Before entering upon the final stages of the dispute, it may be well to take a bird’s-eye view of the condition of the chief Powers in so far as it explains their attitude towards the great struggle.

The condition of French politics was strangely complex.  The Emperor had always professed that he was the elect of France, and would ultimately crown his political edifice with the corner-stone of constitutional liberty.  Had he done so in the successful years 1855-61, possibly his dynasty might have taken root.  He deferred action, however, until the darker years that came after 1866.  In 1868 greater freedom was allowed to the Press and in the case of public meetings.  The General Election of the spring of 1869 showed large gains to the Opposition, and decided the Emperor to grant to the Corps Legislatif the right of initiating laws concurrently with himself, and he declared that Ministers should be responsible to it (September 1869).

These and a few other changes marked the transition from autocracy to the “Liberal Empire.”  One of the champions of constitutional principles, M. Emile Ollivier, formed a Cabinet to give effect to the new policy, and the Emperor, deeming the time ripe for consolidating his power on a democratic basis, consulted the country in a plebiscite, or mass vote, primarily as to their judgment on the recent changes, but implicitly as to their confidence in the imperial system as a whole.  His skill in joining together two topics that were really distinct, gained him a tactical victory.  More than 7,350,000 affirmative votes were given, as against 1,572,000 negatives; while 1,900,000 voters registered no vote.  This success at the polls emboldened the supporters of the Empire; and very many of them, especially, it is thought, the Empress Eugenie, believed that only one thing remained in order to place the Napoleonic dynasty on a lasting basis—­that was, a successful war.

Champions of autocracy pointed out that the growth of Radicalism coincided with the period of military failures and diplomatic slights.  Let Napoleon III., they said in effect, imitate the policy of his uncle, who, as long as he dazzled France by triumphs, could afford to laugh at the efforts of constitution-mongers.  The big towns might prate of liberty; but what France wanted was glory and strong government.  Such were their pleas:  there was much in the past history of France to support them.  The responsible advisers of the Emperor determined to take a stronger tone in foreign affairs, while the out-and-out Bonapartists jealously looked for any signs of official weakness so that they might undermine the Ollivier Ministry and hark back to absolutism.  When two great parties in a State make national prestige a catchword of the political game, peace cannot be secure:  that was the position of France in the early part of 1870[9].

[9] See Ollivier’s great work, L’Empire liberal, for full details of this time.