 in-like, firing at our men in them, of the inhabitants helping 
 these murderers and rendering them every possible assistance ? 
 Has he not heard how the Francs-tireurs, who went recently 
 from Fontaines to Lyons, declared loudly and openly that the 
 object of their march was to pay visits to those houses in the 
 district, the plundering of which was worth their while ? Can 
 he give a single authenticated instance of horrors committed by 
 our soldiers like those practiced on them by the Turcos and the 
 free companions of the French 1 Have they cut off the ears 
 and noses of their enemies, either dead or alive, as the French 
 did to the German soldiers at Coulours on the J50th of Novem- 
 ber ? Eight hundred German prisoners should have been brought 
 into Lille on the llth of December. There was only two hun- 
 dred. Many of them were severely wounded, but instead of 
 offering them assistance the people pelted them with snowballs, 
 and cried for the soldiers to run their bayonets into them. The 
 number of times the French have fired on flags of truce is un-
 
 The Mode of War of the Francs-iireurs. 251> 
 
 precedentecl, and thte following incident, though all but incredi- 
 ble, is perfectly authenticated. On the 2nd of December Un- 
 der-Sergeant-major Steinmetz von Villers wrote a letter to his 
 lieutenant in Mirecourt by the express request of an officer of 
 the Garibaldians, notifying that if our troops allowed reprisals 
 against Vettel or any place in the neighborhood, he would cut 
 off the ears of fourteen Prussians who had fallen into the hands 
 of the free companions. 
 
 " We have often refused to treat free companions as soldiers, 
 but only when, by following the principles recommended to the 
 country people of the department of Cote d'Or by the Prefect 
 Luce VUliard on the 21st November, they failed to conduct 
 themselves as such. He told them, ' The country does not ask 
 you to embody yourselves in companies and march against the 
 enemy. It expects you, every morning, to pick out three or 
 four men to go to any place which the character of the ground 
 renders suitable and fire at the Prussians wherever they can do 
 so without danger. Above all things, fire at the enemy's 
 cavalry, and give their horses up at the chief place of arron- 
 dissement. I shall pay you a reward (the wages of assassina- 
 tion) and shall publish your heroic conduct in all the news- 
 papers of the department and in the Journal officiel.' 
 
 " We have bombarded open towns, such as Orleans, but is 
 M. de Chaudordy not aware that at the time they were in the 
 occupation of the enemy ] Has he forgotten that the French, 
 bombarded the open towns of Saarbriicken and Kelil 1 Fin- 
 ally, about the hostages, who are taken with our railway trains, 
 they accompany us, not to interfere with the heroic deeds of the 
 French, but to prevent malignant crimes. The railways carry 
 other things besides soldiers, ammunition, and war materials. 
 They are not a mere means of war, assailable, like others, by 
 armed violence. Crowds of wounded, doctors, nurses for the 
 sick, and other altogether peaceable persons, are conveyed 011 
 them. Is any peasant or free companion to be allowed to tear 
 up the rails or lay stones across, so as at one blow to endanger 
 the lives of hundreds of these people ? Let the French see to 
 the safety of their trains, and their hostages will only be taken, 
 little pleasure excursions, or, if they prefer it, we shall make 
 Germans accompany them to re-establish order along the lines. 
 We need say no more in answer to M. de Chaudordy's com- 
 plaints. The European cabinets know the humane spirit in 
 which we carry on war, and people here will have little dimcultv-
 
 260 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 in rating the assertions of our French accuser at their real 
 worth. 
 
 " After .all, war is war. Silk gloves are not in place, and 
 perhaps the iron gloves with which we have had to handle 
 them would have been worn less frequently had the Govern- 
 ment of National Defence not passionately proclaimed a peo- 
 ple's war, which inevitably leads to greater cruelties than one 
 between regular armies." 
 
 In the afternoon I again visited the magnificent bronze 
 deities behind the chateau, and the moss-grown marble statues 
 on the main road through the park. Besides Bohlen, who was 
 still sick, we missed at dinner Hatzfeld, who had turned un- 
 well, and Keudell, who had been commanded to dine with the 
 King. This time Count Holnstein and Prince Putbus were 
 our invited guests. The conversation turned first on the Bav- 
 arian Convention, and Holnstein expected that it would be 
 approved by the second Chamber, in which a two-thirds majority 
 is necessary, as it is already known, that only about forty votes 
 are to be recorded against it. It is also as good as certain that 
 it will not be rejected by the Chamber of the Royal Council- 
 lors. The Chief said, ' Thiinger will surely be for it." Holn- 
 stein said, " I believe so, for he voted for our taking part in the 
 war." " Yes, said the Minister, " he is one of the honorable 
 Particularists, but there are others who have different ends in 
 view." Holnstein said " Certainly some of the patriots have 
 shown clearly enough that they leave out the " For God and 
 Fatherland," and hold only by the " With the help of God." 
 
 Putbus then turned the conversation to the approaching 
 festival, and said that it was nice that the men in the hospitals 
 were also to have their Christmas trees. A collection had been 
 made for that object, and 2500 francs had been gathered. 
 " Pleiss and I signed," he went on to say. " Then it was taken 
 to the Grand Duke of Weimar, who subscribed 300 francs, and 
 the Grand Duke of Coburg 200." " Of course .he would have 
 to subscribe neither more than Weimar nor less than Pless." 
 Putbus said they proposed to lay the list before his Majesty, 
 and the Chief asked, " Won't you allow me to have a share in 
 it?" 
 
 It was then mentioned that a French air-balloon had come 
 down at Wetzlar, and that Ducrot was said to be in it. 
 " Well, he will be shot at last," -said Putbus. " No," said the 
 Chief, " if he comes before a council of war, it will not shoot
 
 A New French Loan. 261 
 
 liiin, but a council of honor, the officers tell me, would condemn 
 him quickly enough." 
 
 " Is there anything else new in military matters ! " said Put- 
 bus. The Minister said, " The general staff may know some- 
 thing, but we don't. For our much asking, we get the crumbs 
 they let fall to us, and they are not many." Somebody then 
 said he had heard that another great sortie of the Parisians was 
 expected to-morrow : and one of those at table added, that 
 there was a report that a dragoon had been shot on the road to 
 Meudon, ai\d an officer in the wood between this and Ville 
 d'Avray. (Hence the notice yesterday ordering that no civilian 
 is to be allowed in the woods near the town between three in 
 the afternoon and nine next morning, and commanding sentries 
 and patrols to fire on any non-military man who shows himself 
 there during these hours.) "They appear to have air-guns," 
 the Chief conjectured. " Probably they are the old poachers 
 of the neighborhood." 
 
 Finally we spoke of the report that the Government of the 
 National Defence was proposing to issue a loan, and the Min- 
 ister turned to me and said, " It might be worth while to point 
 out in the papers the risk people run who lend their money to 
 this Government. It may turn out that its loans may not be 
 taken up by 'the Government with which we conclude peace, 
 and we may make it one of the conditions. You might get that 
 specially into the English and the Belgian papers." 
 
 After we left table, Abeken told me that Count Holnstein 
 had asked who I was (probably because I am now the only 
 person at the Chancellor's table in civilian costume) ; was I, 
 perhaps, the Minister's personal medical attendant, as people 
 called me Doctor 1 In the evening L. told us that a Conserv- 
 ative of high position, who sometimes favored him with com- 
 munications, had told him that, in his circles, people were 
 anxious to see what the King would say in reply to the depu- 
 tation from the Reichstag. He was supposed not to like their 
 visit, for it was only the first German Reichstag, and not the 
 North German Reichstag which would be entitled to offer him 
 the Emperor's crown. (The King thinks ouch less about the 
 Reichstag, which does not propose to offer him the crown on 
 its own account, but to come, along with the princes, asking 
 him to accept it, than of the princes, some of whom have not 
 yet sent their answer to the proposition of the King of Bav- 
 aria.) For his own part, L.'s high-placed Conservative would
 
 262 Bismarck in the Franco- German War. 
 
 rather have seen the King made Emperor of Prussia (which is 
 & matter of taste), in which case Prussia would merge in Ger- 
 many, and about that he confesses he has his scruples. L. 
 told us also that the Crown Prince was indignant at certain 
 -correspondents in the German papers, who had compared Chat- 
 eaudunto Pompeii, and had otherwise drawn lively pictures of 
 the desolation of the country by the war. I suggested to L. to 
 work on the subjects : "A new French Loan" and " Chaud- 
 ordy and Garibaldi's ear-slitters " for a Belgian paper, to which 
 he has access, and he promised to do so to-morrow. * 
 
 After tea Wollmann came in, and told us that the deputation 
 from the Reichstag had arrived, and that Sim son, their speaker, 
 was already below with the Chief, who would clearly explain to 
 him the King's disinclination to receive them before the arrival 
 -of letters from all the princes agreeing to what is proposed. 
 These letters have to be sent first to the King of Bavaria, and 
 he forwards them to our King. All the princes are believed to 
 Jiave already answered in the affirmativo by telegram only 
 Xippe seems not yet to have got quite to the bottom of his 
 meditations. To account for this delay, probably a couple of 
 the members of the deputation will have to be taken ill. W. 
 tells us also that the last telegram, notifying the passage of the 
 Convention with Bavaria through the Reichstag, contained the 
 words : "Even the district magistrates were powerless to ob- 
 struct the inarch of universal history." 
 
 Saturday, December 17. During breakfast we were informed 
 that Vendome had been occupied by our troops. The secretar- 
 ies told us that when he is dictating, the Chief's custom is to 
 walk up and down the room, every now and then giving a 
 knock on a table, a chair, or a commode, sometimes with the 
 tassel of his dressing-gown, which he keeps swinging about. 
 He seems not to have had a good night last night, for about 
 half-past eleven he had not breakfasted, and an hour afterwards 
 lie was still not to be spoken with. There is to be a great 
 council to-day of the military authorities at the King's perhaps 
 about the bombardment. 
 
 Herr von Arnim-Krochlenburg, the brother-in-law of the 
 Minister, was at dinner, a gentleman with an energetic expres- 
 sion of countenance and a full reddish beard, apparently going 
 into fifty. The Chief was in excellent humor, but the conver- 
 sation this time had no special significance. It turned chiefly 
 on the bombardment and the position which a certain party at
 
 Brovm, Jones and Robinson. 263 
 
 head-quarters had taken up \vith respect to it. The Chief sud- 
 denly asked Bucher, " Have you a pencil and paper beside 
 you T "Yes." "Then telegraph " (I suppose to Delbriick) . "The 
 King will receive the deputation from the Reichstag abut two 
 o'clock to-morrow afternoon. Details to follow.'" (Probably 
 he means to signify to them that he is prepared to assume the 
 dignity of Emperor, as they wish him to do, but that he con- 
 siders that he owes it in the first instance to the requisition from 
 the King of Bavaria and the agreement of the other German 
 princes with him, and that that agreement has not yet been 
 formally expressed by everybody.) Arnim said he could eat 
 no more, as he had already had too much sausage, and the Chief 
 smiled and said, " Where did they come from ? I hope not 
 from Paris, for in that case they might perhaps contain rat." 
 We learn, in fact, that they are now very short of fresh meat 
 there ; and it is said that in some parts of the city a regular 
 rat-market has been established, which is abundantly supplied 
 with good stock from the sewers. 
 
 L. came in after eight o'clock, as usual, to exchange news. 
 He told us that there was considerable excitement at present 
 among the English in Versailles. Several sons of Britain who 
 are acting here as newspaper correspondents, and among them 
 a Captain Hosier, had had the misfortune, on a journey from 
 this to Orleans, to be arrested as spies and kept prisoners in an 
 inn, by German soldiers who did not understand their English. 
 They made an exception in favor of Hosier only, who spoke 
 some German. In spite of their correct papers all the rest 
 were kept in charge, put into a conveyance and brought to Ver- 
 sailles. The Crown Prince was very angry at the behaviour of 
 the soldiers, and the London papers would storm frightfully, 
 and try to turn the affair into a national insult. L. seemed a 
 little warm over it. I thought to myself, that he who thrusts 
 himself into danger must abide the consequences, and that the 
 man who goes a journey is likely to have something to tell. 
 Bucher, too, when I told him the story, seemed to think it 
 .rather enjoyable than serious, and said that it was a continu- 
 ation of the well-known comic narrative* of Brown, Jones, and 
 Robinson, who undertook their famous journey to foreign parts 
 without knowing any language but that of the London Cockney, 
 and who had fallen into all sorts of trouble. 
 
 Afterwards Bucher told us that the Chief was a great lover 
 of nature and picturesque places. He had several times rambled
 
 264 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 through the country near Varzin with him, and about the close 
 of the walk he often said, "You are wearying for your dinner 
 no doubt, but there is that one hill for us to climb yet, to get 
 the view from the top." 
 
 In the evening after ten there were repeated discharges from 
 the forts. 
 
 Sunday, December 18. About two the Chief went out to the 
 prefecture for the presentation of the people from the Reichs- 
 tag. In the interval before his probable return, I took a walk 
 through the Park with Wollmann, ending by way of the Avenue 
 de Paris, where the ceremony at the prefecture seems to have 
 been got through very simply. The Princes present here went, 
 I believe, to the King, as did also the delegates from the 
 Reichstag. After two o'clock the King came into the audience- 
 room, accompanied by the Crown Prince and Princes Karl and 
 Adalbert. The Grand Dukes of Baden, Oldenburg, and 
 Weimar, the Duke of Coburg and Meiningen, the three actual 
 Hereditary Grand Dukes of Mecklenburg, Weimar, and Olden- 
 burg, Prince William of Wiirtemburg, and a number of other 
 princely personages were present, and the rest of the audience 
 was grouped round the Chancellor of the Confederation. No- 
 body, was, it seems, in full uniform. Simson made the address 
 to the King, who answered pretty much as had been expected. 
 About five o'clock, a dinner of eighty covers closed the cere- 
 monies. 
 
 This afternoon I dined with Dr. Good, * and met there an- 
 other Kentuckian, Mr. Bowland MacLean, and the English 
 newspaper correspondent Conningsby. The Americans were 
 charming people. They were much astonished at the accuracy 
 with which I described to them Falmouth, Bowland's birth- 
 place, and the way to it from Cincinnati. They wanted to know 
 my opinion about the United States, and especially what I 
 thought about the great Civil War, in which Good had been a 
 long time engaged. My answer, in which I did justice also to 
 the Secessionists, seemed to please them greatly. Then 
 Coningsby brought up the incident with Hosier and his friends, 
 
 * An unusually agreeable young doctor from Louisville, Kentucky, who, 
 being a complete master of German, had devoted himself to the care of the 
 sick at headquarters, and whose acquaintance I had made through MacLean. 
 Some time afterwards he was himself the victim of a long and fatal illness, 
 caused by the fatigues he had undergone during the American Secession 
 War. -
 
 The British Lion and Civis Romanus. 265 
 
 and wished to know what I thought about it. I told him that 
 the gentlemen had added a fresh chapter to the adventures of 
 Brown, Jones, and Robinson. It could not reasonably be ex- 
 pected that our soldiers and subaltern officers should understand 
 English, and the thing appeared to me to be founded on a mis- 
 understanding. He replied that Hosier had certainly spoken 
 German, and that the papers which all the four gentlemen had 
 on their persons were written in German and signed by Roon 
 and Blumenthal. " In that case," I said, "it is in all likelihood 
 a case of military over-conscientiousness ; too much zeal and 
 precaution.'' Mr. Conningsby replied that he could not see it 
 in that light ; he thought that the soldiers had ill-used the cor- 
 respondents, because they were inoculated with the bitter feel- 
 ing in Germany about the English supply of arms. We should 
 see, however, what would come of it. , 
 
 I did not want to say that what he called embittered feeling 
 was probably more like distrust, or that I thought it quite in- 
 telligible. So I merely said, "Most likely it will make a great 
 noise, an angry effervescence in the newspapers, and nothing 
 more." I added that I could not imagine that more could come 
 of it. He replied that I should not be too sure of that, and 
 talked about the British lion and civis Roinanus. I answered 
 that if the lion roared, we should say, "Well roared, lion;" 
 "Roar again, lion. As for the civis, times had a little altered 
 since he used to be the fashion. "People have their own 
 thoughts about these matters," I said. He replied that we 
 were quite intoxicated with our success, and that if the British 
 Lion were not satisfied he could fight as well as roar. The least 
 that could be asked would be -the cashiering of the officer in 
 command when his countrymen had been arrested. I begged 
 him not to get excited, to look at the matter in cold blood. It 
 could not in any circumstance be serious. We should certainly 
 not throw our people over at once as a sop to the Lion, however 
 that animal might rage. If injustice had been really done to 
 the correspondents, a point which an inquiry would settle, they 
 would undoubtedly get satisfaction. As for our intoxication 
 with our success, I must point out to him that throughout this 
 war we had as a nation shown ourselves most modest, very free 
 from conceit or vain-gloriousness, especially when contrasted 
 with the unmeasured lying and boasting of the French. I 
 ended by saying that I repeated that I considered the whole 
 affair a trifle, that it was impossible that England should quarrel 
 18
 
 266 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 with us, or as he seemed to expect, declare war against us, about 
 trifles. But I continued to believe that the matter would make a 
 great noise in the newspapers, and that nothing serious would come 
 of it. In the end he calmed down, and confessed that he had 
 himself been arrested during the engagement near Bougival and 
 Malmaison, and harshly used by the Prussians, but even more 
 harshly by his own. countryman, Colonel Walker, to whom he 
 had appealed. Walker is the English military plenipotentiary 
 at headquarters. He had received him gruffly, and told him in 
 plain words that he had no business in battlefields. He then 
 described Walker to us as a man of no ability. I suppressed 
 the remark that I thought of making, in that instance Col- 
 onel Walker seemed to have shown himself a man of better 
 judgment than some other folks. The discussion at last dropped 
 away peaceably enough. Throughout, the American sided with 
 me and the Germans. 
 
 Monday, December 19. In the morning Abeken and I again 
 gathered violets in the garden, and found three bunches, which 
 I sent home. After two o'clock I made an excursion through 
 the park,, meeting the Chief twice, with Simson beside him in 
 his carriage. The Minister was invited to dine with the Crown 
 Prince at seven, but half an hour or so before, he ate a little 
 with us. He told us about his drive with Simson. " The last 
 time he was here was in 1830, after the July revolution. I 
 thought he would have taken an interest in the park and the 
 beautiful views there, but he seemed to do nothing of the sort. 
 Apparently the feeling for landscape is completely wanting in 
 him. There are many people in whom it is so. As far as 
 I know there are no Jewish landscape painters, and, indeed, 
 hardly any Jewish painters of any kind." Somebody men- 
 tioned Meierheim, and Bendemann. " Meierheim " he said, 
 " yes ; but Bendemann had only Jewish grand-parent There 
 are plenty of Jewish composers Meyerbeer, Menc 'Issohn, 
 Halevy ; but for painters, a Jew paints indeed, but only wiien 
 he does not need to do it." 
 
 Abeken then told us about Rogge's sermon yestei'day in the 
 church of the chateau, and said he had talked too much About 
 the deputation here from the Reichstag. The Chief replied, 
 " I am not at all of that mind, certainly not. These people 
 have once more voted us a hundred million thalers (fifteen mil- 
 lion pounds), and they have apj roved the Versailles Conven- 
 t-'-^s in spite o' their own doctrin 're views, and much to the
 
 Recollections of Youth. 267 
 
 disgust of many people. We ought to recognzie all that. No ; 
 I cannot entertain such an opinion of them. I am only cross 
 with Delbriick, who disturbed my mind greatly by saying that 
 they were not likely to agree to the Conventions." 
 
 The privy councillor talked of the incidents at Ems, shortly 
 before the war broke out, and told us that after a certain de- 
 spatch the King had said : " Well, even he (Bismarck) will be 
 pleased with us." " And I believe," added Abeken, " that you 
 were." From the Chancellor's reply, it must have been a "par- 
 tial satisfaction." " I remember," he said, "how I received 
 the news in Varzin. I had gone out, and I found the first tele- 
 gram waiting for me when I came home. I went off at once, 
 driving by our pastor's house at Wussau. He stood right be- 
 fore his door, and saluted me. I said nothing to him, but 
 merely made this cut (marking the crossing of the swords in the 
 air). He understood me, and I went on." Then he told us 
 how the thing changed back and forward up to the point 
 Avhen the declaration of war came. The Minister then said 
 that he had meant at first to go to church yesterday, "but 
 I was anxious," he said, " not to catch cold in the procession. 
 I caught a most frightful headache once before in it ; and, be- 
 sides, I was very much afraid that Rogge would say too much." 
 
 Afterwards, in what connection I do not remember, he 
 began to speak of the " nut war," which was the result of the 
 battle of Tannenberg, in which the combatants are said to have 
 lost themselves in a large wood, which at that time stretched 
 from Biitow far into Poland, and consisted entirely of walnut 
 thickets and of oaks. In connection with something else, 
 though I do not remember this connection either, he mentioned 
 the battle of Fehrbellin, which brought him to talk of old peo- 
 ple who had outlived so-and-so. " We had an old cowherd 
 called Brand at home, who may very likely have spoken to 
 people who were at the battle of Fehrbellin. Brand was one 
 of those ancient pieces of furniture with which the recollections 
 of my youth are inseparably bound up. When I think of him 
 I seem to be smelling heather and meadow flowers. Yes, it is 
 possible ; he was 91 or 93 years old, and died in 1820 or 1821. 
 He had seen King Frederick William the First in Coslin, where 
 he had served with his father as a post-boy. If, then, he was 
 born about 1730, it is quite possible that he may have known 
 people who fought in Fehrbellin, for that is only fifty or sixty 
 years farther back."
 
 268 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 Abeken had also his remarkable recollections of youth. He 
 had seen the poet Giickingk, who died in the course of the last 
 twenty years, from which we made; out that Lin; old man was 
 born in 1809. The Chief then said that lie ini^lit himself pos- 
 sibly have seen pig-tails when he Avas a child. Turning to 
 Abeken, he continued : " It is more likely that you did, as you 
 are five or six years older than I am." Tiun ho returned to 
 Pomerania, and, if I do not mistake, to "V'arzm, wlu re a French 
 Piedmontese had settled down after the last French war. The 
 man interested him, as he had worked himself up to a respect- 
 able position, and although originally a Catholic, had become 
 one of the churchwardens. As another instance 1 of people set- 
 tling and becoming prosperous in some chance locality, he men- 
 tioned other Italians, who during the war of 1813, had got into 
 this back region of Pomerania, remained th^ro, nnd founded 
 families, distinguishable from those of their neighbors only 
 through the cast of their features. 
 
 Finally, we spoke of Miihler, a friend of Abeken's, Avhom he 
 had that day, contrary to Keudell's opinion, declared to be quite 
 unreplaceable. From the influence of that Minister's Avife upon 
 his decisions, and his Avhole political attitude, the conversation 
 turned on the influence Avhich energetic AviA-es usually exer- 
 cise over their husbands. "Yes," said the Chief, "in such cases 
 one usually cannot tell to Avhom the merit or demerit of a thing 
 is to be attributed quid ipse fecit et quid mulier fecit " 
 (" which is his part and which his Avife's") ; a remark which he 
 illustrated by many examples which cannot be given here. It 
 Avas after ten o'clock before the Minister came back from the 
 Crown Prince, and he then went out to take the Crown Prince's 
 Marshal of the Palace, Avho returned with him ten minutes 
 later, for a short walk in the garden. Afterwards, Avhen I was 
 having tea in my own room, Engel Avhispered me up the stair- 
 case, "Do you know, doctor, that the Cnrvvn Prince is to dine 
 Avith us to-morroAv evening 1 ?" 
 
 Tuesday, December 20. Whilst I was preparing an article 
 in the Bureau, Keudell told me that the Chief had decided that 
 all State documents as they came in and went out were from 
 this time forward to be open to my inspection on my request. 
 He gave me a telegram to read from the Minister himself, re- 
 ferring to Luxemburg, and afteinvards he sent me, through 
 Wollmann, the authority required for my better information.
 
 The German Marines. 269 
 
 After three o'clock the Minister went to the King, and I 
 took a walk with Wollmann through the town, and afterwards 
 through the Avenue de Saint-Cloud. On the main road, a 
 peculiar dark blue mass appeared in the distance coming to 
 meet us. They looked like soldiers, and yet not like soldiers. 
 They inarched in close column and in regular step. There were 
 muskets without bayonets ; there were neither caps nor hel- 
 mets ; and there was no white leather. It was only when the 
 procession caune nearer that I recognize the black glazed hats 
 of the sailors of our Marine, their black belts and main braces, 
 their shiny knapsacks, their pea-jackets, and their cutlasses. 
 There were some hundreds of them, with five or six officers, 
 from whom, when the troop halted, we learned that they were 
 the crews of four of the Loire steamers which have been cap- 
 tured by Prince Frederick Charles's* troops. It appears that 
 they are quartered in the Hue de la Pompe, and in the Rue 
 Hoche. There were many strapping and good-looking fellows 
 amongst them. Numbers of French gathered round to watch 
 these mysterious foreigners, the like of whom they had never 
 seen. " They are German soldiers," I heard somebody say ; 
 "they can speak many languages (ce sont des polyglottes), and 
 are to serve as interpreters for the Prussians." 
 
 Shortly after six o'clock the Crown Prince, with his adju- 
 tant, came to din'.' with us. He wore the ensigns of his new 
 military rank, a large cross and a field-marshal's baton, upon 
 the shoulder-plates. He sat at the top of the table, with the 
 Chief at his right and Abeken at his left. After soup, we 
 spoke first of the subject that I had been that morning prepar- 
 ing for the press, namely, that according to a communication 
 from Israel, the secretary of Laurier, the provisional govern- 
 ment's London agent, Gambetta no longer believes in a success- 
 ful defence, and is inclined to make peace upon our conditions ; 
 That Trochu alone of the present rulers of France wants to go 
 on fighting, and that the others pledged themselves, when he 
 undertook the conduct of the defence of Paris, to act always in 
 harmony with him. On that point the Chief remarked, " He 
 is said to have provisioned Mont Valerien for two months, so 
 as to retire there with the regular troops who stay by him, when 
 the city is given up, probably in order to influence the settle- 
 ment of the terms of peace. I believe for my own part, " he 
 continued, "that France will in future break up into several 
 fragments. It is broken up into parties already. In the dif-
 
 270 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 ferent districts people are of very different parties. They are 
 Legitimists in Brittany, Red Republicans in the South, Mod- 
 erates elsewhere, and the regular army is still attached to the 
 Emperor, at least the majority of the officers are. Each of these 
 parts of France may follow its own convictions ; one Republican, 
 one for the Bourbons, one where the Orleanists have most sup- 
 porters, and Napoleon's people tetrarchies of Judea, Galilee, 
 and so forth." 
 
 The Crown Prince said that it was believed that Paris must 
 have underground communication with the outside world. The 
 Chief supposed that it must be so, and said, " They can't get 
 provisions in that way, but they might get news. I have al- 
 ready thought whether we could not fill up the sewers with 
 water from the Seine, and so flood at least the lower-lying quar- 
 ters of the city. These sewers go right under the Seine." 
 Bucher confirmed this statement, and said that he had been in 
 the sewers and had noticed their side entrances at different 
 points, where nobody, however, was permitted to go. Some- 
 body said that if Paris were now taken it would have an effect 
 upon opinion in Bavaria, the accounts from which were again 
 not satisfactory. The Chief said, " The King remains always 
 the most thorough-going German in these exalted regions." The 
 conversation then turned on another princely personage, who 
 was described as very hostile to Prussia, but is too old and frail 
 to be dangerous. " There is very little that is natural left in 
 
 him," somfbody said. "That reminds me of Gr ," said the 
 
 Minister, " who had pretty much everything about him false 
 his hair, his teeth, his calves, and one of his eyes. When he 
 wanted to dress in the morning, the larger and the better half 
 of him lay round his bed on chairs and tables. It s like the 
 picture of the newly-married man in the ' Fliegeiiue Blatter/ 
 whose bride, when she undressed, put her hair in one corner, 
 her teeth in another, and other parts of her elsewhere, and the 
 bridegroom asked, ' But what is there left for me! '* 
 
 The Chief went on to tell us that the sentry at the house of 
 the person he had been speaking of, who is a Pole, refused, one 
 evening recently, to allow him to go into the house, and it was 
 only when he made himself understood in Polish that the man 
 was persuaded to do so. " In the hospital," he added, " I tried, 
 a couple of days since, to talk with the Polish soldiers, and they 
 seemed quite to brighten up when they heard a general using 
 their native tongue. It was a pity that I could not go on, and
 
 The Poles and the Crown Prince. 271 
 
 had to leave. Perhaps it would be well if their commander 
 could talk to them. " 
 
 " Ah, Bismarck, you are going to attack me again on that 
 point, as you have done several times before," said the Crown 
 Prince, smiling. " No, I really cannot do it ; I am not going 
 to learn any more languages." 
 
