Plainly between these two neighboring powers there has been
unhappy antagonism, constant, if not increasing, partly from the
memory of other days, and partly because Prance could not bear to
witness that German unity which was a national right and duty.
Often it has been said that war was inevitable. But it has come at
last by surprise, and on "a question of form." So it was called by
Thiers; so it was recognized by Ollivier, when he complained of
insensibility to a question of honor; and so also by the Due de
Gramont, when he referred it all to a telegram. This is not the
first time in history that wars have been waged on trifles; but
since the Lord of Frauenstein challenged the free city of
Frankfort because a young lady of the city refused to dance with
his uncle, nothing has passed more absurd than this challenge sent
by France to Germany because the King of Prussia refused to see
the French Ambassador a second time on the same matter, and then
let the refusal be reported by telegraph. Here is the folly
exposed by Shakespeare, when Hamlet touches a madness greater than
his own in that spirit which would "find quarrel in a straw when
honor's at the stake," and at the same time depicts an army
"Led by a delicate and tender prince,
Exposing what is mortal and unsure
To all that Fortune, Death, and Danger dare,
_Even for an egg-shall._"
There can be no quarrel in a straw or for an egg-shell, unless men
have gone mad. Nor can honor in a civilized age require any
sacrifice of reason or humanity.
UNJUST PRETENSION OF FRANCE TO INTERFERE WITH THE CANDIDATURE OF
HOHENZOLLERN.
If the utter triviality of the pretext were left doubtful in the
debate, if its towering absurdity were not plainly apparent, if
its simple wickedness did not already stand before us, we should
find all these characteristics glaringly manifest in that unjust
pretension which preceded the objection of form, on which France
finally acted. A few words will make this plain.
In a happy moment Spain rose against Queen Isabella, and, amidst
cries of "Down with the Bourbons!" drove her from the throne which
she dishonored. This was in September, 1868. Instead of
constituting a Republic at once, in harmony with those popular
rights which had been proclaimed, the half-hearted leaders
proceeded to look about for a King; and from that time till now
they have been in this quest, as if it were the Holy Grail, or
happiness on earth. The royal family of Spain was declared
incompetent. Therefore a king must be found outside,----and so the
quest was continued in other lands. One day the throne is offered
to a prince of Portugal, then to a prince of Italy, but declined
by each,----how wisely the future will show. At last, after a
protracted pursuit of nearly two years, the venturesome soldier
who is Captain-General and Prime-Minister, Marshal Prim, conceives
the idea of offering it to a prince of Germany. His luckless
victim is Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, a Catholic,
thirty-five years of age, and colonel of the first regiment of the
Prussian foot-guards, whose father, a mediatized German prince,
resides at Duesseldorf. The Prince had not the good sense to
decline. How his acceptance excited the French Cabinet, and became
the beginning of the French pretext, I have already exposed; and
now I come to the pretension itself.
By what title did France undertake to interfere with the choice of
Spain? If the latter was so foolish as to seek a foreigner for
king, making a German first among Spaniards, by what title did any
other power attempt to control its will? To state the question is
to answer it. Beginning with an outrage on Spanish independence,
which the Spain of an earlier day would have resented, the next
outrage was on Germany, in assuming that an insignificant prince
of that country could not be permitted to accept the invitation,----
all of which, besides being of insufferable insolence, was in
that worst dynastic spirit which looks to princes rather than the
people. Plainly France was unjustifiable. When I say it was none
of her business, I give it the mildest condemnation. This was the
first step in her monstrous _blunder-crime_.
Its character as a pretext becomes painfully manifest, when we
learn more of the famous Prince Leopold, thus invited by Spain and
opposed by France. It is true that his family name is in part the
same as that of the Prussian king. Each is Hohenzollern; but he
adds Sigmaringen to the name. The two are different branches of
the same family; but you must ascend to the twelfth century,
counting more than twenty degrees, before you come to a common
ancestor. [Footnote: Conversations-Lexikon, (Leipzig, 1866,) 8
Band, art. HOHENZOLLERN. Carlyle's History of Friedrich II.,
(London, 1858,) Book III. Cli. 1, Vol. I. p. 200.] And yet on this
most distant and infinitesimal relationship the French pretension
is founded. But audacity changes to the ridiculous, when it is
known that the Prince is nearer in relationship to the French
Emperor than to the Prussian King, and this by three different
intermarriages, which do not go hack to the twelfth century. Here
is the case. His grandfather had for wife a niece of Joachim
Murat,[Footnote: Antoinette, daughter of Etienne Murat, third
brother of Joachim.--- Biographic Genemle, (Didot,) Tom. XXXVI.
col. 984, art. MURAT, note.] King of Naples, and brother-in-law of
the first Napoleon; and his father had for wife a daughter of
Stephanie de Beauharnais, an adopted daughter of the first
Napoleon; so that Prince Leopold is by his father great-grand-
nephew of Murat, and by his mother he is grandson of Stephanie de
Beauharnais, who was cousin and by adoption sister of Horteuse de
Beauharnais, mother of the present Emperor; and to this may be
added still another connection, by the marriage of his father's
sister with Joachim Napoleon, Marquis of Pepoli, grandson of
Joachim Murat.[Footnote: Almanach de Gotha, 1870, pp. 85-87, art.
HOHENZOLLERN-SIGMARINGEN.] It was natural that a person thus
connected with the Imperial Family should be a welcome visitor at
the Tuileries; and it is easy to believe that Marshal Prim, who
offered him the throne, was encouraged to believe that the
Emperor's kinsman and guest would be favorably regarded by France.
And yet, in the face of these things, and the three several family
ties, fresh and modern, binding him to France and the French
Emperor, the pretension was set up that his occupation of the
Spanish throne would put in peril the interests and the honor of
France.