was the answer.  “But he is not here, he will not accept,” objected the King, referring doubtless to the difficulties which Bismarck had raised formerly.  “He is in Berlin at this moment,” said Roon.  The King ordered him to come to Potsdam.  When Bismarck arrived there he found the King sitting at his table, and in front of him the act of abdication, already signed.  The King asked him whether he was willing to undertake the Government, even against the majority of the Parliament and without a Budget.  Bismarck said he would do so.  It was one last chance, and the King tore up the act of abdication.  Two days later Bismarck was appointed provisional Minister-President, and, at the beginning of October, received his definite appointment as President and Foreign Minister.

CHAPTER VII.

THE CONFLICT.

1862-1863.

The circumstances under which Bismarck accepted office were such as to try the nerves of the strongest man.  The King had not appealed to him so long as there was anyone else who would carry on the Government; he was the last resource, and had taken up a burden from which all others shrunk.  He had pledged himself to support the King in a conflict against the whole nation; with the exception of the Upper House he had no friends or supporters.  The opinion in Europe was as decisively against him as that in Prussia; he was scarcely looked on as a serious politician; everyone believed that in a few weeks he would have to retire, and the King to give up the useless conflict on which he was staking his throne.  Bismarck was under no illusion as to his position; he had been summoned by the King, he depended for his office entirely on the King, but would the King have the strength of will and courage to resist?  Only a few days after his appointment, the King had gone to Baden-Baden for a week, where he met the Queen.  When he came back, he was completely disheartened.  Bismarck, who had travelled part of the way to meet him, got into the train at a small roadside station.  He found that the King, who was sitting alone in an ordinary first-class carriage, was prepared to surrender.  “What will come of it?” he said.  “Already I see the place before my castle on which your head will fall, and then mine will fall too.”  “Well, as far as I am concerned,” answered Bismarck, “I cannot think of a finer death than one on the field of battle or the scaffold.  I would fall like Lord Strafford; and your Majesty, not as Louis XVI., but as Charles I. That is a quite respectable historical figure.”

For the moment the centre of interest lay in the House.  The new Minister began by what he intended as an attempt at reconciliation:  he announced that the Budget for 1863 would be withdrawn; the object of this was to limit as much as possible the immediate scope of difference; a fresh Budget for the next year would be laid before them as soon as possible.  There would remain only the settlement of the Budget for