 " But they are really good soldiers, your Royal Highness," 
 replied the Chancellor, " and brave fellows, only the majority of 
 the priests' party are against us, as well as the aristocracy and 
 their retainers, and those who hang on to them. A nobleman, 
 who is nobody himself, maintains a whole crowd of persons and 
 servants of all kinds, who have nothing particular to do, but 
 who act as his house-servants, stewards, writers, and so forth. 
 If he is inclined to rebel, he has these fellows on his side, as 
 well as his day-laborers, the Komorniks. The free peasants 
 do not go with him, even when the priest, who is always against 
 us, stirs them up. We saw that in Posen, too, where the 
 Polish regiments had to be withdrawn, solely because they were 
 too rough with their own country people. I remember not far 
 from our place in Pomerania, there was a market where many 
 Kassuben* had established themselves. There was a fight there 
 once, because a German had said to a Kassube that he would 
 not sell him a cow because he was a Pola The other took this 
 very ill. You say I am a Polack,' he said ; ' No, I am a 
 Prussack, like yourself.' A famous cudgelling ensued, other 
 Germans and Poles mixing themselves up in the affair. " 
 
 In this connection, the Chief added that the Great Elector 
 was able to speak Polish quite as well as German, and that the 
 later kings had also understood Polish. Frederick the Great 
 was the first who had not taken the trouble to do so, but he had 
 understood French even better than German. " I don't deny 
 that, but I am not going to lear.i Polish. Let them learn 
 German, " said the Crown Prince, and the subject dropped. 
 
 Excellent new dishes every now and then came in, and the 
 Crown Prince remarked, "You are really gourmets here. How 
 well fed the gentlemen in your office look ! all but Bucher, who 
 has not been here so long," " Yes," said the Chief, " it all 
 comes from love offerings. These contributions of Rhine wine 
 
 * A tribe of Wends in EastPnissia, near Coslin, on the Lieber and the 
 Baltic, who are almost entirely distinct from the Germans, who maintain 
 their own customs and language, and whose preachers address them both in 
 German and in their native tongue. .
 
 272 Bismarck in the Franco- German War. 
 
 and pasties, and smoked goose-breast, and goose-liver, are a 
 speciality of the Foreign Office. Our people are quite deter- 
 mined to fatten their Chancellor." 
 
 At this point the Crown Prince turned the conversation 
 round to ciphering and deciphering, and asked whether it was 
 difficult. The Minister explained to him the trick of it in de- 
 tail, and went on to say, " If, for instance, I want to cipher the 
 word 'but' ('aber'), I write down the group of numbers for 
 Abeken, and after that group signifying ' Strike out the two last 
 syllables." Then I put the cipher for Berlin, and tell the 
 writer ajjfain to strike out the last syllable. Thus I get 'aber.' " 
 
 At desert the Crown Prince brought out of his pocket a short 
 tobacco-pipe, with a procelain bowl with an eagle on it, and 
 lighted up, whilst the rest of us lighted our cigars. 
 
 After dinner, the Crown Prince and the Minister went into 
 the drawing-room for coffee with the Councillors. After a while 
 we, viz. myself and the secretaries, were brought out of the 
 office by Abeken, to be officially presented to the future Em- 
 peror by the Chief. We were kept waiting perhaps a quarter 
 of an hour, as the Chancellor had got deep into conversation 
 with the Crown Prince. His distinguished guest sat there in 
 the corner, between Madame Jesse's cottage piano and one of 
 the windows, and the Chief spoke low to him, for the most 
 part keeping his eyes clown, while the Crown Prince listened 
 with an earnest and almost gloomy expression. In the presen- 
 tation Wollmann came first, and the Crown Prince remarked to 
 him that he knew his handwriting. Then I came ; the Chief 
 introducing me as Dr. Busch, for the Press. The Crown 
 Prince : "How long have you been in the service of the Statel" 
 " Since February, your Royal Highness." The Chief :" Dr. 
 Busch is a Saxon a Dresdener." The Crown Prince said, 
 " Dresden is a fine city ; I always like to go there. What was 
 your previous occupation ?" I answered that I had been editor 
 of the Grenzboten. " I have often read it, so that I know 
 you," he replied. And then I had also been a great travel- 
 ler, I told him. " Where have you been '?" he asked. " I have 
 been in America, and three times in the East," I answered. 
 " Did you like it 1 ? should you like to go back again ?" " Oh 
 yes, your Royal Highness, especially to Egypt." "Yes, I 
 understand ; T myself had a great desire to go back there. The 
 colors in Egypt are splendid : but our German meadows and 
 woods are far dearer to me.". He then presented Blanquart ;
 
 A Thousand Years ago. 273 
 
 then Willisch, and finally Wiehr, who mentioned to him, among 
 other things, that he had studied music for several years under 
 Marx. Wollmann says that he was formerly a music-teacher, 
 after which he became a rifleman, in which capacity he had 
 come forward at the time the attempt of Sefelog on the life cf 
 the former King had been baffled. Then he was employed as 
 telegraphist in the Foreign Office, and when there was no more 
 direct telegraphing to do, as copyist and decipherer. 
 
 After the presentation, I read over in the Bureau the diplo- 
 matic reports and minutes of the last few days : the minute, 
 for instance, on the King's speech to the deputation from the 
 Reichstag, which was drawn by Abeken, and very much alter- 
 ed by the Chief. At tea Hatzfeld told me that he had been 
 trying to decipher an account of the condition of Paris, which 
 had come out with Washburne's messages, and that he was 
 doubtful only about a few expressions. He then showed it me, 
 and by our united efforts we managed to make out the sense of 
 some of them. It appeared to be based throughout upon ex- 
 cellent information and to be in conformity with the facts. 
 According to it, the smaller tradesmen are suffering severely, 
 but the people below them not very much, as they are looked 
 after by the Government. There is great want of firing, 
 especially of coals. Gas is no longer burned. In the last 
 sorties the French suffered considerable loss, but their spirit is 
 not yet broken. Our victory at Orleans has produced no 
 marked impression upon the Parisians. 
 
 Wednesday, December 21. In the morning I again looked 
 for violets, and found some. Then I turned over the recent 
 publications. Afterwards I read a tract which I found among 
 them, of the treaty between Charles the Bald and Louis the 
 German, at the time of the partition of Lothringen, in the 
 year 870, exactly a thousand years ago, establishing the first 
 Franco-German boundary. I made extracts from it for the 
 press. 
 
 In the afternoon the Chief rode out, and I took a walk with 
 Wollmann. We take a turn accordingly through the streets. 
 The sailone are drawn up on the Avenue de Saint-Cloud, and 
 we notice our Chief talking to their commander. In the Hue 
 de la Pompe, on the Right hand, infantiy posts are planted be- 
 fore every house, and in the Place Hoche a company of dra- 
 goons is stationed. All the roads out of the town are barred. 
 We see men in blouses arrested, and a gunsmith in the Avenue
 
 274 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 de Paris, behind whom a soldier is carrying a number of fowl- 
 ing-pieces. A priest is also marched in. Lastly, about a dozen 
 guilty or suspected persons are brought in together, and taken 
 across to the prison in the Rue Saint-Pierre, where they are 
 ranged in the courtyard. There are some vere desperate-look- 
 ing fellows among them. It is said that forty-three fowling- 
 pieces were found in the gunsmith's shop, and a gun-barrel, which 
 he had most likely not come by in a good way.* 
 
 At table Dr. Lauer was the Chief's guest. We talked about 
 the report that in Paris the people had already swallowed all 
 the eatable animals in the Jardin des Plantes, and Hatzfeld 
 told us that the camels had been sold for four thousand francs 
 (one hundred and sixty pounds) each, that the elephant's trunk 
 had been eaten by a company of gourmands, and that it made 
 an admirable dish. " Ah," said Lauer, " that is very likely ; it 
 is a mass of muscles woven together, which accounts for its 
 flexibility and for the force with which it can apply it. It is 
 something like the tongue, and must taste like a tongue." 
 Somebody remarked that the camels' humps were probably not 
 bad either, and another said that the humps were a great deli- 
 cacy. The Chief listened to him for a while, and then said, 
 thoughtfully, lirst a litt.e stooping, then taking a long breath 
 and lifting himself up as he usually does when he is joking, 
 " H'm ! The hump-backed men, what about their humps V 
 Loud and universal laughter interrupted him. Lauer remarked, 
 dryly and scientifically, that men's humps were due to a perver- 
 sion of ribs or bones, or a sort of curvature of the vertebral 
 column, so that they could not be very good for eating, whereas 
 camels' humps were flexible growths of cartilage^ which possibly 
 might not taste badly. This thread was spun out a little longer, 
 and we talked of bear's flesh, then of bear's paws, and, lastly, 
 of the gourmands among the cannibals, about whom the Min- 
 ister wanted to tell a pleasant story. He began : "A child, a 
 fresh yound maiden, certainly, but an old grown-up tough fel- 
 low cannot be good for eating." Then he went on: "I re- 
 member an old Kaffir, or Hottentot woman, who had long been 
 a Christian. When the missionary was preparing her for her 
 death, and found her quite ready for glory, he asked her 
 whethei there was anything she particularly wished. 'No,' , 
 
 * The man's name was Listray, and as probably only concealment of wea- 
 pons could be proved against him, he got off tolerably easily. He was only 
 compelled to take an involuntary journey into Germany.
 
 An Ancestor. 275 
 
 she said ; ' everything was quite comfortable with her ; but if 
 anybody could oblige her with a pair of young child's hands 
 for eating, she would regard them as a great delicacy.' " 
 
 We then talked about sleeping, and about the sailors whom 
 we met yesterday. The Chief said, that if they could have 
 brought the captured gunboats into the Seine, great services 
 might have been expected of them. He then began to speak 
 once more of the recollections of his youth, again mentioning 
 the cowherd Brand, and telling us about an ancestor of his, 
 who, if I understood him rightly, had fallen at Czaslen. 
 " The old people near us," he said, " had often described him 
 to my father. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord, and 
 a heavy drinker. Once, in a single year, he shot 154 red 
 deer ; after which Prince Frederick Charles will scarcely come 
 up to him, though the Duke of Dessau may. I remember how 
 I was told things went in Gollnow, where the officers ate to- 
 gether, and the colonel managed the cooking. It was the 
 fashion there for five or six dragoons to march up and down in 
 a sort of chorus, and fire their carbines when the toasts were 
 given. People certainly went on curiously in those days. For 
 instance, instead of riding on a rail they had a wooden donkey 
 with a sharp back, on which dragoons against whom any fault 
 had been proved had to sit, often a couple of hours together a 
 very painful punishment. Every now and then, on the birth- 
 day of the colonel and of some others, they took this donkey 
 out to the bridge and pitched him over it ; but there was 
 always a new one made. They had had a new one about a 
 hundred times over. The burgomaster's wife (I could not 
 quite make out what her name was, but it sounded like Dal- 
 mer) told my father ... I have the portrait of this ancestor 
 of mine in Berlin. I am supposed to be his very image, at 
 least I was when I was young, so much so that when I 
 looked upon him it was like looking at my own face in the 
 "glass." 
 
 We went on in this way about old stories and people, and 
 ultimately agreed that many fashions of old days had come 
 down to the present time, especially among folks in the country 
 districts. Somebody spoke of the children's song, " Flieg, Mai- 
 Kafer, flieg ! " (" Fly away, maybug ") which, along with 
 the abgebrannten Pommerkmd (fire-ravaged Pomerania), recalled 
 to one of the Thirty Years' War. " Yes," said the Chief, " I 
 know that expressions used to be common with us which mani-
 
 276 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 festly took us back to the beginning of last century. When I 
 had ridden well, my father said to me, ' He is just like ' (the 
 name was not quite distinct, but sounded like Pluvenel). At 
 that time he always said 'He' in speaking to me. Pluvenel 
 was a master of the horse of Louis XIV., and a famous rider. 
 When T had ridden he also said sometimes, ' He really rides as 
 if he had learned it at Hilmar Cura's,' who had been riding- 
 master to Frederick the Great." 
 
 He went 011 to say that it was owing to a relation of his, 
 whose opinion had great weight with his parents, Finance- 
 Councillor Kerl, that he studied in Gottingen. He was sent 
 there to Professor Hausmann, and was to work at mineralogy. 
 " People at that time thought a good deal of Leopold von Buch, 
 and fancied themselves going about through the world like 
 him, chipping off bits of rocks with a hammer. Nothing of 
 the sort happened with me. It would have been better if they 
 had sent me to Bonn, where I should have met young men 
 from my own district. In Gottingen there was nobody from 
 Pomerania, so that I never came across some of my university 
 friends again until I met them in the Reichstag." Somebody 
 then mentioned one of them, Miers, from Hamburg, and the 
 Minister said, " Yes, I remember, he was left-handed, but he 
 was not good for much." 
 
 Abeken told us that a sortie of the garrison of Paris had 
 taken place after the lively cannonade from the forts which we 
 had heard in the morning, and that it had been directed 
 especially against the lines occupied by the Guard. It had, 
 however, resulted almost entirely in an artillery skirmish, and 
 the attack had . been known beforehand, and prepared for. 
 Hatzfeld remarked that he would like to know how they man- 
 aged to foresee a sortie. He was told that it must take place 
 in open ground, that one could see the wagons and the guns 
 which had to be brought out, that for any movement of great 
 masses of troops nothing could be arranged in a single night. 
 " That is true," said the Chief, smiling, "but a hundred louis 
 d x or are often an essential part of our military previsions." 
 
 Thursday, December 22. It is very cold, certainly, perhaps 
 fourteen degrees of frost. The ice flowers are all over my 
 window pane in spite of the quantity of logs in my fire-place. 
 There was no stranger at table to-day. The Chief was in an 
 excellent humor, but the conversation had no special signifi- 
 cance. I may however indicate what I remember of it. Who
 
 Cardinal Antonelli expected. 277 
 
 knows to whom it may be agreeable 1 First the Minister said, 
 smiling, and looking at the menu lying before him, " There is 
 always a dish too much. I had already decided to ruin my 
 stomach with goose and olives, and here is Reinfeld ham, of 
 which I cannot help taking too much, merely because I want 
 to get my own share," he had not been to breakfast. " And 
 here is Varzin wild boar, too." Somebody mentioned yester- 
 day's sortie, and the Chief remarked, "The French came out 
 yesterday with three divisions, and we had only fifteen com- 
 panies, and not four complete battalions, and yet we made 
 almost a thousand prisoners. The persons who make these 
 attacks, here one time and there another, seem to me like a 
 French dancing-master, who is leading a quadrille, and shout- 
 ing to liis pupils, now ' Right ! ' now ' Left ! ' 
 
 " ' Ma commute, quancl je danse, 
 
 Mon cotillon va-t-il bien ? 
 H va de ci, il va de la, 
 Comme la queue de notre chat.""" 
 
 During the course of ham he said, " Pomerania is the land 
 of smoked provisions : smoked goose-breast, smoked eels, and 
 smoked ham. They only want nagelholt, as they have it in 
 "Westphalia, to make smoked beef. The name, however, does 
 not explain itself very clearly nails, I mean, on which things 
 hang while they are being smoked, but the ' holt,' perhaps, 
 ought to be written with a d" Then we talked about the cold, 
 and, when the wild boar came on the table, of a wild boar hunt 
 which had taken place at Varzin during Count Herbert's illness 
 at Bonn. Afterwards the Chief remarked, " That Antonelli 
 should, after all, be making ready for a journey, and should be 
 coming here must be quite bewildering to many people." Abe- 
 ken remarked, " Antonelli has been very variously estimated 
 in the newspapers ; sometimes as a man of lofty and distin- 
 guished intellect, sometimes as a crafty intriguer, sometimes 
 merely as a stupid fellow or a blockhead." " Yes," said the 
 Chancellor ; " but that is not dcftie in the newspapers only ; it 
 -is the same with the judgment of many diplomatists Goltz, 
 for instance, and our Harry. I shall say no more of Goltz ; he 
 was not that kind of man ; but for , he is this way to- 
 day and that way to-morrow. When I was at Varzin, and had 
 to read his reports from Rome, his opinion about the people 
 there changed twice every other week, according as they had 
 been treating him in a friendly way or the reverse. Indeed,
 
 278 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 he changed with every post, and frequently he had different 
 views in the same letter." 
 
 Friday, December 23. Another very cold day. People 
 speak of twenty-two degrees of frost. The paragraph in the 
 Situation, which makes the Empress Eugenie see reason to 
 conclude peace with us, was sent to the editor of the Moniteur. 
 An article of the Times, about Luxemburg, denning our pos- 
 ition, was forwarded to Germany. The beginning of Treit- 
 schke's pamphlet in the Preussisclie Jahrbucher was prepared 
 for the King's reading. 
 
 About breakfast time a French lady, whose husband has ben 
 detected in treacherous relations with a band of Francs-tireurs 
 in the Ardennes, and been condemned to death for it, is an- 
 nounced as waiting for the Chief. She is going to beg his life, 
 and the Chief is to procure it for her. He will not see her, 
 since, as he sends her word, the matter is not in his province. 
 She must go to the War Minister. She goes off to him, but 
 Wollmann believes that she will get there too late, as Colonel 
 Krohn bad received an order on the 14th to let justice take its 
 course.* 
 
 At tanner our guests were Baron and Deputy von Schwarz- 
 Koppen, and my old Hannoverian acquaintance, Herr von 
 Pfuel, who had in the meantime become district chief at Celle. 
 They were both to be appointed to prefectures, or something of 
 that sort. Afterwards Count Lehndorf, and an uncommonly 
 handsome man, von Donhoff, a lieutenant of hussars, who, if I 
 am not mistaken, was an adjutant of Prince Albrecht's. To- 
 day's menu may be given as a proof that our table was excel- 
 lently supplied at Versailles. It included onion soup (with port 
 wine), a haunch of wild boar (with Tivoli beer), Irish stew, 
 Vroast turkey, chestnuts (with champagne and red wine accord- 
 ing to choice), and a dessert of excellent Caville apples and mag- 
 nificent pears. 
 
 We were informed that General von Voigts-Pvhetz had ap- 
 peared before Tours, the population of which having offered 
 resistance, he had been compelled to fire grenades at the town. 
 The Chief remarked : " It is not as it should be, if he stopped 
 
 * This was a mistake. The letter may have gone off, but the person 
 concerned, the notary Tharel, from Rocroy, in the Department of the Ar- 
 dennes, was banished to Germany. In June 1871 he was still in Verden, 
 where he was liberated shortly afterwards on the application of the French 
 Governmentt
 
 The Feuilleton at Versailles. 279 
 
 firing as soon as they showed the white flag. I would have 
 gone on firing grenades into the town until they had sent me out 
 400 hostages." He again expressed himself severely about the 
 mild treatment that officers gave civilians who resisted. Even 
 notorious treason is frequently not suitably punished, so that 
 the French think they can venture to do anything against us. 
 " That is how Krohn behaves," he went on. " He first charges 
 an advocate with conspiracy with Francs-tireurs, and after see- 
 ing that he is condemned to death, he sends us one petition for 
 pardon after another, instead of shooting him, and at last 
 though he gets the credit of being an energetic officer he makes 
 110 difficulty about sending the man's wife on to me with a safe- 
 conduct round her neck." 
 
 From this foolish indulgence the conversation turned to 
 linger, the Chief of the general staff who had been sent home, 
 his mind having given way. He usually sits quiet, brooding 
 on vacancy, occasionally, however, bursting out into loud sob- 
 bing. "Yes," sighed the Chief, "the chief of the general staff 
 is a sorely harassed man. He is incessantly at work and 
 always responsible ; he can carry nothing through ; he is per- 
 petually cheated ; it is almost as bad as being a Minister." "I 
 know myself what that sobbing is," he said, "a nervous hyste- 
 ria, a sort of feverish convulsion. I had it once at Inkolsburg, 
 so badly that my gorge rose. If a chief of the general staff has 
 a bad time, so has a Minister every kind of vexation, gnat 
 stings without end. The other office may suit some people, but 
 good management is absolutely indispensable." 
 
 When the haunch of wild boar from Varzin was set on the 
 table the Minister talked with Lehndorf and Pfuel about hunt- 
 ing, about these denizens of the woods and marshes, and about 
 Ms own exploits in the sport. Afterwards somebody mentioned 
 the Moniteur, which appears here, and the Chief remarked, 
 " During the last few weeks they have been printing in it a 
 novel by Heyse about Meran (a watering-place in Austria). 
 Such sentimental business is out of place in a paper which is 
 published with the King's money, as this really is. The Ver- 
 saillese don't want it. They want political reports and military 
 news from France and England and I should like to see some 
 from Italy not this sugary-tasted tittle-tattle. I have some 
 poetry in my nature, too, but I don't remember ever glancing 
 at this feuilleton after I read the first couple of sentences." 
 Abeken, who had induced them to publish the novel, stood up
 
 2 SO Bismarck in the Franco- German War. 
 
 for x the editors, and said that it had been taken from the Revue 
 des deux Mondes, which was an eminent French paper, but the 
 Chief adhered to his opinion. Somebody then said that the 
 Moniteur was now writing better French. " That may be," 
 said the Minister ; "I don't care much about it. It is the way, 
 however, with us Germans. We are always, even in the high- 
 est circles, asking whether we are pleasant and agreeable to 
 other people. If they don't understand it, let them learn Ger- 
 man. It is a matter of indifference whether a proclamation is 
 drawn up in an elegant French style, so long as it speaks adequate- 
 ly and intelligibly. We can never be quite perfect in a foreign 
 language. It is impossible that a person who uses it only now 
 and then during, perhaps, two years and a half, ahould be able 
 to express himself as well in it as one who has been using it for 
 fifty-four." Somebody ironically praised Steinmetz's procla- 
 mation, and quoted some remarkable specimens of language 
 from it. Lehndorf said, " It was certainly not elegant French, 
 but it was quite intelligible." The Chief, "Yes, understanding 
 it is what they have to do with it. If they can't, let them get 
 somebody to translate it for them." 
 
 " Many people who are quite familiar with French are no 
 good for us. It is our misfortune that anyone who cannot speak 
 German decently is at once made a man, especially if he mangles 
 English. The old man (I understood him to mean Meyendorft) 
 once said to me, 'Never trust an Englishman who speaks French 
 with a correct accent,' and I have found that generally right. 
 But I ought to except Odo Russell." 
 
 He then told the story how old Knesebeck once, to every- 
 body's astonishment, got up to say something in the State 
 Council. After he had stood there a while, without saying any- 
 thing, somebody coughed. "I beg," he said, "that you will not 
 interrupt me," after which, and after standing another couple 
 of minutes, he said, in a sorrowful way, "I have really forgot- 
 ten what I had to say," and sat down. 
 
 The conversation turned on the subject of Napoleon III., and 
 the Chief said he was not a man of large views. " He is," he 
 went on, "a far kindlier man than he usually gets credit for, 
 but nothing like the clever fellow he used to be thought." 
 " That reminds me," said Lehndorf, " of a criticism of the First 
 Napoleon a good fellow, but stupid." " No," said the Chief, 
 seriously, " in spite of what we may think about the coup d'etat, 
 he is really kindly, a man of feeling, even sentimental ', but
 
 The Chancellors Opinion of Napoleon III. 281 
 
 neither his intelligence nor his information is much to speak of. 
 He is especially poor in geography, though he was brought up : 
 in Germany and went to school there, and he lives in a world 
 of all sorts of fantastic ideas. In July he kept buzzing round 
 and round for three days without being able to decide on any- 
 thing, and even now he does not know what he wants. His 
 knowledge is of that sort that he would cei-tainly be plucked 
 in an examination for admission to the bar. Nobody would 
 believe it when I said so, long ago. So far back as 1854 and 
 1855 I told the King so. He has absolutely no idea how things 
 are in Germany. When I was Minister, I had an interview 
 with him in Paris. He then said that things could not go on 
 long as they were doing, that there would be a rising in Berlin, 
 and a revolution in the whole countiy, and that the King would 
 have everybody voting against him in a plebiscite. I told him 
 that the people in our country were not barricade-builders, and 
 that in Prussia revolutions were only made by the kings. If 
 the King could stand the strain on In'rn for three or four years 
 and I allowed that there was one, the estrangement of the public 
 being very painful and disagreeable to him he would certainly 
 win his game. Unless he got tired and left me in the lurch, I 
 would not fail him. If he were to appeal to the people, and 
 put it to the vote, he would even now have nine-tenths of them 
 in his favor. The Emperor, at the time, said of me, ' Ce riest 
 pas un homme serieux' (" He is not a man of consequence") 
 a mot of which I did not think myself at liberty to remind him 
 in the weaving-shed at Donchery." 
 
 Count Lehndorf asked if we need be in any apprehension 
 about Bebel's and Liebknecht's imprisonment, and whether it 
 would cause much excitement. " No," said the Chief, " there 
 is nothing to be afraid of." Lehndorf said, " But Jacoby's case 
 caused great disturbance and lamentation." The Chief said, 
 " He was a Jew, and a Konigsberg man. Touch a Jew, and a- 
 howl is raised in every nook and corner of the earth or a free- 
 mason. Besides, they interfered in a public meeting, which 
 they had no right to do." He spoke of the Konigsberg people 
 as always quarrelsome, and inclined to go into opposition, and 
 Lehndorf said, " Yes, indeed, Manteuffel understood Konigsberg 
 well when he said in his address, ' Konigsberg continues to be 
 Konigsberg.'" 
 
 Somebody remarked that people began letters to Favre with 
 " Monsieur le Ministre," and the Chief said, " Next time I must 
 19
 
 282 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 address him as ' Hochwohlgeborner Heir ' ( ' Right Honorable 
 Sir')." Out of that grew a long Byzantine discussion about 
 titles of honor, and the expressions, Excellency, Right Honor- 
 able, and Honorable. The Chancellor's views and opinions were 
 decidedly anti-Byzantine. "We ought to give up the whole 
 thing," he said. " In private letters I never use them at all 
 now, and officially I call councillors down to the third class, 
 Right Honorables." 
 
 Pf uel remarked that in legal documents also these high-sound- 
 ing addresses were omitted. " You are to appear on such a day 
 at such a place." " Neither are these legal addresses quite my 
 ideal. A trifle would make them perfect. They should say, 'You 
 are to appear, you scoundrel, on such a day at such a place.' " 
 
 Abeken, who is a Byzantine of the purest water, said that it 
 had been already taken very ill in diplomatic circles that people 
 sometimes were not given their proper titles, and that " Right 
 Honorable Sir " was not proper below councillors of the second 
 class. " And lieutenants," cried Count Bismarck -Bohlen. " I 
 shall quite do away with it among our people," said the Minister ; 
 " there is an ocean of ink wasted over it annually ; and the tax- 
 payer is justly entitled to complain of the extravagance. I am 
 quite content when I am addressed simply as the Minister-Presi- 
 dent Count von Bismarck. I beg you," turning to Abeken, 
 " to draw up a proposition on the subject for me. It is a useless 
 pigtail, and I wish it to be dropped." Abeken the cutter-off of 
 pigtails what a dispensation ! 
 
 Saturday, December 24- Christmas Eve in this foreign land ! 
 It is very cold, as it was both yesterday and the day before. I 
 telegraph that with two divisions Manteuffel yesterday defeated 
 Faidherbe, the general of the French army of the North, which 
 is reckoned at 60,000 men, and compelled him to retreat. 
 
 At dinner, Lieutenant-Colonel von Beckedorff is the Chief's 
 guest, so old a friend of his that they " thou " each other. On 
 the table stands a miniature Christmas tree, a span high, and 
 beside it a case with two cups, one in the Renaissance style and 
 one of Tula work. They are both presents from the Countess 
 to her husband. Each holds only two good drinks. The Count 
 sent them round the table for inspection, and said, " I am really 
 silly about cups, although there is no sense in such a fancy. As 
 these come from home, if you bring them under my eye when I 
 am away from the country, nothing in the town will trouble me 
 any longer."
 
 The Trojaiis and the Greeks. 283 
 
 Then he said to Beckedorff that his promotion had surely 
 been slow, and added, " Had I been an officer and I wish I 
 had been I should have had an army now, and we should not 
 have been stuck here outside Paris." 
 
