Note 9 — Chapter XVII

These transactions were described eighteen years later as follows: General Boulanger writes in his work on the campaign of 1870: “After having obtained a legitimate satisfaction we wanted to impose a humiliation on the King of Prussia; and in doing so we went on to take a diplomatic attitude which was aggressive, nay, almost inconsistent. The formal renunciation of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern had been gained by us, and we had, besides, the assent of the King of Prussia to this renunciation. The reparation was sufficient, for it covered the respective domains of the interests of France, the rights of France, and the obligations of the chief of the house of Hohenzollern. We ought to have stopped there. Our Government pushed on farther. It wanted a categorical engagement from King William for the future. By carrying our claims so high it changed the object and ground of the strife. It converted it into a direct challenge to the sovereign of Prussia.”