spark to kindle the conflagration; and
this was supplied by the interference of the French government with the
nomination of a German prince to the vacant throne of Spain. The
Prussian king gave way in the matter of Prince Leopold, but refused
further concessions. Leopold was sufficiently magnanimous to withdraw
his claims, and here French interference should have ended. But France
demanded guarantees that no future candidate should be proposed without
her consent. Of course the Prussian king,--seeing with the keen eyes of
Bismarck, and armed to the teeth under the supervision of Moltke, the
greatest general of the age, who could direct, with the precision of a
steam-engine on a track, the movements of the Prussian army, itself a
mechanism,--treated with disdain this imperious demand from a power
which he knew to be inferior to his own. Count Bismarck craftily lured
on his prey, who was already goaded forward by his home war-party, with
the empress at their head; negotiations ceased, and Napoleon III. made
his fatal declaration of hostilities, to the grief of the few statesmen
who foresaw the end.

Even then the condition of France was not desperate if the government
had shown capacity; but conceit, vanity, and ignorance blinded the
nation. Louis Napoleon should have known, and probably did know, that
the contending forces were uneven; that he had no generals equal to
Moltke; that his enemies could crush him in the open field; that his
only hope was in a well-organized defence. But his generals rushed madly
on to destruction against irresistible forces, incapable of forming a
combination, while the armies they led were smaller than anybody
supposed. Napoleon III. hoped that by rapidity of movement he could
enter southern Germany before the Prussian armies could be massed
against him; but here he dreamed, for his forces were not ready at the
time appointed, and the Prussians crossed the Rhine without obstruction.
Then followed the battle of Worth, on the 6th of August, when Marshal
McMahon, with only forty-five thousand men, ventured to resist the
Prussian crown-prince with a hundred thousand, and lost consequently a
large part of his army, and opened a passage through the northern Vosges
to the German troops. On the same day Frossard's corps was defeated by
Prince Frederic Charles near Saarbruecken, while the French emperor
remained at Metz irresolute, infatuated, and helpless. On the 12th of
August he threw up the dir