Bismarck in the Franco-German war, 1870-1871

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BISMARCK

FRANCO-GERMAN WAR,

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BISMARCK

FRANCO-GERMAN WAR

1870-1871

UTHORISED TRANSLATION FROM THE GERMAN OF

DR. MORITZ BUSCH.

PRESERyATlON
SERVICES

MAY 2 2 1987

DATE

(ABRI )GED,)

CHICAGO :
BELFORDS, CLARKE & CO.

MDOCCLXXIX.

CONTENDS

CHAPTER I.

PA.GE.

Departure of the Chancellor — I follow him to Saarbi-ucken — Journey
continued to the French frontier — The mobilised Foreign .
Office 9

CHAPTER II.

From the frontier to Gravelotte 17

CHAPTER III.

Commercy — Bar-le-Duc — Clermont in Argonne 35

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.

TAG

bnight in Rothschild's

94

I ' AGK

Bismarck and Favre in Haute-Maison— A fortnight in Roth.child's
ChS,teau

CHAPTER VIII.

The Journey to Versailles—The House of Madame Jess«^— Our usual

Life there ^20

CHAPTER IX.
Autumn Days in Versailles . 128

CHAPTER X.
Thiers and the First Negotiations for an Armistice .... 155

CHAPTER XI.

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 XIII.

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 28 ..

CONTENTS. ^-j

CHAPTER XVI.

Page.

The Last Weeks before the Capitulation of Paris .... 310

329

CHAPTER XVII.

Negotiations for the Capitulation of Paris

CHAPTER XVIII.

From Gambetta's Retirement to the Conclusion of the Peace Pre-
liminaries

356

BISMARCK

IN THE

FRANCO-GERMAN WAR.

CHAPTER I.

DEPARTURE OF THE CHANCELLOR 1 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 w^ere 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

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-
patience 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
Boon to serve as a volunteer in a cavalry regiment, for which
purpose he had brought his horse with him. . The train being
now brought to a stand in consequence of the many others
blocking up the line in front of us, we drove across the plain,
by 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 ISTeustadt 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 ai-tillery,
were marching along, singing the while :

"Red dawn that lights me to my early grave."

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 baggage 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
liouse, where, in the ante-room, I presented myself to the
Chancellor, who was just coming out of his own room on his
Avay 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 secret cipher to one
of the experts, that we on our sic^e should not be content with
the mere overthrow of Napoleon.

It seemed like a miracle ! Strassburg ! Perhaps the
Vosges ! Who could have even dreamed of this three weeks
ago?

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 BisTnarck in the Franco-German War.

cillors, as I always did afterwards, whenever those gentlemen
rode 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 Leverstriim in a
similar capacity, the " black horseman," so well known in the
streets of Berlin as a government courier. 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. Biilsing, 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
cross 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 was
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 ofi* 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 dress. 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 Minister 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. It 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. 16

Afterwards he went to work again till dinner at jGlve or six
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-stocked 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. For 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 gentlemen,
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-ej)ee. 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.

Forhach. 17

CHAPTER 11.

FROM 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 Ave 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- A void, 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 long way, 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-Oerman 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 ofi"."

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, l)ut the conversation turned on the question,

Dining with the Count 19

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
sacritice 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 Niobe'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 qiios ego /'^ He did not, however, say this.

20 Bismarck in the Franco- German War.

After dinner we 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 Yosges 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 get 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 IJ/..- — 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, f6ste 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 Jb^Tieken. 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 wchool, and of houses mostly crowded close to-
gether, looking at the back into the little railway station. In
that we found a great deal of wanton destruction, papers scat-
tered about, books, torn up, and such like. Near 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,
Jiad not joined a regiment, in order to atone for his stupidity.

22 Bismarck in the Franco-Oerraan War.

He certainly was big and strong 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
us, but these last few days its circulation had, according to the
Constitutionnsl, 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 1 864 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 ofi" 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 liim 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 E-eichstag ; 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 and 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

Vi^io di Geriisalemme, 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 Spanisli
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 inhabitants
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 learnt 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 have
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 meant
the dark green riflemen, or the 108th regiment, with the 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 the
measured tread of infantry marching through, and the rolling
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 soldiers.
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 AUBERT'S EPITAPH ON HIS DOG.

Ici tu gis, ina vieille amie,

Tu n'es done plus pour mes vieux jours,

O toi, ma Diane ch^rie,

Je te pleurerai tou jours.

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 sick. " 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, Forsyth e, 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 16th, 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 goin^ on, we started to walk in the direction of Metz, 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 Bismarch 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?' "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 Yionville. 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
Cross 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 ditch, a
man's leg which had been cut off lay under a mass of bloody
rags. About four hundred paces from the village 1 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,
"Red-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 Keudell, 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 R-ezonville. While the battle of the 18th
was raging, the decisive struggle taking place on Gravelotte,
Bismarck had advanced with the King rather too far, and foi*
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 ; Bahden (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 Yerdun ; 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 Sheridaii. 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 his 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 Dame nearly twelve
hundred prisoners on foot, and amongst them two carriages
with officers, guarded by Prussian cavalry. In the evening,
Sheridan, Forsythe, 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 1" 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 agi'eeable ; 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 Hocky 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," he 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 Yerdy 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, Wiirtemburg,
and the other countries on the south-west, must not again be
threatened from Strassburg and overrun at pleasure. It is the

The Object to he secured. 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 south-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 XI Y. — 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 1
Our victory at Koniggratz filled the French with aversion, hatred
and bitter vexation ; how much more effect will our victories at
Worth 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 guahing, 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 Vienna 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 jjromote 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 oi 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

Thiers Predictions concerning France. 35

CHAPTER III.

COMMERCY BAR-LE-DUC CLERMONT IN ARGONNE.

TUESDAY, 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 Napoleon 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-Oermxin 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 coUonade 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 doors was to be seen "Fabrique
de Madeleines." These are biscuits in the shape of little melons,
which 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. ifl

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 aa 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. We are
by no means at the end 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 ?
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 peace with the Or-
leanist family reseated on the throne of France would be, with-
out any doubt, far more delusive than a peace with Napoleon,
who has had enough to do with glory. Sooner or later, we
should be again challenged by France, when France probably
would be better armed, and more secure of powerful alliances."

Three reserve armies are to be formed in Germany : one,
the strongest, at Berlin; another on the Rhine, and a third —
on account of Austria's suspicious attitude — in Selesia at Glo-
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 Canstien, and those at
Glogan by General von Lowenfield.

Towards evening the military band played before the house
of the King, who had been quartered in Commercy during the
war of Liberation, and the street boys were quite pleased 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 marched for several hours

The Francs-tireurs. 39

past the Commander-in-Chief of the German armies. As they
marched 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
1866, or even three months ago, would have thought it pos-
sible ?

