Part 12

Thus was inaugurated, concerning Poland and Denmark, that common action of the two ministers of Russia and Prussia, which was to continue for so many years, and have such a considerable, such a disastrous influence on the affairs of the Continent. With this year 1863 the second period of the ministry of Prince Gortchakof commences, his second _term_, which was assuredly much less open to discussion. To the French "cordiality," properly dosed and taken in fact as a tonic, which had prevailed till then, the Prussian friendship, undeniably too passionate and too absorbing, succeeded. In fact, in this second period, Alexander Mikhaïlovitch no longer preserved that calm and reserved mind, and that intelligent egotism which made his fortune at the time of his intimacy with the Emperor Napoleon III.; he embraced all the opinions, every cause of his formidable friend at Berlin, unfortunately without possessing his astonishing flexibility of mind, his marvelous art of turning and twisting. Nothing, for instance, equals the address with which M. de Bismarck can, if necessary, forget a disagreeable past, and, above all, be unable to remember his wrong-doings toward others; in fact, he has a charming euphemism, he calls them _misunderstandings_. More than once, from the height of the tribune, he has adorned with this name his long and outrageous conflict against parliament which he sustained up to the war of 1866 against Austria (a little misunderstanding which cost 40,000 men their lives!). And how can one help admiring the affection, the enthusiasm, which he has inspired in that excellent Lord Russell, certainly the statesman whom he ridiculed and ill-treated the most in 1863, during the Danish contention? As for his Polish quarrels with the Eastern Powers in the same year (1863), he was the more ready to forget them as those very Powers felt that a great act of folly had been committed. He dictated to King William a most polite reply, full of tender souvenirs of Compiègne, in answer to the letter of Napoleon III. concerning the congress, and toward the end of the year he was already in touching accord with the cabinet of the Tuileries concerning the treaty of London, a treaty which guaranteed the entireness of the Danish monarchy, and which a circular of M. Drouyn de Lhuys now qualified as an _impotent work_! As regards Austria, he soon granted it full indulgence for its Polish error in the spring, and even forgave the very reprehensible enterprise which it attempted in the month of August at Frankfort, on _the day of the princes_. In the month of November he had already made it his companion and accomplice in the wars of the Duchies. Prince Gortchakof appeared in a very different light; he was never willing to pardon France and Austria for their intermeddling in the affairs of Poland, and remained immovable to every attempt at reconciliation. He knew no intimacy except with the cabinet of Berlin, and his former colleague of Frankfort became his only confidant and ally. The famous aphorism of 1856 then underwent an important modification; beginning with 1863, the Russian chancellor began to sulk while continuing to _meditate_, and the Achaeans have paid dearly for this spite of Achilles. The "sulks" of Alexander Mikhaïlovitch have been almost as fatal for Europe as the dreams of Napoleon III.

This Napoleonic policy regarding the affairs of Germany, at once reasonable and chimerical, ingenious and ingenuous, which he sincerely thought would work good, and which only accumulated disasters and ruin, seemed like a dream, a real _summer night's dream_. One day they had a sublime vision at the Tuileries: Italy was completed in its unity, Austria reëxalted, Prussia rendered more homogeneous, Germany more satisfied, Europe regenerated, and France consolidated and glorious. All this only depended on a single hypothesis, but a hypothesis which did not exist, on a battle fought and won by the brave _Kaiserliks_ always inured against this Prussian _Landwehr_ which for half a century had not smelt powder, and it was on this frail skiff, on this "nut-shell," as the Puck of Midsummer Night's Dream had said, that the fortune of Cæsar and that of France was embarked! In fact, at this moment, all the world believed in the incomparable military superiority of Austria over its bold rival in Germany; no one admitted the possibility of a Prussian victory, still less a victory as decisive, as startling as that at Sadowa. "That was," M. Rouher said later, in a memorable session of the legislative body,--"that was an event which Austria, which France, which the military man, which the simple citizen had all considered as unlikely; for there was an universal presumption that Austria would be victorious and that Prussia would pay, and pay dearly, the price of its imprudence." This presumption, very real and universal at that time, remained the sole excuse of Napoleon III. before history, for that lamentable phantasmagoria which was announced to the world by the speech of Auxerre in the month of May, 1866, but whose origin goes back as far as the convention of September and the first journey of M. de Bismarck to France after his campaign in Denmark in the autumn of 1864.[49]