 This remark was followed by further discussion of the conduct 
 of the war, during which the Chief said, " It is sometimes not 
 so much the generals as the soldiers themselves that begin our 
 battles and take direction of them. It was the same with the 
 Trojans and the Greeks. Two combatants launched words of 
 scorn at each other, they came to blows, spears were thrown, 
 others rushed up, who also threw their spears and dealt their 
 blows, and out of all this came a battle. The fore-posts first 
 fire at each other needlessly, others cluster up to them when 
 things are getting brisk at first a subaltern in command of a 
 few men, then the lieutenant with more, after him the regiment, 
 last of all, the general and his whole army. It was in that way 
 that the battle of Gravelotte came about, which was meant for 
 the 19th. It was different at Vionville. They had to fling them- 
 selves on the French lines there as a mastiff flies at a terrier." 
 Beckedorff then told us how he had been twice wounded at 
 Worth, once between the neck and the shoulder-blade, certain- 
 ly he believed, by an explosive bullet, and another time in the 
 knee. He had dropped off his horse on the ground. As he 
 lay there a Zouave or a Turco, leaning against a tree, took de- 
 liberate aim at him, and the bullet grazed his head. Another 
 of these half-savages, he said, had thrown himself into a ditch 
 during the flight of the French, and when our men had passed by 
 without finding him, he got out and shot at them from behind. 
 Some of them turned back to run after him, and one of them, as 
 it was impossible to fire on account of our own troops, knocked 
 him down. In that way they mastered and killed him. " There 
 was not the least reason for his firing, for nobody had meddled 
 with him in his ditch," said the narrator ; " it was the mere pas- 
 sion for murder/' 
 
 The Chief recalled other stories of the barbarity of the 
 French, and asked Beckedorff to write his case down for him, 
 and to allow the doctors to examine medically into the evidence 
 about the explosive bullet. Then he began to talk about coun- 
 try life, saying that he was not fond of hilly country, both be- 
 cause of the usually confined prospect in the valleys, and 
 because of the going up and down hill. " I like the level 
 country better," he said, " though it need not be quite as flat as
 
 284 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 at Berlin ; but little heights, with pretty trees in leaf, and 
 swift clear brooks, such as we have in Pomerania, and especial- 
 ly on the Baltic coast." From which he diverged to the differ- 
 ent Baltic watering-places, mentioning some as extremely agree- 
 able and others as dull. 
 
 After dinner I went out for a couple of turns in the avenue 
 made by the rows of trees before our street. Meanwhile they 
 were getting up their Christmas tree in the dining-room, and 
 Keudell was showering about cigars and gingerbread. As I 
 came back too late for the festivity, my presents wei-e sent up 
 to my room. I then read, as I do regularly now, all that has 
 been done during the day in the way of minutes and despatches. 
 Afterwards I was called to the Chief twice over, one time im- 
 mediately after the other, and then a third time. There are to 
 be several articles about the horrible way in which the French 
 are carrying on the war, not merely the Francs-tireurs but the 
 regular troops, who violate the provisions of the Convention of 
 Geneva almost daily, and appear to remember and claim the 
 execution, of only so much of it as seems advantageous to the 
 French. I am to dwell on the firing on flags of truce, on the 
 ill-usuage and looting of doctors, sick carriers, and hospital as- 
 sistants, on the killing of the wounded, the misuse of the 
 Geneva band by the Francs-tireurs, the use of explosive bullets 
 (as in Beckedorffs case), the treatment contrary to the law of 
 nations, of ships and crews of the German merchant navy, cap- 
 tured by French cruisers. I am then to add, that the present 
 Government of France is chargeable with a great deal of the 
 blame of these things. It was they who let loose on us a 
 -people's war, and who are now unable to control the passions 
 they have kindled, which carry people beyond all public rights 
 and all custom of war. On them, therefore, rests the respon- 
 sibility for all the severity with which we have been compelled 
 to act in France upon our rights as combatants, against our 
 own wishes, and, as the wars in Schleswig and Austria prove, 
 contrary to our natural inclinations. 
 
 In the evening, about ten, the Chief receives the Iron Cross 
 of the first class. Abeken and Keudell had been already made 
 happy in the afternoon by the second class of the same Order. 
 Sunday, December 25. In the morning it is again cold, but 
 Abeken goes notwithstanding to hear sermon in the chapel of 
 the chateau. Theiss pointed out to us his coat with the cross 
 on it, and said, " The Privy Councillor won't certainly wear
 
 Drinking and Cards. 285 
 
 his cloak to-day." In the Bureau we learn that Cardinal Bon- 
 nechose, from Rouen, proposes to come here. He and Persigny 
 want the summoning of the whole Legislative Body, and, per- 
 haps even more urgently, of the Senate, which is made up of 
 calmer and maturer elements, to deliberate on peace. It ap- 
 pears, moreover, to be certain that people are in earnest about 
 the bombardment of Paris, which will take place in a very few 
 days now. So at least we understand the King's order, just 
 issued, appointing Lieutenant-General vqn Kameke, at present 
 commanding the 14th Division of Infantry, to the supreme 
 command of the Engineers, and Major-General Prince Hohen- 
 lohe-Ingelfingen to the supreme command of the siege artillery. 
 
 Holiday, December 26. That on Boxing-day of the year '70, 
 I should be eating genuine Saxon Christmas cake in a private 
 house in Versailles is what I should have refused to credit, if 
 all the twelve minor prophets had told me of it beforehand. 
 Yet this morning I had a large slice of one, a gift from Abeken's 
 liberality. He has received a box with these sorts of baked 
 things from Germany. 
 
 Except for indispensable work , to-day was a complete holi- 
 day. The weather was not so cold as it had been, but as clear 
 as yesterday. About three there was brisk firing again from 
 the forts. Perhaps they have had a note of the fact that we are 
 pretty nearly ready to reply to them ? Last night they certainly 
 fired fiercely for a while out of their big mouths of thunder. 
 
 "VValdersee was with us at dinner, and the subjects spoken of 
 were almost wholly military. 
 
 At length the conversation turned on the power of drink- 
 ing a good deal, and the Minister said : " Once I never thought 
 of the amount I was drinking. What things I used to do 
 the heavy wines, especially the Burgundies !" The conversation 
 then turned on cards, and he said that he used formerly to do 
 a great deal in that way, and that once for instance, he had 
 played twenty rubbers at whist, one after the other, "equal to 
 seven hours of time." He only took an interest in it when the 
 play was high, but high play was not for the father of a family. 
 The discussion rose out of the Chief's happening to say that he 
 had called somebody a " Eiemchenstecher ;" and after asking 
 whether any of us understood it, he explained the word as fol- 
 lows : " Piiemchenstechen is an old game of soldiers ; and a Biem- 
 chenstecher is not exactly a rogue, but a crafty and subtle sort 
 of person.
 
 286 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 FIRST WEEKS OF THE BOMBARDMENT. 
 
 AT last, at last ! On December 27 the long-desired bom- 
 bardment of Paris began on the east side of the city. 
 As what follows will show, we knew nothing at first about it, 
 and even afterwards our fire made an impression of great power 
 only on certain days. One very soon got used to it it never 
 distracted our attention from trifles, and never long interrupt- 
 ed the course of our talk or the flow of our thoughts. The 
 diary will tell us more about it in due time. 
 
 On Tuesday, from early morning till well into the day there 
 was a heavy snowfall with tolerably hard frost. In the morn- 
 ing the man-servant attached to the Chancellor's office, who at- 
 tended on Abeken and me, told me about our old privy council- 
 lor, whom he evidently considered to be a Catholic ; " He reads 
 his prayers in the morning. I believe they are in Latin. He 
 reads them quite loud out, so that I hear them often in the 
 ante-room. Probably it is the Mass." He added that Abeken 
 was of the opinion that the heavy thundering of cannon which 
 had been going on in the distance since seven o'clock was pro- 
 bably the beginning of the bombardment. 
 
 I wrote several letters with instructions for articles. After 
 twelve I telegraphed, by the Chiefs command, to London that 
 the bombardment of the outworks of Paris began this morning. 
 Mount Avron, a work near Bondy, seems to be the first point 
 aimed at by OTr artillery, and the Saxons have had the privilege 
 of firing the first shot. The Minister stays the whole day in 
 bed, not because he is particularly unwell, but, as he says, be- 
 cause he cannot keep himself reasonably warm in any other 
 way. He did not come to dinner. 
 
 The Bonapartists appear to have become very active and to 
 have great plans. Persigny and Palikao want us to neutralize
 
 An American Lady's Christmas Card. 287 
 
 Orleans, to let the Corps Legislatif be summoned there, to put 
 the question to it, Whether it wishes a Republic or a Monar- 
 chy, and if it votes for a monarchy, which Dynasty it prefers. 
 We shall wait a little yet before that, till greater dejection 
 makes people even more pliable than at present. Bonnechose, 
 the archbishop of Rouen, wants to make an attempt to nego- 
 tiate a peace between Germany and France. He was at one 
 time a jurist, and later in life became a clergyman. He is sup- 
 posed to be an intelligent man, and is on terms with the 
 Jesuits. For himself he is a Legitimist, though he holds 
 Eugenie in great respect for her piety. He was an eager cham- 
 pion of the Infallibility dogma, and expects to be Pope, and so 
 indeed he has some prospect of being. According to what 
 several people say, he hopes to induce Trochu, with whom he 
 is acquainted, to agree to the surrender of Paris, provided we 
 renounce our terrritorial claims ; In place of making them we 
 might, the archbishop thinks, require that Nice and Savoy 
 should be given back to Victor Emmanuel, and then compel 
 him to restore their territories to the Pope, the Duke of 
 Tuscany, and the King of Naples. Thus we should acquire the 
 credit of being the champions of order and the restorers of 
 right all over Europe. What a comical plan ! * 
 
 The Chief has given orders for the most stringent measures 
 against Nogent-le-Roi, where a surprise by the Francs-tireurs 
 was supported by the population ; he has also refused to receive 
 the petition of the mayor and municipality of Chatillon, for a 
 remission of the fine of a million francs, imposed on them be- 
 cause something of the same sort happened there. His prin- 
 ciple in both cases is, that the people in the country districts 
 must be made to realize what war is, so as to incline them to 
 think of peace. 
 
 Wednesday, December 28, A snowfall, and moderate cold. 
 The Chief does not leave his room to-day either. He gives me 
 a letter in French to do what I like with, which " an Ameri- 
 can " lady had sent him on the 25th December. It says : 
 " Count von Bismarck, Enjoy the pleasant climate of Ver- 
 sailles as much as you can, Count, for one day you will have to- 
 endure the flames of hell for all the misfortunes you havo 
 caused France and Germany." That is all. It is not easy to 
 see the lady's object in writing the letter. 
 
 The French papers make out that nearly every German 
 soldier is uncertain about the duties imposed on him by thf
 
 ^SS Bismarck in the Franco-German War, 
 
 eighth commandment. According to a notice issued by the 
 prefect of the Department of the Seine and Oise, there must 
 be exceptions, and very splendid exceptions, even to this rule. 
 It says : " The public is informed that the following objects 
 have been found by the soldiers of the German army": (1) In 
 the house of the notary Maingot, at Thyais, which is now 
 standing empty, at the corner of the street leading to Versailles 
 and to Grignon, a packet containing valuables estimated at 
 100,000 francs (4,000). (2) At Choisy-le-Roi, in a house in 
 the Rue de la Raffinerie, No. 29, deserted by one of the in- 
 habitants, a packet with valuable papers. (3) On the road 
 from Palaiseau to Versailles a purse of money with ten Prus- 
 sian thaler s (thirty shillings), and several small French and 
 German coins. (4) In the deserted house of M. Simon, at 
 Ablon, two packets with nearly 3,OOC francs in them. (5) In 
 the garden of M. Duhuy, adjunct at Athis, a box with railway 
 shares and other valuable papers. (6) In the deserted house of 
 M. Dufosse, at Choisy-le-Roi, Rue de Villiers, No. 12, papers of 
 the value of 7,000 francs. (7) In the convent at Hay 11,000 
 francs worth of valuable papers. (8) In a house deserted by 
 its owner, 011 the Bank of the Seine, at Saint-Cloud, a packot 
 with valuable papers. (9) In a deserted house at Brunoy a 
 small mantelpiece clock." (A kind of thing which, according 
 to the assertions of the French journals, we are particularly 
 fond of packing up and carrying away with us.) " (10) In the 
 garden of the house near the church, at the corner of the street 
 between Villeneuve-le-Roi and the churchyard of Orly, several 
 articles of jewellery of antique and of modern workmanship. 
 -(11) In the garden near the conservatory of the Chateau 
 'Rouge, at Fresnes-les-Rungis, a milk-pail containing articles in 
 gold and silver, drafts payable to bearer, and other things." 
 
 Thursday, December 29. Much snow, and not much cold. 
 The Minister remains in bed as he did yesterday, but continues 
 to work, and there does not seem to be very much wrong with 
 him. He tells me to telegraph that the First Army, in pusuit 
 of Faidherbe, has pushed forward to Bapaume, and that Mont 
 Avron, which was under fire yesterday thirty or forty guns 
 were employed in bombarding it has ceased to reply. At 
 breakfast we learn that the Saxon artillery had four men killed 
 and nineteen wounded during yesterday and the day before. 
 
 In the afternoon Granville's despatch to Loftus about the 
 Tlismarck circular on the Luxemburg affair was translated for
 
 The Sew German Constitution. 289 
 
 the King. I then studied official documents. About the middle 
 of October a memorial was sent from Coburg to the Chief, 
 proposing a new constitution for Germany. Among its sug- 
 gestions is one pointing to the restoration of the dignity of 
 Emperor, and to the ultimate substitution for the Confedera- 
 tion Council of Confederation Ministries, and the creation of a 
 United Council of the Empire out of representatives of the 
 Governments and delegates from the district Parliaments. The 
 Chief answered that it had long been contemplated to carry 
 out one of the ideas involved in these proposals. He iftust 
 guard himself against the suggestion about Confederation Min- 
 istries and the Council of the Empire, as he considered that it 
 might stand in the way of any other new arrangements. . . . 
 From Brussels we are informed that the King of the Belgians 
 is well disposed to us, but that he sees no way of interfering 
 with the press in his own country, which is hostile to Germany. 
 The Grand Duke of Hesse has gone so far as to say that Elsass 
 and Lothringen must become Prussian provinces. - Dalwigk, on 
 the other hand, who is as much against us as ever, wants the 
 provinces which are to be taken from France to be incorporated 
 .vith Baden, which could give the district of Heidelberg and 
 Mannheim to Bavaria, so as to restore the connection with the 
 Palatinate on the left bank of the Rhine. In Rome the Pope 
 will undertake " mediation " between us and France. 
 
 About ten the Minister sent for me. He was lying on a 
 sofa before the fire, covered with a blanket. He said, " Well, 
 we have it." "What, your Excellency?" "Mont Avron." 
 He then showed me a letter from Count Waldersee, to say that 
 the fort was occupied this afternoon by the troops of the 
 Twelfth Army Corps, who had found there numerous gun-car- 
 riag^s, rifles, and munitions of war, and many dead bodies. 
 The Minister said, " I hope there is no mine there to blow up 
 the poor Saxons." I forwarded the account of this first success 
 by telegraph to London, in cipher, for fear the general staff 
 might take offence. 
 
 Friday, December 30. The bitter cold of the last few days 
 continues. The Chief still keeps his room, on account of ill- 
 ness, and is mostly in bed. In the morning, at his request, I 
 telegraph fresh details about the occupation of Mont Avron, 
 and about the shameful bribe oifered, according to official ad- 
 missions, by the Government of Tours to tempt the captive 
 French officers to break their word of honor. I wrote articles
 
 290 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 also for the German press, and one for the fc^niteur here, om 
 this subject, much as follows : 
 
 We have several times taken occasion to point out the depth 
 of degradation in the ideas certain statesmen and officers of the 
 French army entertain on the subject of military honor. A 
 communication which reaches us from, a good source, proves 
 that we had not yet realized how deeply this evil is seated, and 
 how widely it has spread. We have before us an official decree 
 issued by the French Ministry of War from the 5th bureau of 
 the 6th division, and which is headed Solde el revues, dated 
 Tours, November 13, and signed by Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred 
 Jerald, and by Colonel Tissier, the Chief of the general staff 
 of the 17th army corps. This document, which refers also to 
 another issued on November 10, promises a reward in money 
 to all French officers without exception, who, being now prison- 
 ers in Germany, can make their escape. We say without ex- 
 ception that is, to those officers even who have given their word 
 of honor not to attempt to escape. The bribe offered for such 
 a shameless proceeding is 1,750 francs (70). This fact needs 
 no comment. It will probably excite indignation throughout 
 France. Honor, the most precious possession of every Ger- 
 man officer and, duty and justice compel us to add, in old 
 days of every French officer also is regarded by the men 
 whom the 4th of September raised to power, as a matter of 
 sale and purchase, and at a very moderate rate too. In this 
 way French officers will be driven to see that France is no longer 
 directed by a Government, but by a business house of loose 
 principles in the matter of honesty and decency, trading under 
 the name of Gambetta and Co. "Who will buy our goods : any 
 words of honor for sale ?" 
 
 Afterwards I sent off a short article on a mistake which 
 cropped up again in the Kolnische Zeitung on the occasion of 
 the despatch sent by the Chancellor to Vienna. The great 
 R I icnish newspaper says: "Since 1866 we have been among 
 tliof-'e who have incessantly entreated Vienna at one time, and 
 Berlin at another, to be done with their mutual jealousies, 
 which then became meaningless, and to draw as close as possi- 
 ble one to the other. We have often regretted the personal 
 rivalry between Bismarck and Beust, which appeared to be an 
 ot^tacle to this reconciliation," &c. My answer was: "We 
 have already had occasion repeatedly to notice that the KolniscJie 
 Ztitung perpetually attributes what the Chancellor does and
 
 Bismarck and BevM. 291 
 
 leaves undone to personal motives, personal likes or dislikes,, 
 inclinations, or ill-tempers, and we find here a new proof of 
 this unjustifiable prejudice. We cannot make out how people 
 can keep coming forward continually with such suspicions. 
 We know this, however, that there is no personal rivalry be- 
 tween the Chancellor of the North German Confederation and 
 the Imperial Chancellor of Austro-Hungary ; that the two 
 statesmen were on a very good footing with each other before 
 1866, when they often came into personal relationship, as 
 Count Bismarck has mentioned several times in the North Ger-* 
 man Reichstag. Since that they have had no private inter- 
 course to create bitterness, for the simple reason that they have 
 had none at all. If they have been hitherto more or less op- 
 posed to each other as statesmen, the reason is no secret. They 
 have been the representatives of different political systems, en- 
 deavoring to realize different political ideals between which it 
 is not easy to find a point of reconciliation, though it may not 
 be absolutely impossible. This and nothing else is the explana- 
 tion of what the Kolnische Zeitung tries to explain through 
 personal motives, by which no statesman of the present day is- 
 less influenced in feeling or action than the Chancellor of the 
 Confederation. Let us take the opportunity to remark that 
 Count Bismarck has never been utterly wrong, as the Rhine 
 paper, echoing the opinion of a Vienna paper, says he has, and 
 that indeed he has never been wrong at all about the resist- 
 ance of Paris. He was never asked about it, but we know from 
 the best sources that he considered the taking of the city in- 
 less than several months a very difficult thing, and that he was- 
 against investing it before the fall of Metz." 
 
 Saturday, December 31. Everybody here is out of sorts. I 
 myself begin to be languid, and will have to cut down the 
 nightwork my diary requires, or to break it off altogether for 
 a couple of days. The severe frost, too. from which the fire 
 protects one only partially, disinclines me to sit up long after 
 midnight, as I have been in the habit of doing. 
 
 Gambetta and his colleagues in Bordeaux grow every day 
 more violent in their capacity of dictators. The Empire itself, 
 against the arbitrary action of which they used to protest, was. 
 scarcely so despotic, and would hardly have set aside lawful in- 
 stitutions or arrangements as summarily or autocratically as 
 these republicans of the purest water. MM. Cremieux, Gambelta, 
 Glais-Bizoin, and Fourichon, issued a decree on December 25,
 
 292 Bismarck in the Franco- German War. 
 
 in which, with reference to previous notices, it is summarily 
 enacted that "the General Councils and Councils of Arrondisse- 
 nient are dissolved, as well as the departmental commissions, 
 where they have been established. For the general councils de- 
 partmental commissions are to be substituted, which are to 
 consist of as many members as the Department contains can- 
 tons, and are to be appointed by the Government on the pro- 
 posal of the prefect." Where we are, naturally nothing of the 
 kind will happen. I send the decree to be printed to the editors 
 ftf the Moniteur. 
 
 Monday, January 2. The languor and the cold both con- 
 tinue. The Chief is still unwell. So are Hatzfeld and Bis- 
 marck-Bohlen. Gambetta's war, a entrance, is to- be carried on 
 now with the assistance of a sort of Arabian Francs-tireurs. 
 What will M. de Chaudordy, who recently complained of us as 
 barbarians to the Great Powers, say to the article in which the 
 Independence Algerienne explains the views these savage 
 liordes entertain of what is permitted in war, or which it tries 
 to inspire in them? Several journals in France itself openly ap- 
 prove, for they have reprinted this absolutely brutal article 
 without a word of remonstrance, and if they can venture to do 
 so, we may assume that they reckon on the approval of their 
 readers. 
 
 Tuesday, January 3. The idea that the wide dispersion of 
 the German armies over the North and South-West has its 
 dangers, and that concentration is called for finds supporters 
 elsewhere also. The Vienna Presse, for instance, has just pub- 
 lished a memoir, from a military critic, which represents a 
 concentration of our troops at present in France as essential if 
 we want to avoid their being broken in detail, so as to hinder 
 and diminish our offensive power. The author points to a 
 concentration of our troops within a circle of from seA'euty to 
 ninety miles round Paris. Then the French armies, gathering 
 together from all quarters to raise the siege, would be met and 
 and shattered by the whole force of the German armies. Even 
 the gigantic and hitherto uninterrupted streams of force which 
 Germany has sent out, are not sufficient, says our military 
 critic, simultaneously to do all the work which the Germans 
 have undertaken. The wish to accomplish it all at the same 
 time must lead to a dispersion of the army corps full of all kinds 
 of risks, a state of affairs the more serious as long marches in 
 severe winter weather weaken and waste the men. The article
 
 Everybody unwell. 298 
 
 accordingly warns us against large-looking military enterprises 
 like advances on Havre and Lyons, and recommends the esta- 
 blishment of entrenched camps at a suitable distance from 
 Paris, and the destruction of the railroads outside the circle of 
 these camps, so that the districts of France in the circumference 
 not yet occupied by us should become incapable of communicat- 
 ing with each other except by shipping. 
 
 This renunciation of any further advance and concentration 
 of the German fighting power is recommended also by the 
 National Zeitung, in an article which expresses even better 
 than that I have quoted, the ideas of certain people here in 
 Versailles. 
 
 Friday, January 6. Till yesterday the cold was very intense, 
 I believe as much as nine or ten degrees below zero. With it 
 there was generally fog, which was particularly dense on Wed- 
 nesday. The Chief has been unwell almost the whole week. 
 Yesterday he drove out a little in the afternoon for the first 
 time, and again to-day. Hatzf eld and Bohlen are ill. My own 
 depression of spirits and disinclination for work have only begun 
 to diminish to-day, probably because I have had two nights of 
 abundant sleep, and perhaps also on account of the improvement 
 in the weather ; for the mist, which changed this morning into 
 hoar frost and hangs in sparkling crystals on the branches of 
 the trees, has been followed by a fine day, though portions of 
 its withdrawing veil still hang about the wooded heights be- 
 tween this and Paris. Thus we commence a new life, like our 
 guns, which have been doing little work these last few days on 
 account of the mist, but which have begun to shoot away brisk- 
 ly enough. I may best insert here, perhaps, a few notes for 
 my diary, which have been omitted. In the interval the Upper 
 Governmental Councillor Wagner has been my fellow-worker in 
 the office, and a Baron von Holnstein, who is I believe, a secre- 
 tary of legation, also came in. Among the articles I sent out 
 during the last six days there was one on the measure which 
 detached great numbers of railway carriages from the objects 
 and necessities of German industry for the purpose merely of 
 bringing up provisions for the time when Paris, after being really 
 starved out, will be compelled to surrender. I described such a 
 proceeding as humane, but impracticable and impolitic, as the 
 Parisians, when they learn they are provided for outside, will hold 
 out till their last crust of bread or joint of horse, so that all our 
 humanity will end only as a kind of contribution towards the
 
 294 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 protraction of the siege. It is not our business, by establishing 
 magazines or supplying means of transport for reprovisioning 
 the city, to avert the danger of famine which menaces, the 
 Parisians. It is their business to do so by capitulating at the 
 proper time. Yesterday I translated into German for the King 
 two English protests against the sinking of English coal vessels 
 at Rouen, which our troops had considered a necessary measure. 
 Early this morning I telegraphed, according to advices from 
 the general staff, to London, but the result of the bombardment 
 directed for three days past against the forts on the Eastern 
 front, and since yesterday also against those on the Southern 
 frout, has been very satisfactory, and that our loss is quite in- 
 considerable. Yesterday I again visited the officers of the 46th, 
 who have established themselves in the farmhouse of Beaure- 
 gard, and made themselves extremely comfortable with furni- 
 ture which they have sent in from Bougival. To-day I visited 
 with Wagner the point of view I have several times spoken of 
 at Ville d'Avray, and from it we watched the bombardment. 
 Wagner has found accommodation not far from us at the corner 
 of the Hue de Provence and the Boulevard de la Heine, in the 
 main door flat of a Frenchman, under all sorts of oil paintings. 
 Paris seemed to be on fire in two places and white clouds of 
 smoke were rising. In the evening I read despatches and also 
 minutes. It appears that 2800 axles have been required from the 
 German railway for wagons for collecting provisions for Paris. 
 The Chief protested energetically against this measure as politi- 
 cally disadvantageous, seeing that the Parisian authorities, 
 knowing that provisions have been collected for them outside, 
 can delay their surrender till the very last possible moment, by 
 using up every scrap in the city . Bonnechose has, at the sug- 
 gestion of the Pope, written a letter to King William, from 
 whom he wants peace, an "honorable" peace, one that is to 
 say, without any surrender of territory, such as we might have 
 had twelve weeks since from M. Favre, if the Chief had not 
 preferred one that was advantageous. Prince Napoleon is to 
 come to Versailles to mediate. He is a talented and estimable 
 man, but not of much consideration in France. In the London 
 Conference on the Black Sea question we are to support the 
 Russian claims with all our strength. 
 
 Saturday, January 7. We have now perhaps have had 
 for the last few days a body-guard of bright green Landwehr 
 riflemen, oldish men with long wild beards. They are said to
 
 Bougival in Ruins. 295 
 
 be all admirable shots. On the suggestion of H. that there 
 ' might possibly be something found of political importance in 
 Odillon Barrot's house at Bougival, Bucher and I took a car- 
 riage there this morning. The weather was dull and cold. 
 Mist drizzled down on us. We first sought out H. at Beaure- 
 gard to get him to describe to us the exact position of Barrot's 
 villa. Our drive took us by all sorts of defence preparations, 
 walls pierced with loop-holes for shot, half-wrecked country 
 houses, a ruined nursery garden, and so on, down the hill 
 *of Saint-Cloud into the valley under La Celle, where the long 
 street of Bougival lies with its pretty church. On the way 
 through the town we were told we should see soldiers, as no 
 civilian had been allowed to peep behind the windows of the 
 houses, the population having had notice to quit after the last 
 sortie, or the last but one, in this direction. 
 
 In the middle of the village, where two streets cross at the 
 little square, and where the Prussian sentry stood, we left the 
 carriage, and asked the sergeant-major in command to supply 
 us with a soldier as guide and companion. We first passed 
 the druggist's shop, frightfully wrecked ; near it a sentry had 
 been posted to protect the entrance to the immense deposit of 
 wines discovered here some weeks ago. We then crossed a 
 strong barricade which bars the outlet of the street in this 
 direction towards the Seine. It consists of barrels and casks 
 filled with earth and stones, and all sorts of house furniture. 
 Then we looked for the house of which we were in search, in 
 the narrow street leading to Malmaison. In it also there were 
 several barricades with ditches, and the side lane which leads 
 down from the middle of it to the left towards the river con- 
 tained several more. The houses here, too, all of them unoc- 
 cupied, and most of them damaged by shells, were prepared 
 for defence. There was very little furniture left. We man- 
 aged to pass the first barricade in the street by going in on some 
 boards, turning to the left through the window of the house 
 next it, and out through the house door on the other side of 
 the ditch of the barricade. We passed a second small fortifi- 
 cation to the right in a similar way. 
 
