aying a desperate game. Either Prussia would give
way and France would score a diplomatic triumph over a hated rival; or
Prussia would fight. The friends of peace in France thought matters
hopeless when that demand was sent in so insistent a manner. As soon as
Gladstone heard of the second demand of the Ollivier Ministry, he wrote
to Lord Granville, then Foreign Minister: "It is our duty to represent
the immense responsibility which will rest upon France, if she does not
at once accept as satisfactory and conclusive the withdrawal of the
candidature of Prince Leopold[30]."

[Footnote 30: J. Morley, _Life of Gladstone_, vol. ii. p. 328.]

On the other hand, we must note that the conduct of the German Press at
this crisis was certainly provocative of war. The morning on which
Bismarck's telegram appeared in the official _North German Gazette_, saw
a host of violent articles against France, and gleeful accounts of
imaginary insults inflicted by the King on Benedetti. All this was to be
expected after the taunts of cowardice freely levelled by the Parisian
papers against Prussia for the last two days; but whether Bismarck
directly inspired the many sensational versions of the Ems affair that
appeared in North German papers on July 14 is not yet proven.

However that may be, the French Government looked on the refusal of its
last demand, the publication of Bismarck's telegram, and the insults of
the German Press as a _casus belli_. The details of the sitting of the
Emperor's Council at 10 P.M. on July 14, at which it was decided to call
out the French reserves, are not yet known. Ollivier was not present.
There had been a few hours of wavering on this question; but the tone of
the Parisian evening papers--it was the French national day--the loud
cries of the rabble for war, and their smashing the windows of the
Prussian embassy, seem to have convinced the Emperor and his advisers
that to draw back now would involve the fall of the dynasty. Report has
uniformly pointed to the Empress as

John Holland Rose (1855-1942) was an influential English historian who wrote a famous biography of French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and also wrote a history of Europe, entitled The Development of the European Nations. Rose was the basis for C. P. Snows fictional character M. H. L. Gay (see Years of Hope: Cambridge, Colonial Administrator in the South Seas, and Cricket by Philip Snow.)

Robert Grant may refer to: