without, the parliamentary conflicts in the interior and the political
constellations in the exterior united, towards the end of 1861, in
equally urging the King of Prussia to energetic resolutions. A man of
vigor was wanted for the vigorous actions which were projected, and the
glances naturally fell on that grumbling diplomat at St. Petersburg,
who, for so many years already, had not ceased to criticise the
ministers of the _new era_, and to blame their conduct from without as
well as from within. In spite of the promise which he had given "to
confine himself to his situation as an observer," M. de Bismarck had not
failed from time to time to give a thrust during those years 1860 and
1861, and to repeat without cessation the precept of Strafford, the
precept of thorough (_a outrance!_). We see him during these years
making very frequent journeys to Germany, seeking opportunities of
meeting the head of the state, of conversing with him on his ideas and
presenting him various memoirs. In October, 1861, on the very eve of the
journey to Compiegne, he submitted to him a little project, from which
he expected some success, and of which it is not so difficult in fact to
imagine the tenor, when, above all, one takes care to study a
confidential letter written by him a few days before (18th September,
1861), and directed entirely against a political programme which the
conservative party in Prussia had published. In this curious letter he
rises with violence against the _Bund_, "the hot-bed of particularism,"
demands "a (_straffer_) firmer concentration of the armed forces of
Germany, and a more natural configuration of the frontiers of the
States;" but, above all, he puts his party on guard against _the
dangerous fiction of a solidarity which would exist between all the
conservative interests_. To triumph over this "dangerous fiction"
strongly rooted in certain minds, there was in truth the great
difficulty for the future minister of William I., his _omne tulit
punctum_, for it is not so easy in this order of things to well
distinguish between reality and fiction; it is perhaps even perilous to
discuss them, and a Retz would certainly have said of the conservative
interests what he so finely remarked of the right of peoples and of that
of kings, "that they never agree so well together as in silence." M. de
Bismarck was once more obliged to combat this "fiction" at Berlin as at
St. Petersburg, and if the mind as open as subtle of his friend
Alexander Mikhailovitch allowed itself most often to be convinced
without too much assistance, it was not the same with the Hohenzollern,
who, afterwards, on many an occasion, and in decisive moments, was to
feel the scruples, the shudders, and what Falstaff calls the "tertian
fevers of conscience."
On the return of William I. from Compiegne, the nomination of the
cavalier of the Mark to the direction of affairs was already a
well-arranged and fixed matter. M. de Bismarck soon afterwards came to
assist at the coronation of the king at Koenigsberg, and he only
returned to St. Petersburg to take leave definitely. At the beginning of
the month of May, 1862, he was again at Berlin; at the great military
parade which was held in the capital on the occasion of the unveiling of
the statue of Count de Brandenburg (17th May), the political men, the
deputies, and the high functionaries of state looked upon him already as
the future "Polignac" of Prussia. The fears and the hopes which such a
provision excited were not, however, so soon to be realized, and the
world was somewhat perplexed in suddenly learning that M. de Bismarck
was to be appointed to the post in Paris. Did he still hesitate to take
charge of the burden of power, and did he in any case prefer to await
the result of the new elections which were to be held in Prussia? It is
more probable that before inaugurating his government of combat he
wished to add some new conversations to those which were held at
Compiegne, to take once again the measure of the man on whom a then
universal belief made the destinies of Europe depend, and to prepare in
general the minds in France for the new policy which he was to
inaugurate.
He only remained at Paris two months, during the two delightful months
of May and June, but this short stay sufficed for him both to complete
his studies and to throw light on his religion. He had more than one
conversation with the sovereign of France, whose profound ideas every
one exalted at this time, commented _ad infinitum_ on the smallest
words, admired even his silence, and whom he, however, the future
conqueror of Sedan, did not hesitate in his confidential effusions to
define even then as "a great unrecognized incapacity." He saw also the
influential men in the government, and in society, and strove to rally
them to his ideas and his projects. He did not conceal that his
sovereign would not delay to appeal to him, and he exposed without a
_detour_ the line of conduct which he would adopt on such an occurrence.
