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Updated: May 28, 2025
The Count was quite ready to discuss the matter; with great frankness he explained all the reasons why, if the throne were offered to the Prince, the King would doubtless advise him not to accept it. Benedetti was still suspicious, but for the time the matter dropped.
With this demand, on August 20th, he again appeared before Bismarck. Of course, the Minister, as soon as Saarbrück and Landau were mentioned, drew himself up to his full height, adopted an angry air, and reminded Benedetti of his repeated declaration that they were not going to give up a single German village. Benedetti, therefore, in accordance with his instructions, withdrew this clause.
Bismarck adopted a tone of indignation: "The whole affair makes us doubt Napoleon and threatens to destroy our confidence." The pith of it was contained in the last words: "Do you ask this from us under threat of war?" said Bismarck. "Yes," said Benedetti. "Then it will be war." Benedetti asked to have an interview with the King; it was granted, and he received the same answer.
Napoleon was still reluctant to do so, but he was in a paroxysm of pain. "Leave me in peace," was his only answer to his Minister's request, and the Minister took it as an assent. Bismarck, when Benedetti informed him of the demand that was to be made, at once answered that he was quite ready to consider the proposal.
When a few hours later the King received a letter from the Prince of Hohenzollern confirming the public statement, he sent a message to Benedetti by his aide-decamp, Count Radziwill, and added to it that there would now be nothing further to say, as the incident was closed. Benedetti twice asked for another interview, but it was refused.
The King was then at Ems, taking the waters, when Benedetti, the French ambassador, waited on him and pressed him most urgently to request Prince Leopold to withdraw from the candidature to the Spanish Crown.
[Footnote 36: The telegram handed in at Ems on July 13, 1870, at 3.50 p. m. and received in Berlin at 6.9, ran as deciphered: "His Majesty writes to me: "Count Benedetti spoke to me on the promenade, in order to demand from me, finally in a very importunate manner, that I should authorize him to telegraph at once that I bound myself for all future time never again to give my consent if the Hohenzollerns should renew their candidature. I refused at last somewhat sternly, as it is neither right nor possible to undertake engagements of this kind
At the end of January, they even allowed a mass meeting, which was attended by over 4000 men, to be held at Altona. This made a very unfavourable impression on the King, and any action of Austria that offended the King was most useful to Bismarck. "Bismarck is using all his activity to inspire the King with his own views and feelings," wrote Benedetti, the French Ambassador, at this time.
Not only must the Prussian King disavow all intention to support the candidacy of the German prince, but he must be asked to humiliate himself by binding himself never in the future to push such claims. William I is at Ems, and Benedetti, the French ambassador, reluctantly presses the insulting demand of his country upon the royal gentleman as he is walking.
The official statement was supplemented by another notice in the North German Gazette, which was printed in large type, and stated that Benedetti had so far forgotten all diplomatic etiquette that he had allowed himself to disturb the King in his holidays, to intercept him on the promenade, and to attempt to force demands upon him.
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