"I have at least one superiority over my conqueror," the Emperor of Austria, Francis I., said to M. de Talleyrand, the negotiator of the peace of Presburg, with a dignity not without keenness; "I can reënter my capital after such a disaster, while it would be difficult for your master, in spite of all his genius, to do the same thing in a similar situation." This curious _mot_ displayed in a striking manner the profound, incurable vice of all Cæsarism. No more than the conqueror of Austerlitz, could Napoleon III. accept a check; he was obliged _to do great things_, condemned to success and prestige. Soon after the misadventures and the miscalculations in the affairs of Poland, of Denmark, and of the congress, he was forced to look out for a revenge, he cast his glances from north to south, "struck an attitude" by means of the convention of September, which seemed to be the preface of a new and great work. He was isolated in Europe, incensed against England, very much embarrassed in regard to Russia, more than cool with Austria, and it was with a certain inward trepidation that one saw M. de Bismarck hasten to France (October, 1864) at the first news of the convention concluded with the cabinet of Turin. Evidently "something was to be done for Italy;" without rancor, as without prejudices, the president of the Prussian council came to renew the conversations broken off two years before at the time of his short mission to Paris.

He added nothing to the truth; he only affirmed that his alliance with the Hapsburg in the war against Denmark had been a simple incident, and he allowed to be clearly seen his desire to keep for Prussia the countries recently conquered on the Elbe in the name of the Germanic Confederation. For the rest, he only varied the ancient theme on the inevitable imminent duel between Berlin and Vienna, on the advantages which Italy might gather from it, on the advantage that would accrue to France, having Prussia, with a better defined and firmer outline, as its natural, unfailing ally in all the questions of _civilization_ and _progress_. Such expressions, coming from a minister who had shown his character in the campaign of the Duchies, now met an auditory much more attentive than that of 1862. Without yet taking him for a perfectly _serious_ man, they began to recognize in him the qualities of a useful man, of a man of the future, whom Italy should cultivate with care, whom France, for its part, should watch carefully, encourage, and manage. The leaders of the imperial democracy, Prince Napoleon first of all, showed themselves especially taken with the prospectives which were opened to them. A distinguished member of this group, a diplomat reputed to be acute above all, and whose name even allied him to the Italian cause, was sought out in his retreat and placed at the head of the mission at Berlin, elevated now to an embassy. Another member of the "party of action," equally unattached for some time, a former ambassador at Rome, was not long in being recalled into the councils of the empire: by the side of M. Rouher, he was destined to form there a useful counterpoise to the slightly "antiquated" ideas of M. Drouyn de Lhuys. Finally, on the other side of the Alps, at Turin, a general, well known for his "Prussomania," had taken in hand the direction of political affairs on the 23d September. Each of these personages,--M. Benedetti, M. de La Valette, General La Marmora,--will have his _rôle_ and his day in the great drama of 1866.

At this time, however, in the autumn of 1864, no plan was fixed or even discussed: one had only come as yet to simple confidences, to vague and fleeting conversations, to that which, in diplomatic language, one had not even dared to call an exchange of ideas; but the impression which the Prussian minister obtained from this rapid journey to France was sufficiently encouraging for him soon to launch that circular of the 24th December, 1864, which became the point of departure for his action against Austria. It was in this circular, in fact, that M. de Bismarck broached for the first time the question of the countries of the Elbe, which he well knew to be a question of war. Six months before, in the peremptory declaration made the 28th May, 1864, in the midst of the conference of London, Austria and Prussia had demanded the "reunion of the Duchies of Schleswig and of Holstein in a single state under the sovereignty of the hereditary Prince of Augustenburg," and the cabinet of Berlin took care to add then that this prince had, "in the eyes of Germany, _the greatest right_ to the succession; that his recognition by the _Bund_ was consequently assured, and that, moreover, he would reunite the _indubitable suffrages_ of the great majority of the population of this country." Quite different were the sentiments of the Prussian minister towards the end of the same year, some time after his return from Paris. In a circular dispatch addressed to the German courts, the president of the council of Berlin declared now (24th December, 1864) that grave doubts assailed his mind touching the titles of the Duke of Augustenburg, that several serious competitors, such as the Princes of Oldenburg and Hesse, had arisen in the interval;[50] that in the midst of such multiplied and such confused claims he was perplexed; that his conscience was not sufficiently enlightened on this point of right; that he felt the need of meditating and of "consulting the legists!"