What history will perhaps most admire in the present chancellor of
Germany, will be the supreme art with which he sometimes handled the
truth: this man of genius has understood how to give to frankness
itself all the political virtues of knavishness. Very artful and very
cunning as to the means, he has nevertheless always been, as regards the
goal which he pursued, of a _desinvolture_, of an indiscretion without
equal, and it was thus that he had at Paris in 1862 those astonishing
and confidential conferences which only amused and which should have
made them reflect.[38]
France,--said M. de Bismarck then and since, in 1862 as in 1864 and
1865, every time that he conversed with any of the political men from
the banks of the Seine,--France would be wrong in taking umbrage at the
increase in Prussian influence, and, the case occurring, at its
territorial aggrandizement at the cost of the small States. Of what
utility, of what help are then those small States, without a will,
without strength, without an army? However far the designs and wants of
Prussia could reach, they would necessarily stop at the Main; the line
of the Main is its natural frontier; beyond that river, Austria will
guard it, even its preponderance will increase, and there will thus
always be in Germany two powers balancing one another. Good order will
gain, and certainly France will lose nothing there, it will even draw
immense advantages for its politics, for its movement in the world. In
fact Prussia has an unfortunate, impossible configuration; _it wants a
stomach_ on the side of Cassel and Nassau, _it has a dislocated
shoulder_ on the side of Hanover, it is in the air, and this painful
situation necessarily condemns it to follow entirely the policy of
Vienna and St. Petersburg, to turn without rest in the orbit of the holy
alliance. Better outlined, planted more solidly, having its members
complete, it would be itself again, would have freedom of movements, the
_freedom of alliances_, and what alliance more desirable for it than
that with the French Empire? More than one question pending to-day, and
almost unsolvable could have been settled then with perfect security:
that of Venice, that of the Orient,--who knows? perhaps even that of
Poland! Finally, if the possible aggrandizements of Prussia seem to be
excessive, and to break the balance of strength what would prevent
France from growing, from increasing itself in turn? Why should it not
take Belgium, and _destroy there a nest of demagogy_? The cabinet of
Berlin would not oppose it; _suum cuique_, that is the antique and
venerable device of the Prussian monarchy.
All that said with liveliness, with spirit, with intelligence,
accompanied by many an ingenious malicious remark, happy _mots_ on men
and things, on that chamber of lords at Berlin, for instance, composed
of respectable _old fogies_, and the chamber of deputies, equally
composed of old fogies, but not respectable, and on an august personage,
the most respectable, but the greatest old fogy of all. M. de Bismarck
had at Paris during these two months almost the same success which had
accompanied his three years' sojourn on the banks of the Neva. The
important men, however, were careful not to overdo it; they readily
recognized in him all the qualities of a man of intellect, but they
could not make up their minds to consider him a _serious man_.
In the last days of the month of June, the new representative of Prussia
at the court of the Tuileries undertook a pleasure trip in the south of
France. He visited in turn Chambord, Bordeaux, Avignon, Luchon,
Toulouse, and made an excursion in the Pyrenees. "The chateau of
Chambord," he wrote in a letter dated the 27th July, 1862, "answers, by
its isolation, to the destinies of its possessor. In the great
porticoes, in the splendid halls, in which formerly the kings with their
mistresses held their court and their hunts, the playthings of the child
of the Duke of Bordeaux now form the only furniture. The _concierge_,
who served as my guide, took me for a legitimist, and _crushed_ a tear
in showing me a little cannon of his prince. I paid him a franc more
than the tariff for this tear, although I feel but little desire to
subsidize Carlism." At Bordeaux he rejoiced in having been able to
"study _in the original_, and in the cellar of those great masters
called Lafitte, Mouton, Pichon, Larose, Margaux, Branne, Armillac,
etc.," who are generally known in Germany only through bad translations.
He is delighted with his tour in the Pyrenees, but above all the Baths
of Biarritz and St. Sebastian made him happy. He "devotes himself there
entirely to the sun and to the salt water," he forgets politics, and
knows neither journals nor dispatches. It was at this moment (the end of
September, 1862) that he received from his sovereign the pressing call
to go to Berlin. The elections had given a deplorable result, the
immense majority of the new chamber belonged to the _progressionists_.
They had not been able to decide at Berlin on the choice of the
president of the future ministry,--"a cover for the government pot," as
M. de Bismarck said; he was to fill those functions in the interim by
taking the portfolio of foreign affairs. Burned by the sun of the South
and fortified by the waters of the Gulf, "tanned and salted," the former
aspirant for the inspectorship of dikes in a district of the Mark,
started for his country to fill there the first position in the state.
