How funny it would be, if the French some day, as a
novelty, or what they would call a caprice, were to try the effect
of truth; "though not naturally honest," as Autolycus says, "were
to become so by chance."
He thought M. Gallifet dans sa logique in liking the Germans and
hating Bismarck; for the Germans, in having their own way, would
break up into as many fragments as the best Frenchman could desire,
and Bismarck is the real suppressor of France. Throughout the
Franco-Prussian war he sided strongly with the Prussians, refusing
to dine in houses where the prevailing sympathy with France would
make him unwelcome as its declared opponent; but he felt "as a
nightmare" the attack on prostrate Paris, "as a blow" the
capitulation of Metz; denouncing Gambetta and his colleagues as
meeting their disasters only with slanderous shrieks, "possessed by
the spirit of that awful Popish woman." Bismarck as a statesman he
consistently admired, and deplored his dismissal. I see, he said,
all the peril implied by Bismarck's exit, and the advent of his
ambitious young Emperor. It is a transition from the known to the
unknown, from wisdom, perhaps, to folly.
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