dices of Frenchmen, whose love
of oppressed and divided nations grew in proportion to their distance
from France, and changed to suspicion or hatred in the case of her
neighbours. In 1866, under the breath of ministerial arguments and
oratorical onslaughts Napoleon III.'s policy weakly wavered, thereby
giving to Bismarck's statecraft a decisive triumph all along the line.
In vain did he in the latter part of that year remind the Prussian
statesman of his earlier promises (always discreetly vague) of
compensation for France, and throw out diplomatic feelers for Belgium,
or at any rate Luxemburg[8]. In vain did M. Thiers declare in the
Chamber of Deputies that France, while recognising accomplished facts in
Germany, ought "firmly to declare that we will not allow them to go
further" (March 14, 1867). Bismarck replied to this challenge of the
French orator by publishing five days later the hitherto secret military
alliances concluded with the South German States in August 1866.
Thenceforth France knew that a war with Prussia would be war with a
united Germany.

[8] In 1867 Bismarck's promises went so far as the framing of a secret
compact with France, one article of which stated that Prussia would not
object to the annexation of Belgium by France. The agreement was first
published by the _Times_ on July 25, 1870, Bismarck then divulging the
secret so as to inflame public opinion against France.

In the following year the Zollverein, or German Customs' Union (which
had been gradually growing since 1833), took a definitely national form
in a Customs' Parliament which assembled in April 1868, thus unifying
Germany for purposes of trade as well as those of war. This sharp rebuff
came at a time when Napoleon's throne was tottering from the utter
collapse of his Mexican expedition; when, too, he more than ever needed
popular support in France for the beginnings of a more constitutional
rule. Early in 1867 he sought to buy Luxemburg from Holland. This action
aroused a storm of wrath in Prussia, which had the right to garrison
Luxemburg; but the question was patched up by a Conference of the Powers
at London, the Duchy being declared neutral territory under the
guarantee of Europe; the fortifications of its capital were also to be
demolished, and the Prussian garrison withdrawn. This success for French
diplomacy was repeated in Italy, where the French troops supporting the
Pope crushed the efforts of Garibaldi and his irregulars