He only, so to speak, crossed Paris this time, but he remained there
long enough to leave a characteristic _mot_, which summed up his entire
programme. "Liberalism," said the designated chief of the Prussian
government, in taking leave in the bureaux of the Quai d'Orsay,
"liberalism is only nonsense which it is easy to bring to reason; but
revolution is a force, which it is necessary to know how to use."
FOOTNOTES:
[26] "Austria is not a state, it is only a government."
[27] As well as the Germans born or naturalized in Russia who encumbered
the different branches of the state service, and occupied in general a
very large and important position in the administration of the empire.
On his accession to the ministry, Alexander Mikhailovitch loudly
signified his intention of "purging" his department of all these
"intruders." Routine, however, and above all Sclavic idleness (which
willingly leaves to foreigners and to "intruders" all work demanding
perseverance and application) were not slow in triumphing over the
principle of nationality; the palingenesis of the minister, announced
with so much fuss, ended in a very insignificant change in the
_personnel_ of the lower order, and the chancellor found among these
Germans his two most devoted and capable aids: M. de Westmann, deceased
last May at Wiesbaden, and M. de Hamburger, quite recently made
secretary of state.
[28] Letter of M. de Cavour to M. Castelli-Bianchi, _Storia
documentata_, vol. viii. p. 622.
[29] See, for this and all that follows concerning the relations of
France and Russia in the years 1856-63, _Two Negotiations of
Contemporaneous Diplomacy; the Alliances since the Congress of Paris_,
in the _Revue des deux Mondes_, of the 15th September, 1864.
[30] It is true that, in a circular of the 27th May, 1859, the Russian
vice-chancellor took care to give a commentary to his proposition, and
to prove that the congress which he had planned looked to nothing
chimerical. "This congress," said he, "_did not place any power in
presence of the unknown_: its programme had been traced in advance. The
fundamental idea which had presided at this combination, _prejudiced no
essential interest_. _On one side, the state of territorial possession
was maintained_, and on the other there could come from the congress _a
result which had nothing excessive or unusual in the international
relations_." It would be well to re-read this remarkable circular, and
to weigh every word of it. One will find in it the most curious and
substantial criticism, made, so to speak, by anticipation, of the
different projects of the congress, those which later the Emperor
Napoleon III. was to present to Europe, especially the eccentric project
which surprised the world in the imperial speech of the 5th November,
1863.
[31] Massari, _Il Conte Cavour_, p. 268.
[32] _Aus der Petersburger Gesellschaft_, vol. ii. p. 90.
[33] In 1862, at the moment of definitely leaving his post at St.
Petersburg, M. de Bismarck received the visit of a colleague, a foreign
diplomat. They were speaking of Russia, and the future chancellor of
Germany said, among other things, "I am in the habit, when leaving a
country where I have lived long, to consecrate to it one of my watch
charms, on which I have engraved the final impression which it has left
me; do you wish to know the impression which I carry from St.
Petersburg?" And he showed to the puzzled diplomat a little charm on
which these words were engraved: "_Russia is nothingness!_"
[34] M. de Bismarck has since presented these quadrupeds to the
zoological garden of the former free city of Frankfort.
[35] Constantin Roessler, _Graf Bismarck und die deutsche Nation_,
Berlin, 1871.
[36] Frederick William IV. having died the 2d January, 1861, the prince
regent took from that day the name William I.
[37] See the remarkable pamphlet entitled _Europa's Cabinete und
Allianzen_, Leipzig, 1862. It is the work of a Russian diplomat,
celebrated in political literature, the same whose book on the
_Pentarchie_ had such a loud echo under the monarchy of July.
[38] See in the _Revue des deux Mondes_ of the 1st October, 1868, _Les
Preliminaires de Sadowa_.
III.
UNITED ACTION.
I.
However great one wishes to make the share of genius in the work of M.
de Bismarck, one cannot deny that a great part also comes from the
unforeseen, from an extraordinary combination of circumstances, in one
word, from that goddess Fortune whom the _minnesinger_ of the Middle
Ages did not cease to praise in song, whom Dante himself did not fail to
extol in the immortal verses, "The course always luminous like a star in
heaven, and the decree always hidden like a serpent in the grass."
