ted to them."

It is a topic to which he often refers:

"We cannot make an alliance with France without a certain degree
of meanness, but very admirable people, even German princes, in
the Middle Ages have used a sewer to make their escape, rather
than be beaten or throttled."

An alliance with Napoleon was, however, according to the code of honour
professed, if not followed, in every German State, the sin for which
there was no forgiveness. It was but a generation ago that half the
German princes had hurried to the Court of the first Napoleon to receive
at his hands the estates of their neighbours and the liberties of their
subjects. No one doubted that the new Napoleon would be willing to use
similar means to ensure the power of France; would he meet with willing
confederates? The Germans, at least, do not seem to have trusted one
another; no prince dared show ordinary courtesy to the ruling family of
France, no statesman could visit Paris but voices would be heard crying
that he had sold himself and his country. An accusation of this kind was
the stock-in-trade which the Nationalist press was always ready to bring
against every ruler who was obnoxious to them. It required moral
courage, if it also shewed political astuteness, when Bismarck proposed
deliberately to encourage a suspicion from which most men were anxious
that their country should be free. He had already plenty of enemies, and
reports were soon heard that he was in favour of a French alliance; they
did not cease for ten years; he often protests in his private letters
against these unworthy accusations; the protests seem rather absurd, for
if he did not really wish for an alliance between Prussia and France, he
at least wished that people should dread such an alliance. A man cannot
frighten his friends by the fear he will rob them, and at the same time
enjoy the reputation for strict probity.

He explains with absolute clearness the benefits which will come from a
French alliance:

"The German States are attentive and attracted to us in the same
degree in which they believe we are befriended by France.
Confidence in us they will never have, every glance at the map
prevents that; and they know that their separate interests and
the misuse of their sovereignty always stand in the way of the
whole tendency of Prussian policy. They clearly recognise the
danger which lies in this; it is one against which the
unselfishness of our Mo