Note 359 — Chapter XXXVII · THE ROYAL MARRIAGE.

In the “Journal de Goncourt: Mémoires des la Vie Littéraire,” published in 1877, the secret history of the Emperor’s instructions to Pélissier is told. The Prussian Military Attaché at St. Petersburg sent to the King of Prussia, through MM. de Gerlach and Niebuhr, the secret details of the campaign. Manteufel, the King’s Foreign Minister, desirous of possessing this information which the King kept to himself, bribed certain persons who had access to these letters to copy them. Then the French hearing of the matter bribed Manteufel’s agents to let them have copies also. In this way Napoleon III. discovered that the Malakoff was the one vulnerable point in the defences, although the repulse of the 18th of June made most people think it was invulnerable.