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 stall*, was one of the guests. (Vide note 1, at end of

40 Bismarck in the Framco-GerTnan 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 V "

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
then 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-Pierre. 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 once 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 afterwards 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

42 Bismarck in the Franco-GerTnan 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 p^Jaying hazard.
A general had wanted a private carriage, as proper for his
rank, and had behaved in a very unseemly way 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
tous pendits ; vous TbHes i^as 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 we 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, a ad the
most important dispatches, instructions, telegrams and 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 stafl", was established ; and
there quartermasters and soldiers wrote on the school tables
and the masters' desks. On the walls were difierent kinds
of apparatus for teaching, on one were maps and sentences and
a black-board for teaching arithmetic, on the other ah advice
most applicable to these bad times : ^^ Faites-vous une etude de
la patieiice et sachez ceder i^ar 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 it at once, in a corner near the
door. The 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
thinors. 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 place here.
Whereupon they got a cask of wine, which they drank in the
chapel, after which they had dancing and singing. Suddenly

The Dog and 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. ' G'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, ^&esi le langage de Monsieur de Bismarck P
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 ridiculed 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 line, soft
rain was falling 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

46 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 Fall Mall Gazette. Then I
wished to get from the Saxons some details of the 18th, but at
first J could only find single soldiers who had no time to tell
me anything. At last, by chance, I came upon one of the
Landwehr ofiiccrs, 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 ofiScers. This was 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 Youssieres 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 XIY.
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. Tlie 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 Vienna for this self-
denial 1 Are they not full there of bitter feelings of revenge,
simply because they were beaten 1 And further, the French
growled at us from envy because of Koniggriitz, 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 sufiered 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 gives 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 Avho 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-Oerman 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 fullil 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 inhabitants 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 frontier,
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 power.

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 the following may refer to our stay in Bar-le-
Duc. Charles Loizet says in the Paris Revue Politique et Litteraire for Feb-
ruary or March, 1874 : — "In a town in eastern France which had the sorry
honor of 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 the people who pointed at him. A man whose heart was
made bitter by domestic trouble, and who had ceased to care for his own
life, secretly sought a concealed weapon for an enterprise which would have
made a great sensation. It was refused him, the people were terrified for
fear 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
regret with which M. Loizet concludes his story has something tragi-oomical
n it.

50 Bismarck in the Franco-Gerrtian War.

CHAPTER IV.

WE TURN NORTHWARDS — THE CHANCELLOR IN REZONVILLE-
BATTLE AND BATTLE-FIELD OF 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 marching 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
Yarennes, by the small two-windowed house where Louis XYI.
was arrested by the postmaster of Sainte-Mcnehould, 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 Hue, 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 me with
him. He answered "Yes, but if we stay out the night,
what will you do'J" I replied, "Never mind. Excellency, I
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 days
before, then to the left, up through vineyards, past more vil-
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 halt-
ed in the market-place to wait for the King.

The Count was very communicative on the way. First he
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, whereas 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 I was
not to be denied this time. I looked up and saw a window
which was dark. 'What have you got up there'?' 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 agi-eeable young fellow." "The best
of the story 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 not — 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^^e 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
first warm food for six-and-thirty hours — it was only pea-sau-
sage-soup, which General Goben gave me, but it tasted quite
exciellent,"

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 takeii the former and paid for it, ai^d 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, an^ 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

Tlie 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 firing 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.

Not 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 inside,
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. Bight in
front, on the horizon, which was here very close to us, the white
clouds from shells were again rising, so that w^e concluded that
the fight was going on in a valley not far oflT. 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 tovm of
Beaumont, with its fine church, was visible a little to the
right. Still 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 ofi" 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

that clay 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
Mouse. 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. Bound it
blazed a hundred little fires, in the lights of which glided the

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 31. — 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, which 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 alone, 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
with 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
wi'ote 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 Kadowitz, 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 assertiqn 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
Ifcid 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, 61

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 went poking about. " Are you a
doctor "?" they called to me. " Yes, but not a physician ; what do
you wsmtV " 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 Avith a detachment
was guarding them, and who gave me some muddy Bavarian
beer out of a cask, for which I showed my gratitude by giving
him a pull at my flask of cognac. Further on along the road
was a young wounded officer in a carriage, shaking hands with
the men of his company. In the market-place and round
the principal church of the town, which 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 were. " 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
ditches 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 V 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 mile 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
was also invited ; and there were all the princes of the second
grade and gentlemen of the suite of the Crown Prince. Mean-
time I ^made^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 Augustenhurg. 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. I 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 genial 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 — plattdeutsch
— that we 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
Yendresse. 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 trqes on both sides, and latterly through a
district which the Chancellor said reminded him of a Belgian
landscape. At a window in one of the villages was Lud^ig
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 l)efore 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 Vendresse 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 y.

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 wq heard, 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 (Bliichers), passed by
the railing of the little garden before the Chief's 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

66 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 seen,
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 upon 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, Roon, 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 might fire on them.

68 Bismarck in the Franco- German War.

After eleven o'clock our line 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^ and I must 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 imme-

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 more 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 Mail-
linger said that he was with his riflemen in Torcy, that the
French wished to capitulate, and that they werf ready to sur-
render unconditionally. The King answered, "No one can ne-
gotiate this afiair 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 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?" 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 conversation with
the Prussian generals. The Crown Prince also, Moltke, and
the Coburg Plighness, 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 Yendresse. 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 the
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 fiir 1870,"^ and
on the night table there was another book of devotion, "Die
tagliche Erquickung fiir glaubige 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-
stairs that the Count had ridden ofi* 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 Donchery.

* '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
Bohlen, 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, Wimpffen 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.
Moltke 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 m the Franco- Germ a a 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
carry 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 ;
that 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 1 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 diflEicult 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 T 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
Wimpflfen. ' I shall recommence the fire about four o'clock,'
replied Moltke ; and the Frenchmen wanted to go at once. I
begged 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
their people in Sedan as to our demands. Moltke at first would
not 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 UnhaUoived War. 75

where I supposed him still to be. But I met him on the high
road near Fresnois, a mile and three-quarters from Donchery.
He sat with three officers in a two-horse carriage, and three
others were on horseback beside liim. I only knew E-eille,
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 done' 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-bottom.ed 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 relatioiis
with the princely house of Hohenzollern that the hereditary
Prince would easily have come to an understandiiig 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- Gerrnan 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 him
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 tiie contrary was determined that the military men,
who can be harder, should have the v/hole affair to sottle. 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
WimpfFen was thus made much as we had wished it to be the
evenins^ before. Then the two sovereigns came too^ether. 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 again from Donchery, till quite late at night,
only indefinite reports reached us. About half -past nine some
Wiirtemburg 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 no 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 Bisruaroh 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 OM^n
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 v/ife 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

TJie Secret of Fig 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,
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 diflSlcult to run away.
At last he carried it off in his arms 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 Napoleon, 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
by Stenay, and Bar-le-Duc, or through Belgium." " But
here," replied Solins, "he would be no longer a prisoner.'
" 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

<S0 Bismarck in the Franco- Germcm 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 ct bancs, 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 infantry. General- Adjutant von Boy en, who had
been selected by the King to accompany the Emperor. " Boy en
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
Avhom 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.

EiU'dfjed Holdierij. 81

CHAPTER VI.

FROM THE MEUSE TO THE MA.RNE.

WILL now let my journal once more speak for itself.
Saturday, September S. — ^We left Donchery this morning
rather before one o'clock. On the way we were overtaken by
a shoi-t 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 1

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 crov/ded 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 fhe
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 bonds of the

82 Bismarck in the Franco-Gerraan 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 Yendresse, the two Sovereigns were left for
about ten minutes alone together in the drawing-room with the
glass vei-andah, 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
Kciniggratz. 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 ^, 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 Bethel, 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 wmdows 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. 83

house of M. Duval, in the 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 Wiirtembergei'S. 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 be at 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 '^Jaxon;^, v/ho 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 Avidely 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?" "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. Yon 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 Brlihl,
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-
men, 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
France at the different Courts.

With Napoleon and Lulu all is over for the present ; the
Empress has done as Louis Philippe did in 1318 ; slie has left

Count Pf'errffotuls. 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
place 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^ Sej)temher 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.

Saturday, Septeiaher 10. — The Chief drove out early with
Hatzfeld 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 Nordhausen, 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, SejJtemhe'y 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, tlie
Grand Duke of Weimar, the Hereditary Grand Duke of Meck-
lenburg, Bismarck, and Boon, 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 Books.

