who was showing signs of illness, was
very much under the influence of his beautiful wife, Eugenie de Montijo,
the daughter of a Spanish gentleman and the grand-daughter of William
Kirkpatrick, an American consul at Malaga, where the grapes come from.
Eugenie, although shrewd enough, was as badly educated as most Spanish
women of that day. She was at the mercy of her spiritual advisers and
these worthy gentlemen felt no love for the Protestant King of Prussia.
"Be bold," was the advice of the Empress to her husband, but she omitted
to add the second half of that famous Persian proverb which admonishes
the hero to "be bold but not too bold." Napoleon, convinced of the
strength of his army, addressed himself to the king of Prussia and
insisted that the king give him assurances that "he would never permit
another candidature of a Hohenzollern prince to the Spanish crown."
As the Hohenzollerns had just declined the honour, the demand was
superfluous, and Bismarck so informed the French government. But
Napoleon was not satisfied.

It was the year 1870 and King William was taking the waters at Ems.
There one day he was approached by the French minister who tried to
re-open the discussion. The king answered very pleasantly that it was a
fine day and that the Spanish question was now closed and that nothing
more remained to be said upon the subject. As a matter of routine, a
report of this interview was telegraphed to Bismarck, who handled all
foreign affairs. Bismarck edited the dispatch for the benefit of the
Prussian and French press. Many people have called him names for doing
this. Bismarck however could plead the excuse that the doctoring of
official news, since time immemorial, had been one of the privileges of
all civilised governments. When the "edited" telegram was printed, the
good people in Berlin felt that their old and venerable king with his
nice white whiskers had been insulted by an arrogant little Frenchman
and the equally good people of Paris flew into a rage because their
perfectly courteous minister had been shown the door by a Royal Prussian
flunkey.

And so they both went to war and in less than two months, Napoleon and
the greater part of his army were prisoners of the Germans. The Second
Empire had come to an end and the Third Republic was making ready to
defend Paris against the German invaders. Paris held out for five long
months. Ten days before the surrender of the city, in the nearby palace
of Ve