III. (continued 2)

The journey did not take place, as is known; Prussia, in the words of M. d'Usedom, was "rescued from the congress," and Prince Gortchakof contributed largely to this work of salvation. Always a ready friend, he was the first to think that the projected conference had no "practical aim" with the reservations which Austria wished to bring to it,[73] and thus gave the signal for the general overthrow. From that time M. de Bismarck set himself to "work on the mind of his royal master," and he ended by freeing him from all scruples. "His majesty," Count de Barral telegraphed even on the 23d May from Berlin, "was very much moved at the situation, of which he spoke with great tears in his eyes." Two weeks later, the 8th June, the king wept no longer, but "he still had in his voice something sad, indicating clearly the decision of a resigned man, who believed that he could not act differently. His majesty told me that he had full confidence in the justice of his cause. I have a clear conscience," he added, with a moved air, and placing his hand on his heart; "for a long time I have been accused of wishing war for ambitious views, but now the whole world knows who is the aggressor."[74]

"I will return via Vienna or Munich, or I will charge with the last squadron, which will never return," M. de Bismarck said to a foreign ambassador, at the moment of leaving Berlin for the head-quarters, the 30th June, 1866. Two days later he was already at Jitschin, on the field still smoking from a great battle which had just been fought there. "I have just arrived," he wrote to his wife from Jitschin; "the ground is still heaped up with corpses, horses, and arms. Our victories are much greater than we thought.... Send me some French romances to read, but not more than one at a time. May God keep you!" This was written the 2d July, 1866; the next day the battle of Sadowa was fought; the next day Germany was at the feet of this singular lover of French romances; and the Emperor Napoleon III. was sadly awakened from his own romance, from his long humanitarian dream. Like the Titania of the "Midsummer Night's Dream," imperial France saw all at once that, in a state of inconceivable hallucination, she had caressed a monster.

And while so many events were taking place on the world's stage, great, marvelous, and terrible events, Russia continued to sulk and meditate; it meditated in the perpetual adoration of Prussia. One seeks in vain for a trace of its action in the events which, nevertheless, concerned in so high a degree its interests, its family alliances, its secular traditions. "Since I have been in Russia," wrote M. Benedetti to his chief in the spring of the year 1866, "let me mention that I have always remarked, not without surprise, the indifference with which the cabinet of St. Petersburg seems to me, from the beginning, to watch the pretensions of Prussia and the eventuality of a conflict between the two great Germanic Powers; and what I have not been less struck with is the constant security in which I have found M. de Bismarck as to the attitude and the intentions of the Empire of the North." Russia was silent in 1865 during the crisis of Gastein; in the month of May, 1866, it only accepted the invitation to the congress to make them despair and to discourage the other Powers from it; it was absent from the deliberations of Nikolsburg and of Prague; it left to France the care of making efforts for the South of Germany, for Saxony; it even left it the honor of stipulating a clause in favor of unhappy Denmark, the country of the future empress! One moment, it is true, M. d'Oubril, the Russian ambassador at Berlin, a diplomat of the old school, had shown himself very much alarmed at the victories and conquests of the Hohenzollern; he was ordered in all haste to St. Petersburg, and "returned from there in a few weeks entirely reassured, and affecting a satisfaction which was not disturbed a single instant either by the reverses of the German princes allied with the House of Russia, or by the developments which Prussia made in its military power."[75] Prince Gortchakof did not sacrifice to the old idols of the right of nations and of the balance of power; he did not share certain prejudices touching the "solidarity which should exist among all the conservative interests;" and he had too lofty a soul to be jealous of a good neighbor. Moreover, had he not too "vanquished Europe," three years previously, in the memorable campaign of Poland? Some august personages, some princesses and grand duchesses, had said in vain, with the women of the Bible, that Saul killed his thousands, but David tens of thousands; they had in vain showed their despoiled relations and their confiscated patrimonies; Alexander Mikhaïlovitch did not envy the young laurels of his former colleague of Frankfort, become Chancellor of the Confederation of the North. He rejoiced in seeing Austria severely punished and France well mortified; for the rest, he thought that nothing was changed, and that there was only one more great chancellor in this century.