86 Bismarck in the Franco- German War.

Instead of the Epistle another psahn 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
baptism 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 Avith 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.

Morulat/, 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

Moltke 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 understand 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 states
is not to be thought of. . Carrying on war in common will not
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 on 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 must have delighted him very much. If the gentlemen
of the Stuttgart Ohservej^ 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 friend-
ly 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 l^th Sejjtember, 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 cavalry,

88 Bismarck in the Francj-German War.

along the road for our protection. It must still be somewhat
dangerous here, for the peasants who went hobbling about with
their w^ooden 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 gi'ound 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 {Sejd. 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 distance 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 waives v/ere 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
Yicomte 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-
cais,' Thierry's collected works. Cousin's ' Philosophical Es-
says,' Renan's ' Histoire Religieuse,' Rossi's ' Economic
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 Avith 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."

90 Bismarck in the Franco- German War.

Fridrnj^ S^pf ember 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 justihable.

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 have 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-
l)laining of not feeling very well : " When I was thy age" (his
cousin was about thirty-eight) "I was quite intact, and eveiy-

* He cannot well have done so, if we compare this with what happened
hiter.

Tlie Chiefs Opinion of the French. 91

0

thing agreed with me. 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 German-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 maimer 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 punishment ? 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 ? A man in a blouse near me, who was
reading it half aloud, said to me ' C^est bien /ait,. Monsieur,
7i'est-ce pas ? " (" Well written, sir, is it not V) 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 : " Za republique c' est la
paix" ("The Republic is peace"). The line of thought which
I followed was mainly this : France has, ?or 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
g7(3rre" ("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 ui)stairs
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 quai'ters, with his two boxes, quite coolly down below with

Mr. Weale^ of Jenley. 98

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 tho
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 Bismarck-Bohlon
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 difi&culty 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.

94 Bismarck in the Franco-German War.

CHAPTER VII.

BISMARCK AND FAVRE 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 oflicer. One of the
civilians was an oldish grey-bearded gentleman, with a protrud-
ing under-lip. "That is Favre," I said to Kriiger, 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.

G-uctrds against a Surprise. 95

" Favre passed us, your Excellency," said I ; " and is up
tliere."

" 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 Wlirtemburger 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 countryman full of pathos
and tine feeling. " Surprises might be attempted : this must
not be. He was no spy, but a member of the new Government,
wlio 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 ;" and 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,
" 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, as well as by Prince Biron, and that quarters luul

96 Bismarch 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 miles 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 inhabitants of
the villages which we visited seemed to have been mostly driven
away by the Gardes Mobiles." So far as I know, we did not
see one dog, but in some yards there were a few hens. 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. In the villages one comes 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 be 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
small escort.

At last, as it began to grow dusk we drove into the village
of Ferrieres, 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
in 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 — ^as my journal remarks — perhaps he had not quite
laid aside the part he had been playing so as to act on our
feelings — 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 had 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,
therefore, was 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 his 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 house, 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 us a little more
insolence, asked him sharply if he knew what a ^' Strohbund "
was 1 Our friend appeared to guess, for he became pale,
though he said nothing. It was then explained to him that .a
" Strohhund " 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-Germmi 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. Tlie
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 trufiled.

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, witli
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
wliich 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 buildmgs, 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 vnW be brief. It is a square build-
ing, of two stories, and at each of the four comers a three-
storied tower, with a rather flat roof. The style is a mixture
of difierent 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

Croesus 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
statue§ 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 lie 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-Oerman War,

birds, which are uncommonly good, even without sauer kraut
d, 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 oi the francs-voleurs, as the francs-
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 stafl" 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 '■'' E scalier 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 afifair.

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 has drawn 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 Bazeillesj 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, to©k 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 perfectly 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 blows
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 ofi'ers 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 Berlin 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 1 Of course my native town li 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 1 " " Surely," and then he continued,
" Haute Maison, near — what do you call it ? 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

100 Bismarck in the Franco- German War.

in the park. Could we not have a shot at them 1 " H'm," he
said ; " it is forbidden to shoot in the park ; but what can they
do if I go out and get somel 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 oflf 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 on 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 av must be quite delightful to those who have them at their
lingers' 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 Schleswig-Holstein
question in the Diet in the years about 1850. Count Bis-

The Cigar Story. 107

marck-Bohlen, who had joined us, remarked that it must have
beengoodto produce sleep. " Yes," said the Chief, "in Frankfort
they slept over negotiations with their eyes open. Generally a
sleepy, insipid set, only supportal)le 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-
t.vely 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 ^3. — 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 Favre, who rejects all our
demands." We shall prepare this, with commentaries oh 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 2Jf. — 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 % — 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 % 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 Curasao, of which a trial was made.-

The Chancellor asked : " Do you know A'" 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 Honesty 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 belong to 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 Pomerania, 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."

Monday, 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 " Bauernpjlaume.^^ Tlie
four carp, which formed one of the courses at dinner, led the Chi'ef
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 Marcbnen^ not to be confounded with

110 Bismarck in the Franco-Oerman War,

Muranen, and to trout, of which last he had some, very fine, in
the streams about Yarzin. 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,
and 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. T
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 hin
3wn experience, having served first with the rifles and after-
wards with the Landwehr 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 he 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 Zeitwng,
and I am to attend to the marking and to send up the numbers
to the Minister.

In 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 armstice is put in the back -ground, whereas in reality
it was 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 27. — 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 diplomastists. We shall allow open
letters, containing nothing objectionable, to pass through. In
this view of things we hope to have the concurrence of the

112 Bismarck in the Franco-Germa/i 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 Eoland
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
Favre's account of his negotiations with the Chief, where he is
said to have wept. "It is true," said the Minister. " He
►'.eemed 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
lAj 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
X 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.
1 went to his shop with my wife to ask the price of a fur
cloak, and when he mentioned a high price for one that pleased
me, 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 Bumfiide. 113

is this man V 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^ 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's 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 Minst<ir
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-German 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 f " 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 of a light-blue dragoon, with
yellow collar, and a Herr von Katt were our guesta — of whom
the two latter were to be prefects in the conquered French dis-
tricts— -the Chief told us that the sport 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 great
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-Tour, 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 Minister
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 brought
under the influence of one leader, and are then very powerful.

The Chancellors Faith. 11$

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." " Do you
believe, your Excellency, that they really reflect on this?"
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."
"Bvit 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 ;" 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 Bifmiarch in the Franco-German War.

and to the King, is only the survival of the faith of our fathers
and gi'andfathers 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 my relation to God, and I am the man vv^ho 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 Mouse."

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 ^.— 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 ohrok,^ 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 as 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
White drawing-room in the pala^j||iQ,t Berlin, and magnificent
halls in which three or four hundre(J 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 linea, 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 T replied the old gentleman. " Is my
v/heat worth less because I am a rich man 1" "He used to give
dinners sometimes which were quite worthy of his great riches.

* TheoferoA-was a rent levied by the proprietor, not on the tenants of indi-
vidual farms but on the whole communities. The institution was common
between 1830 and 1863, when the serfs 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 Eoyal 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
mo, 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-
temich's estate) these bottles were taken out unopened. The
Prince then sent for his wi^|||^teward, and inquired how much
that wine cost him a Ifottle. " 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 l\oman 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 (xrace 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 conception
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 tlie 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.

THE JOURNEY TO VERSAILLES — THE HOUSE OF MADAME
JESSE — OUR USUAL LIFE THERE.