 Where the street opens on the high road by the river, the 
 pavement of which was torn up, we saw before us a third sys- 
 tem of barricades and ditches. It was the " musical " barricade, 
 described so frequently by the correspondents of German and 
 foreign newspapers, with no fewer than six cottage pianos
 
 296 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 stowed away in it. We could not look after them particularly, 
 as at this point we dared not show our heads outside for fear 
 of the Gauls on Mont Valerien, who would have been ready 
 for us immediately with half-a-dozen of their shells. Here I 
 discovered, three or four houses further on, the little green bal- 
 cony which H. had mentioned as indicating Barrot's house, for 
 which we were looking, but we were not allowed to approach 
 it in front, the sentry who was posted here allowing nobody to 
 pass. So we had to work round by the back, and a narrow 
 foot-path between the houses and gardens enabled us to do so. 
 In the steeply-sloped gardens behind the row of houses, all sorts 
 of pieces of furniture were standing or lying about, and among 
 them a desolate-looking chair in red plush, soaked through with 
 snow and rain, with only one leg left. Books and papers were 
 strewn plentifully round. After entering several houses, every 
 one of which was terribly wrecked, we found the one we were 
 looking for. A board across a deep ditch conducted us first 
 into a room for- flowers. From it we passed into the library, 
 which consisted of two rooms. There might be a couple of 
 thousand volumes, most of them lying on the floor in confused 
 masses, possibly the work of the Mobiles and the Francs- 
 tireurs, who wrecked the sujrounding neighborhood before the 
 investment of Paris. Many of them were torn or trodden 
 under foot. Looking through the books, we saw that it had 
 been a well-selected library, with books of history, politics, 
 belles-lettres, and some English books ; but there was noth- 
 ing of the description of what H. had conjectured we might 
 find. 
 
 Sunday, January 8. In the morning I telegraphed the 
 victory at Vendome, and an account of the progress of the 
 bombardment, and then wrote for the Moniteur a note on the 
 lying spirit of boasting in which Faidherbe had once more 
 claimed a victory over our troops, the fact being that he had 
 been again compelled to retreat. 
 
 These last few days the Chief appears to be allowing his 
 beard to grow. Delbruck tells us at breakfast that, in 1853, 
 he was in North America, and got as far as Arkansas. In the 
 afternoon Prince Hohenlohe was with the Chief, to inform him 
 of the progress and success of the bombardment, probably on 
 account of his remonstrances. 
 
 In the afternoon I read a report of La France on the state 
 of health of Paris and sent it to the Moniteur. According to
 
 Drunkenness in Paris. 297 
 
 it, the deaths in the week, from the llth to 17th December, 
 rose to the enormous number of 2728. Small-pox and typhus 
 especially, had carried away many people. Mortification is 
 extending in the hospitals. The doctors complain of the bad 
 effects of alcoholism on the sick, which makes slight wounds 
 serious, and which appears to be dreadfully common among the 
 soldiers in Paris. Their statement concludes with these 
 words : " On this occasion we must remark, as we have done 
 so often, that the crime of drunkenness, in its grossest form 
 (Ivrognerie Crapuleuse), is on the increase in Paris, and neither 
 the doctors nor we need an order of the day signed by Trochu 
 and Clement Thomas to prove it, or to make us groan over it 
 Yes, we must say once more that the blush mounts to our fore- 
 heads when we see men every day, to whom the country has 
 entrusted its defence, lowering and disgracing themselves by 
 shameful potations. Can we wonder at all the unfortunate 
 accidents which have happened through the careless use of guns, 
 at the disorders, the insubordination, the deeds of violence, the 
 plunderings and wreckings which are reported every day by 
 the public newspapers, at a time when the country is in mourn- 
 ing, when a hostile fate is heaping defeat after defeat on this 
 unfortunate land, and visiting us with redoubled blows without 
 intermission and without pity 1 People are indeed of a frivol- 
 ous kind, who are simple enough to believe that this frightful 
 war will infallibly reform our manners and make new men of 
 us." 
 
 At dinner the Chief again spoke of his youth, especially of 
 his earliest recollections, one of which related to the burning of 
 the Berlin theatre. " I was then hardly three years of age. It 
 was in the Gendarmes Market, on the Mohrenstrasse, opposite 
 the Hotel de Brandebourg, at the corner of the street, one 
 story up, that my parents then lived. I myself remember 
 nothing of the conflagration, which I must have seen, but I 
 know, perhaps only because I have often heard the story told, 
 that we raised ourselves on the chairs and on my mother's 
 sewing-table, a step or two in front of the windows. As the 
 fire progressed I mounted up there, putting my hands on one 
 side of the window-panes and pulling them back at once, be- 
 cause they were so hot. Afterwards I went to the right win- 
 dow, and it was just the same. I remember, too, that I once 
 ran away because my elder brother had used me badly. I got 
 as far as the Linden, where they caught me. I ought to have 
 20
 
 298 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 been whipped for it, but somebody interceded for me, and I got 
 off." 
 
 He then told us that from his sixth to his twelfth year he 
 was in Plahmann's Institute, one of the educational establish- 
 ments on the principles of Pestalozzi and Jahn, and that he 
 had nothing but unpleasant recollections of the time he wasted 
 there. At that time an artificial Spartanism was the rule. He 
 never had enough to eat, except when he was occasionally 
 invited out. At the Institute they always got " elastic " flesh, 
 not exactly hard, but so that the teeth could not easily manage 
 it, and parsnips. " I would have been glad to eat them raw, 
 but they were boiled ; and there were hard potatoes in the 
 dish, four-cornered bits." 
 
 The conversation next turned on the luxuries of the table, 
 and the Chief expressed himself vigorously about his likings 
 for different kinds of fish. He always liked fresh lampreys. 
 He was very fond of snipe-fish and Elbe salmon, just the pro- 
 per mean between Baltic salmon and Rhine salmon "which is 
 too fat for me." He then spoke of the dinners given at bankers' 
 houses, where nothing is counted good unless it is dear. "They 
 won't have carp, because in Berlin it is a moderately low-priced 
 fish. They prefer perch, which cannot be brought there with- 
 out difficulty." For my own part I don't care for perch, and 
 I never liked Pomeranian salmon (Maraenen), the flesh of 
 which is flabby. On the other hand, he could eat sea lampreys 
 (Muraetien) every day : "I like them almost better than trout, 
 and I don't care for any trout but those of moderate size, say 
 half-pounders. The big ones, which are common in Frankfort 
 at these dinners, and which usually come out of the Heidelberg 
 Wolfspring, are not worth much, but they are dear enough, so 
 that they must be on the table." 
 
 The conversation then turned on the Arc de Triomphe at 
 Paris, which was compared with the Brandenburg Gate. The 
 Chief said that the latter was very fine in its way. "I have, 
 however, advised them to remove the sentry-boxes at the side, 
 so as to show it. It would then be reckoned even a finer thing 
 than now, as it is shut in and partly hidden." 
 
 While we were smoking our cigars he said to Wagner, speak- 
 ing of his old journalistic experiences : " I remember that my 
 first newspaper article was upon hunting. I was then nothing 
 more than a rough country squire. Somebody had written, a 
 spiteful article on hunting. My huntsman's blood warmed at
 
 Prince Napoleons Plan. 299 
 
 this, and I set myself to and wrote an answer, which 1 forward- 
 ed to the editor, Altvater. It was unsuccessful. He answered 
 me very politely, but said it did not suit, and he could not take 
 it. I was in a rage that anybody should claim the right, or 
 be allowed the privilege of attacking sportsmen without their 
 being allowed to contradict him ; but that was the way at the 
 time." 
 
 In the evening I was told to send the following article from 
 the Francais to the English press and to the Moniteur: "From 
 different quarters we are informed of acts of violence by certain 
 battalions of the Mobilised National Guard, the proofs of which 
 we hold at the disposal of General Clement Thomas. Accord- 
 ing to our accounts, these battalions have allowed themselves, 
 at Montrouge and Arcueil, to wreck private houses, to break 
 the window panes, to plunder the cellars, and needlessly to 
 burn expensive pieces of furniture. In Montrouge a collection 
 of rare copper-plate engravings was committed to the flames. 
 Acts of this sort demand the interference of the authorities. 
 General Trochu's proclamation of the 26th December, in which 
 he announces the establishment of courts-martial, was placarded 
 all over the neighborhood of Paris. That threat of repressive 
 measures ought surely not to be allowed to lie dormant in view of 
 such plundering and insubordination. " The article finally express- 
 es a wish for an inquiry into the following incident : " On the 1 6th 
 December the men of a battalion of the National Guard, then 
 stationed at Arcueil, are said, on their way back to Paris, to 
 have sold to shopkeepers in the neighborhood a number of ob- 
 jects, the results of their plundering in that town. They were 
 mostly copper kitchen-vessels." It would be well that people in 
 Versailles and its neighborhood, as well as in England, should 
 know these facts, so that after the peace they may not charge 
 these disorderly proceedings on our soldiers. 
 
 Monday, January 9. The weather was cold and foggy, and 
 a good deal of snow fell. There was very little firing, either 
 from our side or the enemy's ; but during the night our fire 
 was very violent. We learn from London that Prince Napol- 
 eon is going about with a plan, proposing to sign a peace on 
 his own authority, which we might accept, and after the capitu- 
 lation of Paris to summon the Senate and the Legislative Body, 
 to lay the treaty of peace before them for ratification, and to ask 
 them to vote upon it, on the form of the future Government, 
 and ultimately on the future dynasty.
 
 300 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 Vinoy and Ducrot are said to be in favor of this plan. On 
 the other hand, the Orleanists are moving, and they hope to 
 win Thiers to their side. 
 
 In the afternoon I sent a telegram about the further success- 
 ful progress of the bombardment. When I laid it before the 
 Chief, he struck out the passage in which I had mentioned 
 that our shells had fallen into the garden of the Luxembourg, 
 as " impolitic." 
 
 The following pleasant story is going the round of the news- 
 papers. It first appeared in the Leipzig er Tageblatt, as taken 
 from a private letter of a German officer. "One day Adjutant- 
 Major Count Lehndorff paid a visit to Captain von Strantz, at 
 the outposts in Ville d'Avray in Paris. He asked him how 
 things were going with him, and von Strantz answered, * Capi- 
 tally ; for I have just come from my dinner, where I have been 
 eating my sixty-seventh leg of mutton.' The Count laughed, 
 and after some time went away. Next day the guard brought 
 the captain the following communication : ' As his Excellency 
 Chancellor Count Bismarck has been informed that Captain von 
 Strantz is about to have his sixty-eighth leg of mutton this 
 afternoon, he takes the liberty to send him four ducks for his 
 dinner, as a little variety.' " This anecdote has the advantage 
 over others in the newspapers, that it is substantially true, only 
 the Count did not appear quite the next day Lehndorff was 
 dining with us some days before Christmas. 
 
 The Chief again appeared at dinner, shaven as usual. He 
 spoke first of Count Bill having received the Iron Cross, and he 
 seemed to think that it would have been better to have given it 
 to his elder son, who was wounded in the cavalry charge at 
 Mars-la-Tour. " That was an accident," he remarked ; "others 
 who were not wounded may have been quite as brave, but it is 
 a sort of compensation to the wounded. I remember when I 
 was a young man, that a certain von B/., who had received the 
 Cross, used to go about Berlin. I wondered what he could 
 have done, but I learned afterwards that he was the nephew 
 of a Minister, and that he had been acting as equerry to the 
 general staff. 
 
 Delbriick remembered the man too, and told us that he had 
 afterwards cut his throat, in consequence of an inquiry about 
 difficulties in some bill transactions. 
 
 "In Gottingen," the Chief went on, " I once called a student 
 a 'Dumme Junge' (a 'stupid fellow'). He demanded an ex-
 
 Shooting Pheasants in self-defence. 301 
 
 planation, and I said that I had no wish to insult him, but 
 merely intended to express my conviction as to the fact." 
 
 When the venison and the sauer-kraut were on the table, 
 somebody remarked that the Minister had not gone out shooting 
 for a long time, though there was plenty of game in the woods 
 between this and Paris. 
 
 "Yes," he said; "but something always haj p^:d to inter- 
 rupt me. The last time was at Ferrieres, whrn th'^ King was 
 away. He had forbidden us to shoot in th(! p^rk. We went 
 out accordingly, but not in the park, and there way plenty to 
 phooi, but not much was shot, as either the cartridges or the 
 fowling pieces were poor." Holnstein, who usually shows him- 
 -elf an uncommonly estimable, most industrious, and service- 
 -ble person, thereupon remarked, "This- is the way, your Ex- 
 cellency . that people tell the story. They say that you were 
 -.veil aware of his Majesty's command, and naturally anxious to 
 Aspect it. You had gone out for a walk, wJu n you had the 
 :;isfortune to have three or four pheasants suddenly flying at 
 our head, so that you were compelled to shoot them in self- 
 fence." 
 
 The French Rothschild was mentioned, and then we spoke 
 of the German Rothschild, of whom the Chief told us a divert- 
 ing story from his own experience. 
 
 The conversation turned ultimately upon elegant literature. 
 Somebody spoke of Spielhagen's Problematische Natural, which 
 he Chancellor had read, and of which he thought not unfavor- 
 ably, remarking, "I will certainly, however, not read it a second 
 'ime, I have no time here for that." But even a much-occu- 
 pied Minister may take a book in his hand, and allow himsolf 
 the luxury of a couple of hours with it before he has to go back 
 to his documents. Somebody then spoke of Councillor Freitag's 
 Xoll und Haben, and praised the description of the Polish dis- 
 turbance, and the accounts of the balls with the young girls, 
 but the guests appeared to think his heroes insipid. Somebody 
 .said that they had no passion, somebody else that they had no 
 soul. Abeken who took eager part in the conversation, made 
 the remark that he could not read any of these things twice, 
 nnd that most of the better known new writers had published 
 only one good book. " Well,'' said the Chief, " I will allow 
 you that three-fourths of Goethe's works are good ; I do not 
 care for the rest, but I should not mind being shut up a long 
 while on a desert island with seven or eight of his forty vol-
 
 302 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 umes." Finally somebody spoke of Fritz Renter. " Yes," said 
 the Minister, " Aus der Franzosenzeit is very pretty, but it is 
 not a novel." Somebody then mentioned the Stromtid. "H'm," 
 said he, "that is as one finds it; that is certainly a novel 
 plenty that is good, much that is middling but the country 
 people are exactly as they are described there." 
 
 In the evening I translated a long article from the Times for the 
 King, going into full details about the situation in Paris. After- 
 wards, at tea-time, Keudell spoke cleverly and indeed, charm- 
 ingly about certain qualities in the Chancellor which remind- 
 ed him of Achilles his genial, youthful nature ; his easily ex- 
 cited temperament ; the deep sympathies which he not infre- 
 quently manifests ; his inclination to take himself away from 
 the pressure of business, and his victorious way of carrying 
 things through. Certainly we had Troy still with us, as well 
 as Agamemnon, the shepherd of the people. 
 
 Tuesday, January 10. The cold was moderate, and it was 
 cloudy, so that one could not see far ; the sky and earth were 
 filled with snow. Only now and then a shot was to be heard 
 from our batteries, or from the forts. Count Bill was with us, 
 and about one o'clock in the day General Manteuffel. They were 
 passing through to the army which is to operate in the south- 
 east against Bourbaki, and which Manteuffel is to command. 
 
 In the afternoon I telegraphed twice to London the retreat 
 of Chanzy upon Le Mans, with the loss of 1000 men in prison- 
 ers, and Werder's successful resistance against the overwhelm- 
 ing forces of the French, who were pressing forward to the 
 relief of Belfort, and attacked him at Villersexel. At dinner 
 we spoke first of the bombardment, and the Chief said that 
 most of the Paris fort's, with the exception of Mont Yalerien, 
 were little worth, hardly better than the fortifications at Diip- 
 pel. The fosses, for instance, were only of moderate depth, and 
 the enceinte, too, used to be very weak. 
 
 The conversation then turned upon the International Peace 
 Association, and its connection with the Social Democracy, the 
 head of which, for Germany, was Karl Marx, in London. 
 Bucher said that he was a very able man, with a good scientific 
 training, and was the real leader of the International Work- 
 men's Society. Speaking of the International Peace Associa- 
 tion, the Chief said that its efforts were of very serious impor- 
 tance, and that its real objects were altogether different from 
 peace. Communism was hiding behind it.
 
 Anti-French Ancestors. 303 
 
 The conversation then turned to Count Bill, and the Chief re- 
 marked, "He appeared at a distance like an elderly staff officer, he 
 is so stout." Somebody spoke of his luck in being ordered to 
 accompany Manteuffel. It would only be a temporary position 
 for both of them, but he would see a great deal of the war. 
 "Yes," said the Chief, "He is learning something for his age. In 
 our days not much could be learned at eighteen. I would have 
 needed to have been born in 1795 to have had the chance of 
 
 fighting in 1813. Since the battle at " (I could not catch 
 
 the name, but it was some battle during the wars of the Hugue- 
 nots that appeared to be meant), "there is not one of my an- 
 cestors who has not drawn sword against France : my father, 
 for instance, and three of his brothers, and my grandfather, at 
 Rossbach. My great-grandfather fought against Louis XIV., 
 and his father also against Louis XIV., in the battles on the 
 Rhine, in 1672 or 1673. Several of us fought in the Thirty 
 Years' War, on the Emperor's side, and others for the Swedes. 
 Finally, there was one who was with the Geymans who fought 
 for the Huguenots as hired troops. One of them his portrait 
 is at Schonhausen was an original. I have a letter from him 
 to his brother-in-law, in which he says : ' The cask of Rhine 
 wine has cost me thirty reichsthalers. If my brother-in-law 
 thinks it too dear, I will, so may God preserve me, drink every 
 drop of it myself.' Then again, ' If my brother-in-law asserts 
 so-and-so, I hope I may, so may God preserve me, get some day 
 closer to him than he will like,' and in another place : ' I 
 have spent 12,000 reichsthalers on the regiment, and I hope, so 
 may God preserve me, to get it back in time.' As for this get- 
 ting back, he probably meant it in this way, that people used 
 then to be paid for the soldiers who were absent with leave, 
 and for those who had not yet presented themselves with their 
 regiments. Certainly the commander of a regiment was in a 
 different position in those days." Somebody said that the same 
 thing, perhaps, happened nearer our- own time, as long, in fact, 
 as the regiments were levied, paid, and clothed by the colonel, 
 and only hired by the Prince, and the practice might possibly 
 still prevail here and there. The Chief answered, " Yes, in 
 Russia, for example, in the big cavalry regiments in the south- 
 ern districts, which often consist of sixteen squadrons. There 
 were there, as there still are, other sources of revenue. A 
 German once told me this. He had been appointed to a regi- 
 ment, I believe somewhere in Kursk or Woronesch, one of
 
 304 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 those rich districts. The farmers came to him with carts laden 
 with straw and hay, and hoped their ' little father ' would 
 graciously receive them. ' I did not know,' said he ' what they 
 wanted, so I sent them away, and told them to leave me quiet 
 and go about their business.' Surely their ' little father ' would 
 be reasonable. His predecessor had been quite contented with 
 this ; they could not give more ; they were poor people. At 
 last I took the whole of it, especially as they pressed me. 
 They fell on their knees, and entreated me most graciously tc 
 keep it, and then I drove them away. When others came, wAh 
 wagons laden with wheat and oats, I understood them, and 
 took the present as others took it, and when the former people 
 came back with more hay, I told them that they had misunder- 
 stood me, that what they had given me before was sufficient. 
 and that they had better take home what they now brought. 
 In this way, as I charged the hay and the oats to the Govern 
 ment for the troops, I made my 20,000 roubles yearly.' He 
 told me this quite openly and unblushingly in a company at 
 Petersburg, and I had nothing to do but to wonder at him." 
 " Yes, but what could he have done to the farmers 1" asket 
 Delbriick. " Done V said the Chief, " he could have done noth 
 ing ; but he could have let them be ruined in another way ; he 
 had only to allow the soldiers to do anything they liked." 
 
 The conversation came back to Manteuffel, and somebody 
 said that he had broken his leg at Metz, and made himself be 
 carried into the battle. He had wondered a good deal, some 
 body remarked, that nobody knew anything about it here. Cer 
 tainly, he must have thought how badly we were informed 
 about the chief events of the war. " I remember," said the 
 Chief, in the course of further conversation, " once sitting with 
 Manteuffel and " (name unintelligible) "on the stone be- 
 fore the church at Beckstein. The King came past, and I pro- 
 posed to greet him as the three witches did : ' Hail, Thane of 
 Lauenburg ! All hail, Thane of Kiel ! All hail, Thane of 
 Schleswig ! ' It was at the time I concluded the Treaty of 
 Gastein With Blome. That was the last time in my life that I 
 played piquet, though I had given up play a long while before. 
 I played so recklessly that the rest could not help wondering at 
 me, but I knew quite well what I wanted. Blome had heard 
 that piquet afforded the best possible opportunity for discover- 
 ing a man's real nature, and he wanted to try it on with me. I 
 tli ought to myself, You shall have your chance. I lost a coupla
 
 Jewish Names. 305 
 
 of hundred thalers, which I would have been honestly en- 
 titled to have charged as spent in the service of his Majesty. 
 I put him all wrong ; he considered me a reckless fellow, and 
 gave way." 
 
 The conversation then turned to Berlin, and somebody re- 
 marked that it was growing year by year more of a great city, 
 even in its ways of thinking and feeling, and that that must 
 have some effect upon its representatives in Parliament. " Dur- 
 ing these last five years they have certainly changed greatly," 
 said Delbriick. " That is true," said the Chief. "In 1862, 
 when I first had to do with these gentlemen, if they had known 
 the degree of heat to which my contempt for them rose, they 
 would certainly never have forgiven me." 
 
 The conversation then turned to the subject of the Jews, and 
 the Minister wanted to know why the name Meier was so com- 
 mon among them. It was of German origin, and signified 
 landowner in Westphalia, whereas the Jews formerly had no 
 land anywhere. I replied, " I beg your Excellency's pardon, 
 but the name comes from the Hebrew. It is in the Old Testa- 
 ment, and in the Talmud, and signifies properly Me'ir, some- 
 thing connected with gold, light, splendor, so that it signifies 
 something like the enlightened, the illustrious, the magnifi- 
 cent." The Chief went on to say, " Then there is the name 
 Kohn, which is very common among them ; what may that 
 mean ]" I replied that it meant a priest, which was originally 
 Kohen. " From Kohen came Kohn, Kuhn, Cahen, and Kahn, 
 and Kohn or Kahn sometimes got transformed into Hahn " (a 
 cock), a remark which occasioned some merriment. "Yes," 
 said the Minister ; " but I am of opinion that they are im- 
 proved by crossing. The results are not bad." He mentioned 
 several noble families, and remarked, "All of these are 
 clever and cultivated people." After a little musing, and omit- 
 ting something he had said between, which probably referred 
 to the marriage of Christian girls of distinguished families, 
 German baronesses and so on, with rich or talented Jews, he 
 proceeded to say : Probably it is better the other way, when, 
 for instance, the Christian horse of the German breed is mated 
 with a Jewish mare. The money then circulates, and the race 
 produced is not a bad one. I do not know what I may advise 
 my sons to do some day." 
 
 The Roumanians appear to be in the%reatest perplexity, but 
 the Powers will not help them. England and Austria are at
 
 306 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 p 
 
 least indifferent. The Porte is not convinced that the union 
 of the principalities would not be injurious to it. France is at 
 present out of the question. The Emperor Alexander has a very 
 kindly feeling to Prince Charles, but will not meddle in the 
 business, and there is certainly no interference to be expected 
 from Germany, which has no vital interest in Roumania. 
 If, therefore, the Prince cannot help himself out of his trouble, 
 the best thing he can do will be to draw back before he is 
 compelled. 
 
 Beust appears to have entered into a new phase of his 
 political way of looking at things in the despatch in which he 
 replied to the notification of the impending union of the Ger- 
 man South with the North, and it is possible that under his 
 advice satisfactory relations may be developed and maintained 
 between the two newly organized powers of Germany and 
 Austro-Hungary. 
 
 About half-past ten the Chief comes down to tea, which 
 Count Bill also drinks with us. Abeken returns from Court, 
 and brings the news that the fortress of Peronne has capitulat- 
 ed, with its garrison of 3,000 men. The Chief, who was at the 
 time looking at the Illustrirte Zeitung, sighed, and said, "Three 
 thousand more ! they might at least have drowned the com- 
 mandant in the Seine, remembering the fact that he broke his 
 word of honor." The remark gave rise to a conversation about 
 the numerous prisoners in Germany, and Holnstein said it 
 would be a good thing if they could be let out to Strousberg 
 for the railways he is constructing. "Or if," said the Chief, 
 " the Emperor of Russia could be induced to settle them in mil- 
 itary colonies in the Empire on the other side of the Caucasus. 
 They would become admirable properties. These crowds of 
 prisoners will certainly cause us serious perplexity after the 
 peace. They will then have an army ready made, and soldiers 
 who have had time to rest. We can do nothing more for them 
 but present them with Napoleon, who needs 200,000 Praetor- 
 ians to maintain himself in power." " Does he really then ex- 
 pect to come back as the governor of the country 1" Holnstein 
 asked. " Yery much so," said the Chief ; " extraordinarily so, 
 enormously so. He thinks day and night of nothing else, and 
 the English do the same." 
 
 Finally somebody told us what had happened in Spandan, 
 where people from tht English embassy had behaved them- 
 selves improperly, and at last violently, in front of the place
 
 The Empress and Peace. 307 
 
 where the French prisoners were kept in charge, and had got 
 badly out of the affair. 
 
 Wednesday, January 11. It is said that Clement Duvernois, 
 who was formerly one of Napoleon's ministers, is coming here 
 to treat for peace in the name of the Empress. She is said to 
 admit the principle of territorial compensation and of the boun- 
 dary which we want. She will conseni to pay the costs of the 
 war, and allow us to occupy certain portions of France with our 
 troops in pledge for the money, and she will promise to enter 
 into no negotiations for peace with any power but Germany. 
 Duvernois believes that though she is not popular, she will 
 show energy, and as lawful regent will have a better position 
 and will give us more security than any person who might be 
 chosen by the representatives of the country and who would 
 necessarily be entirely dependent upon them. Is he to be re- 
 ceived or not 1 Perhaps he may, so that the authorities in Paris 
 and Bordeaux may note the fact, and be more ready on their 
 part to decide to give in. 
 
 During dinner we spoke first, as we usually do now, about the 
 bombardment, and somebody said that there was a conflagration 
 in Paris. Somebody else remarked, that thick clouds of smoke 
 could be distinctly seen there. The Chief said, " That is not 
 enough ; one must first smell it here. The conflagration at 
 Hamburg could be smelt twenty miles off." 
 
 Somebody then mentioned the opposition of the " patriots " 
 in the Bavarian Chamber to the Versailles Convention, and the 
 Chancellor said, " I wish I could go there and speak with them; 
 they have obviously lost their way, and cannot get either for- 
 ward or backward. I should soon bring them right again, but 
 one is so necessary here." 
 
 Afterwards he spoke of all sorts of hunting adventures of 
 his own one, for instance, in Russia, where Holnstein had 
 scared away a bear which he had rashly shot at ninety paces. 
 Afterwards the bear had come up to within twenty paces, and 
 ogled the Chief. "I managed however," he continued, "to 
 shoot the brute so badly with a conical bullet, that he was 
 afterwards found dead a little bit off. " 
 
 Thursday, January 12. Abeken said he had heard that the 
 Bavarians intended to storm one of the forts on the south-east, 
 where our fire was very feebly answered. The Chief was pleas- 
 ed, and added, " If I were now in Munich among the deputies, 
 I could easily put it before them so that they would make no
 
 308 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 more difficulties." Somebody said that it was believed that the 
 King preferred the title " Emperor of Germany " to that of 
 " German Emperor," and it was remarked that the former 
 would be a new title which, at all events, had no historical 
 basis. Bucher dwelt a great deal upon that point. He said 
 that there had never been an Emperor of Germany, and that 
 indeed, there had been no German Emperor either, only a Ger- 
 man King. Charles the Great had called himself "Imperator 
 Komanorum," but afterwards the name given to the Caesars 
 had been "Imperator Romanus semper Augustus," Enlarger of 
 the Empire, and German King. The Chief so expressed him- 
 self as to show that he attached little importance to the differ- 
 ence between the titles. 
 
 In the evening, after nine o'clock, it looked as if a great con- 
 flagration had burst out in Paris towards the North. There 
 was a peculiar "shine" beyond the wood, and flames above the 
 horizon in that direction. Several of the gentleman came out 
 to see it. Holnstein looked out of the window in the cook's 
 room, and believed that the city was really bjirning ; so did 
 Wollmann, but it was probably a mistake, for the " shine" was 
 not red, but whitish. The Chief, who called me up to him to 
 give me an order, and whom I told about the appearance, said, 
 "It is possible ; I had already remarked it, but it seemed 
 to me to be more like the shine from snow. One must first 
 smell it." 
 
 About eleven o'clock at night the King sends the Chief a bit 
 of letter paper, with the words written in pencil that we have 
 just had a great victory at Le Mans. The Minister, who was 
 obviously touched and delighted at this attention, handed me 
 the pap r, so that I might telegra,ph the news saying, " He 
 thinks that the military authorities would not have sent it to 
 me ; that is why he writes himself." 
 
