eat and dismemberment of his country. 'Oui, de ce jour
commence pour les ministres mes collegues et pour moi, une grande
responsabilite. Nous l'acceptons le coeur leger.' The words were at
once taken up sharply and severely; and M. Ollivier went on to explain
that he meant a heart not weighted by remorse, since he and his
colleagues had done everything that was consistent with humanity and
with honour to avert a dire necessity; and since the armies of France
would be upholding a cause that was just. He now comments bitterly on
the malignity which has fastened this stigma on his name, merely
because in the heat and flurry of debate, which left him not a moment
to pick his words or arrange his sentences, he said something that he
is sure no honest man who listened to his explanation could
misconstrue into unfeeling frivolity. And in his criticism of the
speech in which M. Thiers so vehemently condemned the conduct of the
ministers he repeats emphatically that the war was not brought on by
the demand for guarantees, but by Bismarck's false and insulting
publication of the king's refusal to consider that demand. This
affront, he maintains, was insufferable. Yet we learn from his
narrative that before entering the Chamber on this eventful day M.
Ollivier had found at the Foreign Office Benedetti, just arrived from
Ems, who had already seen Bismarck's telegram in a newspaper, and
could have assured the ministers that it was a perfidious
misrepresentation, since the king had not treated him with actual
discourtesy. Nevertheless M. Ollivier quotes and entirely adopts the
'proud and manly' utterances of the Duc de Gramont who stood up and
addressed the assembly towards the close of the debate.

'After what you have just heard,' he said, 'one fact is enough. The
Prussian Government has informed all the Cabinets of Europe of the
refusal to receive our ambassador or to continue the discussion with
him. That is an affront to the emperor and to France, and if (_par
impossible_) a Chamber could be found in my country to bear or suffer
it, I would not remain Minister of Foreign Affairs for five minutes.'

These haughty words (we are told) electrified the Chamber, and a
committee to examine the papers on which the ministers relied to prove
their case was immediately appointed. These were brought by Gramont,
who, however, said that he would not lay before the committee the
precise words of Bismarck's insulting telegram, because his know