United States or Malta ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


On the 26th, just as Bismarck was going to the final sitting of the Conference, the French Ambassador again called on him, this time to lay before him a despatch in which Drouyn de Lhuys stated that he had not wished to impede the negotiations with Austria, but would now observe that the French sanction to the Prussian annexations presupposed a fair indemnification to France, and that the Emperor would confer with Prussia concerning this as soon as his rôle of mediator was at an end.

The speech of the noble lord having been made on the 23rd, this is a dispatch written upon the same subject on the 31st. Speaking of the affairs of Germany and Denmark, Lord Cowley writes: M. Drouyn de Lhuys expressed himself as desirous of acting in concert with Her Majesty's Government in this matter.

'The Pope, said M. Drouyn de Lhuys, 'prefers to return to Rome upon the dead bodies of his subjects rather than amidst the applause which would have greeted him had he taken our advice. That advice referred in particular to the secularisation of the public administration, and this was exactly what the Pope and the ex-Liberal Cardinal Antonelli, now and henceforth his most influential counsellor, were determined not to concede.

This reply caused another change of front at Napoleon's Court. The demands were disavowed and the Foreign Minister, Drouyn de Lhuys, resigned . Sybel, op. cit. vol. v. pp. 365-374. Débidour, op. cit. vol. ii. pp. 315-318. See too volume viii. of Ollivier's work, L'Empire libéral, published in 1904; and M. de la Gorce's work, Histoire du second Empire, vol. vi.

The other mode, proposed by M. Drouyn de Lhuys, contemplated a much further reduction of force namely, to eight or ten light vessels, intended solely to protect commerce from pirates and perform the police of the coast. Although a great part of the Russian fleet was at the bottom of the sea, and the rest of it hemmed in in the harbour of Sebastopol, Prince Gortschakoff announced, with the air of a man who was master of the situation, that the Czar entirely refused to limit his power in the Euxine.

M. Drouyn de Lhuys said he partook this opinion; but as his Excellency made no further observation, I remarked it would be a grievous thing if the difference of opinion which had arisen upon the merits of a general Congress were to produce an estrangement which would leave each Government to pursue its own course. I hoped that this would not be the case.

In an instant I realized that I was in an enemy's country and had a quick sense of anger as I read: "Foreign Office. Confidential. Recognition of the Confederate States. Make full digest at once. Haste required! Drouyn de Lhuys." I stood still. For a moment, believe me, I forgot the fire everything. I suppose the devil was at my side. "'A good devil, said I. "She said: 'Oh, please not to laugh.

France, indignant at such cavalier treatment, recalled M. Drouyn de Lhuys from London, and again the war-cloud lowered.

M. Drouyn de Lhuys took the same view, and both plenipotentiaries hastened back to urge acquiescence in proposals which seemed to promise the termination of a war in which, with little result, blood and treasure had already been lavishly expended.

De Lhuys replied: "No; the strings would be too long to work." The chances of Maximilian's success in Mexico had been from the first deliberately calculated on the basis of the probable success of the Southern Confederacy; and, therefore, the cause of the Juarez government and the cause of the Union were considered the same.