 Afterwards I prepared for the King an article from the 
 NorddeutscJie Allgemeine Zeitung, giving an account of Roon's 
 jubilee. Before going to bed, we learned that a breach had 
 already been noticed in Fort Issy. 
 
 Friday, Jamiary^ IS. Mist in the morning, and blue sky 
 after twelve o'clock. There was heavy firing. Harless applied 
 to the Chief with a petition on behalf of the Lutheran church, 
 concluding with a request, that in consequence of an illness, 
 which has again attacked him, he should be allowed soon to lay 
 down his pilgrim's staff. He and his party want an orthodox
 
 A Protestant Pope. 300 
 
 Lutheran German National Church, that is to say, that he is 
 an enemy of the union, and accordingly of Prussia, which is for 
 the union. Recently he has taken part with the Catholic 
 bishops. His object is a Protestant Pope, and he would like 
 the place himself. 
 
 The delegation in Bordeaux has made an attempt to induce 
 the Pope to offer his mediation for peace ; and at Rome they do 
 not seem disinclined to take the matter up, as they believe they 
 might give it such a turn that the Pope might come by his own 
 again. 
 
 At dinner we had the Government president, von Ernsthau- 
 sen, a large-built man, still young. The Chief, who had to dine 
 later with the Crown Prince, stayed with us only till the Varzin 
 ham came on the table, saying ; " Give me a little ; as I ani here 
 I must help you to eat it. It gives me home feelings." He 
 said to Ernsthausen : " I am invited to dine with the Crown 
 Prince. As I have an important discussion before -me, I am 
 strengthening myself for it. To-day is the 13th, and a Friday. 
 Sunday is the ^oth, so the 18th is Wednesday. That is the 
 great day, and the proclamation to the German people about the 
 Emperor and the Empire, on which Bucher is now at work will 
 then be issued." 
 
 Turning to Ernsthausen he said : " The King still has his 
 difficulties between German Emperor and Emperor of Germany, 
 but he rather inclines to the latter. I cannot see much differ- 
 ence between the two. It is a little like the question of the 
 . Homousians and the Homoiusians, in the days of the Councils." 
 Abeken corrected him ; ' Homousians." The Chief said : " We 
 call it ' oi' in our par^s. In Saxony they are provincials. I 
 remember that somebody at our school from Chemnitz read in 
 this way " (and he quoted a Greek sentence). " The master 
 said, ' Stop. No. We don't speak here as you do in Saxony. ' " 
 
 In the evening new despatches came in, and old minutes 
 were read over. The Chief came back at 9.30 from the Crown 
 Prince, and told me to telegraph that at Le Manz we had made 
 18,000 French prisoners, and captured twelve guns, and that 
 Gambetta, who wanted to be present at the battle, nearly fell 
 into our hands. He managed, however, to escape in good 
 time.
 
 310 Bismarck in the Franco-German War, 
 
 CHAPTER XVL 
 
 THE LAST WEEKS BEFORE THE CAPITULATION OF PARIS. 
 
 SATURDAY, January 14- Moderately cold j the weather 
 in the morning somewhat foggy, tolerably clear towards mid- 
 day, but so bad later on that one cannot see ten yards in front 
 of one. The firing, both from the forts and the town, goes on 
 without a break from morning till evening. At night we re- 
 pulsed a sally of the Parisians, directed against the troops of 
 the Eleventh Army Corps stationed at Meudo^ the Bavarians 
 at Clamart, and the Guards at Le Bourget. I despatched 
 several telegrams, then wrote an official letter to M., and, as us- 
 ual, read newspapers for the King and the Chief. 
 
 Count Lehndorf dined with us. The Chief told us he had 
 heard from Jules Favre. He wished to go to the Conference 
 in London, and declared he had only heard on the 10th that a 
 safe-conduct would be provided for . him. He would like to 
 take out with him an unmarried daughter, a married daughter, 
 with her husband, with a Spanish name, and a secretary. 
 What he would like best would be a pass " for the minister 
 and suite." He was not, however, to have any pass, but the 
 military authorities were simply to be instructed to let him 
 through. Bucher is to write to him that his best way will be to 
 go by way of Corbeil, so as not to have to leave his Paris carriage, 
 have to walk some way, and then take another carriage. He 
 had also better go to Metz by Lagny, instead of Amiens. 
 Should he not wish to go by Corbeil, would he say so ? Other 
 instructions should then be given to the military. " As for his 
 wish to travel with his family," added the Chief, " one would 
 almost think that he wanted to make his escape." 
 
 In the course of further conversation the Minister observed : 
 " Versailles is just the most unfit place possible for the conduce 
 of business. We had better have stayed in Lagny or Ferrieres.
 
 Boxwood over the Bedhead. 311 
 
 But I know very well why : many people who have nothing to 
 do would have been bored to death there. For the matter of 
 that, such people are bored here and would be so anywhere." 
 
 In the evening I wrote an article upon the difficulties of 
 victualling Paris after its surrender, which was to appear in 
 the Honiteur. 
 
 Sunday, January 15. The weather is moderately clear and 
 cold. Fewer shots are heard than during the last few days. 
 The Chief passed a sleepless night, and had Wollmann awakened 
 by four o'clock, in order to telegraph to London about Favre. 
 Andrassy, the prime minister of Hungary, has declared that 
 he not only shares the view of matters expressed in Count 
 Beust's despatch on the new Germany, but has always been in 
 favor of this policy and recommended it. The reservation in 
 the preamble of that document might have been omitted, as the 
 new organisation of Germany does not violate the treaty of Prague. 
 The letters in which the German princes assent to the proposals 
 of the King of Bavaria regarding the restoration of the Im- 
 perial dignity, express nearly r,he same sentiments. Only 
 Eeuss was inclined to explain his consent in a somewhat dif- 
 ferent way. On the side of Bavaria pretensions are put for- 
 ward which cannot at all be admitted. The Chief dines to-day 
 with the King. 
 
 Bamberg, who comes every evening after news for the Mon 
 iteur, explains to me the meaning of the branch of box-wood 
 on the wall over my bed. It is consecrated in the church on 
 Palm Sunday, and remains in its place all the year round. It 
 serves, probably, as a safeguard against illnesses, evil spirits, 
 and witches, and so plays its part in the popular superstitions 
 of the French. . . . The Chief calls for me at nine o'clock. I 
 am to make an article from the official reports on our position 
 towards American ships laden with contraband of war. The 
 point lies in the thirteenth article of the treaty of 1799. We 
 cannot capture these ships, but can only detain them while the 
 war lasts, or have the contraband goods handed over to us on 
 our giving a receipt. In either case we must pay a moderate 
 compensation. The paper was written forthwith and deposited 
 in the letter-box of the office. 
 
 Monday, January 16. In the morning I read Trochu's letter 
 to Moltke, in which he complains that our fire in the south of 
 Paris has struck hospitals and asylums, although these are dis- 
 tinguished by flags. He thinks this cannot be by chance, and
 
 312 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 refers to the international treaties, by which these establish- 
 ments are inviolable. Moltke has defended himself stoutly 
 against any idea of design. The humanity with which we have 
 carried on the war, so far as the character which has been 
 given to it by the French since the 4th of September allows us 
 to be humane protects us against such a suspicion. So soon 
 as the air clears, and the distance between our batteries and 
 Paris enables us to distinguish the Geneva flags on the buildings 
 in question, even chance injuries will be avoided. Later on, 
 we learn by telegraph of the pursuit of Chanzy by our troops. 
 Before noon a telegram is despatched, telling of the capture of 
 the camp at Conlie, and the successful resistance offered by 
 General von Werder, south of Belfort, to the overwhelming 
 superiority of four French corps. 
 
 Prince Pless and Maltzahn dined with us. We learn that 
 the proclamation to the German people is to be read out to- 
 morrow on the occasion of the festival, which will take place 
 in the grand reception-room of the Palace here. The King 
 will be hailed as Emperor in presence of a brilliant assemblage. 
 Deputations with banners, from the army, the Generals, the 
 Chancellor of the Confederation, and a number of Princes will 
 be there. We hear, too, that the Chancellor has changed his 
 mind about letting Favre out of Paris, and has written him a 
 letter, which is practically a refusal. The Chancellor says : 
 " Favre seems to me with his request to be allowed to attend 
 the conference in London, just like children in the game of 
 ' Fox in the hole.' They shut the door to, and then contrive 
 to come out at a place where you cannot do them any harm 
 (like the ' pax ' in our Dresden game of ' Last man '). He 
 must eat the soup he has crumbled his bread in. I have writ- 
 ten to him that his honor reqires it." Possibly this change of 
 mind may have been caused by an article in Gambetta's organ, 
 Le Siecle, printed also in the Nord-Deutsche Allgemeine Zei- 
 lung, and marked for him. It was to the effect that the per- 
 mission to Favre to go to London amounted to a recognition of 
 the present French government on our part.* The article went 
 to the King and to London. 
 
 In the evening I saw the correspondence between Favre and 
 he Chancellor. 
 
 * This supposition was wrong. The Chancellor changed his mind because 
 Favre's circular on January 12.
 
 Conference on the Treaty of 1856. 313 
 
 I insert here a resume of this affair, based on documents 
 
 afterwards made public. 
 
 ******* 
 
 On the 17th of November, Favre, as Minister for Foreign 
 Affairs, learnt from a despatch dated Tours, November 11, and 
 forwarded by Chaudordy, that news had come from Vienna 
 that the Russian Government considered itself no longer bound 
 by the Treaty of 1856. Favre at once replied, recommending 
 strict reserve until the arrival of official information, and pointing 
 out how, without neglecting to assert the claims of France on every 
 opportunity, she must be invited to the discussion of the Russian 
 declaration. Communications on the subject, both by .word of 
 mouth and in writing then passed between the different Powers 
 and the Provisional Government of Paris, in which the French 
 tried hard to induce the representatives of the other Powers to 
 admit, that the French representative at the Conference would 
 be bound to open a discussion of quite other importance (than 
 that upon the Treaties of 1856), in respect to which they were 
 not disposed to give any negative reply. The Delegation at 
 Tours shared this opinion, though it thought that the invitation 
 of Europe to the Congress, if one were to take place, must be 
 assumed, even though neither a pledge nor an armistice had 
 been obtained beforehand. Gambetta wrote to Favre on the 
 31st December : "You must be prepared to leave Paris to at- 
 tend the London conference if, as is asserted, England has 
 succeeded in obtaining for you a safe-conduct." Before these 
 lins were received, Favre had told Chaudordy that the Govern- 
 ment had decided that France, " if she were invited in regular 
 form," should be represented at the London conference, provided 
 that the Parisian deputy could procure from England, who had 
 sent a verbal invitation, the necessary safe-conduct. This was 
 undertaken by the English Cabinet, and Chaudordy informed 
 Favre of the fact in a despatch which reached Paris on January 
 8, adding also that he, Favre, had been appointed by the Gov- 
 ernment to represent France at the conference. This communi- 
 cation was confirmed in a despatch written to Favre by Lord 
 Granville under date December 29, which reached Paris on 
 January 10. It ran as follows : 
 
 " M. de Chaudordy has informed Lord Lyons that your Ex- 
 cellency proposes to represent France at the conference, and he 
 has begged me to procure a safe-conduct for your Excellency 
 through the Prussian lines. I at once requested Count Bern 
 21
 
 314 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 storff to ask for this safe-conduct and to have it conveyed to your- 
 self by the hands of a German officer sent under a flag of truce. 
 Herr von Bernstorff yesterday informed me that a safe-conduct 
 should be at the disposal of your Excellency, whenever it was 
 applied for by an officer from Paris at the German headquarters. 
 He added that it could not be conveyed by the hands of a 
 German officer until satisfaction had been given to the officer 
 who had been shot at when bearing a flag of truce. M. Tissot 
 gives me to understand that it would take a long time for this 
 communication to reach you through the Delegation in Bor- 
 deaux. I have therefore suggested to Count BernstorC another 
 means erf conveying it to you. I hope your Excellency will 
 allow me to take this opportunity of expressing the satisfaction 
 I feel in dealing with you personally," &c., &c. 
 
 Favre saw in this letter a recognition of the existing French 
 Government and an invitation which he might turn to account 
 in opening the discussion upon the situation of France before 
 the Powers in London. In the circular issued to the French 
 Ambassadors on January 12, he said : 
 
 " Directly invited by this despatch, the Government could 
 not refuse the invitation received in her name without neglect- 
 ing the rights of France. It may no doubt be maintained on 
 the other hand that the time for such a discussion of the 
 neutralization of the Black Sea is not well chosen. But the 
 very fact that this formal step is taken by the European Powers 
 towards the French Republic at the critical moment when the 
 country is fighting single-handed for her honor and her exist- 
 ence, lends to it an exceptional gravity. It is a beginning, too 
 long delayed, of the practice of justice, a pledge which cannot 
 be recalled. It consecrates our change oj government with the 
 authority of international rights ; and leaves on the stage 
 where the fate of the world is being decided, the nation freed 
 in spite of its afflictions, face to face with the power which 
 has brought it to ruin, and with the pretenders who would 
 fain hold sway over it. Who, moreover, does not feel that 
 France, admitted among the representatives of Europe, has an 
 indisputable right to raise her voice in their presence 1 Who 
 will be able to hinder her, when, taking her stand upon the 
 everlasting ordinances of justice, she shall vindicate the prin- 
 ciples which assure her independence and dignity 1 Not one of 
 these will she abandon. Our programme remains unchanged, 
 and Europe, in inviting him who has laid it down, knows very
 
 Difficulties about the safe-conduct. 315 
 
 well that he has both the will and obligation to maintain it. We 
 must hesitate no longer, and the Government would have com- 
 mitted a grave mistake if it had rejected the proffered opening. 
 
 "While recognising this, however, the Government thought, 
 as I do, that the Foreign Minister could not, unless higher in- 
 terests were at stake, leave Paris during the bombardment 
 which the enemy is directing against the city." (Here follows 
 along sentimental lamentation over the damage which "the 
 fury of the invaders" has, intentionally, "in order to spread 
 terror," inflicted by their shells upon churches, hospitals, or- 
 phanages, and so on.) Then he proceeds : " Our brave i-aris- 
 ians feel their courage rise with the danger. Firm, animated, 
 and determined, they are neither exasperated nor bowed 
 down by their sufferings. They will fight and conquer more 
 than ever, and we shall do so with them. / cannot think of de- 
 serting them at this crisis. Probably the protests we have ad- 
 dressed to Europe as well as to members of the diplomatic 
 corps still remaining in Paris, will soon attain their object. 
 England will understand that till that hour my place is in the 
 midst of my fellow-citizens." 
 
 The same expression had been used by Favre in the following 
 answer of two days before to Lord Granville's letter, but only 
 in the first part, where he said : " / cannot consider myself 
 justified in leaving my Bellow-citizens at a moment when they 
 are the victims of this violence " (" against an unarmed popula- 
 tion " he had written in the lines immediately before, from a 
 strong fortress with nearly 200,000 soldiers and militia !). 
 Then, however, he proceeded : " Moreover, communication be- 
 tween London and Paris is, thanks to the commander of the 
 besieging army (how naive /) so tedious and uncertain, that I 
 cannot, with all my goodwill, answer your summons according 
 to the letter of your despatch. You have informed me that the 
 Conference will meet on February 3, and probably last for a 
 week. This information having reached me on the evening of 
 the 10th of January, I could not have availed myself of your 
 invitation in proper time. Besides, Herr vonJBismarck in for- 
 warding it to me did not accompany it with a safe-conduct, 
 which is absolutely indispensable. He requires that a French 
 officer should go to his headquarters to fetch it, and he bases this 
 request^on a reclamation addressed to the Governor of Paris, in 
 consequence of an incident which a messenger with a flag of 
 truce had to complain of on the 23rd of December. Herr von
 
 316 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 Bismarck adds, that the Prussian commander-in-chief has for- 
 bidden any communication by flag of truce until satisfaction 
 for this has been obtained. I do not inquire whether such a 
 decision, directly contrary to the rules of war, does not amount 
 to an absolute denial of those higher claims of the amenities of 
 warfare which necessity and humanity have always upheld. I 
 content myself with remarking to your Excellency, that the 
 Governor of Paris lost no time in instituting an inquiry into 
 the incident indicated by Count von Bismarck ; and that in an- 
 nouncing the fact to him, he brought very numerous cases to 
 his knowledge, laid to the charge of the Prussian sentries, of 
 which he had himself never taken advantage to interrupt the 
 exchange of ordinary communications. Count von Bismarck 
 seems to have admitted, partially at least, the justice of these 
 observations, for he to-day asked the United States ambassador 
 to inform me that, pending the reciprocal inquiries, he is re- 
 establishing communications by parley. There can, therefore, 
 be no necessity for a French officer 'going to the Prussian head- 
 quarters ; and I will put myself into communication with the 
 United States ambassador, in order to receive the passport 
 which you have taken the trouble to procure for me. As soon 
 as I have this in my hands, and the condition of Paris permits 
 me, I will take the road to London, sure beforehand that I will 
 make no vain appeal in the name* of my Government to the 
 principles of justice and morality which Europe is so vitally 
 interested in seeing respected." 
 
 So far, M. Favre. The condition of Paris had not changed, 
 the protests addressed to Europe had not yet put an end to the 
 crisis. Indeed it was not yet possible that they should, 
 when Favre, on the 13th of January, three days after his letter 
 to Granville, and the day after the issue of his circular to the 
 French representatives in foreign parts, sent the following 
 despatch to the German Chancellor : 
 
 " M. le Comte ! Lord Granville has informed me, in a 
 despatch dated December 29 of last year, which I received in 
 the evening of flfce 10th of January, that your Excellency, by 
 request of the English .Cabinet, holds at my disposal a safe- 
 conduct, which is necessary to enable the plenipotentiaries of 
 France at the London Congress to pass the Prussian lines. As 
 I have been appointed in this capacity I do myself the honor 
 to request your Excellency to send this passport, made out iu 
 my name, with the least possible delay"
 
 Favre and Bismarck. 317 
 
 My only object in quoting all this is to show the difference 
 between the character and ability of Favre, and Bismarck as 
 he really is. Compare the writings of the one, as they have 
 been given in detail above, with the following utterance of the 
 other. There we have indecision, ambiguity, conceits of pose 
 and phrase, and, lastly, contradiction of what had been said 
 emphatically a few lines before, and expressed with equal 
 emphasis in other documents. Here, on the contrary, speaks 
 a man who is sure, simple, natural, and always to the point. 
 The Chancellor answered Favre on January 16 (I leave out the 
 opening words) as follows : 
 
 " Your Excellency assumes that on the application of the 
 Royal government of Great Britain a pass to enable you to 
 attend the London Conference lies ready for you with me. 
 This assumption, however, is not correct. I could not have 
 entered upon an official negotiation resting on the supposition 
 that the National Defence Committee, is, by the law of nations, 
 in a position to act in the name of France, so long as it has 
 not been, in the least degree, recognized by the French nation 
 itself. 
 
 " I presume that the commander of our outposts would have 
 granted your Excellency the warrant to pass the German lines 
 had your Excellency applied for it to the general of the besieg- 
 ing army. The latter would have had no occasion to consider 
 your Excellency's political station and the purpose of yotir 
 journey, while the fact that the warrant to pass our lines being 
 granted by the military authorities, to whom it would not have 
 seemed, from their point of view, a matter for much hesita- 
 tion, would have left the hands of his Majesty's ambassador in 
 London free in regard the question whether your Excellency's 
 declarations could, by the law of nations, be regarded as the 
 declarations of France, so that he could have taken up his 
 ground, and on his part adopted some form by which prejudice 
 might have been avoided. In addressing to me, by way of 
 an official announcement of the object of your journey, 
 an official request for a passport, in view of the representa- 
 tion of France at the Conference, your Excellency has debarred 
 us from this course. Political considerations, in support of 
 which I refer to the declarations published by your Excel- 
 lency" forbid me to accede to your request by sending such a 
 document. 
 
 " While making this communication I can only leave you to
 
 318 Bismarck in the Franco- German War. 
 
 consider for yourself and your government, whether any other 
 way can be suggested for removing the objections indicated, by 
 which any prejudice arising out of your presence in London 
 can be avoided. 
 
 " But even if such a way should be found, I venture to ask 
 whether it is wise for your Excellency to leave Paris and your 
 post as member of the Government there, to take part in per- 
 son in a Conference about the Black Sea, at a moment when 
 interests are at stake in Paris which are of far greater import- 
 ance, both to France and Germany, than the llth article of the 
 Treaty of 1856. Your Excellency would also be leaving be- 
 hind in Paris the diplomatic agents and attaches of the neutral 
 states, who have remained, or rather been detained there, long 
 after they received permission to pass through the German 
 lines, and have therefore all the greater claims upon your pro- 
 tection and forethought as Minister for Foreign Affairs in the 
 actual Government. 
 
 " I can therefore scarcely suppose that your Excellency, in the 
 critical situation which you have so essential a iwrt in conducting 
 to its issue, will willingly deprive yourself of the opportunity of 
 assisting in the solution, for which the responsibility rests on 
 
 you." 
 
 ***** * ii- 
 
 It is now the turn of the journal to speak again. 
 Tuesday, January 17. The weather is warm, with much 
 wind. At dinner we had as guests the Saxon Count Nostitz- 
 Wallwitz, who is to be appointed to the administration here, 
 and a Herr Winter, or von Winter, who has been made Pre- 
 fect of Chartres. On some one turning the conversation upon 
 the future operations of the war, the Chief observed : "I think, 
 if by God's help we take Paris, we will not occupy it with 
 our troops. The National Guard might serve there under a 
 French commandant. We should occupy only the forts and 
 the outskirts. Every one would be let in, but no one let out. 
 It would be a great prison until it came to be a small one or 
 the conclusion of peace." He then spoke with Nostitz about 
 the General Councils, and said that every- attempt should be 
 made to procure the goodwill of their members. Here would 
 be a good field for further political operations. " As for the 
 military side of the question," he went on to say, " I am for 
 more concentration, not covering a certain quantity of ground, 
 but so holding it in hand that the authorities can conduct the
 
 Shoot, Hang and Burn. 319 
 
 administration, and especially collect the taxes in a regular way. 
 The military has a centrifugal plan of operations, I a centri- 
 petal." ... "If we cannot provide every place within our circle 
 with garrisons, we can send a flying column from time to time 
 to such places as prove troublesome, and shoot, hang and burn. 
 If that is done twice they will soon listen to reason." Winter 
 thought that the mere appearance of the party to do execution 
 in such places would produce the desired effect. " I don't 
 know," said the Chief ; " a moderate amount of hanging does 
 much better ; and if a few shells are thrown in, and a few houses 
 burnt. That reminds me of the Bavarians, who asked the Prus- 
 sian artillery officer, ' What think yon, comrade ; are we to burn 
 tiiis village to the ground, or only wreck it in moderation I 
 don't know what the answer was." 
 
 He told us then that he had many well-wishers in Bremen. 
 c They have lately made for me there a number of excellent 
 cigars, very strong, but praised by all connoisseurs. In the 
 press of business I have forgotten the name of the company" 
 (Bucher named, if I remember right, " Jacobi Brothers") " and 
 now they send me again a fine polar bear's skin. It is too good 
 for the campaign ; I shall send it home." 
 
 This led him to observe that, at St. Petersburg once, he wanted 
 to go on a bear's hunt, down the Dwina to Archangel, but his 
 wife would not let him ; besides he would have been obliged to 
 take at least six weeks' leave. In the woods up there, is an 
 incredible quantity of game, especially blackcock and woodcock, 
 which are killed in thousands by the Finns and Samoyeds, who 
 shoot them with small rifles without ramrods, and bad powder. 
 "A woodcock there," added he, "lets itself, I will not say be 
 caught with the hand, but killed with a stick. InJ3t. Peters- 
 burg they come to the market in heaps. On the whole, a sports- 
 man is pretty well off in Russia, and the cold is not so bad, for 
 every one is used to struggling with it. All the houses are 
 j.roperly warmed, even the steps and the porch as well as the 
 riding paths, and no one thinks of visiting with a tall hat in 
 winter, but goes instead in furs with a fur cap." 
 
 He came to speak again, I do not remember how, of his 
 yesterday's letter to Favre, and said, " I haveeiven him clearly 
 to understand that it will not do, and that Icould not believe 
 that the man who helped to bring about the business of the 4th 
 of September, would not wish to await its issue. I wrote in 
 French, partly because I look upon it not as official, but as
 
 320 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 private correspondence, but also that it may be read, not only 
 by him, but by everybody in the French army before it gets to 
 him." Nostitz asked how diplomatic correspondence was gen- 
 erally conducted. " In German," said the Chief ; " formerly 
 it was in French, but I have changed this. Only with those 
 cabinets, however, whose language we understand England, 
 Italy, and Spain ; these can be read at a pinch ; not with 
 Russia, for I am about the only man in the Foreign Office who 
 understands Russian. Nor again, with Holland, Denmark, or 
 Sweden, for their languages are not learnt as a rule. They 
 write in French, and are answered in the same way." " The 
 King has, moreover, given orders that the soldiers are only to 
 converse with the French in German. Let them learn it. We 
 have had to learn their language." " With Thiers (he meant 
 Favre), at Ferrieres, I conversed in French. But I told him 
 that it was only because I was not dealing with him officially. 
 He laughed at that. I said to him, however, ' You will see 
 when we are discussing terms of peace that we shall speak Ger- 
 man.' " 
 
 Wednesday, January 18. The sky is cloudy ; the air clear. 
 An extensyre view ; the temperature warm, with a little wind. 
 In the morning I read letters and newspapers. Wollmann 
 told me an order had come in promoting our Chief to the rank 
 of Lieutenant-General. Hatzfeld and Bohlen have received 
 the cross to-day. The others are expecting it, and the longing 
 for it seems with some of them to be very great. What store 
 even the lower officials set by it, and how useful the custom of 
 decorations consequently is to the state, was shown by what our 
 excellent T. said to me this morning, " God knows, doctor, I 
 would gladly even give up all my extra pay, if you will believe 
 me, if I could get the Iron Cross." I believed him, although 
 it was hardly conceivable ; for the extra pay to which he 
 referred comes to one and a half times as much as his ordinary 
 income. 
 
 Between twelve and half-past one there was the banquet of 
 the knights in the great hall of the castle, and the proclamation 
 in military splendour of the German Empire and Emperor. It 
 must have been g, very grand and imposing sight. Meanwhile 
 I took a long walk with Wollmann. As we \yere on our way 
 back, going from the railings of the Avenue de Saint-Cloud, up 
 the alley, and through the Rue de Saint-Pierre, we heard the 
 thunder-roll of loud hurrahs from the Place d'Armes : these
 
 The* Proclamation r f the Empire. 321 
 
 were for the King, AVUG was returning home from the ceremony. 
 I should have said for the Emperor. At dinner the Chief was 
 absent, as he was dining with the Emperor. Twice in the eve- 
 ning I was summoned to receive instructions from him ; he 
 spoke with an unusually weak voice, and seemed tired and 
 exhausted. 
 
 Tlie Minister has received a letter written by Kern, the 
 Swiss ambassador, on behalf of a number of diplomatists 
 remaining in Paris, requesting him to see that measures are 
 taken to enaTble the proteges of the writers to escape, before 
 the bombardment, to a distance from the town. This is to dis- 
 pute our right to bombard Paris, and to infer that we purposely 
 fire upon buildings which ought to be spared. In reply, we 
 can say that we have repeatedly (as early as towards the end of 
 September, and once more in October) drawn the attention of 
 those of the inhabitants of Paris who are citizens of neutral 
 countries, through their embassies, to the damage which the 
 town must be exposed to from a prolonged resistance. For 
 months, we allowed all neutrals who could show themselves to 
 be such, and who wished to leave, to pass our lines without dif- 
 ficulty. On military grounds we can now grant this privilege 
 only to members of the diplomatic body. If a number of 
 neutrals have still not availed themselves of this permission to 
 take themselves and their chattels to a place of safety, it is not 
 our fault ; they must either not kave wished to go, or been 
 hindered by the authorities of Paris. 
 
 Thursday, January 19. To-day's firing, Keudell tells us 
 at breakfast, is due to a fresh and important sortie which 
 the Parisians, with twenty-four battalions and numerous 
 guns, have made against our positions between La Celle 
 and St. Cloud. Towards two o'clock, when the whirr and 
 rattle of the mitrailleuses are plainly heard, and the 
 French artillery is at the most two miles in a direct line 
 from Versailles, the Chief mounts to ride to the aqueduct of 
 Marly, whither the King and Crown Prince have also gone. I 
 set off thither likewise, with Wollmann. 
 
