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224 later, when the King arrived at the Potsdam terminus, he held the deciding council on the platform, surrounded by a throng of expectant officers. They saw the Chancellor put the telegram into his hands, saw him turn to his War Minister, and heard a grave voice say, "There is no difficulty. Everything is ready." So much so that he had only to sign an order lying on his desk before he went to bed, and he says in his Memoirs, that the ensuing fortnight, when the incessant battalions were springing into line, was the idlest of his life.

When the King at Ems read the despatch in the morning, he gave it to Eulenburg, saying, with emotion, "This is war," and he hurried to Berlin. At Paris it produced the same impression. Nevertheless, the peace party continued to prevail in the Government. They met at ten o'clock at night on the 14th, and still resolved not to call out the reserves. But at eleven a message was brought in which at once determined the declaration of war. They had borne the recall of Werther, the scene at Ems, the despatch recounting it, the communication to the Powers. Lebœuf could not remember what the decisive paper contained. Gramont declined to compromise the persons who sent it from Berlin to Vienna, or from Vienna to Paris. But he says that it proved Bismarck's resolution to fight, and so made a peace policy untenable.

On the 13th Loftus congratulated the Chancellor on the preservation of peace by the retirement of Prince Leopold. Bismarck replied that he was mistaken, that he meant to demand satisfaction for the language of Gramont—implying that it must be made clear that they yielded to the unanimous feeling of Europe, not to the threats of France. He said: "We must require some guarantee that we may not be subjected to a sudden attack, like a flash of lightning in perfect darkness, which suddenly reveals to sight a band of robbers." The despatch was printed in the Blue Book without these words. Gramont tells us that his text was fuller than that which Lord Granville published. Consequently he knew that Bismarck intended to provoke a conflict, and