The King therefore had a difficult task when Benedetti asked for an interview.  He had been brought into this situation against his own will, and his former scruples seemed fully justified.  He complained of the violence of the French Press and the Ministry; he repeated the assertion that the Prussian Government had been unconnected with the negotiations and had been ignorant of them; he had avoided associating himself with them, and had only given an opinion when Prince Leopold, having decided to accept, asked his consent.  He had then acted, not in his sovereign capacity as King of Prussia, but as head of the family.  He had neither collected nor summoned his council of Ministers, though he had informed Count Bismarck privately.  He refused to use his authority to order the Prince to withdraw, and said that he would leave him full freedom as he had done before.

These statements were of course verbally true; probably the King did not know to what extent Bismarck was responsible for the acceptance by the Prince.  They did not make the confidence of the French any greater; it was now apparent that the King had been asked, and had given his consent without considering the effect on France; they could not acquiesce in this distinction between his acts as sovereign and his acts as head of the family, for, as Benedetti pointed out, he was only head of the family because he was sovereign.

All this time Bismarck was still at Varzin; while Paris was full of excitement, while there were hourly conferences of the Ministers and the city was already talking of war, the Prussian Ministers ostentatiously continued to enjoy their holidays.  There was no danger in doing so; the army was so well prepared that they could afford quietly to await what the French would do.  What Bismarck’s plans and hopes were we do not know; during these days he preserved silence; the violence of the French gave him a further reason for refusing to enter into any discussion.  When, however, he heard of Benedetti’s visit to Ems he became uneasy; he feared that the King would compromise himself; he feared that the French would succeed in their endeavour to inflict a diplomatic defeat on Prussia.  He proposed to go to Ems to support the King, and on the 12th left Varzin; that night he arrived in Berlin.  There he received the news that the Prince of Hohenzollern, on behalf of his son, had announced his withdrawal.

The retirement was probably the spontaneous act of the Prince and his father; the decisive influence was the fear lest the enmity of Napoleon might endanger the position of the Prince of Roumania.  Everyone was delighted; the cloud of war was dispelled; two men only were dissatisfied—­Bismarck and Grammont.  It was the severest check which Bismarck’s policy had yet received; he had persuaded the Prince to accept against his will; he had persuaded the King reluctantly to keep the negotiations secret from Napoleon; however others might disguise the truth, he knew that they had had to retreat from an untenable position, and retreat before the noisy insults of the French Press and the open menace of the French Government; his anger was increased by the fact that neither the King nor the Prince had in this crisis acted as he would have wished.