WE left Ferrieres on the Sth 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, and
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 I
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 I'oad, 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, Yillejuif 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 ar^ 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. l>uring the last months of our stay there waved
over it a flag of black, white, ^nd 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 E-ifles. 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 ofiicial, 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 of 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 stufl" on a dark ground. On the fourth wall was the fire-
place. A sofa, which was latterly sometimes drawn up to the
tire, 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,

1S4 Bismarck in the Franco- Germdn War.

ifc was devoted to Jules Favre, for his meditations and his cof-
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;
jovered with moss and overgrown with ferns and broad-leaved
T>lants. It forms a rivulet and a little pond for the ducks. On the
; )ft, by the wall, rows of espalier fruit-trees ran out from a
ioach-house, over which the gardner's people live, and in front
of them beds of flowers and vegetables, partly open, partly cov-
,^red 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
i:isue from the shadow of ^the bushes into the moonlight, and
v.^alk slowly up and down. What was the unsleeping man
tliinking of 1 What ideas were revolving in the head of the
solitary wanderer 1 What plans germinated or ripened in the
s':ill midnight hours 1

Of course not all of the mobilised Foreign Office were quar-
t )red 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 Hue 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
liimself 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. 125

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
field messengers with despatch bags full, or waiting to be filled.
Chancery messengei-s 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, Delbrlick, who remained several times for weeks in Ver-
sailles ; the Duke of Ratibor, Prince Putbus, von Benningsen,
Simson, Bamberger, von Friedenthal, and vori Blankenburg,
then the Bavarian ministers, Count Bray, and von Liitz, the
Wiirtembergers, von Wachter and Mittnacht, von Boggen-
bach. Prince Badziwill ; and, lastly, Odo Bussell, 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 Hofstiick, 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 Jess^. 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 ofi". 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, 1
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 aftei-wards, 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 Franco-Oermo/n 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 gi-eater confidence
prevailed, although many animals were dying, the cattle being
phiefly fed on compressed hay, a statement which Burnside, whq

"Absurd TAe" 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, Hatzf eld
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 oil this occasion not the way by the Avenue de Saint-

130 Bismarck in the Franco-Oerman War.

Cloud and the Place d'Armes, but by the Boulevard de la
E-eine, 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 Avhat
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 Pameau,
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
flights of steps. He said, however, " What are these trees in
tubs to the orange gi^oves of Italy T

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 ^Hlluminati^' " 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 Carlstadt, 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 New 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'^' '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^-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
over till the early morning : " I, too," Bismarck went on to^ay,
" 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 Frcmco-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 fine 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 Avas 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 T
do not know if I could get on. But care should be taken
that noisy work, as in blacksmiths' shops, tfec, ttc, 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 XI Y. is much finer, but I prefer the Great Elector in
Berlin by Schliiter.

Sunday, October 9. — Bad weather, cold, and rainy. The
leaves fall fast, A sharp north-west wind sweeps over the

bravery of a Princess. ISS

"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 street to the monument erected
to the teacher of the deaf and dumb, Abbe V 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 Belle vue, near Sedan,
of which Russell has given a circumstantial account in the
Times, although no one 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 Card, 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.

ever, 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 where 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, we 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. Later 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
report 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 gloiresj, 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 Yernet has depicted
the "^Zoires" of his countrymen in Algeria, as well as more

A Congress of German Princes. 136

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.

Wednesday, 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 forme ;
and yet you told me you were a master of fine 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 tlie 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 1^. — 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
Avay that General Boyer, Bazaine's first adjutant, had arrived
from Metz at Yersailles 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 V " The Uth,
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. . 187

istic 'History 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., (fee, 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
Independance, which is said to be Gramont's. He blames us
for not letting Napoleon go after Sedan, and he is not pleased
that we marched 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 let 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 d, outrance ; 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 crowds, 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 higli ofiicer, 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 trance!^'' 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.

" J'ai grand besoin, mes chers amis,
De mourrir Empereur d'AUemagne,
Que vos manes en graissant la campagne
Mais que mes vceus sent accomplis."*

The 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, " ^A has les Prussiens " (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 1 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 sides, 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."
" has 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
(thut 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-
csllor ]iis iv;'.si:\nc9 towards procurin':^ an understandinif with
the ^.l^i:,L.n^;.

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 himself 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
Gaulois, 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, Octohei' 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. Italy
is represented as thanking France for the assistance given her
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
{■inprisonment. But after a few days he nevertheless ran away.

142 Bismarck in the 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 autumn 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. 1 learned, on inquiry, chat 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 Deibriick 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 difierent 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. 14.3

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 North 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 Bisinarck 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 Pomerania. " 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,
I must do like the small country gentry, borrow chairs, and
turn everything about, even my study." Some one joked about
the 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
of mine ; we have gone thiough a good deal together, and it is
really beautiful in its way." _

Between half-past seven and half-past eight, the mayor of
the town was again with the Minister. Afterwards an article
upon the uncourteous behavior of our host at Ferrieres was sent
off 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
bear, forced themselves upon him. Considering that the pres-

The French Baron Mofhschild. 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 cpmplaint against any one quoted in the above letter, Ave
can only hope that troops may yet be quartered upon him, who
\vill 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
Yalerien, 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 flat of their swords.

The Chief said yesterday evening, that wo 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 ordf red
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 Yille 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 yelloAvish 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, Yal de Grace. While
we were watching the scene, a train passed over the viaduct
near the ramparts.

On starting for our drive to Yille d'Aviay, 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 apr
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 Yersailles, " 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 France. . 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 Montana. He must dis-
tinctly remember that Nice, his own birthplace, was torn by
this same France from Italy, and tliat the State of Siege alone
keeps it at this moment from ^l^tlidrawing itself from the rule
of Fraiice."

148 Bismarck in the Franco-German War.

About one o'clock the Minister of Wiirttemberg, Mittiiacht
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 before yester-
day ; two yesterday. To-day a long procession came from
the Palace across the Place d'Armes 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 mufiled 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 a^gned 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 Usedom.

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 Afiairs 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 2Jf. — 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 Mrfrseilles. 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 oflicers, 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-German 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. Tell's 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" — " Imjyossible," 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 Metz. 151

talk. BL, meaiitiine drove to Bougival with First-Lieutenant
von H,j 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 bel" {Wo das BuscJiclien sei?) And
when he returned later from the King he again asked if I was
there, and expressed apprehension that the sentries might fire
on me.

Tuesday, 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 Montmartre upon the suburb of La Yillette. 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 r.oad to
Villejuif ; 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. Yon Bennigsen, von Friedenthal, and von Blank-
enburg, 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 the 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., Gollahorateur du Moniteur Officiel de la Seine-et-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. 15^

Germany the army which Napoleon had in the field at the date
tuTT'""\ ^orth 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. The'; generals are
almost all prisoners."

He then saicl that Napoleon had asked for Marshals Bazaine
JUeboeut and Canrobert, who were in Metz, to be sent to Wil-
helmshohe. " 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, whHst
Napo eon assembled the Corps Legislatif and the Senate at
bassel 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, Bennigsen, and Blankenburcr
the representatives of parties with whom one is bound to con-
sult, m 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 Imci; which means, ' What is there, but of
season f "

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 Magdeburo- 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 i

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," said 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, aU and sundry of
11

154 Bismarck in the Franco-Oerman 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. Thiers. 156

CHAPTER X.

THIERS AND THE FIRST NEGOTIATIONS FOR AN ARMISTICE.

O

N October SO, 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 th(!
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 reacfy what was
necessary to enable Thiers to pay his visit to Paris. He tohl
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,

166 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 Yersaillese. " 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?" "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] — "No."
Well, he was Monsieur Thiers ; did he not know about him 1 The
man said "No" to that too. Then a neighbor came up, and the
old countryman asked him who might M. Thiers be 1 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 us
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 then
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.