 On our way we meet, in Roquencourt, a musketeer coming 
 back from the fight, who, on our asking how things are going, 
 gives us to understand we are in a bad way, the enemy 
 being already in the wood on the hills behind La Celle. We 
 cannot believe it, because in that case there would have been 
 more signs of life here-, and we should have heard the firing
 
 322 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 more distinctly. Some way beyond we meet the Crown Prince 
 returning to Versailles. There cannot then be any further 
 danger. When we come to the heights in front of Marly we 
 are not allowed to go further along the high road, which strikes 
 north here, as straight as a line. We wait a while in a cutting 
 wind and under a cloud, from which falls a dense shower of 
 snowflakes, among the long-bearded sons of Anak of the militia 
 ~uard who are posted here. The King and the Chancellor are, 
 i suppose, on the aqueduct. When the cloud lifts we see Mont 
 Yalerien deliver three shots in succession, and the redoubts be- 
 neath its walls fire eight times. Now and then too a flash comes 
 from our batteries in the west beyond the Seine, and a house 
 seems to be burning in one of the riverside villages. When the 
 fire ceases we return home. 
 
 In Versailles, however, the situation must have caused un- 
 easiness ; for, as we pass through the town, we find that the 
 Bavarians have entered it. Formerly one only caught sight of 
 them here by ones and twos. They are posted, we are told, in 
 dense masses in the Place d'Armes and the Avenue de Paris. 
 The French, however, are encamped, they say, about 60,000 
 strong, under Mont Valerien, and in the fields east of it. They 
 are supposed to have taken the Montretout redoubt, and to hold 
 in their hands also the village of Garches, not much more than 
 a couple of miles from here, and the western portion of Saint- 
 Cloud. It was feared that to-morrow they might press on 
 further and force us to evacuate Versailles. This cannot be 
 true, or at least it is exaggerated. 
 
 The conversation at dinner seems to confirm this impression. 
 The danger was not spoken of as imminent. We had as our 
 guest Privy Councillor von Loper, who is to be Under-Secretary 
 of State in the Household. At first the purport of the talk was 
 that the danger which had threatened our communications with 
 Germany on the South-East had passed away, as General Bour- 
 baki, who had pressed hard upon Werder for three whole days 
 without being able to beat him back, had, probably on the news 
 of Manteufiel's advance, given up the attempt to relieve Belfort, 
 and was in full retreat. The Chief then alluded to a statement 
 that the taxes could not be got in from different communities 
 in the parts of France which we occupy, and said it was diffi- 
 cult, aay impossible, to plant garrisons everywhere, to compel 
 the people to pay them. Then he went on to say, "That, how- 
 ever, is not at all necessary. The thing can be managed by
 
 Grand-Ducal Court at Darmstadt. 323 
 
 flying columns of infantry, with some horse artillery and a 
 couple of guns. They need not even enter a place, but simply 
 send in a message, ' If you do not produce the outstanding taxes 
 in two hours shells will be thrown in.' Then they see you 
 are in earnest, and they pay. In some instances a place will 
 really be bombarded, so as to encourage the others. They must 
 learn what war is." 
 
 Later on the conversation turned upon the indemnity that 
 might be expected when peace was concluded, and this led the 
 Chief to speak of that paid in 1866. He said, "We ought not 
 to have made them pay in money. I at least resisted it for a 
 long time, but at last I gave way to the temptation." " We ' 
 ought to have been paid in land, as in 1815, and it would have 
 been a good opportunity." 
 
 friday, January 20. In the course of the morning we hear 
 that the Parisians have abandoned their positions of last even- 
 ing, and marched back into the town with drums beating. Our 
 losses in the fight are said to be trifling, while those of the 
 enemy are very severe. From the West comes the news that 
 Tours has been occupied by our troops, without resistance ; from 
 the North, that Goeben has beaten the French at Saint-Quentin, 
 in- a battle lasting seven hours, and taken 4000 unwounded 
 prisoners. At twelve o'clock I am sent for by the Chief. He 
 wishes his answer to Kern's memorial, and the letter in which 
 he refused Favre his passport, to appear in the Moniteur. 
 
 At dinner Bohlen was again present, as well as Lauer and 
 von Knobelsdorft'. The Chief was good-humored and talkative. 
 Among other things he told us that, when he was in Frankfort, 
 he had constantly had invitations to the Grand-Ducal Court at 
 Darmstadt, and accepted them There was an excellent hunt 
 there. "However, "he went on, "I have reason to suppose 
 that I was not a favorite with the Grand-Duchess Mathilda. 
 She said once to somebody, 'He is always there and looks as if 
 he were as big a man as the Grand Duke.' " 
 
 As we sat over our cigars, the Crown Prince's Adjutant 
 (Major von Hanke, or Kameke), came in suddenly, in a water- 
 proof cloak, to tell us that Count (the name was unin- 
 telligible) had come out, ostensibly in the name and by order of 
 Trochu, to request a two days' truce for carrying away the 
 wounded in yesterday's sally, and burying those who had fallen 
 there. The Chief replied, that the French must not have this 
 conceded to them, as it would only take a few hours to carry off
 
 324 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 the wounded and bury the dead ; besides the dead would rest 
 just as well above as beneath the earth. Soon after the Major 
 reappeared' ^and said the King was coming ; and, true enough, 
 scarcely a quarter of an hour afterwards His Majesty walked in, 
 and the Crown Prince along with him. They went with the 
 Chancellor into the drawing-room, where a refusal of Trochu's 
 request was agreed upon. 
 
 About nine o'clock Bucher sent me a few lines, in pencil, to 
 say that, by the Chief's orders, the letter to Kern was to be 
 printed in to-morrow's Moniteur, while that to Favre was to 
 stand over till further notice. I at once sent instructions to 
 that effect to Bamberg, who must by this time have received 
 the letters through the office. 
 
 /Saturday, January 21. At half-past nine the Moniteur 
 comes in, and contains the Chief's letter to Favre ! Unfortu- 
 nate ; but my letter to Bamberg only reached him when the 
 number was printed. About ten I was summoned to the Chief, 
 who however said nothing of the mishap, though the paper was 
 lying before him. He was still in bed, and wished Count 
 Chambord's protest against the bombardment of Paris cut out 
 for the King. I then wrote an article for the German papers, 
 and an occasional note for the paper here. 
 
 At dinner in the evening, Voigts-Rhetz, Prince Putbus, and 
 the Bavarian Count Berghem were the Chancellor's guests. 
 The Bavarian had brought the pleasant news that the Conven- 
 tions of Versailles had passed the Second Chamber in Munich 
 by two votes to spare over the required majority of two-thirds. 
 The German Empire, then, is formally established. The Chief 
 accordingly proposed to the company to drink the health of the 
 King of Bavaria, " who had really brought the matter to a satis- 
 factory conclusion." " I always thought," he added, "that we 
 should carry it through, if only by one vote ; I had not hoped 
 for two. The last good news from the seat of war probably 
 contributed to it." 
 
 It was then mentioned that in the great sortie the day before 
 yesterday, the French had deployed against us more men than 
 had been hitherto believed, probably over 80,000, and that the 
 Montretout redoubt had actually been in their hands for some 
 hours, as well as part of Garches and Saint-Cloud. They had, 
 however, suffered frightful losses in storming them ; as many 
 as 1,200 dead and 4,000 wounded were talked of. The Chief * 
 observed, " The capitulation must soon come now ; next week,
 
 A High-Class Spy. 325 
 
 I should imagine. After the capitulation they are to be sup- 
 ' plied by us with provisions that is understood but, until they 
 have given up 700,000 stand of arms and 4,000 cannon, not a 
 morsel of bread shall they touch, and no one will be let out. 
 We occupy the forts and the suburbs, and put them to a little 
 cost until they can bring themselves to agree to a peace that 
 will suit us. There are still many intelligent and respectable 
 people in Paris for us to deal with." 
 
 Afterwards we came to speak of a Madame Cordier, who 
 stayed here some time ago, and had spent several hours each 
 day walking up and down on the bridge of Sevres, apparently 
 with the intention of getting into Paris or conveying something 
 in. She seems to be a pretty, somewhat elderly widow ; and if 
 I understood right, is a daughter of Lafitte, and a sister of the 
 wife of the Marquis de Gallifet, commander of cavalry, who 
 was conspicuous among the elegant women of Napoleon's court. 
 She seems to have been looked upon among us as a high-class 
 spy, and the wonder was that she was tolerated here ; but pro- 
 bably she had many friends and admirers among the higher 
 officers. 
 
 The Chief remarked, " I remember when she came to Frank- 
 fort fifteen or sixteen years ago. There she undoubtedly expected 
 to play the part of a beauty and a Parisian. But it did not 
 succeed. She had common manners and but little tact, and was 
 not so well educated as the bankers' wives in Frankfort, who 
 soon made out the fact. I know she went out one day in dirty 
 wet weather, with a rose-colored satin cloak on, all covered with 
 lace. ' If she got sovereigns sewn all over her dress,' said the 
 ladies of Frankfort, ' we should see better what she wanted to 
 show off.' 
 
 The conversation then drifted into a learned discussion upon 
 the difference between the titles "German Emperor" and 
 " Emperor of Germany ;" the possibility of an " Emperor of 
 the Germans " being also mentioned. After the discussion had 
 lasted for some time, the Chief, who had hitherto remained 
 silent, asked, " Does any gentleman know: the Latin for sausage]" 
 " Farcimentum," replied Abeken. " Farcimen," said I. " Farci- 
 mentum or farcimen, whichever you please," said the Chief, 
 smiling, " nescio quid mihi magis farcimentum esset." (I don't 
 know which of the two I should consider the more made-up 
 name.) 
 
 Monday, January 28. Weather dull and mild. I telegraph
 
 326 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 that the bombardment from our northern batteries is doing 
 good work ; the fort at Saint-Denis is silenced, while conflagra- 
 tions are noticed in the town of Denis as well as in Paris. 
 
 In the evening, soon after seven, Favre himself came in and 
 the Chancellor had an interview with him up in the little room 
 next his own, where the widow Jesse's eldest son used to live. 
 The conference lasted about two hours and a half. Meanwhile 
 Hatzfeld and Bismarck-Bohlen entertained Favre's companion, 
 his son-in-law, whose name was Del Rio, in the drawing-room 
 below. He was, it appears, properly speaking a portrait-pain- 
 ter, but had come out as secretary with his father-in-law. Both 
 of them got something to eat, whatever was to be had at a 
 moment's notice, cutlets, buttered eggs, ham, &c., which will do 
 them good, poor martyrs to obstinacy ! Shortly before a quarter 
 to eleven they both set off to return to their lodging here in a 
 carriage standing at the door. Accommodation had been found 
 for them on the Boulevard du Hoi, where Stieber and the 
 field police happen to be quartered. Hatzfeld escorted the gen- 
 tlemen there. Favre seems depressed, and his dress somewhat 
 neglected ; his son-in-law, who is a little man of southern type, 
 the same. Uslar had accompanied them here from the out- 
 posts. 
 
 Tuesday, January 24- The day is cloudy and foggy. The 
 Chief got up before nine o'clock, and worked with Abeken. 
 Shortly before ten he went to the King, or as we now say, the 
 Emperor. He did not come back till about one, when we were 
 sitting at breakfast. He ate a piece of fried ham, drank a 
 glass of Tivoli beer, sighed, and said : " Till now I have always 
 thought that the parliamentary method of conducting State 
 matters was the most wearisome conceivable. I think so no 
 longer. At any rate there is an. escape with the last motion 
 that is made. Here every one brings forward his individual 
 opinion, and when one is deluded into hoping that the matter 
 is settled, some one comes out with an opinion which he has 
 already expressed, and which has been refuted, and we are 
 back again where we started, and nothing gets done. No ; I 
 shall be pleased, nay thankful, if anything is yet decided, or 
 will even be decided by to-morrow." He then observed that he 
 expected Favre back, and had advised him to be off by three 
 o'clock for he is going back to Paris, lest the soldiers 
 should challenge him in the dark, and he not be able to answer 
 them.
 
 What a Barbarian! 327 
 
 At half past one, Favre again called on the Chancellor, talk- 
 ing with him for nearly two hours, after which he returned 
 home, Bismarck-Bohlen accompanying him as far as the Bridge 
 of Sevres. 
 
 At dinner, where we had lobster mayonnaise, the talk did 
 not turn upon this interview. But it seems to be understood 
 as a matter of course that the preliminaries of the capitulation 
 were discussed at it. The Chief first spoke of Bernstorff, and 
 said : " I have not arrived at the point of writing with compla- 
 cent diffuseness sides and sheets on the most unimportant things. 
 A heap so high " (he showed it with his hand) " has come in to- 
 day. And then come always back-references ' as I had the 
 honor to inform you in my despatch of January the 3rd, 1863, 
 Xumber so-and-so ; ' or ' as I said, with the utmost respect, in 
 my telegram, Number 1666.' Then I send it to the King, and 
 he wants to know what he means, and pencils on the margin, 
 ' I don't know this.' " Some one wanted to know whether 
 Goltz had written as much. "Yes," said the Chief, "and 
 sometimes, besides, private letters to myself, of six or eight 
 closely-written sheets. Ho must have had a fearful amount of 
 time on his hands. Luckily I quarrelled with him, and that 
 blessing ceaseji." One of the company wondered 'What he 
 would have said if he had seen the Emperor in prison, the 
 Empress in London, and Paris besieged and bombarded by us 1 ' 
 " "Well," replied the Chief, " the Emperor was no such favorite 
 of his, but in spite of his being enamored he would not have 
 been as pleased with all- this as other people are." 
 
 The death of a Dutch or Belgian princess was mentioned and 
 Abeken, as in duty bound, expressed his sorrow. The Chief, 
 however, said, " How can you take it to heart like that ? There 
 is no Belgian here at table, and no relation." 
 
 He then told us that Favre had complained to him that we 
 fired upon the sick and blind in the Blind Institute. " I do 
 not know what you find hard in that," said I. " You do far 
 worse ; you shoot at our men who are in sound and vigorous 
 health. ' What a Barbarian ; ' he no doubt thought to him- 
 self. " 
 
 Mention was made of Hohenlohe and his service in securing 
 the success of the bombardment. " I have determined," said 
 the Chief, " to confer on him the title of Poliorcetes (sacker of 
 cities)." The conversation turned upon the statues and pic- 
 tures of the Renaissance, and their want of naturalness and
 
 328 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 good taste. " That reminds rue," said the Chief, "of the Min- 
 ister Schuckmann, whom his wife painted en coquille, I think 
 it was called in a rose-colored cockle-shell, a"nd dressed in a 
 kind of antique costume, naked down to here pointing to the 
 bottom of his waistcoat as I certainly never saw him." " He 
 belongs to my earliest recollections. They often gave what 
 were then called Assemblies, and are now called Routs an 
 Evening without supper. My parents usually attended them.''' 
 He then again described the dress of his mother, and went on. 
 " Some time after, there was an ambassador in Be.rlin, who also 
 gave similar balls, where we danced till three o'clock, and therf 
 was nothing to eat. I know that, for I and a couple of good 
 friends often went to them. At last we young people rebelled. 
 When it grew late we produced bread-and-butter from ouv 
 pockets and devoured it. Food was provided the very next 
 time, but we were never invited again."
 
 Fish and Oysters. 329 
 
 CHAPTER XVIL 
 
 NEGOTIATIONS FOE THE CAPITULATION OP PARIS. 
 
 WEDNESDAY, January 25. Count Lehndorff dined with 
 us. The conversation first turned upon the heavy losses 
 sustained by the French in their sally of the 19th, and then 
 upon our own during the whole campaign. After this the fish 
 we are eating mullet, as I understand, native to the Adriatic, 
 and the gift of Bleichroder the banker gave a topic for fur- 
 ther conversation, in which the Chief took part with the anima- 
 tion of a connoisseur. As I have already said, he is extremely 
 fond of fish, and of water animals generally. 
 
 From fish we pass to oysters, and after dwelling on their 
 virtues, come to speak of bad oysters, which LehndorfF justly 
 pronounces to be the most horrible things one can imagine. 
 
 Lehndorff told us then of the fine hunting grounds and 
 numerous foresters of Prince Pless. The King had lately asked 
 him : " Tell me now, has the calling out of your foresters incon- 
 venienced you very greatly 1 " " Oh, no, your Majesty," replied 
 the Prince. " How many of them then were called out ? " " Oh I 
 only forty, your Majesty." I fancy that I came across a 
 similar story some years ago, only, if I recollect right the 
 Prince was an Esterhazy, and the foresters shepherds. 
 
 The Minister then spoke of his first journey to St. Peters- 
 burg. He set off in a carriage, because at first no snow had 
 fiulen. Later on, however, there was a heavy storm, the road 
 was completely buried, so that his vehicle only got along, and 
 very slowly. He passed five days and six nights in the narrow 
 carriage, without sleep, and at thirty degrees of frost, before he 
 reached the first railway station. But the moment he was in 
 the railway carriage he fell so fast asleep that when he 
 arrived at St. Petersburg, after a ten hours' journey, he fancied 
 he had only stepped into the train five minutes before. 
 22
 
 330 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 " They had their good side, though, those days before rail- 
 ways," he went on ; " one had not so much to do then. The 
 post day only came round twice a week, and then we worked 
 "with might and main. But the moment the post was off we got 
 on horseback again, and had a good time till next post." 
 Some one observed that the work in the Embassies as well as 
 in the Foreign Office had been increased far more by the tele- 
 graph than by the railway. This led the Chief to speak of the 
 reports of ambassadors and diplomatic agents generally, and he 
 remarked that many of them, pleasant enough in form, contain- 
 ed nothing. " It is newspaper work, written just for writing's 
 sake. Such, for example, were the reports of our Consul 
 (name unimportant). I read them through, and am always 
 thinking, 'Now it must be coming.' But nothing comes. It 
 sounds very nice, and one reads on and on. At the end, how- 
 ever, one finds that there really is nothing in it it is all barren 
 and meaningless." Another example is mentioned, a military 
 commissioner, who had also come out as an author. On him 
 the Chief passed judgment. " It was thought he would do 
 something and in quantity he has done a good deal, and the 
 form is good. He writes pleasantly, as he would for a news- 
 paper, but when I get to the end of his reports, closely written 
 in a small neat hand, there is positively nothing in them for all 
 their length." 
 
 Coming to speak once more of tiring journeys, and of long 
 rides, he said, " That reminds me of the battle of Koniggratz 
 I was the whole day in the saddle, on my big horse. I partic- 
 ularly wished not to ride it, because it was so high, and gave 
 me so much trouble to mount. In the end, however, I did so, 
 and had no reason to regret it. It was an excellent beast. 
 The long ride across the valley had made me very tired, and 
 my seat and legs were very sore. But I had not overridden 
 myself. In my whole life I have never done that ; but when I 
 ; sat down afterwards on a wooden bench and began writing, I 
 .felt as if I was sitting on something else some strange sub- 
 stance between me and the bench. It was only the swelling 
 produced by the long ride, 
 
 " After Koniggratz we arrived late in the evening at the 
 market-place of Horsitz. Here the word was that gentlemen 
 were to look out for their own quarters. It was easier said 
 than * done. ;- The houses were shut up, and we ought to have 
 had pioneers at hand to break open the doors. But they
 
 Uncomfortable Quarters. 331 
 
 would not have come to their work till five o'clock in the 
 morning." " Your Excellency got over that difficulty at Grave- 
 lotte," remarked Delbriick. "Well, I went then," proceeded 
 the Chief with his story, "to several houses in Horsitz three 
 or four, and at last I found a door open. When I had gone in 
 a few steps I fell into a sort of wolf's-trap on the floor. Luckily 
 it was not deep, and I was convinced there was horse-dung in 
 it. At first I thought ' how would it do to stay here V but I 
 aeon became aware by the smell that there was something else 
 there ; and, strangely enough this occurred to me among other 
 things : ' If the hole had been twenty feet deep, and full, 
 they would have had to look in the morning a long time for 
 their Minister.' Well, I got out again, and found a place 
 under the arcades of the market-place. There I laid down a 
 couple of carriage cushions for myself, made a pillow out of a 
 third, and settled myself to sleep. When I had lain down, my 
 hand came in contact with something wet ; and when I ex- 
 amined it I found it was a product of the country. Later on 
 some one woke me. It was Perponcher, who told me the Grand 
 Duke of Mecklenburg had a shelter for me, and a bed into the 
 bargain. That was all right, only the bed was a child's bed. I 
 stretched myself straight out, put the back of a chair at my 
 feet, and fell asleep. But in the morning I could scarcely 
 stand, from lying with my knees on the chair-back. If only 
 one has a sack of straw, one can make oneself comfortable, 
 even if there is very little in it, as often happens. You cut it 
 open in the middle, shove the straw back, and lie in the trough 
 thus formed. I have sometimes done that in Russia, when out 
 hunting." " That was when the despatch came from Napol- 
 eon," observed Bohlen, " and you promised you would pay the 
 Gaul out for it when an opportunity came." 
 
 Finally the Chief said, "The day before yesterday Favre 
 told me that the first shell which reached the Pantheon had 
 knocked the head off the statue of Henri Quatre." "That 
 must have affected him very much V asked Bohlen. " Oh, 
 dear, no !" replied the Chief. " I am inclined to think that he 
 mentioned it as a democrat, glad that that should have hap- 
 pened to a king." " Well," said Bohlen, " this is the second 
 bad time the king has had ; the French stabbed him in Paris, 
 and we have beheaded him there." 
 
 About ten o'clock, when Favre was still here, a brisk fire of 
 heavy artillery began, which lasted about an hour. After
 
 332 Bismarck in tJie Franco-German War. 
 
 half-past ten I went down into the tea-room, where I found 
 Hatzfeld and Bismarck-Bohlen talking to del Rio. He is a 
 man of middle height, with a full dark beard, a bald patch on 
 his crown, and an eye-glass on his nose. Soon after my en- 
 trance, he went home to his quarters at Stieber's, accompanied 
 by Mantey, and a quarter of an hour later Favre followed him. 
 Del Eio spoke of Paris as the centre of the world ; so that in 
 this bombardment the centre of the world is our bull's eye. He 
 said that Favre had a villa in Poieil, and a large cellar in Paris 
 full of all kinds of wines, and that he himself had a property in 
 Mexico, of a hundred and twenty square miles. After Favre 
 left, the Chief came down to us, ate some cold partridge, ordered 
 back a slice of the ham, and drank a bottle of beer. After a 
 while he sighed, pulled himself straight, and said, " Ah, if I 
 could only settle things myself and give my orders." He was 
 silent a minute, then went on. "The wonder to me is that 
 they do not send out a General. It is hard to mrfce him under- 
 stand military matters." He gave a couple of French words : 
 " That means the mound in front of the trench on the out- 
 side," then another two : " and that is the inner side. He did 
 not know that." "Well, I hope you found he had had a 
 reasonable dinner to-day." The Chief said, Yes, and Bohlen 
 remarked here that a rumor had spread below that this time he 
 had not even despised champagne, but drunk it like any one 
 else. " Yes," said the Chief, " the day before yesterday he re- 
 fused it, but to-day he allowed some to be poured out for him. 
 Even now, he had conscientious scruples about eating, but I 
 talked him out of them, and hunger must have helped me ; for 
 he ate quite like a man who has long fasted." 
 
 The Minister told us something of his interview with Favre. 
 " I like him better than I did in Ferrieres," said he. " He 
 speaks fluently, and in long, well-balanced periods often one 
 is not obliged to attend to or answer him. He told some stories 
 of old times, and he tells a story very well." " He did not 
 take my last letter at all amiss. On the contrary, he said he 
 was indebted to me for pointing out what he owed to himself." 
 " He mentioned also that he owned a villa near Paris, which, 
 however, had been plundered and ruined. I had it on my 
 tongue to say, ' Not by us though ;' but he at once added, of 
 his own accord, that it might have been by the Garde Mobile." 
 " He then complained that the town of Saint-Cloud had been 
 burning for three days, and wanted to convince me that it was
 
 Flogging. 333 
 
 we who had set the castle there on fire." " Apropos of the 
 Francs-tireurs and their misdeeds, he wished to refer me to our 
 free companions in 1813, who had behaved far worse. I said 
 to him, ' That I will not deny, but you must remember that 
 the French shot them down whenever they could catch them. 
 And they did not shoot them all at one time, but five at the 
 place where the deed was done, then five more at the next 
 halting-place, and so on, to spread terror. He asserted that in 
 the last action, on the 19th, the men of th National Guard who 
 belonged to the better classes had fought best ; the battalions 
 taken from the lower classes of the population being of least 
 worth." 
 
 The Chief was silent for a time, and wore a thoughtful ex- 
 pression. Then he went on, "If at first the Parisians get a 
 supply of provisions, then are again put upon half rations, and 
 have to starve a little, that will work I think. It is just the 
 same with flogging, If a man gets too many lashes one after 
 the other, not much effect is produced. But when the flogging 
 is stopped for a time, then begun again, it is very disagreeable. 
 I know that from the criminal court in which I used to work. 
 There flogging was still practised." 
 
 The conversation then passed to flogging, generally; and 
 Bohlen, who regards it as useful,* observed that even the Eng- 
 lish had re-introduced it. "Yes, "said Bucher; "first for per- 
 sonal assaults upon the Queen on some occasion when some 
 one struck at her then for garotters." The Chief then told 
 how in 1863, when they infested London, he had often had to 
 pass, after 1 2 o'clock at night, from Regent Street to his house 
 in Park Street, through a lonely lane where there was nothing 
 but stables and heaps of horse litter. To his horror, he read 
 in the papers that several such attacks had taken place in that 
 very lane. 
 
 After a while he said : " That is an unheard-of proceeding 
 on the part of the English ! They wanted (Odo Russell inti- 
 mated as much, but the Chief refused it, as not permissible) to 
 send a gunboat up the Seine, as they say, to fetch away such of 
 the English families there as wished to come. They really 
 want to see whether we have laid down torpedoes." "They 
 
 * Expressing thereby the feeling of nine-tenths of the German people I 
 mean the actual people, not the people of the liberal press and the public 
 meetings.
 
 334 Bismarck in the Franco- German War. 
 
 are out of humor because we have fought great battles 
 here, and won them by ourselves. They grudge the little, 
 shabby Prussian his rise in the world. They look upon us 
 as a people who are only here to make war for them, and for 
 pay." 
 
 Thursday, January 26. Bright weather, and again rather 
 cold. Vigorous firing, while I was still in bed. To my jot- 
 tings of last night I have to add an interesting speech of the 
 Chancellor's. When at tea Bismarck-Bohlen said, " That is a 
 happy idea, the picture in Kladderadatsch ; Napoleon waiting 
 for the train and saying, ' There is the whistle.' He has his 
 ermine cloak round him for the journey back to Paris, and his 
 travelling-bag in his hand." " Yes," replied the Chief ; "so 
 he really thinks, and he may be right. But I fear he will be 
 too late in jumping in. At the end there may be no other way. 
 It may be easier than Favre can be got to believe. But he 
 will need half the army to establish his authority." 
 
 About two o'clock, Favre came again. When he went away 
 in about an hour's time to go back to Paris, we heard that it 
 was decided he should come again at eight o'clock in the morn- 
 ing, with a general, to settle the military questions the mili- 
 tary questions, that is, connected with the Capitulation ! That 
 then is the position ! Paris is giving in. The bombardment 
 has done good service in the South, and still more in the 
 North, and the bread-basket is getting empty. 
 
 Mr. Hans von Rochow and Count Lehndorff were present at 
 "dinner. The Chief spoke of Favre, and among other things 
 said, " He told me, that on Sundays the boulevards were still 
 crowded with well and gaily dressed ladies with pretty child- 
 ren." I replied, ' I wonder they have not eaten you up before 
 this.' It was then mentioned that to-day the bombarding had 
 gone on with unusual vigor, and the Minister remarked, " I 
 remember we once had an under-official in our Court Stepki, 
 I think his name was who had to look after the flogging. He 
 had a way of always applying the three last lashes with special 
 force as a wholesome reminder." The conversation passed 
 to Stroussberg, and some one observed that he now was likely 
 " to go to the dogs." On which the Chief said, " He once said 
 to me, ' I know I shall never die in my house.' But the crash 
 need not have come so quickly. Perhaps not at all, except for 
 the war. He always covered his advances with tresh bonds, 
 and that worked although other Jews, who had got rich be-
 
 arrives in Russia. 335 
 
 fore him, tried with all their might to spoil his game. Then 
 came the war, and down went his Roumanians, so low that 
 they might be valued at so much the hundredweight. For 
 all that however, he is a clever fellow, and of restless 
 activity." 
 
 The cleverness and restlessness of Stroussberg led some one 
 to speak of Gambetta, who, he claimed to know, " had made 
 his five millions out of the war," a statement which others of 
 the guests, I think reasonably doubted. After the Dictator of 
 Bordeaux came Napoleon, of whom Bohlen said it was asserted 
 that he had saved at least fifty millions during the nineteen 
 years of his reign. " Others say eighty," added the Chief. " I 
 look upon it as doubtful. Louis Phillippe spoiled the game. 
 He allowed emeutes to be got up, and then brought on the 
 Amsterdam Bourse, till at last the commercial world saw what 
 he was driving at." Hatzfeld or Keudell remarked that the 
 industrious King had fallen ill from time to time with the 
 same object in view. 
 
