much depressed,
for I saw no means of repairing the corroding injury I dreaded to our
national position from a timorous policy, unless by picking quarrels
clumsily and seeking them artificially. I saw by that time that war
was a necessity, which we could no longer avoid with honor. I
telegraphed to my people at Varzin not to pack up or start, for I
should be back again in a few days. I now believed in peace; but, as I
would not represent the attitude by which this peace had been
purchased, I gave up the journey to Ems and asked Count Eulenburg to
go thither and represent my opinion to his Majesty. In the same sense
I conversed with the Minister of War, von Roon: we had got our slap in
the face from France, and had been reduced, by our complaisance, to
look like seekers of a quarrel if we entered upon war, the only way in
which we could wipe away the stain. My position was now untenable,
solely because, during his course at the baths, the King, under
pressure of threats, had given audience to the French ambassador for
four consecutive days, and had exposed his royal person to insolent
treatment from this foreign agent without ministerial assistance.
Through this inclination to take state business upon himself in person
and alone, the King had been forced into a position which I could not
defend; in my judgment his Majesty while at Ems ought to have refused
every business communication from the French negotiator, who was not
on the same footing with him, and to have referred him to the
department in Berlin. The department would then have had to obtain his
Majesty's decision by a representation at Ems, or, if dilatory
treatment were considered useful, by a report in writing. But his
Majesty, however careful in his usual respect for departmental
relations, was too fond not indeed of deciding important questions
personally, but, at all events, of discussing them, to make a proper
use of the shelter with which the Sovereign is purposely surrounded
against importunities and inconvenient questionings and demands. That
the King, considering the consciousness of his supreme dignity which
he possessed in so high a degree, did not withdraw at the very
beginning from Benedetti's importunity was to be attributed for the
most part to the influence exercised upon him by the Queen, who was at
Coblenz close by. He was seventy-three years old, a lover of peace,
and disinclined to risk the laurels of 1866 in a fresh struggle; but
when he