7te 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 ait
was about six inches long and set on both sides with small
brilliants. After it had gone round the table and been sufii-
ciently admired as it deserved, the Chancellor opened tl:e
drawing-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 r' 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 Hatzfeld and Delbriick wagered
with Keudell and Bismarck-Bohlen that he would be back in
Yarsailles 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-Oerman 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 f 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 Yei-sailles. 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 unifoiTQ, 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 this
evening. After a while he mentioned that Thiers had been
\vith 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 inteiTupted
jiim there, saying, " Pardon 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 dessei-t 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 air 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."

Wednesday, 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
Yiroflay. While I was out, the Minister who was still in bed,
had wanted me. 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, Yiro-
flay, and Chaville, the two last forming one continuous street
about three miles long. I came immediately after Chaville to
Sevres. I wanted to jjo 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. In 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 me 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 {rout 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 3. — 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
haJf-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

162 Bismarck in the Franco-Germav War.

which we lay claim as our future possessions. Eo-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, and expected little
improvement. The Chancellor said, " The Berlin people must
always be in opposition, and 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 rnto 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-
gi-owth 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

T\oo 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, Nove^nher J/.. — In the morning the weather was won-
derfully line 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 4
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 Ferriferes — 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 vo 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 Bussia X) 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. Buclier 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 reminds 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,

166 Bismarck in the FraTico-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 Bhine, 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 he 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, 167

" He (Beiiedetti) attempts here, and in the following state-
ments, to mix up two distinct phases of the protracted nego-
tiations which the Prussian Minister Presidient 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 Valette. 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 5^ugust 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 FroMco-Oerman 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 wi: 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 demUnd, 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 bo 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 12th, 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
queafcions of the boundaries of 1814 and the annexation of

The French Secret Instructions.

169

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 {oieille hicoque)
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
offers 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 which 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
23 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 inclosure. I need not tell you why Landau and Saarbriicken
12

170 Bismarck in the FraTico- 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 Ave 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 Y. ought to be as little known as the
contracting parties to if?"

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 v/hich
must come to pass pretty soon. Article lY. 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
when 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 1 " 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 FraTico- 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 :

Sunday, 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 Alton, 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. Alton 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.

Alton 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 §ame 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 V " 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 1 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 dignitied 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
TJltramontanes would disappear ; and in Belgium and Bavaria,
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 Pope 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 Wa7\

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 — 1 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 my orders. Did they
mean to leave the poor man lying in the road] I did not know

Suspended Brain Poiver. 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 i(9.— 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 eftusion 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 same 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 the 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 status 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, wliich 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 the Min-
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 metre 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

Gups and Puzzle-bottles. 181

upside down, and showed the most 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 Reichstag 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 lY., 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 must be no more,' and the thing had to remain so."

182 Bismarck in the Franco-GerTnan War.

" Formerly, feats of that sorb 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, ^nd 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?" 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 wa;r's ein Stiick 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 (Yalerien), 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 mat-
ter, " said Bohlen ; " the day after to-morrow Prince Frederick
Charles will be there, 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 Hoff, 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. HofF was the son of an eminent Baden
member of parliament, and brother of the Diisseldorf painter.
He wrote also in the Hamburger JVachrichten, and in the
Augshitrger Allgemeine 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 des 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 Imperialist journal Situatio7i 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 Garibaldi 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 1 '
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 couj^s cle 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 Republics. 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."

Arnirti Boitzenhurg. 18o

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, Yerdun, 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 7wm." He
added : " Otherwise he has a good head ; but his reports, this
way to-day, that way to-morrow, 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
13

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. "

Su7iday, 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 oif 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 Fost
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 Friedricli 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,

Governinental Shipwreck of France. 187

has become insane. And these shameless liars presume, with
no very striking wit, to call L.'s Moniteur, Menteur.

Monday, November IJf — 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 exception?.
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 '?
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 th(? 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

"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 V

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 i5.— 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 question, 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 staff, 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 in
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 Fraiico-Gernnan 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-twenty 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 I 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 Vincennes. Next day I had once
more to get up at five to go to the Mairie, where my poi-ter was
to be elected corporal. Finally, on October 29th, I had to
mount guard for seven-and-twenty hours in the Cirque de I'lm-
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 Yille. There we stood from ten at night till five the next

A Dljilomatist in the JSational Guard. 191

morTiiiin^. 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 the>e, 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 ])e 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 nae 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

INCREASING ANXIETY FOR DECISIVE ACTION IN SEVERAL
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-gi'ounded I must leave an
open question. It is certain, however, that there were other

Number of German Army before 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 enceiiite 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-Gennan War.

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 the
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 tilled, 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 live 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 Avas 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

CourteHy of a Frencli Pi'lnoner. 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 lire, and to his annoyance with the military author-
ities, who are supposed not even to have asked his opinion on
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., Avho will now prob-
ably soon ^eit 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 man
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 different
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 Junta has directed to the Allgemeine Zeitung.
In the afternoon we heard that Prince Frederick Charles had
arrived at Orleans.

Alton and Prince Radziwill were the Chief's 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
Francs-tireurs, who are not even Frenchmen, made prisoners —
why on earth were they not shot r' He complained once more
that the military authorities so seldom ask his opinion. " There,
for instance, is this capitulation at Yerdun, 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
Independance Beige, which prophesies the return of Napoleon.
"No doubt, " said the Chancellor, "if he has read the article, he
is picturing something 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 m^de 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

108 Bisiyiarch in the 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.

tSunday, November W. — 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 our 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 Beserves 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 we
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 Staaishilryer-
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 heV ' C^est peutetre un Jils de la maison, ou une Ji '
(' Perhaps it is a boy of the family, or a girl'). ' C^est un Jils,
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 aboutpolitics, 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 M'^ar.

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 with 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 com-
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 of 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 soft 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 as
daily bread. Bavaria is a sharer in the benefit. It is only
through her complete union with the north, which will show
14

202 Bismarck in the 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 wa s 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 driiik 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.

Ticesday, 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 parliamenf?"
I go to look it up in old Weher^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 ofi* 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]" — "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 agol" — "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 tha Duke of Coburg, 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 the 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 Hatzfeld 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,
ayid our Emperor J^ 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 ? 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 Thionvitte. 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 Neiie
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 qui fume), 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
h Wjons'ieur 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 ferinete 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-nine man must cer-
tainly be a Jew, perhaps the cousin of Malzhofi" in one of the
Wilhelmstrasses. At all events he is a miles gloriosus. Lastly,
we have Terreaux, who captured a /anion (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 V 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 would Napoleon I.
and Louis XI Y. have said to that V 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 ofiicer (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 lbs.;" 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 has
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.

m

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. Bohlen 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 shown 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 appearance 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 should 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 Yilla 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 Yilla 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 Yalerien, and overwhelm Forts
Issy and Yanvres 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 over 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

ment 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 firing, 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 the 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 ManteuiFel 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 Gei-man 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 oTit 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

yfhetYiQY politesse de cceur was native French or impoi-ted. " Not
a doubt," said the Chief, "that the phrase was borrowed from
us. The thing itself exists only among the Germans. I should
call 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
Russell speaks French quite admirably. But then he speaks
German just as well."

At dessert he 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 Moniteior, 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 the Franco-German War.

"Camp de Conlie, November IS, 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, vjreneral 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 execvition 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 bo
over. The coffin was ready, and the grave dug. It was a
frighf ul 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 l9y court-martial; 1 grant him a 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 'Vive Keratry' (just as in the theatre). The officers
of the general staff 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 !' 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."

