forget--'_War declared against
Prussia._' "(214) "Shall I ever forget," says Archbishop Tait,
"Gladstone's face of earnest care when I saw him in the lobby?"(215)

The British cabinet made a final effort for peace. Lord Granville
instructed our ambassadors to urge France and Prussia to be so far
controlled by the treaty of Paris that before proceeding to extremities
they should have recourse to the good offices of some friendly Power,
adding that his government was ready to take any part that might be
desired in the matter. On the 18th Bismarck replied by throwing the onus
of acceptance on France. On the 19th France declined the proposal.

Just as Bismarck said that England ought to have prevented the war,
Frenchmen also said that we ought to have held the Emperor back. With what
sanction could Mr. Gladstone have enforced peremptory counsel? Was France
to be made to understand that England would go to war on the Prussian
side? Short of war, what more could she have done? Lord Granville had told
Gramont that he had never in despatch or conversation admitted that after
the French had received satisfaction in substance, there was a case for a
quarrel on pure form. The British cabinet and their ambassador in Paris
had redoubled warning and remonstrance. If the Emperor and his advisers
did not listen to the penetrating expostulations of Thiers, and to his
vigorous and instructed analysis of the conditions of their case, why
should they listen to Lord Granville? Nor was there time, for their
precipitancy had kindled a conflagration before either England or any
other Power had any chance of extinguishing the blaze.(216)

To Michel Chevalier Mr. Gladstone wrote a few days later:--

I cannot describe to you the sensation of pain, almost of horror,
which, has thrilled through this country from end to end at the
outbreak of hostilities, the commencement of the work of blood. I
suppose there was a time when England would have said, "Let our
neighbours, being, as they are, our rivals, waste their energies,
their wealth, their precious irrevocable lives, in destroying one
another: they will be the weaker, we shall be relatively the
stronger." But we have now unlearned that bad philosophy; and the
war between France and Prussia saddens the whole face of society,
and burdens every man with a personal grief. We do not pretend to
be sufficient judges of the merits: I now mean by "we" those