The world knows the magnificent decree which the "legists"--the syndics of the crown--did not delay in pronouncing, as well as the conclusions which the scrupulous minister conscientiously drew from them. There were judges at Berlin, and they proved it in overruling all parties, in declaring them all badly grounded in their pretensions: Hesse, Oldenburg, Brandenburg, Sonderburg, Augustenburg, none of them had the right of succession to Schleswig-Holstein. The King of Denmark alone had the titles! But as the King of Denmark had been forced by the war to abandon the provinces of the Elbe to the sovereigns of Prussia and Austria, M. de Bismarck concluded therefrom that the two monarchs could dispose of their "property" as they wished, without any intervention of the _Bund_, and he demanded of the Emperor Francis Joseph the cession of his part of the conquest for ready cash. The Prussian minister made this impudent demand in an arrogant dispatch, full of menaces, dated the 11th July, 1865, from Carlsbad, from the very place where the old King William had come to enjoy the Austrian hospitality during the season. The alarm was great for some weeks. M. de Bismarck made no mystery of the negotiations which he entered upon with Italy; he said to M. de Gramont "that far from dreading the war, he desired it by all means;" some days after, he even declared to M. de Pfordten, president of the council of Bavaria, "that Austria could not sustain a campaign, that it would suffice to strike a single blow, to fight a single and great battle from the side of Silesia to obtain satisfaction of the Hapsburg." In reality, he only wished to sound the ground and to make a careful examination. At this moment he was not yet sufficiently sure of the disposition of the Emperor Napoleon to dare to risk the great cast; he also wanted time to persuade the pious Hohenzollern to pronounce the "God wills it!" of a fratricidal war. He had to content himself with that convention of Gastein (14th August, 1865) which was only a provisional arrangement, yet the first breach made in the rights of the _Bund_, and like an indirect consecration of the conclusions which he had pretended, to draw from the decree pronounced by the famous syndics of the crown.

The very day on which he signed this equivocal transaction at Gastein, M. de Bismarck wrote his wife a short note as follows: "For several days I have not found a moment of leisure to write you. Count Blome is again here, and we are doing our best to preserve peace and stop up the crevices of the building. Day before yesterday I devoted an entire day to hunting. I think that I wrote you that I returned disgusted from my first expedition; this time I at least killed a roe, but I saw nothing else during the three hours that I devoted without cessation to experiments on all sorts of insects, and the noisy activity of the cascade below me drew from my heart the cry: '_Little brook, leave there thy murmur._'[51] After all, it was a very good shot made across the precipice. The animal, killed instantly, fell with its four feet in the air from a height of several church steeples into the torrent at my feet." After all, he no more missed the shot than when he slew, in order that he might no longer be the cherished candidate of the _Bund_, the poor Augustenburg, and made the little Duchy of Lauenberg fall into the Prussian game-bag! This fact of the chase and of diplomacy even had an extraordinary reëcho in Germany, in France, and even as far as Lord Russell, who experienced the shock. The principal secretary of state insisted on the honor of associating himself with M. Drouyn de Lhuys in a very eloquent protest against the arrangements made at Gastein, and the iron-clad squadron of England, which had not appeared in the Baltic since the war of Denmark, came this time at least to pay a courteous visit to the French fleet at Cherbourg. There, however, the demonstration of the two Powers of the East limited itself; M. de Bismarck could enjoy in peace his triumph and the title of count which the fortunate campaign of 1865 brought him.

Is it admissible to depart from the gravity of history to describe still another incident of Gastein, a little _genre_ picture of manners which was much talked of at this epoch, and even became the object of confidential explanations between the president of the Prussian council and a devoted friend, all extremely devout? And why not, since the letter of M. de Bismarck to M. André (de Roman) concerning Mlle. Pauline Lucca is one of the most curious pages of his familiar correspondence, if it throws light in a very picturesque manner on that vast and bald forehead on which the hand of King William had just placed the coronet of a count. Well, in the midst of those political negotiations and the deer hunts, M. de Bismarck found time at Gastein to be photographed in a romantic attitude with Mlle. Lucca, first _cantatrice_ of the royal opera at Berlin. The photographs caused a certain scandal on the banks of the Spree; the leaders of _the party of the cross_ were especially moved at the thermal license which the former Levite of the tabernacle, the fervent disciple of MM. Stahl and de Gerlach, took. M. André (de Roman) was perfectly willing to accept the _rôle_ of Nathan in the Bible, and, in a sermon written in entire confidence, he did not limit himself to talking of the Bethsabea of the opera; he also spoke some well-chosen words touching the reparation by arms which the first minister of Prussia had but lately wished to impose on the good Doctor Virchow, the very learned and very peaceful discoverer of _trichina_. M. André found that that was not the conduct of a true Christian; he did not conceal that his old friends sighed at not seeing their Eliakim assist at divine service, and even began to be rather uneasy at the state of his soul. It was to such a sermon that M. de Bismarck replied by the confidential letter which follows, and which a lucky indiscretion has since given to the public, a letter assuredly very characteristic, and which makes one think once more of Cromwell, whose memory has been so often called forth in the course of this study:--