What TYiight have been. 215

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, &c. — 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 Wiirtemberg 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," he 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 ajid 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
said, " 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 gratification 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 every 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 E-ussell 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 Paris, and it is worth so much that I once asked myself
the question whether I ought not to dispose of it and give the
Ambassador the interest of the capital to pay his rent with.
The interest on 2J million francs (i 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 with
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 Loftus. 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

^18 Bismarch 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 Wiirtemberg Division,
the larger half of the 12tli, 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 hair 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 itT' "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
covirage 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 was

Bismarck and the Hospitals. 219

shot/' Afterwards lie 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 "i " ' 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 rest . 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 oft'
to the head doctor. ' What about the provision for sick,' I
said ; ' do they get proper things to eat 1 ' ' Here is the official
list of returns.' Don't show me that,' I said, 'people can't eat
paper — do they get their wine 1 ' ' Half a litre daily.' Pardon
me, the people say that is not so. I have asked 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 1 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 Bunker'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

* We shall see afterwards that little more came of this suspicion, which
appearances abundantly justified than that some small defects were dis-
covered in the p: ovision for looking after the sick throughout. I have told
the story as an evidence of the Minister's sense of justice anc* 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 14,000 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 Bismarck in the Franco- Geronan War.

of the bombardment. " Yes," said the Chief," but Roon told us
a few days ago, that he has several hundred lorries 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 Ferri^res, that we could lay Foi-ts Issy and Vanvres in
ruins in six-and-thirty hours, and then advance on Paris itself.
Yet, after all that, nothing is done." T 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 events, 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 be 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 about 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
tire. 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 1 Here in Versailles 1 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 r' "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 f Alten said no, but he could supply
him with some Polish newspapers. The Chief replied : " No
good ; he would not understand them, and they would 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 Bismarcfc 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 proper 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 Varzin, 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 f 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
tjiere 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 Avhich 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 S. — 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, Yil-
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, I aken
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 army, 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 Bog-
genbach, first lieutenant Von Sarwadsky, and the Bavarian
companion of St. John, von Niethammer, 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 afjain 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 Biffixulties 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 Zeitnng, the Koln-
ische, the Wesei^ 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, the 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 the 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 Stettin ook to Rammin.'
(' Take cheese to your wine, like a Rammin 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 Renter'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 Amien^^, 229

or to drink tea with the King. We spoke of Gortchakoflf's
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 preprarations 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 J 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 gi*eat 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 war 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 Chief's
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 War.

You remember Kaiser Heiririch. 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 bo 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 be 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 Lothringen 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.

Alexander 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 believed 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 Kussian state conncillor,
Grimm, 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." " Rado-
witz 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 rustling 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 the 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." "Without 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

Moltke 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 us
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 one 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. Thun said to 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. Even 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, after
16

234 Bismarck in the Fo^anco- 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
allies, 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 another 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 Rtissell 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 Hofstiick and Foster Kirchenstiick — the best
blood 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
the sentinel who told him of the alleged neglect had been suit-
ably punished."^

According to English accounts from Paris things began, quite
a iPortnight 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 gi-eat 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 Yalerien
thunders down a frightful salute into the valley below it. With
what object 1 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. iJuring
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 su1)sequent page.

236 Bismarck in the Franco-German War,

CHAPTER XIII

PROSPECTS BEFORE PARIS IMPROVE.

WEDNESDAY, December 7. — Disagreeable weather. Only
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,
12,000 un wounded 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 away, 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
eyes 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, '' Le Boucheron ;" while others are " Le Maxant,"
" Le Repace," "Le Brisetout," 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 line 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 lyiTig (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 nof?'
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 Hatzfeld 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;
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 Yienna had carefully
collected all the melius of his chief, and preserved them in 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."

Swells, 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 eftort 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 (fortschrittsnohs).

"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,
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 tliey 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 tit 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
rough 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
gratitication. Buclier 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 Tnibetzkoi, a relation
of Orloff's, wanted protection for his villa from 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 Yoigts-Rhetz, was with us at dinner.
I believe he is a brother of him 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-Bohleu, 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 Zeitunff, 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-Gemian 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-frosty 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 foi-m. 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 chai-acters 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

•J

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 Mo7iitei(,r sives 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. T 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 Miinchausen. 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; finder 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 ear. 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 he 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

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 the 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 in 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?" When Goltz
went home, he is 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 he (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 Napoleon'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, Decemher 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 nbt 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

24G 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
chooses, 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 Yersailles 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 Yersailles ; 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 yet. Abeken, on the other hand, had learned
from Yoigts-Rhetz 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 Chiefs
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 Bights 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 iti; 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 efiect
produced on public opinion remains, notwithstanding.

" Could you believe it 1 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. 249

proclaim it openly, we are the soldiers of the Revolution ; and,
I will add, not merely of the French, but of the C osmoj)olitan
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 J^

" 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 Fatlierland vanishes in the 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 1 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 ? 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 1

" 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 Robespierre.
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 gi'eat
matter to have nothing to trouble us when we march against
the enemy ; it is worth something to know that we are sus-
17

250 Bismarck in the Franco-Oerman 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? 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 OUivier," 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 Yarzin 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
me," 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 itly 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
Yichy 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,
" 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
Gortchakoff's demands. "The people in London," he said,
" don't M^ant 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 1 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 th>3 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 IJf.. — In the morning, by the Chiefs
orders, I telegraphed the occupation of Blois ^y our troops and
the capitulation of Montmedy. The Centralists in Germany
are still expressing their disatisfaction 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 on the Chiefs 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. Sim son 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 soeaks 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 in 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 difterent
afiair." 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 down 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 — so 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 Kouen.
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 ofiice 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^ut the question

Tlte Reichstag and the GevTYian 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 raise 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 Wesfcphalians."

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 Moltke's 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 Jeven to give up Paris. Certainly this is too melan-
choly^a^view of the situation. v

What the French say of the Germans. 257

CHAPTER XIY.

CHAUDORDY AND FACTS OFFICERS BREAKING THEIR PAROLE

FRENCH MISCONSTRUCTIONS THE CROWN PRINCE ENTER-
TAINED BY THE CHIEF.

FRIDAY, December 16. — Weather mild and sky clouded.
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 sacrilices
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 1
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 1 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 30th of Novem-
ber 1 Eight hundred German prisoners should have been brought
into Lille on the 11th 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-tirenrs. 259

precedented, and the following incident, though all but incredi-
ble, is perfectly authenticated. On the 2nd of December XJn-
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 Villiard 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 ojfflcieV

" 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 Kehl 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 on
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 1 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 difficulty

260 Bismarck in the Franco-GerTnan 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 Boyal Council-
lors. The Chief said, •' Thlinger 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.
" Pless 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

him, 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, and 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 Keichstag. 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 much 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
a 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-
eaudun to 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 Simson, 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
have already answered in the affirmativo by telegram — only
Lippe 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 march of universal history."

