ier informed about Paris
and Madrid than myself, he could see clearly that my
Government once more had no hand in the matter." His Majesty
has since received a letter from the Prince. His Majesty
having told Count Benedetti that he was awaiting news from
the Prince, has decided, with reference to the above demand,
upon the representation of Count Eulenburg and myself, not to
receive Count Benedetti again, but only to let him be
informed through an aide-de-camp: "That his Majesty had now
received from the Prince confirmation of the news which
Benedetti had already received from Paris, and had nothing
further to say to the ambassador." His Majesty leaves it to
your Excellency whether Benedetti's fresh demand and its
rejection should not be at once communicated both to our
ambassadors and to the Press.

Bismarck cut this down to the following:--

After the news of the renunciation of the hereditary Prince
of Hohenzollern had been officially communicated to the
Imperial Government of France by the Royal Government of
Spain, the French ambassador at Ems further demanded of his
Majesty, the King, that he would authorise him to telegraph
to Paris that his Majesty, the King, bound himself for all
future time never again to give his consent if the
Hohenzollerns should renew their candidature. His Majesty,
the King, thereupon decided not to receive the French
ambassador again, and sent to tell him through the
aide-de-camp on duty that his Majesty had nothing further to
communicate to the ambassador.

Efforts have been made to represent Bismarck's "editing" of the Ems
telegram as the decisive step leading to war; and in his closing years,
when seized with the morbid desire of a partly discredited statesman to
exaggerate his influence on events, he himself sought to perpetuate this
version. He claims that the telegram, as it came from Ems, described the
incident there "as a fragment of a negotiation still pending, and to be
continued at Berlin." This claim is quite untenable. A careful perusal
of the original despatch from Ems shows that the negotiation, far from
being "still pending," was clearly described as having been closed on
that matter. That Benedetti so regarded it is proved by his returning at
once to Paris. If it could have been "continued at Berlin," he most
certainly would have proceede