Meantime Jules Favre, who had been appointed Minister for Foreign Affairs, had procured a safe-conduct from the Prussians, and had gone out to see Count Bismarck and King William, who had their headquarters at Baron Rothschild’s beautiful country seat of Ferrieres.  His object was to obtain an armistice, that a National Assembly might be convoked which would consider the terms of peace with the Prussians.

The Chancellor of North Germany declared that he did not recognize the Committee of Defence, represented by Julus Favre, as a legitimate government of France competent to offer or to consider terms of peace.  He treated M. Favre with the greatest haughtiness, utterly refusing any armistice, but at the close of their first interview he consented to see him again the next day.

“I was,” says Jules Favre, “at the Chateau de Ferrieres by eleven A. M., but Count Bismarck did not leave the king’s apartments before twelve.  I then gathered from him the conditions that he demanded for an armistice.  They were written in German, and he read them over to me.  He desired to occupy, as a guarantee, Strasburg, Toul, and Phalsbourg;[1] and as I had the day before named Paris as the place for the meeting of the Assembly, he wished in that case to have possession of some fort commanding the city.  He named Fort Valerien.  Here I interrupted him.  ’You had better ask for Paris at once,’ I said.  ’How can a French Assembly be expected to deliberate when covered by your guns?  I hardly know whether I dare to inform my Government that you have made such a proposal.’  Tours was then named as a place for the Assembly.  ‘But,’ said Bismarck, ’Strasburg must be surrendered.  It is about to fall into our hands.  All I ask is that the garrison shall constitute themselves prisoners of war.’  At this I could restrain myself no longer.  I sprang to my feet and said:  ’Count Bismarck, you forget you are speaking to a Frenchman!  To sacrifice an heroic garrison which has won our admiration and that of the whole world, would be an act of cowardice.  Nor will I even promise to mention that you ever made such a demand.’  He answered that he had not meant to wound my feelings, he was acting in conformity with the laws of war; but he would see what the king said about the matter.  He returned in a quarter of an hour, and said that his master accepted my proposal as to Tours, but insisted on the surrender of the garrison of Strasburg.”

[Footnote 1:  Places still holding out against the Germans.]

At this, the negotiation was broken off, Jules Favre concluding by saying that “the inhabitants of Paris were resolved on making any sacrifices, and that their heroism might change the current of events.”

The publication of this account of the interview with Bismarck produced through Paris a shiver of indignation.  For a moment all parties were united, the very Reds crying out that there must be no more parties, only Frenchmen; and a slight success in a skirmish in one of the suburbs of Paris roused enthusiasm to its height in a few hours.