Saturday, December 17. — During breakfast we were informed
that Yendome 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
he 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

Brown, Jones and Robinson. 263

head-quarters had taken up with respect to it. The Chief sud-
denly asked Bucher, "Have you a pencil and paper beside
you r "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. Rowland 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, Rowland'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. **

Tlie 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 Romanus. 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-gloriotisness, 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 gruflly, 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-parents. There
are plenty of Jewish composers — Meyerbeer, Mendelssohn,
Halevy ; but for painters, a Jew paints indeed, but only when
he does not need to do it,"

Abeken then told us about Rogge's sermon yesterday 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 approved the Versailles Conven-
tions in spite of their own doctrinaire views, and m.uch to the

Becollections 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 Yarzin. 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
when 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 ha.ve 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 Gockingk, who died in the course of the last
twenty years, from which we made out that the old man was
born in 1809. The Chief then said that he might himself pos-
sibly have seen pig-tails wJien he was 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." Then he returned to
Pomerania, and, if I do not mistake, to Yarzin, where 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 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 there, and 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, whom he
had that day, contrary to KeudelFs opinion, declared to be quite
unreplaceable. From the influence of that Minister's wife upon
his decisions, and his whole political attitude, the conversation
turned on the influence which energetic wives usually exer-
cise over their husbands. " Yes," said the Chief, " in such cases
one usually cannot tell to whom 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 wife's ") ; a remark which he
illustrated by many examples which cannot be given here. It
was 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, who returned with him ten minutes
later, for a short walk in the garden. Afterwards, when I was
having tea in my own room, Engel whispered me up the stair-
case, "Do you know, doctor, that the Crown Prince is to dine
with us to-morrow evening f

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 afterwards he sent me, through
WoUmann, 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 marched 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 came 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 Rue 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 dine 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 Trocliu 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- till 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," sompbody 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 was like the
picture of the newly-married, man in the ' Fliegende 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 Grown 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 Pole. 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 learn 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 East Prussia, 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' ('after'), 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 again to strike out the last syllable. Thus I get 'aber.' "

At dessert 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 cqSee 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 down, 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 State ]"
" 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 f I answered that I had been editor
of the Grenzhoten. "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 V 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 1" "Oh
yes, your Royal Highness, especially to Egypt." " Yes, I
understand ; I 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. WoUmann 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 of
the former King had been bafiled. Then he was employed as
telegraphist in the Foreign Ofiice, 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 sailors are drawn up on the Avenue de Saint-Cloud, and
we notice our Chief talking to their commander. In the Rue
de la Pompe, on the Right hand, infantry 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 Chiefs 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, first a littiC 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 1"
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
whether 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. 27 o

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 GoUnow, 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, Jiieg /^^ ("Fly away, maybug") which, along, with
the ahgehrannten Pommerland (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 on 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 oflf 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'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 me^iu 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 his pupils, now ' Right ! ' now ' Left ! '

" ' Ma commere, quand je danse,
Mon cotillon va-tnl bien ?
II va de ci, il va de Ik,
Comme la qxieue 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 c?." 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 done 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- Gerr}ian 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, defining our pos-
ition, was forwarded to Germany. The beginning of Treit-
schke's pamphlet in the Preussische Jahrhucher was prepared
for the King's reading.

About breakfast time a French lady, whose husband has been
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
WoUmann believes that she will get there too late, as Colonel
Krohn had received an order on the 14th to let justice take its
course. ■**■

At dinner 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 sometliing 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,
roast 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 Yoigts-Rhetz 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 oflf, 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
Government.

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 i;esisted. 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
no 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
his 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

280 Bismarck in the Franco-German War.

for 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 ine," 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 certainly 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 country, 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 him 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 n'est
jms un homnie 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 Herr ' ( ' Eight 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."

Pfuel 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-ofiC of
pigtails — what a dispensation !

Saturday, December 2Jf. — 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 Trojans and the Greeks. 283

Then he said to Beckedortf 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
tire 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 1 9th. It was different at Vionville. They had to fling them-
selves on the F^:ench 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 were 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 Beckedorff s 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 von 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.

Monday, 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 1, Last night they certainly
fired fiercely for a while out of their big mouths of thunder.

Waldersee 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 Chiefs happening to say that he
had called somebody a " Biemchenstecher ;" and after asking
whether any of us understood it, he explained the word as fol-
lows : " Biemchenstechen 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 XY.

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 ofiice, 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 Chief's 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 our 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 Ladys 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 pleasaiit 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 have
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 the

288 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 Yersailles
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 thalers (thirty shillings), and several small French and
German coins. (4) In the deserted house of M. Simon, at
Ablon, two packets with nearly 3,000 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 Yilliers, 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, on the Bank of the Seine, at Saint-Cloud, a packet
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 Yilleneuve-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 J 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
Bismarck circular on the Luxemburg affair was translated for

The New 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 must
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
with 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 f "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-
riages, 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 SO. — 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 offered, 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-Gerynan War.

also for the German press, and one for the Moniteur here, on
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 et revues, dated
Tours, November 13, and signed by Lieutenant-Colonel Alfred
Jerald, and by Colone'l 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
Rhenish newspaper says : "Since 1866 we have been among
those 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
obstacle to this reconciliation," &c. My answer was : " We
have already had occasion repeatedly to notice that the Kolnische
Zeitung perpetually attributes what the Chancellor does and

Bismarck and Beust 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, Gambetta,
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-
ment 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
of 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, d, outrance, 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
Independance Algerienne explains the views these savage
hordes 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 seventy 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. 293

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 ch£},nged 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 aAiert 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
front, 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 Rue de Provence and the Boulevard de la Reine, 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 Yalerien, 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 surrounding 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. Delbriick 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 Mo7iiteur. According to

I

Drunkenness in Paris. 297

it, the deaths in the week, from the 11th 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 Grajndeuse), 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
(Muraenen) 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 Avritten a
spiteful article on hunting. My huntsman's blood warmed at

Prince Napoleon's Plan.. 299

this, and I set myself to and wrote an answer, which I 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 16th
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 tire
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.

Yinoy 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 Leipziger Tagehlatt, 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 Yille 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. Lehndorjff 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 ii
a sort of compensation to the wounded, I remember when I
was a young man, that a certain von R., 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 stafil

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 happened to inter-
rupt me. The last time was at Ferrieres, when the King was
away. He had forbidden us to shoot in the park. We went
out accordingly, but not in the park, and there was plenty to
shoot, but not much was shot, as either the cartridges or the
fowling pieces were poor." Holnstein, who usually shows him-
self an uncommonly estimable, most industrious, and service-
able person, thereupon remarked, "This is the way, your Ex-
cellency, that people tell the story. They say that you were
well aware of his Majesty's command, and naturally anxious to
respect it. You had gone out for a walk, when you had the
misfortune to have three or four pheasants suddenly flying at
your head, so that you were compelled to shoot them in self-
defence. "

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 Prohlematische Naturen, which
the Chancellor had read, and of which he thought not unfavor-
ably, remarking, "I will certainly, however, not read it a second
time. I have no time here for that." But even a much-occu-
pied Minister may take a book in his hand, and allow himself
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
Soil 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,
and 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-

802 Bismarck in the Franco- German War.

umes." Finally somebody spoke of Fritz Reuter. " 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 I'hnes for tlie
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.

Tiissday, 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 forts, with the exception of Mont Valerien,
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.

I

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 woul^ 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 XI Y.,
and his father also against Louis XI Y., 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 Germans 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- GevTYian War.

those rich districts. The fanners 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 to
keep it, and then I drove them away. When others came, with
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'?" asked
Delbriick. " Done 1" 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
thought to myself. You shall have your chance. I lost a couple

I

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 ydkrs they have certainly changed greatly,"
said Delbr lick. "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 Meir, 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 greatest perplexity, but
the Powers will not help them. England and Austria are at

306 Bismarck in the Franco-German War.

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 Avill 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"?" 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 Spandau,
where people from the 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 y 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 consent 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 ? 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 lirst 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 Bisvfiarch 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
Romanorum," 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 gentlemen came out
to see it. Holnstein looked out of the window in the cook's
room, and believed that the city was really burning ; 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 paper, so that I might telegraph 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
A^ orddeutsche 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, January 13. — ^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. 309

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 oflfer 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 Yarzin
ham ca,me on the table, saying ; " Give me a little ; as I am 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 15th, 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 parts. 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. lio. 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 Bismarofc in the Franco- GerTnan War.