Without doubt, one can admire the extreme audacity with which the
present chancellor of Germany has so often let fall from his hand the
_iron dice of destiny_; one can even, to speak with the witty Abbe
Galiani, suspect more than one cogged one in such a persistent "_pair
royal of six_." It is not less true that in his long career as player,
the president of the council at Berlin has occasionally met, in the most
decisive moments, such marvelous luck as no human wisdom could foresee,
that no political subtlety could prepare, and in which the hardy
_punter_ only had the merit, very considerable it is true, of not
letting the vein exhaust itself or of using up the series. One of these
magnificent strokes of luck, one of these perfectly prodigious events
fell to the lot of William I. on his accession to power, in the month
of January, 1863. This event laid the first foundations of his future
greatness, it became the mainspring of his action in Europe, the
Archimedean point from whence afterwards he raised up a world of daring
projects, and it is necessary to bear it well in mind.
The ideal which M. de Bismarck had before him in taking into his hands
the reins of state, was the aggrandizement, "the rounding off" of the
monarchy of Frederick II. He had made the premature avowal of it at the
time of his mission to Paris; he also declared it very frankly in the
first sitting of the commission of the chamber at Berlin, scarcely a
week after having been made minister (29th September, 1862). He
certainly did not foresee in what measure he should realize this ideal,
to what limits he could extend in Germany conquests which should cease
to be "moral;" but he clearly foresaw that in this attempt he would find
a resolute adversary in Austria, and he made up his mind to it.[39] The
only question which engrossed him was the attitude which the other great
Powers of Europe would maintain in view of certain events. Among them,
he did not count England; with his rare political sagacity, he had early
appreciated to what state of domestication and mildness that excellent
school of Manchester had reduced the leopard formerly so fierce, and his
conviction that proud Albion would not think of evil, and would even
allow itself to be disgraced a little, was soon to be fully justified in
the piteous campaign of Denmark. "England is far from entering into my
calculations," he said in 1862, in a familiar conversation, "and do you
know when I ceased to count her? From the day when she renounced of her
free will the Ionian Islands; a Power which ceases to take and begins to
surrender is a used-up Power." France and Russia remained, and it was
not forbidden to think that, skillfully managed, these two states would
favor to a certain degree the Prussian designs, or at least would not
oppose them too strongly. On the banks of the Neva old grudges existed,
sprung from the war of the Orient, imperfectly gratified by the war of
Lombardy; the old relations between the Gottorp and the Hohenzollern,
always cordial, had become more intimate than ever, thanks to the recent
efforts of M. de Bismarck during his sojourn at St. Petersburg; finally,
there was his friend Alexander Mikhailovitch, former colleague of
Frankfort, so prepossessed in favor of the new minister of King William
I., so well united with him in the hatred against Austria, and also so
well warned against the "dangerous fiction" of a solidarity which should
exist between all the conservative interests. On the banks of the Seine,
in the Tuileries, still so much dreaded, there reigned a sovereign who,
by dint of studying the general good of humanity, lost more and more the
consideration of the French state, and whose vague vacillating regard it
was not very difficult to dazzle, especially when one mirrored before
him the "new right" and the affranchisement of Venice. Moreover, since
the congress of Paris, there was established between the two cabinets
of the Tuileries and St. Petersburg a "cordiality" which increased from
day to day, and in which Prussia began to have a very large share: was
there not ground to hope for the latter, in the enterprise which it
meditated, a generous cooperation or at least a cordial neutrality of
the two Powers so friendly to one another, and so unsympathetic towards
the House of Hapsburg?
And yet such an enterprise was so profoundly contrary to the well
understood interests and to the firmly rooted traditions of Russia as
well as of France, the substitution in the centre of Europe of a great
military and conquering monarchy in the place of a pacific
confederation, and one "purely defensive," presented such manifest
inconveniences, even such evident dangers for the security and
equilibrium of the world, that the president of the council at Berlin
could scarcely entertain as regards this matter too flattering hopes.