"DEAR ANDRÉ,[52]--Although my time is very much restricted, I cannot, however, refuse to reply to a summons addressed to me by an upright heart, and in the name of Christ. I am profoundly pained at scandalizing Christians who have faith, but I have the certainty that it is an inevitable circumstance in my position. I will not yet speak of the parties who are necessarily opposed to me in politics, and who not the less count in their midst a great number of Christians, who have far preceded me in the way of salvation, and with whom, nevertheless, I am obliged to be in conflict on account of matters which, in my estimation as well as theirs, are terrestrial; I appeal only to what you yourself said: 'That nothing that is omitted or committed in the elevated regions remains hidden.' Where is the man who, in a similar situation, would not cause scandal, rightly or wrongly? I will grant you much more still, for your expression 'does not remain hidden' is not exact. Would to God that apart from the sin the world knows I had not upon my soul others which remain unknown, and for which I can only hope for pardon in my faith in the blood of Christ! As a statesman, I even think that I use far too much consideration; according to my idea I am rather cowardly, and that perhaps because it is not so easy in the questions which come before me to arrive always at that clearness at the bottom of which confidence in God exists. He who reproaches me with being a political man without conscience, wrongs me; he should first commence by himself testing his conscience on the field of battle. As regards the matter of Virchow, I have long since passed the age in which, on similar questions, one seeks counsel from flesh and blood. If I expose my life for a cause, I do it not only in this faith which I have fortified by a long and painful combat, but also by fervent and humble prayer before God; this faith, the word of man cannot shake, not even the word of a friend in the Lord, and of a servant of the church. It is not true that I have never attended a church. For just seven months, I have been either absent from Berlin or ill; who then can have made the observation on my negligence? I willingly agree that it has often happened, much less for want of time than for considerations of health, especially in the winter; I am always ready to give more detailed explanations to all those who consider it their vocation to be my judges in this matter: as for you, you will believe me without other details of medicine. As to the Lucca photograph, you would probably judge less severely, if you knew to what chance it owes its origin. Besides, Mlle. Lucca, although a _cantatrice_, is a lady whom the world has never, any more than it has me, reproached with illicit relations. Nevertheless, I would have certainly taken care to keep away from the glass pointed at us, if I had in a tranquil moment reflected on the scandal which so many faithful friends would find in this jest. You see by the details into which I enter that I consider your letter as well meant, and that I do not dream in any way of placing myself above the judgment of those who share with me the same faith; but I expect from your friendship and from your Christian knowledge which you commend to others, in future circumstances, more indulgence and charity in their judgments: all of us have need of them. I am of the great number of sinners to whom the glory of God is wanting; I do not hope the less with them that in His mercy, He will not withdraw from me the staff of the humble faith by the aid of which I seek to find my way in the midst of the doubts and dangers of my position; this confidence, however, should not render me deaf to the reproaches of friends, nor impatient at proud and harsh judgments."

Let us lock up the hair shirt with the discipline; let us only think of the diplomat in tunic and helmet, of the "iron count" (_der eiserne Graf_), as his people soon called him, and let us look at the disposition of France towards him at the moment when, after having left the rugged valley of Gastein, he prepared to visit the delightful region of Biarritz, to salute, interrogate, divine, and ... cast down the sphinx!

In the councils of the empire the debates had become from day to day sharper between the ancients and the moderns, between those zealous for the new right and the partisans of a more circumspect and traditional policy, in proportion as the Austro-Prussian conflict had grown more bitter and aggravated. The ardent ones would have willingly concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with Prussia. They showed the irresistible movement which was drawing Germany towards unity, and the advantages which France would reap by favoring this evolution in place of opposing it, by attaching to itself by the ties of an eternal recognition the Piedmont of Germany, as it had already done with that of the peninsula. Passionate friends of Italy, and still more violent adversaries of Austria, this bulwark of the reaction, of legitimacy and of temporal power, they cherished in the kingdom of Frederick the Great the incontestable representative of civilization, and trembled at seeing it going toward certain defeat in an unequal contest with the _Kaiserliks_. To hear them, the united action of France, Italy, and Prussia was not too much to preserve the cause of progress and to place Europe on new and immovable bases. Why, however, should not Belgium be the legitimate recompense of the French efforts in favor of Germany, as Savoy had been in consequence of the constitution of the kingdom of Italy, and how decline a combination in which each of the three nations representing _par excellence_ modern ideas on the Continent was called to complete its respective unity?