Obviously, a self-constituted body like the provisional Government at Paris could not accept these terms, which most deeply concerned the nation at large.  In the existing temper of Paris and France, the mention of such terms meant war to the knife, as Bismarck must have known.  On their side, Frenchmen could not believe that their great capital, with its bulwarks and ring of outer forts, could be taken; while the Germans—­so it seems from the Diary of General von Blumenthal—­looked forward to its speedy capitulation.  One man there was who saw the pressing need of foreign aid.  M. Thiers (whose personality will concern us a little later) undertook to go on a mission to the chief Powers of Europe in the hope of urging one or more of them to intervene on behalf of France.

The details of that mission are, of course, not fully known.  We can only state here that Russia now repaid Prussia’s help in crushing the Polish rebellion of 1863 by neutrality, albeit tinged with a certain jealousy of German success.  Bismarck had been careful to dull that feeling by suggesting that she (Russia) should take the present opportunity of annulling the provision, made after the Crimean War, which prevented her from sending war-ships on to the Black Sea; and this was subsequently done, under a thin diplomatic disguise, at the Congress of London (March 1871).  Bismarck’s astuteness in supporting Russia at this time therefore kept that Power quiet.  As for Austria, she undoubtedly wished to intervene, but did not choose to risk a war with Russia, which would probably have brought another overthrow.  Italy would not unsheathe her sword for France unless the latter recognised her right to Rome (which the Italian troops entered on September 20).  To this the young French Republic demurred.  Great Britain, of course, adhered to the policy of neutrality which she at first declared[54].

[Footnote 54:  See Debidour, Histoire diplomatique de l’Europe, vol. ii. pp. 412-415.  For Bismarck’s fears of intervention, especially that of Austria, see his Reminiscences, vol. ii. p. 109 (English edit.); Count Beust’s Aus drei Viertel-Jahrhunderten, pt. ii. pp. 361, 395; for Thiers’ efforts see his Notes on the years 1870-73 (Paris 1904).]

Accordingly, France had to rely on her own efforts.  They were surprisingly great.  Before the complete investment of Paris (September 20), a Delegation of the Government of National Defence had gone forth to Tours with the aim of stirring up the provinces to the succour of the besieged capital.  Probably the whole of the Government ought to have gone there; for, shut up in the capital, it lost touch with the provinces, save when balloons and carrier-pigeons eluded the German sharpshooters and brought precious news[55].  The mistake was seen in time to enable a man of wondrous energy to leave Paris by balloon on October 7, to descend as a veritable deus ex machina on the faltering Delegation at Tours, and to stir the blood of France by his invective.  There was a touch of the melodramatic not only in his apparition but in his speeches.  Frenchmen, however, follow a leader all the better if he is a good stage-manager and a clever actor.  The new leader was both; but he was something more.