The bitter resentments at the winter palace, and the sweet dreams at the
palace of the Tuileries, could not long prevail against the reality of
geography and the brutality of facts. Unless at Paris and St. Petersburg
there was a complete want of statesmen with a little political
discernment in their minds, a little national history in their souls,
one might wager that the two governments, Russian and French, would not
remain indifferent spectators to such a formidable overturning in the
balance of the Continent. From well-wishing, their neutrality would not
delay in becoming by degrees watchful and alarmed, would even change to
declared hostility, as the Prussian successes became marked, and it was
this cordiality between the two empires, apparently so favorable to
Prussia, which would then form another peril, facilitating prompt and
decisive action against the Hohenzollern. Such being the situation of
Europe at the beginning of the year 1863, what the new minister of
William I. could wish for in his boldest combinations, invoke in his
most golden dreams, was some unforeseen incident, some extraordinary
event which should embroil in an irremediable manner the two emperors
Alexander II. and Napoleon III., which should revive at St. Petersburg
all the ancient rancor towards Vienna, which should permit Prussia to
attach Russia to itself by ties stronger, more indissoluble, while
preserving its necessary good relations with the cabinet of the
Tuileries. A chimera! the boldest constructor of hypotheses would have
certainly cried, before such demands; a problem of algebra and political
alchemy unworthy of occupying a mind however frivolous! Well! chance,
that providence of the fortunate of earth, did not delay to cause an
event which realized to the profit of M. de Bismarck all the conditions
of the indicated problem, which filled all the points of such a
fantastic programme. "If Italy did not exist, it would be necessary to
invent it," the president of the council at Berlin said later in 1865;
in the month of January, 1863, he certainly did not think otherwise
concerning the Polish questions.
History offers few examples of a fall so rapid, so humiliating, from the
sublime to the odious and to the perverse, than was presented on the
banks of the Vistula by that lamentable drama which, after two years of
bitter revolutions, reached its final catastrophe in this month of
January, 1863, as if to celebrate the joyful accession of M. de Bismarck
to power. Certainly there was something very poetic and very exalted in
those first manifestations from Warsaw, when a people so long, so
cruelly tried, knelt one day before the castle of the lieutenant of the
king in mute complaint, holding only the image of Christ, and demanding
only "its God and its country!" The lieutenant of the king, who was no
other than the old hero of Sebastopol, Prince Michael Gortchakof, had a
horror of a conflict so unequal, so strange; he appealed to St.
Petersburg, and,--miracle of divine pity,--from that place, whence for
thirty years only orders of blood and punishment had gone forth, there
came this time a word of clemency and reparation. A generous spirit then
animated the governing and intelligent classes in Russia, they were
under the influence of ideas of reform and emancipation, they desired
the esteem of Europe, the friendship of France, and they had the very
sincere desire to be reconciled with Poland. The Emperor Alexander II.
sent his brother to Warsaw; a patriot of rare vigor of mind and of
character took in hand the civil government; the instruction, the
justice, the administration received a national impress; a modest but
certain autonomy was assured for the country. The precepts of the most
common wisdom, the instinct of preservation, the terrible lessons of the
past, should have all counseled the Poles to profit by this good
disposition of their sovereign, to put to proof the granted
institutions, to accept with _empressement_ the hand stretched out to
them. In fact everything counseled them thus, but they bent to the
anathema which the Holy Scriptures had long before pronounced against
every kingdom which allows itself to be guided by women and children.
The women and the youth of the schools resolved to continue to multiply
the manifestations which had succeeded so well, and which, in ceasing to
be spontaneous, became theatrical and sacrilegious. The European
demagogy hastened to transport to a ground so overturned its emblems,
its words of disorder, its secret societies, and its _instrumenta
regni_; from afar, from the midst of the Palais Royal came
recommendations "to leave the Catholic mummeries and to make
barricades." The great conservative party showed itself cowardly there
as elsewhere, as everywhere, as always; and, in wishing to save its
popularity, it lost a whole population. One made a void around the
brother of the emperor, around the patriotic minister, and this void was
not slow in being filled by horror, by terror and crime. The government
struggled in vain against a shadowy organization which enveloped it on
all sides; it took contradictory and violent measures. The demagogy
gained its cause; it succeeded in throwing into a powerless, foolish
revolt an unhappy people which for a century seemed to have imposed on
itself the task of astonishing the world by periodical resurrections,
and of disheartening it at the same time by suicides, alas, not less
periodical!