ledge
of it came only from a very confidential communication made to him by
the French representatives at certain foreign courts who had been
permitted to see the original, so that the authentic text was not in
his possession. This excuse was accepted, somewhat imprudently, by the
committee; and their chairman proceeded to question Gramont closely on
one point--whether, after Leopold's retirement had become known, the
King of Prussia had been required at one and the same time to approve
it formally and to promise that the candidature should never be
revived. During the debate it had been objected by those who opposed
the war-party that after obtaining the king's approval, and not till
then, the Foreign Secretary demanded this promise, and that on this
new demand the king took offence and briefly declined any further
interview with Benedetti. Gramont answered the chairman with a direct
affirmative; he stated that the two concessions had been required
simultaneously, and M. Ollivier undertakes to prove that this
statement was correct. He argues, if we understand him rightly, that
before Leopold had withdrawn his candidature, the king had been
pressed to advise or order him to do so, and that this requisition
included by implication the demand for a guarantee against its
renewal. When Leopold had retired without the king's intervention, the
royal order became unnecessary; but the implied demand still remained
in force, and was merely repeated in subsequent telegrams.[51] On this
we must remark that both Benedetti and the Prussian king entirely
missed the alleged implication; that the question of guarantees was
never raised by the telegrams interchanged between Gramont and
Benedetti before Leopold's retirement had become public, when both the
king and the ambassador treated it as entirely new; and that at any
rate such an important and highly contentious demand should obviously
have been stated with unequivocal distinctness, since any other course
was quite certain to produce misunderstandings and recriminations. And
it is no matter for surprise that various French writers have since
accused the Duc de Gramont of misstating the facts upon which the
committee reported to the Chamber that the papers laid before them
amply sustained the ministerial request for the grant of an urgent
war-subsidy, which was thereupon voted by an immense majority. In the
Senate, where the money was granted with even more promptitude and
with zeal