[Footnote 19:  For the relations of France to the Vatican, see Histoire du second Empire, by M. De la Gorce, vol. vi. (Paris, 1903); also Histoire Contemporaine (i.e. of France in 1869-1875), by M. Samuel Denis, 4 vols.  The Empress Eugenie once said that she was “deux fois Catholique,” as a Spaniard and as French Empress. (Sir M.K.  Grant Duff, Notes from a Diary, 1851-1872, vol. i. p. 125.)]

Even this brief survey of international relations shows that Napoleon III. was a source of weakness to France.  Having seized on power by perfidious means, he throughout his whole reign strove to dazzle the French by a series of adventures, which indeed pleased the Parisians for the time, but at the cost of lasting distrust among the Powers.  Generous in his aims, he at first befriended the German and Italian national movements, but forfeited all the fruits of those actions by his pettifogging conduct about Savoy and Nice, the Rhineland and Belgium; while his final efforts to please French clericals and Chauvinists[20] by supporting the Pope at Rome, lost him the support of States that might have retrieved the earlier blunders.  In brief, by helping on the nationalists of North Germany and Italy he offended French public opinion; and his belated and spasmodic efforts to regain popularity at home aroused against him the distrust of all the Powers.  Their feelings about him may be summarised in the mot of a diplomatist, “Scratch the Emperor and you will find the political refugee.”

[Footnote 20:  Chauvinist is a term corresponding to our “Jingo.”  It is derived from a man named Chauvin, who lauded Napoleon I. and French glory to the skies.]

How different were the careers of Napoleon III. and of Bismarck!  By resolutely keeping before him the national aim, and that only, the Prussian statesman had reduced the tangle of German affairs to simplicity and now made ready for the crowning work of all.  In his Reminiscences he avows his belief, as early as 1866, “that a war with France would succeed the war with Austria lay in the logic of history”; and again, “I did not doubt that a Franco-German War must take place before the construction of a United Germany could take place[21].”  War would doubtless have broken out in 1867 over the Luxemburg question, had he not seen the need of delay for strengthening the bonds of union with South Germany and assuring the increase of the armies of the Fatherland by the adoption of Prussian methods; or, as he phrased it, “each year’s postponement of the war would add 100,000 trained soldiers to our army[22].”  In 1870 little was to be gained by delay.  In fact, the unionist movement in Germany then showed ominous signs of slackening.  In the South the Parliaments opposed any further approach to union with the North; and the voting of the military budget in the North for that year was likely to lead to strong opposition in the interests of the overtaxed people.  A war might solve the unionist problem which was insoluble in time of peace; and a casus belli was at hand.