CHAPTER XYL

THE LAST WEEKS BEFpRE THE CAPITULATION OP PARtS.

1

SATURDAY, January IJf. — Moderately cold; 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 Meudon, 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 :
" Yersailles is just the most unfit place possible for the conduct
of business. We had better have stayed in Lagny or Ferrieres.

Boxwood over the Bedhead. 311

But I know very wel] 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 Moniteur.

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 the same sentiments. Only
Reuss 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 nixie 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 h m that his honor reqires it." Possibly this change of
mind may have been caused by an article in Gambetta's organ,
Le Sietle, printed also in the Nbi'd- Deutsche Allgemeine Zei-
tung, 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
the Chancellor.

* This supposition was wrong. The Chancellor changed his mind because
of Favre's circular on January 12.

Conference on the Treaty ef 1856. 313

I insert here a reswme of this affair, based on documents
afterwards made public.

■X- -it -X- -Jt -X- -X- -x-

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 Deceniber : "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
lines 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 jflag 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 Bernstorfi' another
means of 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 of government icith 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 It 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 iijviting him who has laid it down, knows very

I

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 recognizing 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
a long 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 Paris-
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 m,yself
justified in leaving my fellow-citizens at a moment when they
are the inctims 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 von Bismarck 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

816 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 1 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 1 3th 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 the 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 in
my name, with the least possible delay."

Favre and Bismarch 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 1 6 (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
itsalf.

" 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 your
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
oan 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 11th 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 part in conducting
to its issue, will willingly deprive yourself of the opportunity of
assisting in the solution, for which the responsibility rests on

you."

■X- -Jfr * -x- * -x- -^

It is now the turn of the journal to speak again.
Tuesday J 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 on
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 bum
this village to the ground, or only wreck it in moderation f I
don't know what the answer was."

He told us then that he had many well-wishers in Bremen.
" 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. In St. 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
properly 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 have given him clearly
to understand that it will not do, and that I could 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 extensive 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 a very grand and imposing sight. Meanwhile
I took a long walk with Wollmann. As we were 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 dArmes ; these

The Proclamation of the Empire. 321

were for the King, who 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.

The 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 enable 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 have 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 AVollmann.

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
snowilakes, among the long-bearded sons of Anak of the militia
guard who are posted here. The King and the Chancellor are,
I suppose, on the aqueduct. When the cloud lifts we see Mont
Valerien 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 ManteufFeFs 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, nay 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 Dai^mstadt 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 KnobelsdorfF. 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 ordpr 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 Chiefs 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, Yoigts-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 j)robably
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 1"
" 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 23. — Weather dull and mild. I telegraph

326 Bif^marck 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, (fee. , 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 Roi, 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 2Jf. — 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 Barharian! 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 Bernstorfi", 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,
Number 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. He must have had a fearful amount of
time on his hands. Luckily -I quarrelled with him, and that
blessing ceased." 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 ] '
" 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 me," 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, and 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 Berlin, who also
gave similar balls, where we danced till three o'clock, and there
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 our
pockets and devoured it. Food was provided the very next
time, but we were never invited again."

Fish and Oysters. 329

CHAPTER XYIL

NEGOTIATIONS FOR THE CAPITULATION OF PARIS.

WEDNESDAY, January ^5.— Count Lehndorff dined with
us. The conversation first turned upon the heavy losses
sustained by the French in their sally of the l^th, 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.

Lehndorfi" 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 T' " Oh !
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
fallen. 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 Qimrters. 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
soon 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, p^t 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 ofi" 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

3.32 Bismarck in the 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 Rio 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 Rueil, 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
■ilent a minute, then went on. "The wonder to me is that
they do not send out a General. It is hard to make 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 1
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 l9th, the men of the 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 Emg-
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 12 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- Gei^man 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 fresh bonds,
and that worked — although other Jews, who had got rich be-

Morny arrives in Russia. 335

fore him, tried with all their might to spoil his game. Then
came the war, and down went his E/Oumanians, 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,
and the Chief told us " When he was appointed ambassador to
St. Petersburg, he came with a whole long train of elegant
carriages, 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 to
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 jewellery, 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 Bisraarck 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," Diirrbach. 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 ifemarkably 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 Varmeefranx^aise,' 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 ete 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 1 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. I 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 Reichstag 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 which 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 ne 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 jbhe 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. 339

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 arms, 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
was 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 FraTico-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 ^^e^ de chanieausmdcdtelettes 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 Rue 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 Eavre 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 V said the Chief, " Do you
want, then, to let them starve T " 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 1 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 faithfully 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.
Je ne le connais j^lus." ("I ovi^e 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 sp'ent 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 ?

" 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
Wariiger, the Buriks, 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?" "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 Jfigerstrasse. 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 him, 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 glass, 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 much
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 1 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 Hannoverian— Bieden-
feld 1" " 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 T 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 more
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 bottles 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 the
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. 1 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-pro v^isioning was displayed. The directors of the
Rouen and Dieppe Railway, for 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, which 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 fi^st some attempts were made in that direction.
But I put a stop to them.

"I said to them something like this : ' Gentlemen, wo 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 3. — 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 Liberie, La Patrie, Le Fran^ais, Le Con-
stitutionnel, L' Universel, Le Gourrier de la Gironde et Provence,
publish a protest against the Manifesto issued by the Delega-
tion of Bordeaux on January 31st, 7'estricting 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
bearing upon the elections, which had been issued by the Par-
isian Government and published in the Journal Officiel. M.
Jules 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 5 th ; in the provinces for February
8th. The Deputies are to meet on the 12th. The Journal
Officiel^ 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 3 1 , 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 Manteuffel's southern army at
Pontarlier. We have taken there 15,000 French prisoners,
including two generals, nineteen guns and two eagles.

Saturday, February Jf. — 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 about 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. 34)9

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?" "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 slirevjd bar-
barian (' un barbare astutieux '), 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 " oiti, 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 ? 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, 1 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
laughed ironically) " or long ago, at least, recommended Union
with us."

The Chief then mentioned that he had been to-day at Mont
Valerien. " 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 Bisunarch. 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 V muvre 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 f orgotton. 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 t(? be despatched to-day. Accordingly there
is no diflference 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 Zeitung^ 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 a
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 m
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 Paris. 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
ceases to be possible. This, then, is what the country will
decide when questioned as to its destiny. In order that its
will may be imposed on all as recognised law, we need the
sovereign expression of the free votes of all. We do not admit
that 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 role 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 a^ 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-Germain 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 f

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 nothing 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 have 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-
j formed conviction is, that considering the short notice and the

i grave interests which are at stake, you will do a great service

5 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- GerTuan War.

CHAPTER XYIII.

FROM GAMBETTA's RETIREMENT TO THE CONCLUSION OP THE
PEACE PRELIMINARIES.

SATURDAY, February 1^.— 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,

Paris JS^ewspapers on tlie 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 eftectually 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 tak^s 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 line. " Or
one with a visor, that could be dropped at the moment of the
entry," put in another guest. Bohlon 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 T
(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 1 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 tell 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. 359

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 well
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 hin*
and demand reparation, what would you answer were he to
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 V 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, or
at least not with winning mildness.

Saturday, February ^<5.— Again unpleasant news from
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 Yiew-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 Wiirtemberg 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 Preliniinaries, 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 Yilla Coublay, Villen-
euve Saint-Georges, Charenton, and the pheasantr^f, 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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