 It was then observed that under the Empire Morny in par- 
 ticular had known how to make money in every possible way r 
 and the Chief told us " When he was appointed ambassador to* 
 St. Petersburg, he came with a whole long train of elegant 
 carnages, and all his trunks, and chests, and boxes full of laces,, 
 and silks, and woman's finery, for which as an ambassador he- 
 had not to pay duty. Every attendant had his own carriage ^ 
 every attache, or secretary, at least two, and he himself five or 
 six. After he had been there a few days he sold all his things- 
 by auction carriages, and lace, and fineries. He is said tx> 
 have made 800,000 roubles by it. He was unscrupulous, but 
 a good fellow in fact, he could be a very good fellow." He 
 illustrated this by examples, then went on : "In St. Petersburg,, 
 too, they had a very good notion of such things the influ- 
 ential people, I mean. Not that they took money directly.. 
 But when any of them wanted anything, he went into a French 
 shop and bought expensive lace, gloves, or jeweller) 7 , for thous- 
 ands of roubles. But the shop was carried on in the interest 
 of the official they wanted to get at, or his wife." 
 
 In the evening I studied drafts, while in the world without 
 cannon were roaring, between nine and ten especially, louder 
 than usual. The Chief was working alone in his room prob- 
 ably upon the terms of the Capitulation and Armistice and 
 nothing was heard of him. Below it was rumored that a.
 
 336 Bismarck in the Franco- German War. 
 
 negotiator from Napoleon at Wilhelmshohe was on his way to 
 us. The ever-accumulating business has caused the despatch to 
 Versailles of a fourth secretary, who has arrived to-day. He 
 is a Herr Zesulka, who will be useful as a copyist and deciph- 
 erer, though he is still unemployed. 
 
 Friday, January 27. At half -past eight Moltke came, and 
 was closeted with the Chief for about three-quarters of an hour. 
 Shortly before eleven appeared the Frenchman : Favre (who 
 had cut short his grey demagogue's beard) with his pronounced 
 underlip, his clear eyes and yellowish complexion ; General 
 Beaufort d'Hautpoule, with his adjutant Calvel, and a " chief 
 of the engineers of the Eastern Railway," Durrbach. Beaufort 
 seems to have led the attack upon the fort at Montretout, on 
 the 19th. The negotiations of these gentlemen with the Chief 
 must have either been quickly brought to a point, or broken 
 off ^ for soon after twelve, while we were seated at breakfast, 
 they went out at the back of the house and got into the carriage 
 which brought them here. Favre looks depressed. The General had 
 a remarkably red face, and seemed not quite firm on his legs. This 
 was noticed also by the others. Soon after the Frenchman had 
 gone, the Chancellor came in to us, and said, "I only want a 
 little fresh air ; pray don't disturb yourselves, gentlemen." 
 Then, turning to Delbriick with a shake of his head, he said, 
 " There is no getting on with him ! Really not a responsible 
 person, I believe a little tipsy. I told him he had better think 
 it over till half-past one, and perhaps he may come to his 
 senses. Hot-headed ! ill-mannered ! What does he call him- 
 self Something like Bouffre or Bauffre ? " " Beaufort," said 
 Keudell. "Ah," said the Chief, "the name, but not the 
 manners of a man of rank." The good general seems in fact 
 probably his ordinary capacities have been weakened by 
 hunger to have attempted more than he could stand, and eaten 
 too good a dejeuner. 
 
 At dinner the Chief said of Beaufort : " This officer behaved 
 like a man of no education. Blustering, and shouting, with 
 great oaths, and his ' Moi, general de I'armee franpaise,' he was 
 hardly to be borne. He was always playing the ' plain soldier' 
 and the 'good comrade.' Moltke was once or twice impatient, 
 and as things went he might have burst out fifty times." 
 " Favre, whose own manners are not ' first-rate,' said to me, 
 J'en suis humilie /' (I am ashamed of this.) However, it was 
 drink, a common thing with him."
 
 The Land of Freedom. 337 
 
 " On the General's staff it was believed that he had been 
 chosen to settle matters, with the intention of letting it all 
 come to nothing. ' On the contrary,' said I, ' they have chosen 
 him because it makes no difference to him that he will sink in 
 public opinion for signing the Capitulation.'" 
 
 He then told us : "At our last interview I said to Favre, in 
 French, ' Vous avez etc trahi par la fortune ' (' You have been 
 betrayed by fortune'). He saw the point well enough, but 
 he only said, ' To whom do you say that ? Why, in three or 
 four hours I also shall be numbered among the traitors.' He 
 added that his position in Paris was a hazardous one. I pro- 
 posed to him : ' Provoke an emeute then, while you still have 
 an army to suppress it with.' He looked at me in horror, as 
 much as to say, 'What a bloodthirsty fellow you are!' He has, 
 moreover, no idea of how things are with us. More than once 
 he pointed out to me that France was the land of Freedom, 
 while Despotism reigned with us. J had told him, for instance, 
 that we wanted money, and Paris must let us have some. He 
 said that we might raise a loan. I told him that could not be 
 done without the lleichstag or Diet. 'What!' said he, 'why, 
 surely 500,000,000 francs could be raised without the Cham- 
 ber.' ' No,' replied I, 'not five francs.' He could not believe 
 it. But I told him I had had four years' experience of popular 
 representation in time of war, and to raise a loan without the 
 Diet had always been the point to wliich I had got, but it had 
 never occurred to me to go beyond it. That seemed rather to 
 shake him in his opinion. He only said that in France they 
 would not stand upon ceremony (on tie se generait pas). Then 
 he always came back to the assertion that France enjoyed infin- 
 ite liberty. It is really very comical to hear a Frenchman talk 
 like this especially Favre, who has always belonged to the 
 opposition. But they are constituted so. You may give a 
 Frenchman five-and-twenty (lashes). If only you make a fine 
 speech at the same time about Liberty, and the Dignity of man 
 which it expresses, and make the appropriate attitudes, he 
 imagines he is not being flogged." 
 
 "Oh, Keudell," he then said, suddenly, "that reminds me : 
 I must have in the Morning a commission from the King in 
 German of course. The German Emperor must only write 
 German. His Minister may be guided by circumstances. Offi- 
 cial correspondence must be conducted in the language of the 
 country, not in a foreign language. Bernstorff first decided to
 
 338 Bismarck in the Franco- German War. 
 
 introduce this with us, but he carried it too far. He wrote in 
 German to all the Diplomatists, and they all answered him 
 by arrangement of course in their own languages, Russian, 
 Spanish, Swedish, and I know not what ; so that he had to 
 establish a regular swarm of translators in the bureau. I found 
 matters in this state when I came into office. Budberg (the 
 Russian ambassador in Berlin in 1858) sent me a note in Rus- 
 sian. That would not do. If they had wanted to revenge 
 themselves Gortschakoff would have been entitled to write 
 in Russian to our ambassador in St. Petersburg. That 
 would have been right enough. It is reasonable to wish that 
 all the representatives of foreign Powers should understand and 
 use the language of the country to which they are accredited. 
 But for me in Berlin to answer a German letter in Russian was 
 unreasonable. I made up my mind- therefore whatever comes 
 in, that is not German, or French, or English, or Italian, re- 
 mains as it is, and goes into the cupboards. Well, Budberg 
 wrote reminder upon reminder, always in Russian. No an- 
 swer ; the things were always passed on to the cupboard. At last 
 came the man himself, and asked why he had had no answer. 
 ' Answer,' said I in astonishment ; ' to what 1 I have seen 
 nothing from you.' Well, he had written four weeks ago, and. 
 sent several reminders since. ' Indeed ! Ah, now I think of it 
 there is a heap of documents in Russian writing, lying below ; 
 they may pehaps be among those. But no one downstairs un- 
 derstands Russian, and whatever comes in an unintelligible 
 language goes into the cupboard.' " It was then agreed, if I 
 understand rightly, that Budberg was to write in French, and 
 the Foreign Office might occasionally do so also. 
 
 Sunday, January 29. A cloudy sky. Our troops march to 
 occuppy the forts. In the morning I read despatches upon the 
 London conference, and other business, as well as the Armistice 
 and Capitulation convention signed yesterday. The latter fills, 
 in our copy, ten folio pages, and is sewn together with threads 
 in the French colors, to the ends of which Favre has affixed his 
 seal. The contents are briefly as follows : An armistice of 
 twenty-one days is agreed upon, which is to hold good over the 
 whole of France. The contending armies maintain their positions, 
 which are signified by a line of demarcation, defined in the 
 memorandum of agreement. The object of the armistice is to 
 enable the Government of National Defence to summon a 
 freely-elected assembly of representatives of the French people,
 
 The Armistice. 33 
 
 to decide the question whether the war is to be continued, or 
 peace concluded, and on what conditions. The elections are to 
 be perfectly free and undisturbed. The Assembly meets at 
 Bordeaux. 
 
 The forts of Paris are to be handed over to the German army, 
 which is to occupy other parts of the outer line of defence of 
 Paris up to an appointed boundary. During the armistice 
 German troops are not to enter the city. The enceinte loses 
 its guns, the carriages of which will be taken into the forts. 
 The whole garrison of Paris and the forts, with the exception 
 of 12,000 men, who are left to the authorities for service in- 
 side, become prisoners of war, and must, officers excepted, give 
 up their armies and remain in the city. After the armistice 
 has run out, in case peace is not then concluded, they are to 
 give themselves up to the German army as prisoners of war. 
 The Francs-tireurs will be disbanded by the French Govern- 
 ment. The National Guard of Paris retain their armsf so as 
 to preserve order in the city, and the same applies to the 
 gendarmes, the republican guard, the excise officers, and the 
 firemen. After the surrender of the forts and the disarming 
 of the enceinte, the revictualling of Paris will be allowed by 
 the Germans. Only the provisions destined for this object must 
 not be taken from regions occupied by our troops. Whoever 
 wants to leave Paris must have a pass from the French military 
 authorities, with a vise by the German advanced posts. This 
 pass and vise is to be given to those who wish to canvass the 
 provinces, as well as to the deputies elected to the National 
 Assembly at Bordeaux. The town of Paris pays within four- 
 teen days a war-contribution of two hundred million francs 
 (8,000,000), During the armistice none of the public prop- 
 erty which might contribute to this payment, is to be removed. 
 During this time also the introduction of arms or ammunition 
 into Paris is forbidden. 
 
 Count Henckel and a French adjutant dined with us. The 
 latter whose full name is d'Herisson de Saulnier, wore a black 
 hussar's uniform, with yellow epaulets, and embroidery on the 
 fore arm. He is said to understand German and to speak it, 
 though the conversation, in which the Chief took an active part, 
 was carried on mostly in French. To-day, when Favre and the 
 General were not present the former was in the house but he 
 \vas so busy he had his dinner taken to him in the little draw- 
 ing-room the Frenchman was even more lively, sprightly and
 
 340 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 amusing than yesterday. For a long time he bore the -whole 
 burden of the conversation, telling us good stories and anecdotes 
 one after the other. He stated also, that the starvation in the 
 city had latterly been much felt, though he appeared to know 
 the cheerful, better than the serious aspect of it. He said that 
 the period in the fast which he had found most interesting was 
 when they "ate up the Jardin des Plantes." Elephant's flesh, 
 he told us, cost 9 francs the pound, and tasted like coarse beef. 
 Then there had been actually filet de cliameauandcdtelettes de tigre 
 on which, as on other points in his narrative, we made no 
 remarks. The dog's flesh market was set up in the Hue Saint- 
 Honore, and a pound cost about a shilling. There were hardly 
 any dogs now to be seen in Paris, and when one came round 
 the corner three or four people at once started off in chase. 
 The same with the cats. Whenever a pigeon was seen on a 
 roof the street was in a moment full of men anxious to catch it. 
 Only the carrier pigeons were spared. These carried the de- 
 spatches in the middle of their tail feathers, of which they 
 ought to have nine. If one had only eight, it was at once 
 said, " He is only a civilian, and he must go the way of all 
 flesh." A lady is supposed to have said, " I shall never eat 
 pigeon again ; I should always be feeling that I had swallowed 
 the letter carrier." 
 
 In return for these and other stories the Chief told him 
 various things that could not have been known of in the Paris 
 clubs and salons, and which he might like to hear, as, for in- 
 stance, the ordinary behavior of Rothschild in Ferrieres, and 
 the metamorphosis by which the Elector of Hesse had convert- 
 ed grandfather Amschel from a small Jew into a big one. 
 He called him repeatedly "Juif de la cour," and thereby hit off 
 a characteristic of the household Jews of the Polish nobility. 
 
 At tea the Chief afterwards remarked that Favre had admit- 
 ted to him to-day that he had acted a little rashly in the matter 
 of revictualling. He really did not know whether it would be 
 possible to provide the many hundred thousands of people in the 
 town with food in time. Somebody said, " Storch can hand 
 over some oxen and flour in case of need." " Yes," replied the 
 Chief, " that he must do, but he must see that we come to no 
 harm by it." Bismarck-Bohlen thought we need not give 
 them anything ; they might see for themselves where they 
 could get it, and so on. " What 1" said the Chief, " Do you 
 want, then, to let them starve]" "Certainly," said Bohlen.
 
 Minister Washburne. 341 
 
 "Then," said the Chief, "how should we manage to raise our 
 war contribution?' 
 
 In the course of further conversation he said : "Important 
 State business and negotiations with the enemy do not worry 
 me. If they make objections to my ideas and demands, even 
 when I am unreasonable, I take it calmly. But" the small 
 wrangling of mere land-lubbers in political affairs, and their 
 ignorance of what is or is not possible ! First comes one and 
 wishes this, then another who considers that indispensable. 
 When you have got rid of them, up comes a third, an adjutant 
 or adjutant-general, who says, 'But, your Excellency, that is 
 impossible/ or 'We must have that, else ' Why, yesterday they 
 actually wanted a clause which had never been discussed to be 
 inserted in a document already signed !" 
 
 Some one said that Rothschild had been supplied with a pass- 
 port, and wanted to be let out. Thereupon the Chief remarked, 
 " It would be a good thing to detain him as a Franc-tireur to 
 be reckoned among the prisoners of war." (To Keudell): "Just 
 find out about that." "Then Bleichroder will appear," cried 
 Bohlen, "and beg on his knees in the name of the entire 
 Rothschild family." Reference was then made to the surpris- 
 ing fact that an accurate resume of the convention signed yester- 
 day was already to be seen in* the Daily Telegraph. 
 
 Tuesday, January 31. In the morning I telegraphed various 
 small successes in the South-Eastern departments, where, by 
 agreement the armistice does not at present hold good. The 
 King of Sweden has delivered a warlike sounding speech from 
 the throne. Wherefore, ye gods ? I prepared two articles by 
 command of the Chief, and then a third, describing the suffer- 
 ings endured through the siege by a number of unoffending 
 German families, who for one cause or another had remained in 
 Paris during the siege ; and mentioning with praise the services 
 in alleviating the lot of these unfortunates rendered by Wash- 
 burne, the United States ambassador. His conduct in this 
 respect is really most worthy of our gratitude, and his subor- 
 dinates faithiully seconded his efforts. 
 
 The Parisian gentlemen are here again, with Favre, who is 
 urgently entreating Gambetta, by telegram, to give in. It is to 
 be feared that he will not do so. The Prefect of Marseilles at 
 least has mounted the high horse, and snorted down upon poor 
 Favre the patriotic speech: "Je n'obeis le capitule de Bismarck. 
 Jene le connais plus." ("I owe no obedience to the man who
 
 342 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 has capitulated to Bismarck ; I know him no longer.") Proud 
 and valiant ; but it is well to be far away from the firing. It 
 is not yet certain whether Bourbaki has shot or only wounded 
 himself : his army, however, is clearly in a bad way. It will 
 turn out to have been made up like the other creations of the 
 Dictator of Tours. 
 
 After ten o'clock the Chief came down and sat with us. He 
 began talking directly about the unpractical character of the 
 Frenchmen who had been working with him lately. Two Min- 
 isters Favre, and the Finance-Minister, Magnin, who had come 
 out with him this time had actually spent half an hour toiling 
 over a telegram. He then took occasion to speak of the French 
 generally, and the whole Latin race, and to compare them with 
 the German nations. " The Teutonic, or Germanic race," said 
 he, " is, so to speak, the masculine element, which goes all over 
 Europe and fructifies it. The Celtic and Slav peoples represent 
 the female sex. The former element extends up to the North Sea, 
 and across it to England." I ventured to say : " Even to 
 America ; to the Western States of the Union, where men of 
 our race are the best part of the population, and influence the 
 morale of the rest." "Yes; these are its children, its fruits," 
 replied he. We have already seen in France what the Franks 
 are worth. The Revolution in 1789 meant the overthrow of the 
 German element by the Celtic ; and what is the result 1 
 
 " In Spain, too, the Gothic blood long preponderated ; and 
 the same in Italy, where the Germans had also taken the lead 
 in the northern provinces. When that died away, farewell to 
 order. It was much the same in Russia, where the German 
 Warager, the Ruriks, first gathered. If the national party 
 were to overcome the Germans who have settled there, or those 
 who cross over from the Baltic provinces, the people would not 
 remain capable of an orderly constitution." " Certainly things 
 don't as a matter of course, go straight, even with full-blooded 
 Germans. In our South and West, for example, when they 
 were left to themselves there was nothing but Knights of the 
 Empire, Towns of the Empire, and Villages of the Empire, 
 each for itself, so that the whole thing went to pieces. The 
 Germans are all right when they are united by compulsion or 
 by anger then they are excellent, irresistible, invincible 
 otherwise every man ' gangs his ain gate.' " " After all, a 
 kindly, upright and sensibly-conducted absolutism is the best 
 form of government. Unless there is something of that kind
 
 The Beer-jug Story. 343 
 
 everything goes wrong ; one man wishes one thing, another 
 another, and there is perpetual hesitation, perpetual delay." 
 " But we have no longer any thorough-going Absolutists. They 
 have gone the species has died out." I took the liberty to 
 say, " Might I ask, your Excellency, whether there is any truth 
 in the story of the beer-jug, which you are supposed to have 
 broken in two over some one's head in a Berlin public-house, 
 because he had insulted the Queen, or had refused to drink to 
 her 1 ?" "Yes," replied he, "but the circumstances were differ- 
 ent, and there were no politics in the matter. I was going 
 home late one evening it must have been in the year 1847 
 when I met a man who had had too much, and wanted to pick a 
 quarrel with me. When I upbraided him. for his offensive 
 language I found he was an old acquaintance. I think it was 
 in the Jagerstrasse. We had not met for a long time, and 
 when he proposed to me to go to such-and-such a place I went 
 with Tn'm, though he had clearly had enough. After we had our 
 beer, however, he feel asleep. Well, near us was a party of 
 people, one of whom had also more than was good for him, as 
 was evident from his boisterous behavior. I was quietly drink- 
 ing my beer. My being so quiet vexed him, so he began to 
 taunt me. I sat still, and that made him only the more angry 
 and spiteful. He went on taunting me louder and louder. I 
 did not wish for ' a row/ but I would not go lest they should 
 think I was afraid. At last his patience seemed exhausted, 
 he came to my table and threatened to throw the jug of beer into 
 my face, and that was too much for me. I told him he must 
 go, and when he then made a gesture as if to throw it, I gave 
 him one under the chin, so that he measured his length on the 
 floor, smashed the stool and the glas?, and went clean to the 
 wall. The hostess came in, and I told her she might make 
 herself quite easy, as I would pay for the stool and glass. To 
 the company I said, 'You see, gentlemen, that I sought no 
 quarrel, and you are witnesses that I restrained myself as long 
 as I could, but I was not going to let him pour a glass of beer 
 over my head, because I had been quietly drinking mine. If 
 the gentleman has lost a tooth by it, I am sorry. But I acted 
 in self-defence. Should any one want more, here is my card.' 
 They turned out to be quite sensible people, who took -nuch 
 the same view of the matter as I did. They were indignant with 
 their comrade, and said I was right. I afterwards met two of 
 them at the Brandenburg Gate. ' You were present, gentle-
 
 344 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 men, I think,' said I, ' when I had the adventure in the beer- 
 house in the Jagerstrasse ? What became of your friend ? I 
 should be sorry if he sustained any injury.' They had been 
 obliged to carry him out. ' Oh,' said they, ' he is quite well 
 and lively, and his teeth, too, are all right again. He kept 
 very quiet, and was very sorry. He had just entered upon his 
 year's service as a doctor, and it would have been very unpleas- 
 ant for him had the affair come to the ears of people, especially 
 of his superiors.'" 
 
 The Chief then told us that, when a student in Gottingen, 
 he had twenty-eight duels in three terms, and had always come 
 well out of them. " But once," said I, " your Excellency got 
 hit. What was the name of the little Jlannoverian Bieden- 
 feld ?" " Biedenweg," he replied ; " and he was not little either, 
 but nearly as big as I was. But that only happened because 
 his sword-blade, which was probably screwed in badly, came off. 
 It flew into my face and stuck there. Otherwise I was never 
 once hit. Once, however, in Greifswald, I came near it. They 
 had introduced there a marvellous sort of head-dress like a 
 felt coffee-bag. They had broadswords too, to which I was not 
 accustomed. Now I had taken it into my head that I would 
 cut off the peak of my opponent's coffee-bag, and in so doing I 
 exposed myself, and his stroke whistled quite close to my face : 
 but I sprang back just in time." 
 
 Wednesday, February 1. The conversation at dinner turned 
 upon the story of the fortunes and development of the German 
 question. The Chief observed, " I remember, thirty or mor<- 
 years ago, in Gottingen, I made a bet with an. American as to 
 whether Germany would be united in twenty years. We wag- 
 ered five-and-twenty bottfes of champagne, which the man who 
 won was to stand, while the loser was to cross the sea for it. 
 He was against and I for the Unity. I thought of it in 1853, 
 and intended to go across. But upon inquiry I found he was 
 dead. He had just the sort of name which promised no length 
 of life Coffin ! The most remarkable thing is that I must at 
 that time, in 1833, already have had the ideas and hopes, which 
 now by God's help have been realized, although then my rela- 
 tions with the party that wished for Unity had only been 
 antagonistic." 
 
 The Chief lastly expressed his belief in the influence of tLe 
 Moon upon the growth of hair and of plants, and then pro- 
 ceeded to joke Abeken upon the excellence of his barber. "You
 
 Bismarck's Letter to Favre. 345 
 
 look quite young again, Mr. Privy Councillor," said he; 
 " would I were your wife ! You have had it cut just? at the 
 right time, when the moon was waxing. It is just so with 
 trees. If they are wanted to grow again, they are felled dur- 
 ing the first quarter ; if you wish to cut them clean away, you 
 do it when the moon is on the wane, and then the root decays 
 more quickly. There are people, scholars, who do not believe 
 this ; but the State itself acts on the belief, though it will not 
 openly confess it. No forester is allowed to fell a birch-tree, 
 which is to throw off suckers again, when the moon is waning." 
 
 Thursday, February 2. At dinner Odo Russell, and a tall, 
 strong young man in dark blue uniform, were our guests. The 
 latter, I was told, was Count Bray, son of .the Minister, and 
 formerly in the Bavarian Embassy at Berlin. The Chief said 
 to Russell, "The English papers, and some German ones too, 
 have found fault with my letter to Favre, and called it too harsh. 
 He himself does not seem to be of that opinion. He said to 
 me of his own accord, ' You have done right to remind me of 
 my duty. I ought not to go away before the end.' " After 
 praising this self renunciation, the Minister repeated that our 
 Parisians were unpractical people, and that we were continually 
 obliged to advise and assist them. He added, that they now 
 showed signs of wishing amendments in the Convention of 
 January 28. Outside the city of Paris very little willingness 
 to help in its re-provisioning was displayed. The directors of the 
 Rouen and Dieppe Rail way,f or instance, whose assistance had been 
 counted upon, said they were short of working stock, as their loco- 
 motives had been taken to pieces, and carried over to England. 
 Gambetta's action was still doubtful, though he seemed to be 
 thinking of continuing the war. It Was necessary that France 
 should soon have a regular Government. " If they do not soon 
 establish one," he went on, " we will give them a king. Every- 
 thing is ready for it. Amadeo, with a travelling-bag in his 
 hand, entered Madrid as King of Spain. Our King is coming 
 immediately with a train, with ministers, cooks, chamberlains, 
 and an army." 
 
 The conversation then turned upon the property of Napol- 
 eon, Avhich was very differently estimated, now as great, and 
 again as inconsiderable. Russell seemed to doubt whether he 
 had much. The Empress, at least, he thought, could not have 
 much, for she never had more than six thousand pounds de- 
 posited in the Bank of England. 
 23 .
 
 346 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 Touching upon the subject of public speaking, the Chief 
 said : *'The gift of oratory has ruined much in parliamentary 
 life. Time is wasted because every one who feels ability in 
 that line, must have his word, even if he has no new point to 
 bring forward. Speaking is too much in the air, and too little 
 to the point. Everything is already settled in committees : a 
 man speaks at length therefore only for the public, to whom he 
 wishes to show off as much as possible, and still more for the 
 newspapers, who are to praise him. Oratory will one day 
 come to be looked upon as a generally harmful quality, and a 
 man will be punished who allows himself to be guilty of a long 
 speech. We have one body," he continued, " which admits no 
 oratory, and has yet done more for the German cause than al- 
 most any other the Council of the Confederation. I remem- 
 ber that at first some attempts were made in that direction. 
 But I put a stop to them. 
 
 " I said to them something like this : ' Gentlemen, we have 
 nothing to do here with eloquence and speeches intended to 
 produce conviction, because everyone brings his conviction with 
 him in his pocket I mean, his instructions. It is so much 
 time lost. I propose that we confine ourselves here to the state- 
 ment of facts.' And so it was ; no one again made a long 
 speech. We get on so much the faster with our business ; and 
 the Council of the Confederation has really done a great deal." 
 Friday, February 8. About a quarter to four I was sent 
 for by the Chief. Gambetta has followed Laurier's example 
 and himself made a declaration which is thoroughly war- 
 like and despotic. Summoned to the Chief at eight 
 o'clock, I received instructions to send for insertion in the 
 Moniteur a copy of a Renter's telegram dated Bordeaux, 
 February 2. It ran thus : 
 
 " The journals La Libertt, La Patrie, Le Franpais, Le Con- 
 stitutionnel, L' Universel, Le Courrier de la Gironde et Provence, 
 publish a protest against the Manifesto issued by the Delega- 
 tion of Bordeaux on January 31st, restricting the freedom of 
 election. They say, that before publishing this protest they 
 considered it their duty to send three deputies to M. Jules 
 Simon, to ask whether there was not existing a proclamation 
 (.tearing upon the elections, which had been issued by the Par- 
 isian Government and published in the Journal Officiel. M. 
 J ules Simon answered, that this manifesto did exist, that it 
 bore date January 31st, and had been unanimously accepted by
 
 Condition of Free Elections. 347 
 
 the members of the Government ; and that in it there were no 
 restrictions on the liberty of election. The only point insisted 
 upon had been that prefects were not eligible in the provinces 
 where they exercised their functions.* The elections in Paris 
 have been fixed for February 5th ; in the provinces for February 
 8th. The Deputies are to meet on the 12th. The Journal 
 OJficiel, containing this proclamation, has been sent out, by or- 
 der of the Parisian Government, into all the Departments. 
 Jules Simon obtained a passport on January 31, and started off 
 on the same morning. On his arrival at Bordeaux he summon- 
 ed a meeting of the members of the Delegation, in order to ex- 
 plain fully to them the state of matters. At four o'clock in 
 the afternoon a long discussion took place. Jules Simon 
 declared to the representatives of the press that he was 
 prepared to stand by the proclamation of the Parisian 
 Government, and authorized them to publish this declaration. 
 The undersigned representatives of the press have therefore 
 only to wait the execution of the Parisian proclamation." Then 
 follow the signatures. Gambetta's dictatorship, then, has pro- 
 bably at last come to an end. His stubbornness has cut the 
 ground from beneath his feet. 
 
 I was once more summoned to the Chief. I telegraphed the 
 news of the successful battles of Manteufiel's southern army at 
 Pontarlier. We have taken there 15,000 French prisoners, 
 including two generals, nineteen guns and two eagles. 
 
