to be made to feel his responsibility,--which, I daresay, you will
contrive while acknowledging his civility.

_9 April._--I presume you have now only in the matter of
disarmament to express your inability to recede from your
opinions, and your regret at the result of the correspondence. If
inclined to touch the point, you might with perfect justice say
that while our naval responsibilities for our sea defence have no
parallel or analogue in the world, we have taken not far short of
two millions off our estimates, and have not announced that the
work of reduction is at an end: which, whether satisfactory or
not, is enough, to show that you do not preach wholly without
practising.

It is a striking circumstance, in view of what was to follow, that at this
moment when Mr. Gladstone first came into contact with Bismarck,--the
genius of popular right, and free government, and settled law of nations,
into contact with the genius of force and reason of state and blood and
iron--the realist minister of Prussia seemed to be almost as hopeful for
European peace as the minister of England. "The political horizon,"
Bismarck wrote (Feb. 22), "seen from Berlin appears at present so
unclouded that there is nothing of interest to report, and I only hope
that no unexpected event will render the lately risen hope of universal
peace questionable."(201) The unexpected event did not tarry, and
Bismarck's own share in laying the train is still one of the historic
enigmas of our time.

II

(M103) Ever since 1868 the statesmen of revolutionary Spain had looked for
a prince to fill their vacant throne. Among others they bethought
themselves of a member of a catholic branch of the house of Hohenzollern,
and in the autumn of 1869 an actual proposal was secretly made to Prince
Leopold. The thing lingered. Towards the end of February, 1870, Spanish
importunities were renewed, though still under the seal of strict secrecy,
even the Spanish ambassador in Paris being kept in the dark.(202) Leopold
after a long struggle declined the glittering bait. The rival pretenders
were too many, and order was not sure. Still his refusal was not
considered final. The chances of order improved, he changed his mind, and
on June 28 the Spanish emissary returned to Madrid with the news that the
Hohenzollern prince was ready to accept the crown. The King of Prussia,
not as king, but as head of the house, had giv