oint no exception could be taken to the procedure of
the French Government.

M. Ollivier dates from July 6 the first of five phases, or alternating
changes (_peripeties_), which the diplomatic campaign, as he terms it,
traversed in its headlong course. They are successively described and
commented upon in the chapters of his volume; and they may be here set
down in his own language, for the guidance of our readers through the
complicated transactions that ensued:

'Le premier moment est la declaration ministerielle du 6 juillet;
le second, la renonciation du Prince Antoine (11 juillet); le
troisieme, la demande de garanties de la droite (12 juillet); le
quatrieme, le soufflet de Bismarck et la fabrication de la depeche
d'Ems; le cinquieme, notre reponse au soufflet de Bismarck par
notre declaration de guerre du 15 juillet.'

These are, in fact, the five acts of a portentous drama, full of
shifting scenes and striking situations, on the issues of which
depended the fortunes of France and of Germany; it was played out with
ill-omened rapidity in nine days. In regard to the train of causes and
consequences that brought France to the tremendous disaster upon which
the curtain fell, diverse accounts have been given to the world by the
leading actors--by M. de Gramont, by Bismarck, Benedetti, and, the
latest by many years, by M. Ollivier. His narrative does raise
somewhat higher the veil which has hitherto kept in partial obscurity
certain dark corners of the stage upon which these things went on. We
know more now of the precise motives and considerations, the personal
influences and impulses which diverted the Cabinet, after starting on
the right path, into leaving it for rash and perilous adventures. On
some points of interest he is, indeed, still reticent, and on others
his evidence is in conflict with different narratives; but in regard
to facts actually known to him we may accept his testimony, though in
matters of opinion we may sometimes differ from him.

M. Ollivier insists that Gramont's declaration of July 6 was
altogether _irreprochable_; he writes that he has read it again after
so many years with satisfaction. He admits that it contained,
substantially, an intimation to Prussia that she must choose between
withdrawing the Hohenzollern candidate and accepting war with France;
but he argues that this straightforward and peremptory warning was
justified by its effects; that Bismarck