 Saturday, February 4- The weather is warmer than yester- 
 day. In the morning I read the news and some drafts. I see 
 that the Chief has protested against Gambetta's Election Cir- 
 cular in a double way in a telegram addressed to himself, and 
 in a note to Favre. The former runs : "In the name of the 
 freedom of election guaranteed by the Armistice-Convention, I 
 protest against the instructions issued in your name, depriving 
 numerous classes of the French people of the right of election 
 to the Assembly. The rights, which are given in the armistice- 
 convention to freely-elected deputies, cannot be acquired 
 through elections carried on under the influence of oppression 
 and despotism." After briefly summarising the contents of 
 Gambetta's election-decree, the despatch of Favre proceeds : 
 " I take the liberty of putting to your Excellency the question 
 whether you consider this in accordance with the provision of 
 
 * The main heads of this manifesto have been given above.
 
 348 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 the convention, that the Assembly is to be constituted by free 
 election. Will your Excellency allow me to recall to your re- 
 collection the negotiations which preceded the convention. Even 
 then I expressed my fear that it would be found difficult under 
 existing conditions to secure full liberty of election, and to 
 prevent any attempt that might be made against it. Having 
 this fear which has now been justified by M. Gambetta's cir- 
 cular, I raised the question whether it would not be better to 
 summon the Legislative Body, which was a lawful authority, 
 elected by universal suffrage. Your Excellency declined this, 
 and gave me your express promise that no pressure should be 
 put upon the electors, and the fullest freedom of election should 
 be assured to them. I appeal to your Excellency's sense of 
 fairness in asking you whether you think the exclusion of whole 
 categories of candidates, declared fundamentally in the decree 
 now in question, is compatible with the liberty of election guar- 
 anteed in the convention of January 28th. I consider myself 
 entitled to express a confident hope that that decree, the appli- 
 cation of which would appear to contradict the provisions 
 of the Convention, will be immediately withdrawn, and that 
 the Government of National Defence will take such meas- 
 ures as will effectually guarantee the carrying out of the second 
 article of the convention, regarding the liberty of election. We 
 could not allow to persons elected according to the stipulations 
 of the Bordeaux Circular, the rights guaranteed to the deputies 
 of the National Assembly by the Armistice-Convention." 
 
 After ten the Chief sent for me, to say, " Here is a complaint 
 from Berlin that the English papers are far better informed than 
 ours, and that we communicated to our papers so little of the 
 negotiations for the armistice. How is this ?" " Well, your 
 Excellency," replied I, "it is because the English have more 
 money, to go everywhere and pick up information. And then 
 they are so well recommended to eminent personages, who tell 
 them about everything and, besides, the military are not always 
 quite close afloat things which ought to be kept secret. I could 
 only allow such of the negotiations for the Convention to be 
 published as it was proper should appear." " Well, then," said 
 he, "write, pray, on this subject, and say that circumstances, 
 and not we, are to blame." 
 
 I ventured then to congratulate him upon the announcement 
 of honorary citizenship, which he is said to have received lately, 
 and to remark that Leipzig was a good town, the best in Saxony,
 
 A Constitutional Barbarian. 349 
 
 and one that I had always held dear. " Yes," replied he, " an 
 honorary citizen I am a Saxon, now, and a Hamburger, too, 
 for I have one from there also. That could not have been hoped 
 for in 1866." 
 
 I was going, when he said, " That reminds me it is one of 
 the marvels of this time write, please, something in detail upon 
 the singular fact that Gambetta, who has so long had the char- 
 acter of representing liberty, and of fighting against the influence 
 of Government in the elections, now, when he is himself in power, 
 authorizes the most flagrant encroachments upon freedom of elec- 
 tion, and is debarring from the privilege of being elected all 
 whom he believes not to hold his own views that is, the whole 
 of official France, with the exception of thirteen republicans. 
 That I should have to restore to the French their liberty of 
 election, in opposition to this Gambetta and his accomplice and 
 confederate, Garibaldi, is another wonderful thing." I said, 
 " I do not know whether it was intentional, but in your protest 
 to Gambetta it had a very strange effect : the contrast between 
 the sentence where ' in the name of the freedom of election ' 
 you guarded yourself against 'the directions issued in your 
 (Gambetta's) name for depriving numerous classes of the right 
 of election.' Might that be pointed out V " Yes," said he ; 
 "pray do so." "You may also," he added, smiling, "remind 
 people that Thiers, after his negotiations with me, called me an 
 amiable barbarian. They now call me in Paris a shrewd bar- 
 barian ('im barbare astutieitx'), next time I shall probably be 
 the constitutional barbarian." 
 
 The Chief rode out about one o'clock, but was " caught " 
 after all by Favre, who came in in the meantime, and worked 
 with him up in the little drawing-room. 
 
 Prince Putbus and Count Lehndorff were present at dinner. 
 The Chief told us first that he had called Favre's attention also 
 to the remarkable fact that he, who was decried as the despotic 
 and tyrannical Count von Bismarck, had been obliged to pro- 
 test, in the name of freedom, against the proclamation of 
 Gambetta, the advocate of freedom, who wished to deprive 
 many hundreds of his countrymen of eligibility, and all of 
 freedom of election. He added that Favre had acknowledged 
 this with a " oui, c'est bien drole." However, the restrictions 
 upon free election, authorised by Gambetta, had been by this 
 time withdrawn and repealed by the Parisian part of the 
 French Government. " He told me so," said he, " this morn-
 
 350 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 ing by letter (that which was brought by the officers of the 
 National Guard), and has now confirmed it by word of mouth." 
 
 It was then mentioned that several German papers had been 
 discontented with the Capitulation, having expected our troops 
 to march at once into Paris. Thereupon the Chief remarked : 
 " That arises from total ignorance of the situation here and in 
 Paris. I might have arranged it with Favre, but the popula- 
 tion They had strong barricades, and 300,000 men, of 
 whom certainly 100,000 would have fought. Enough blood 
 German blood has been shed in this war. If we had tried to 
 use force, far more would have been spilt in the irritation of 
 the inhabitants. Merely to inflict another hnmiliation upon 
 them, it would have been bought too dear." After a little 
 meditation he went on, " And who told them we should not 
 still march in and occupy a part of Paris 1 Or at least march 
 through, when they have cooled down and listened to reason. 
 The Armistice will probably have to be prolonged, and in re- 
 turn for this concession, we can demand to occupy Paris on the 
 right bank. I think we shall be there in some three weeks." 
 " The 24th "he thought a little " yes, it was a 24th when 
 the Constitution of the North German Confederation was pro- 
 claimed. It was on the 24th of February, 1859, that we lived 
 to see a shameful event in Frankfort. I told them at the 
 time that they would be paid out for it. You will soon see. 
 Exoriare aliquis I am only sorry that the Wiirtemberger 
 (the ambassador of the Diet), old Reinhart has not lived to see 
 it. But Prokesch has, I am glad to say, who was the worst. 
 He is now quite at one with us, praises the energetic and 
 spirited policy of Prussia, and always" (here the Minister 
 Ian eh ed ironically) " or long ago, at least, recommended Union 
 with us." 
 
 The Chief then mentioned that he had been to-day at Mont 
 Yalerien. " I was never there before," said he, " and when 
 one sees the strong earthworks and numerous provisions for 
 defence we should have left many men lying there if we had 
 attempted to storm it ; I cannot think of it." 
 
 He next informed us that Favre had to-day come over to ask 
 us to let out of Paris the crowds of country people who took 
 refuge in the town in September. They were mostly people 
 from the suburbs, and must number about 300,000. "I 
 refused him," he went on ; " giving him for answer, ' Our 
 soldiers are occupying their houses, and if the possessors come
 
 Favre's Letter to Bismarck. 351 
 
 out and see how their property has been carried off and ravaged 
 they will be furious (and I cannot blame them), and tax our 
 people with it ; and that might lead to awkward scuffles, and 
 perhaps something worse.' " He then recurred to his excursion 
 to Saint-Cloud and Suresnes, and said incidentally : " When I 
 was looking at the place in the castle where the fire was, and 
 thinking of the room where I had dined with the Emperor, a 
 well-dressed gentleman, who had probably come from Paris, 
 was there, being taken about by a man in a blouse. I could 
 easily make out what they were saying, for they spoke loudly, 
 and I have good ears. ' C'est I' ceuvre de Bismarck' said the man 
 in the blouse. But the other only answered : ' C'est la guerre.' 
 If they had known that I heard them ! " 
 
 From eight o'clock I read drafts and letters, including 
 Favre's answer to the Chief's inquiry about Gambetta's election 
 manoeuvre. It runs thus : 
 
 " You are right to appeal to my sense of justice, in which 
 you will never find me wanting. It is quite true that your 
 Excellency urged me strongly to adopt as the only possible 
 expedient the summoning of the former Legislative Body. I 
 declined this on several grounds, which I need not recall, but 
 which you have certainly not forgotten. In answer to the remon- 
 strances of your Excellency, I said that I believed myself suf- 
 ficiently sure of my country to be able to assert that its only 
 wish is for free election, and that the principle of the Sovereignty 
 of the people is its only resource. That will be enough to 
 show you that I cannot agree to the restriction which has been 
 laid on the elector's right of voting. 
 
 " I have not fought against the system of official candida- 
 tures, to re-introduce it for the benefit of the present Govern- 
 ment. Your Excellency may therefore rest assured that if the 
 decree, of which you speak, has been issued by the delegation 
 at Bordeaux, it will be recalled by the Government of National 
 Defence. I only ask to be allowed to procure for myself an 
 official assurance of the existence of this decree, which I can 
 do by a telegram to be despatched to-day. Accordingly there 
 is no difference of opinion between us, and we must work each 
 with the other for the execution of the convention we have 
 signed." 
 
 At nine o'clock I am .called to the Chief, who wishes an 
 article written to the effect that the entry of our troops is im- 
 practicable just now, but possible later on. It was a criticism
 
 352 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 of the armistice in the National Zeltung, which suggested 
 this. 
 
 Sunday, February 5. A milder day ; the spring seems 
 already drawing near. In the morning I worked diligently. 
 The Chiefs guests at dinner are Favre, d'Herisson, and the 
 Director of the Western Railway, a man apparently about 
 thirty-six years old, with a broad, jolly-looking, laughing 
 countenance. Favre, who sits at the upper end of the table, 
 looks anxious, harrassed, and depressed, hangs his head on 
 one side or by way of a change upon his breast, drops his 
 under-lip. When he is not eating he folds his hands upon the 
 table-cloth, in token of his submission to the will of fate, or 
 crosses his arms like the first Napoleon, to show that on a. 
 closer consideration of matters he still feels like himself. Dur- 
 ing dinner the Chief speaks only French, and mostly in s 
 subdued voice. I was too .far off to be able to follow him 
 distinctly. 
 
 In the evening I am several times sent for by the Chief, and 
 various matters are prepared for the press. The four members 
 of the Bordeaux Delegation have, we learn by telegraph, issued 
 a proclamation confirming Gambetta's decree about the elec- 
 tions. It is stated therein that Jules Simon, member of the 
 Parisian Government, has brought news to Bordeaux of an 
 election decree, which does not tally with that issued by the 
 Government in Bordeaux. The Government in Paris had been 
 shut up for four months, and cut off from all connection with 
 public opinion ; nay more, they are at the present time in the 
 position of prisoners of war. There is nothing against the 
 supposition that, had they been better informed, they would 
 have acted in accord with the government in Bordeaux ; and as 
 little to prove that, when they gave Jules Simon orders to see 
 after the elections, they would have expressed themselves in 
 unqualified and offensive terms against the ineligibility of cer- 
 tain persons. The Bordeaux government therefore considers 
 itself bound to abide by its election decree ; and, in spite of 
 the interference of Count Bismarck in the internal affairs of the 
 country, maintains its position in the name of the honor and the 
 interests of France. 
 
 An open quarrel has thus been introduced in the ememy's 
 camp, and Gambetta's retirement may be looked for at any 
 moment. The Parisian Government, in a proclamation to the 
 French on the 4th, which appears in the Journal Officiel, and
 
 Bordeaux and Pan*. 353 
 
 will be printed in the Moniteur, has branded Gambetta as " un- 
 just and foolhardy " (si injuste et si temeraire), and then 
 declared : ' We have summoned France to the free election of 
 an Assembly, which shall make known her wishes at this ex- 
 treme crisis. We recognise no man's right to force a decision 
 upon the country, whether it be for peace or for war. A 
 nation which is assailed by a powerful foe, fights to the uttter- 
 most, but retains the right of judging at what moment resistance 
 oeases to be possible. This, then, is what the country will 
 decide when questioned as to its destiny. In order that its 
 vail may be imposed on all as recognised law, we need the 
 sovereign expression of the free votes of all. We do not admit 
 fcbat arbitrary restrictions can be put upon the voting. We 
 have overcome the Empire and its practices, and we do not 
 intend to begin them over again by introducing the expedient of 
 an official exclusion of candidates. Nothing is more true than 
 that great mistakes have been made, entailing severe responsi- 
 bilities, but all this is hidden by the misfortunes of the country. 
 Should we condescend to the rdle of partisans, by pointing the 
 finger at our former opponents, we should bring upon ourselves 
 the pain and the disgrace of punishing men who are fighting 
 and shedding their blood in our cause. To remember past 
 dissensions at the moment when masses of the enemy are in 
 occupation of our blood-drenched soil, is so far to injure the 
 great work of delivering our country. We place our principles 
 above these expedients. We do not wish the first proclama- 
 tion summoning the Republican Assembly in the year 1871, to 
 be an act of disrespect to the electors. To them belongs the 
 ultimate decision ; let them give it without weakness, and our 
 country may be saved. The Government of National Defence 
 rejects, therefore, the illegally-issued decree of the Bordeaux 
 Delegation, and declares it, as far as is necessary, null and 
 void ; and it calls upon all Frenchmen without distinction to 
 give their votes for such representatives as seem to them best 
 fitted to defend France." 
 
 At the same time to-day's Journal Officiel publishes the fol 
 lowing proclamation : " The Government of National Defence, 
 in regard to a decree dated January 31st, issued by the Delega- 
 tion in Bordeaux, in which various classes of citizens, who are 
 eligible according to the Government decree of January 29, 
 1871, are declared ineligible, gives notice as follows : 'The 
 before-mentioned decree issued by the Bordeaux Delegation is
 
 354 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 annulled. The decrees of January 29, 1871, remain in full 
 force throughout.' " 
 
 Monday, February 6. Mild weather. In the morning the 
 Chief wishes an article written against Gambetta. 
 
 In the evening I drew up a paragraph upon the Times tele- 
 gram from Berlin, to the efiect that at the conclusion of peace 
 we shall demand from the French twenty ironclads, the colony 
 of Pondicherry, and ten Milliards of francs as war indemnity. 
 I described it as a downright invention, which one could hardly 
 imagine would have been believed or would have given anxiety 
 in England ; and I indicated the source from which it was pro- 
 bably derived the brain of some clumsy person in the diplo- 
 matic world, who wishes us ill and is spinning intrigues against 
 us. 
 
 General von Alvensleben, Count Herbert, and Bleichroder, 
 the banker, dine with us. There is nothijig remarkable in the 
 conversation, the Chief speaking mostly in a low voice to 
 Alvensleben. I feel exhausted, probably on account of my sit- 
 ting up every night over my journal. I must stop it or cut it 
 shorter. There is to-day a fine additional trait to be noted in 
 Gambetta's activity. The Soir states, that some days after the 
 last sortie of the Parisians the following despatches were pub- 
 licly posted up by the Dictator's orders in all the country com- 
 munes not occupied by us : 
 
 "Three days' battle! On the 17th, 18th, and 19th, Wednes- 
 day, Thursday, and Friday. On the last day, Friday, a 
 magnificent sortie ; 200,000 men, the troops commanded by 
 Trochu, broke through Saint-Cloud and over the heights of 
 Garches. The Prussians were driven out of the park of Saint- 
 Cloud, where terrible slaughter took place. The French forced 
 their way up to the toll-gate of Versailles. Result : 20,000 
 Prussians hors de combat, all their works destroyed, their guns 
 taken, spiked or thrown into the Seine. The National Guard 
 fought in the van." If Gambetta talks like this of Paris, where 
 his statements can easily be checked, what fictions may he not 
 have imposed upon the provincials ! 
 
 Thursday, February 9. To-day, for once in a way, the 
 Parisians did not come. In the morning I read the text of the 
 address, with which Gambetta, at 6 P.M., took his leave of the 
 French people. It runs 
 
 " My conscience obliges me to resign my office as member of 
 a government whose views or hopes I am no longer able to
 
 Gambetta's Resignation. 355 
 
 share. I have the honor to inform you that I hav to-day sent 
 in my resignation. I thank you for the patriotic and indul- 
 gent support I have always received from you when it was a 
 question of carrying to a satisfactory conclusion the task I had 
 undertaken, and I beg to be allowed to tell you that my deeply- 
 formed conviction is, that considering the short notice and the 
 grave interests which are at stake, you will do a great service 
 to the Republic, if you take in hand the elections on the 8th of 
 February, and reserve to yourselves the right of coming after this 
 period to such conclusions as become you. I pray you to accept 
 the expression of my fraternal sentiments." 
 
 The Chief rode out to-day before two o'clock with Count 
 Herbert, and a young lieutenant of the body-guard, the son of 
 his cousin Bismarck-Bohlen (who is Governor-General in Elsass). 
 He did not come back till after five. Of the conversation at 
 dinner, where both these gentlemen were present, the following 
 is noteworthy. The Chancellor, speaking again of the Paris 
 contribution, said, " Stosch told me he could use fifty millions 
 in bank notes to make payments inside France for provisions 
 and the like. But the other hundred and fifty must be funded 
 in due course." Speaking afterwards of the fable of our think- 
 ing of taking possession of Pondicherry, after giving other ex- 
 planations of this clumsy invention, he said, " I want no 
 colonies. They are good for nothing but supply stations. For 
 us in Germany, this colonial business would be just like the 
 silken sables in the noble families of Poland, who have no 
 shirts to their backs." He added further remarks in the same 
 sense. 
 
 In the evening the Chief sent me for consideration a very 
 confused and wrong-headed letter from Jacoby, teeming with 
 slanders and misrepresentations, in La France.
 
 356 Bismarck in the Franco-German TFor. 
 
 CHAPTER XVIH. 
 
 FROM OAMBETTA'S RETIREMENT TO THE CONCLUSION OP 
 PEACE PRELIMINARIES. 
 
 SATURDAY, February 11. Fine bright weather. In the 
 morning I read newspapers, and especially certain pro- 
 ceedings of the English Parliament down to the end of last 
 month. It would seem as if our good friends across the Chan- 
 nel were seriously leaning to the French side, and were not in- 
 disposed to interefere once more, so that an Anglo-French 
 alliance might possibly come to pass. 
 
 Count Henckel and Bleichroder were the strangers present at 
 dinner. It was mentioned that Scheidtmann, in his dealings 
 with the French financiers, had used expressions about them 
 that were more forcible than complimentary, not knowing that 
 some of the gentlemen understood German. The Chief, speak- 
 ing of the insolence of the Parisian papers, who behaved just as 
 if the town were not in our hands, said, " If this goes on, they 
 must be told plainly that we will put up with it no longer ; it 
 must cease, or we will throw in a few shells from the forts in 
 answer to their articles." 
 
 It was mentioned that the French were carrying on all kinds 
 of smuggling in the provisioning of Paris. It was not from 
 pride that they had not availed themselves of our contributions, 
 but simply because nothing was to be made out of them. This 
 
 extends even to the Government circles, as during these 
 
 few days has made 700,000 francs by the purchase of sheep. 
 " We must let them see that we are aware of this,'' said the 
 Chief, glancing at me ; "it will do us a turn in the peace ne- 
 gotiations." It was attended to at once. 
 
 In the evening I prepared several articles by the Chief's 
 instructions. We ought no longer to allow the shamelessness 
 of the Paris journalists. It passes the bounds of endurance,
 
 Pans Neivspapers on the Germans. 357 
 
 and the limits of reasonable toleration, when the French press 
 presumes to mock and insult us to our faces, their conquerors, 
 before the walls of their capital, which is wholly in our power. 
 Besides, their lies and insults are hindrances to the conclusion 
 of peace, by embittering both sides and delaying the approach 
 of a calmer state of feeling. This behavior could not have 
 been foreseen at the conclusion of the Armistice-Convention ; 
 and in the case of a prolongation of the armistice, which may 
 be necessitated by this delay, we shall be obliged to consider 
 what means there are of effectually preventing further insults. 
 The best means would undoubtedly be the occupation of the 
 city itself by our troops. 
 
 Sunday, February 12. We learn by telegraph that Napoleon 
 has issued a proclamation to the French. The telegram is to be 
 printed in our paper to-day. The Chief seems to be unwell. He 
 does not come to dinner. Abeken therefore takes the chair, in 
 virtue of the position he delights to feel that he occupies in the 
 office, of Vice-Secretary of State. The entry into Paris is spoken 
 of as inevitable, and the old gentleman wishes to ride in the train 
 of the Emperor. He intends, therefore, to send for his three- 
 cornered hat from Berlin : " It would never do to put on a 
 helmet for the occasion," said he; "although, when one comes 
 to think of it, Wilmowski has one." Hatzfeld thought that a 
 Greek helmet with big white feathers would look fine. "Or 
 one with a visor, that could be dropped at the moment of the 
 entry," put in another guest. Bohlen finally proposed a velvet 
 cloth, trimmed with gold lace, for the Privy Councillor's gray 
 horse. He took all these quizzing suggestions as put forward 
 quite seriously for discussion. 
 
 Wednesday, February 22. The Assembly in Bordeaux shows 
 an intelligent regard for the situation which the last four weeks 
 have produced. They have turned out Gambetta and elected 
 Thiers as Chief of the Executive Power, and spokesman for 
 France in the Peace negotiations, which began here yesterday. 
 A propos of this, the Chief said yesterday at dinner, where 
 Henckel was present, " If they gave a Milliard more, we might 
 perhaps let them have Metz. We would then take eight hun- 
 dred million francs, and build ourselves a fortress a few miles 
 further back, somewhere about Falkenberg, or towards Saar- 
 briicken there must be some suitable spot thereabouts. We 
 should thus make a clear profit of two hundred millions. 
 
 Generals Von Kamecke and Von Treskow were our guests
 
 358 Bismarck in the Franco-German War. 
 
 to-day. The Chief told us of his second interview to-day with 
 Thiers. " When I demanded that of him " (I missed hearing 
 what), " though he is usually well able to control himself, he 
 rose to his full height and said, ' Mais c' est une indignite/' 
 (That is an indignity !) I would not allow myself to make a 
 blunder, but I spoke to him in German after this. He listened 
 for a time, and probably did not know what to make of it. 
 Then he began in a querulous tone, ' But M. le Comte, you are 
 aware that I know no German.' I replied to him this time 
 in French, "When you spoke just now of "indignity," I 
 found that I did not understand French sufficiently, so I pro- 
 ceeded to speak German, where I know both what I say and 
 what I hear.' He at once caught my meaning, and as a con- 
 cession wrote out what I had proposed, and what he had form- 
 erly considered an indignity. 
 
 " ' And yesterday,' he went on, ' he spoke of Europe as likely 
 to step in if we did not abate our demands.' I answered him, 
 ' If you speak to me of Europe, I speak to you of Napoleon.' 
 He would not believe in this : ' From him there was nothing to 
 fear.' But I proved to him that he must think of the plebis- 
 cite, the peasantry, and the officers and soldiers. The Guard 
 could regain their old position only under the Emperor, and, 
 with a little address, it would not be hard for him to get for 
 himself a hundred thousand of the soldiers who were prisoners 
 in Germany. Then all we had to do was to let them go armed 
 across the frontier, and France would be his again. If they 
 would grant no good terms of peace, we would, in the end, put 
 up even with an Orleans prince, though we knew that with 
 them the war would break out again in two or three years. If 
 not, we would interfere, which we have hitherto avoided doing, 
 and they would get Napoleon again.' That must have made 
 an impression upon him ; for to-day, when he was going once 
 more to speak about Europe, he pulled himself up suddenly 
 and said, ' I beg your pardon.' He pleases me, however, very 
 much ; he has a fine intellect, good manners, and can teH a 
 story very agreeably. I was often sorry for him, too, for he is 
 in a bad position. But all that cannot help him." 
 
 The Chancellor came afterwards to speak of the conversation 
 he had had with Thiers about the cost of the war, and said, 
 " His idea throughout was to agree to a war indemnity of only 
 1,500 millions, for it could not be believed what the war had 
 cost them ; and besides, everything that had been supplied
 
 The War Indemnity. S5i 
 
 to them had been bad. If a soldier only tripped and fell down, 
 his breeches were at once torn, so wretched had been the cloth. 
 The same with the shoes with the pasteboard soles, as wel 1 
 as the arms, especially those from America. I replied, Yes 
 but just suppose that a man were to attack and try to flog you, 
 and after having beaten him off, you came to settle with him 
 and demand reparation, what would yu answer were he tc 
 appeal to you with ' You must take into consideration that the 
 rods with which I tried to beat you cost me a lot of money and 
 were so badly made 1' Besides, there is a very considerable 
 difference between 1,500 and 6,000 millions." 
 
 Thursday, February 23. We are to keep Metz. The Chief 
 announced this distinctly to-day at dinner. Belfort, on the 
 other hand, there seems no desire to keep. The entry of a part 
 of our army into Paris is now quite decided. 
 
 Friday, February 24- In the morning we had the brightest 
 and loveliest spring weather, and the garden behind the house 
 was filled with the twitter of birds. Thiers and Favre were 
 here from one till half -past five. When they were gone the 
 Due de Mouchy and Comte de Gobineau called to complain, 
 they said, of oppression on the part of the German prefects, like 
 the one in Beauvais, who is apparently governing harshly, oj 
 at least not with winning mildness. 
 
 Saturday, February 25. Again unpleasant news froir 
 Bavaria. Odo Russell is supposed to have called in the course 
 of the day, but not to have presented himself to the Chief. 
 This has led to people saying that England intends to interfere 
 in the peace negotiations.* In the evening there is a rumor that 
 the war indemnity to be paid by the French has been reduced 
 from 6000 to 5000 million francs, and that the preliminaries 
 of peace will probably be signed to-morrow, the consent of the 
 National Assembly in Bordeaux being alone wanting. Metz is 
 handed over. Our soldiers are to enter Paris next Wednesday, 
 in order to occupy, to the number of 30,000 men, that part of 
 the inner town which lies between the Seine, the Rue du Fau- 
 bourg Saint-Honore, and the Avenue des Ternes, until the 
 National Assembly has declared its concurrence in the prelim- 
 inaries of peace. This will undoubtedly come soon, and so we 
 may turn our faces homewards in the first week of March. 
 
 * The Chancellor told me later, that on March 4th, they had only at- 
 tempted it in regard to the money question, when it was to late.
 
 360 Bismarck in the Franco- German War. 
 
 Wednesday, March 1. In the morning I went out to the 
 bridge of boats at Suresnes, and across to the grassy plain of 
 Longchamps, as far as the Bois de Boulogne, and looked on 
 from the roof of the half-ruined View-house of the racecourse 
 at the review which the Emperor is holding of the troops which 
 are to enter Paris. There were Bavarian regiments among 
 them. They say that the Guard is to go home to-morrow. At 
 dinner, where the Wurtemberg Minister von Wachter and 
 Mittnacht joined us, the Chief told us he had ridden into Paris, 
 and been recognised by the populace. No demonstration, how- 
 ever, had taken place against him. One person, who threw at 
 him a very sinister glance, and up to whom he accordingly rode 
 to ask for a light, readily complied with his request. 
 
 Thursday, March 2. Favre comes as early as half-past seven 
 in the morning, and wishes to be announced to the Chief. 
 Wollmann, however, refuses to wake him, and his Parisian 
 Excellency is much put out. Favre has to communicate the 
 news received during the night that the National Assembly in 
 Bordeaux has assented to the Peace Preliminaries, and he wish- 
 es therefore to claim the evacuation of Paris, and of the forts 
 on the left bank of the Seine, a request which he left in the 
 form of a letter. 
 
 Monday, March 6. A beautifully fine morning. Thrushes 
 and finches warble the signal for our departure. We must 
 breakfast at the Sabot d'Or, for all our plate is already packed 
 up. About one o'clock the carriages are put into motion, and 
 we pass with a light heart out of the gate through which we 
 entered five months ago, by way of the Villa Coublay, Villen- 
 euve Saint-Georges, Charenton, and the pheasantry, to Lagny, 
 which we reached after seven o'clock, taking up our quarters 
 in two summer-houses on the right bank of the Marne, about 
 three hundred paces beyond the fallen bridge. 
 
 From Lagny we went next day by express train to Metz, which 
 we entered late in the evening. The next morning we again 
 took train to go by way of Saarbriicken and Kreuznach to 
 Mainz, and thence to Frankfort. From this city, though we 
 reached it late in the evening, we went on still further in the 
 night, and by the next morning at half -past seven we were in 
 Berlin, from which I had been absent exactly seven months. It 
 was clear, on consideration, that as much as was possible had 
 been done in the interval.
 
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