honour nor safety. The demand was so ill-judged and offensive that the most pacific of Germans would have greatly preferred war. Count Bismarck saw his advantage immediately, for his opponent had offered the very battlefield on which all Germany would and ought to rally. He plainly told Benedetti that the demand meant war, and that unless the Emperor desired it, he had better return to Paris and explain how matters stood. Benedetti, with a previous bravado about maintaining the demands, went back and informed his master that German territory could only be won by a successful war. Napoleon III. saw his mistake, and reflected that so long as he could enlarge his dominions and obtain adjacent territory it did not matter much at whose expense it was done. It is ill shearing a wolf,' the Scotch proverb says, and there was the Belgian sheep with its rich and undefended fleece inviting the shearer. Count Benedetti returned with his new instructions. It was no longer Prussian, nor even German territory (except so far as Luxembourg was, in one political sense, German) that was to be asked. Luxembourg belonged to the King of Holland, who might be compensated. Belgium had been French before, and might be reunited.' ('Reunion' and rectification of frontiers' are diplomatic terms for robbery.) By this plan Germany would lose nothing herself, and might fairly be asked to assist in robbing others. Such was evidently the rough sketch of the famous Project of Treaty.' It was broached obscurely, no doubt, at first, and later in all its iniquity and odiousness, its unprincipled greed, and its shortsighted cunning, to-of all men in the world-Count Bismarck! That he saw with a single glance the weakness of his opponents, and the immense advantage which Prussia might derive from such a blunder, is only to say that he was Count Bismarck. The policy of the ex-Emperor had left France without a single friend

except England, and here was a plan based upon treachery to that very friend!

All that Prussia needed for herself she had already obtained. Her policy was to maintain the status quo, and by no means to add to the territory and military power of France, still less to guarantee her spoils against the apprehended resentment of England or Russia. The game of Count Bismarck was simply delay; each month added to the strength of Germany's new organization. If only the French negociator could be deluded into the belief that he was outwitting his wary adversary, and into furnishing some proof of the intended treachery which should compromise France with England, the diplomatic game was won; and won it certainly was, by how much skill on the part of the Prussian player the world may never know. But the astounding false move of his French adversary will ever remain the opprobrium of French diplomatists.

So read, the whole story is perfectly intelligible, consistent, and probable. It casts the most indelible stain upon the honour of Napoleonic France, but does not compromise Prussia.

One thing only remains unexplained and inexplicable. Some Englishmen who know that a French Project' for a treacherous attack upon Belgium, with an equally treacherous precaution against English interference, still exists in the handwriting of the French Ambassador, can nevertheless talk of our faithful ally.'

For the benefit of such persons an impartial American's view of the whole matter is added in the Appendix, with a lithograph facsimile of the famous 'Projet de Traité.'

CHAPTER VII.

RETROSPECT OF THE ANGLO-FRENCH ALLIANCE.

THE greatest political fact in the history of the last forty years, and the pivot upon which European history may be said to have turned, has been the alliance or good understanding between France and England. Happily for the just appreciation of that alliance, it has not been made a party question in England; each party in the State having equally acknowledged its desirableness and value. It has had its vicissitudes, its difficulties, and even dangers; it has not been wholly beneficial to England; but still its general results have been favourable to the peace and liberty of Europe, the tranquillity and security of France, and the welfare of England.

Thus much being granted, there is another aspect of the question which should not be overlooked, whether in striving to appreciate the past or to seek guidance in it for the future. In that aspect it will appear that the Anglo-French Alliance was precarious, one-sided, and exposed to dangers arising from French pretensions hardly suspected, and never admitted by any English Government. Isolated facts of past history may have little comparative importance relative to the future; but where those facts resulted from an arrogant, ill-founded, and inadmissible political theory, that theory gives importance to the facts. It is contended here that French policy during that alliance was influenced more or less by the theory that France might dictate to

Europe, but that Europe might not dictate to France. In other words, that France had established a supremacy to which other nations ought to submit. That political presumption which among enlightened Frenchmen sprang from misconceptions of history, and among the majority from knowing nothing of it, may seem incredible to Englishmen; yet it moulded the policy of M. Thiers, who may be taken as a representative French statesman, and it nearly involved France in a war with all Europe thirty years ago.

To establish this view it is only necessary-though anticipating the events of this retrospect-to look at the events of 1840. On that occasion, in a momentous question of European interest, the Turco-Egyptian war, France differed with all the other Great Powers. In the course of negociations, the French Cabinet, which had its own views on Egypt, but agreed with England in opposing Russian influence at Constantinople, thus instructed Admiral Roussin :-'It is very improbable that the Sultan should recur to the armed interference of Russia before the courier reaches his destination; 'should he do so, however, you ought, in concert with Lord Ponsonby, or even without him, if he refuses to join you, adopt the measure of an armed intervention' (French). Thus the French Government thought itself at liberty to act singly in the Eastern Question. Late in the year 1840 the other four Great Powers came to a perfect understanding on that question, but France, wishing to make Egypt independent of the Porte, refused to adopt their policy, and they acted without her. M. Thiers told the French Chambers thereupon (as was related before) that he would have made war against all Europe for daring to act in any matter of general interest without the concurrence of France.* Thus M. Thiers considered that while France might act inde

pendently of Europe that right was not reciprocal. Such arrogance on the part of an enlightened statesman, like Thiers, can only be accounted for by the fact that in too intently studying the dazzling epoch of the French Empire, he had forgotten the general current of history and the fact that England never at any time took the law from France. With regard to the less eminent Frenchmen who took the same view, their arrogance was due to the really wondrous ignorance of history * which has been observed by foreigners in France. The wretched, incredibly wretched, administration of the British navy at the time (1835-1839) probably

* The ignorance of geography prevalent in France is proverbial, and incurred the ridicule of the better-taught Germans in the late war. M. Ernest Feydeau, in his amusing but rather spiteful little book, L'Allemagne en 1871, says of the Germans, S'ils connaissent mieux que nous la géographie de la France,' as if it had been the fault of the Germans that French teachers taught no better. But in knowledge of history Frenchmen do not seem much more advanced. As an example taken from a French author, quoted at p. 134, M. A. Laya, who, as a lawyer, and formerly chef au cabinet du ministre de l'intérieur, and a politician, might be expected to know something of history: M. Laya tells us, vol. ii. p. 169, that 'le capitaine anglais qui prit Gibraltar 'fit ce haut fait d'armes dans le même temps que le grand Marlborough rapportait à Londres les trophées de la Hollande!' and a little later, 'La Hollande n'est plus par elle' (i. e. England) 'qu'un trophée et qu'un souvenir.' M. Laya, therefore, evidently thinks that 'le grand Marlborough' took Holland, and that England still keeps that trophy. It would probably be a surprise to him to learn that Marlborough, so far from taking Holland, was much aided by that country in taking French fortresses, and that his trophies were, besides these, French guns, standards, and prisoners not a few, including a French marshal. Certainly Marlborough deserved to be remembered well, though not gratefully, by Frenchmen.

† In 1834-5 the British Ministry, by way of economy, reduced even the peace complements' of our ships of war, and sent them to sea half-manned and the line-of-battle ships half-armed. We were at times almost on the point of a rupture with France, and yet we sent our admirals to distant stations in line-of-battle ships which, being without their lower battery, would have fallen an easy prey to a French frigate!