At that time the eyes of the Danes were fixed upon France in hope and
expectation that their national resuscitation would come from that
quarter, and they made no distinction between France and the Empire.
Although the shortest visit to Paris was sufficient to convince a
foreigner not only that the personal popularity of the Emperor was long
since at an end, but that the whole government was despised, in Denmark
people did not, and would not, know it. In the Danish paper with the
widest circulation, the Daily Paper, foreign affairs were dealt with by
a man of the name of Prahl, a wildly enthusiastic admirer of the
Empire, a pleasant man and a brainy, but who, on this vital point,
seemed to have blinkers on. From all his numerous foreign papers, he
deduced only the opinions that he held before, and his opinions were
solely influenced by his wishes. He had never had any opportunity of
procuring information at first hand. He said to me one day:
"I am accused of allowing my views to be influenced by the foreign
diplomatists here, I, who have never spoken to one of them. I can
honestly boast of being unacquainted with even the youngest attaché of
the Portuguese Ministry." His remarks, which sufficiently revealed this
fact, unfortunately struck the keynote of the talk of the political
wiseacres in Denmark.
Though the Danes were so full of the French, it would be a pity to say
that the latter returned the compliment. It struck me then, as it must
have struck many others, how difficult it was to make people in France
understand that Danes and Norsemen were not Germans. From the roughest
to the most highly educated, they all looked upon it as an understood
thing, and you could not persuade them of anything else. As soon as
they had heard Northerners exchange a few words with each other and had
picked up the frequently recurring _Ja_, they were sufficiently
edified. Even many years after, I caught the most highly cultured
Frenchmen (such as Edmond de Concourt), believing that, at any rate on
the stage, people spoke German in Copenhagen.
One day in June I began chatting on an omnibus with a corporal of
Grenadiers. When he heard that I was Danish, he remarked: "German,
then." I said: "No." He persisted in his assertion, and asked,
cunningly, what _oui_ was in Danish. When I told him he merely replied,
philosophically, "Ah! then German is the mother tongue." It is true
that when Danes, Norwegians and Swedes met abroad they felt each other
to be compatriots; but this did not prevent them all being classed
together as Germans; that they were not Englishmen, you saw at a
glance. Even when there were several of them together, they had
difficulty in asserting themselves as different and independent; they
were a Germanic race all the same, and people often added, "of
second-class importance," since the race had other more pronounced
representatives.
The only strong expression of political opinion that was engineered in
France then was the so-called plebiscite of May, 1870; the government
challenged the verdict of the entire male population of France upon the
policy of Napoleon III. during the past eighteen years, and did so with
the intention, strangely enough not perceived by Prime Minister
Ollivier, of re-converting the so-called constitutional Empire which
had been in existence since January 1, 1870, into an autocracy.
Sensible people saw that the plebiscite was only an objectionable
comedy; a favourable reply would be obtained all over the country by
means of pressure on the voters and falsification of votes; the
oppositionist papers showed this up boldly in articles that were sheer
gems of wit. Disturbances were expected in Paris on the 9th of May, and
here and there troops were collected. But the Parisians, who saw
through the farce, remained perfectly indifferent.
The decision turned out as had been expected; the huge majority in
Paris was _against_, the provincial population voted _for_, the Emperor.