the selection
of Montpensier; and it was certainly a matter for diplomatic
consideration. M. Benedetti, the French minister at Berlin, was
instructed to take a very haughty tone with the king of Prussia,
and to say that if he permitted Prince Leopold to accept the Spanish
crown, it would be a cause of war between France and Prussia. The king
of Prussia replied substantially that he would not be threatened, and
would leave Prince Leopold to do as he pleased. Prompted, however,
no doubt, by his sovereign, Prince Leopold declined the Spanish
throne. This was intimated to M. Benedetti, and here the matter
might have come to an end. But the Emperor Napoleon, anxious for a
_casus belli_, chose to think that the king of Prussia, in making
his announcement to his ambassador, had not been sufficiently civil.

A cabinet council was held at the Tuileries. The empress was now
admitted to cabinet councils, that she might be prepared for a
regency that before long might arrive. She and Marshal Le Boeuf
were vehement for war. The populace, proud of their fine army,
shouted with one voice, "A Berlin!" and on July 15, 1870, war was
declared.

Let us relieve the sad closing of this chapter, which began so
auspiciously with the emperor and empress in the height of their
prosperity, by telling of an expedition in which the glory of the
empress as a royal lady culminated.

The Suez Canal being completed, its opening was to be made an
international affair of great importance. The work was the work
of French engineers, led by M. Ferdinand de Lesseps, in every way
a most remarkable man.

England looked coldly on the enterprise. To use the vulgar phrase
both literally and metaphorically, she "took no stock" in the Suez
Canal, and she sent no royal personage, nor other representative
to the opening ceremonies; the only Englishman of official rank
who was present was an admiral, whose flag-ship was in the harbor
of Port Said.

The Emperor Napoleon was wholly unable to leave France at a time
so critical; but he sent his fair young empress in his stead. He
stayed at Saint-Cloud, and took advantage of her absence to submit to
a severe surgical operation. The empress went first to Constantinople,
where Sultan Abdul Aziz gave a beautiful fete in her honor, at
which she appeared, lovely and all glorious, in amber satin and
diamonds. She afterwards proceeded to Egypt as the guest of the
khedive, entering Port Said Nov. 16, 1869, and returning to