“After the conversation which I have had with you I was particularly distressed that, by your bitterness against Austria, you had allowed yourself to be diverted from the simple attitude towards law and the Revolution.  For you an alliance with France and Piedmont is a possibility, a thought which is far from me and, dear Bismarck, ought to be far from you.  For me Louis Napoleon is even more than his uncle the incarnation of the Revolution, and Cavour is a Rheinbund Minister like Montgellas.  You cannot and ought not to deny the principles of the Holy Alliance; they are no other than that authority comes from God, and that the Princes must govern as servants appointed by God.”

Bismarck answers the letter the next day: 

“I am a child of other times than you.  No one loses the mark impressed on him in the period of his youth.  In you the victorious hatred of Bonaparte is indelible; you call him the incarnation of the Revolution and if you knew of any worse name you would bestow it upon him.  I have lived in the country from my twenty-third to my thirty-second year and will never be rid of the longing to be back again; I am in politics with only half my heart; what dislike I have of France is based rather on the Orleans than the Bonapartist regime.  It is opposed to bureaucratic corruption under the mask of constitutional government.  I should be glad to fight against Bonaparte till the dogs lick up the blood but with no more malice than against Croats, Bohemians, and Bamberger fellow-countrymen.”

The two friends were never to meet again.  The old King of Prussia died at the beginning of the next year, and Gerlach, who had served him so faithfully, though perhaps not always wisely, survived his master scarcely a week.

In the summer of 1860 Bismarck returned to his duties in Russia; and this time, with the exception of a fortnight in October, he spent a whole year in St. Petersburg.  He had still not recovered from the effects of his illness and could not, therefore, go out much in society, but he was much liked at Court and succeeded in winning the confidence both of the Emperor and his family.  His wife and children were now with him, and after the uncertainty of his last two years he settled down with pleasure to a quieter mode of life.  He enjoyed the sport which he had in the Russian forests; he studied Russian and made himself completely at home.  Political work he had little to do, except what arose from the charge of “some 200,000 vagabond Prussians” who lived in Russia.  Of home affairs he had little knowledge: 

  “I am quite separated from home politics, as besides the
  newspapers I receive scarcely anything but official news which
  does not expose the foundation of affairs.”

For the time the reports of his entering the Ministry had ceased; he professed to be, and perhaps was, quite satisfied.