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Rh would be strenuously supported if he carried matters with a high hand and strove to inflict humiliation on Prussia.

The Prussian ambassador at Paris, having visited the King at Ems, returned to his post on the 12th, and was closeted with Gramont when the telegram of the Prince of Hohenzollern was put into his hands. The Duke intimated that the withdrawal was perhaps due to the influence of the King. Baron Werther denied it, and assured him that the Prince had judged and acted for himself. Then the Duke de Gramont perceived that Prussia was eluding his pressure altogether, and that he had won only a shadowy and impalpable triumph. It was not yet clear that the King, who had approved the act which France resented, now approved the concession which had been made to her demand. Irritated by the dexterity of Prussia, and encouraged by her seeming moderation, and by the violence of the French Imperial press, which designated the Government a Ministry of shame, Gramont proceeded to ask for further satisfaction. He said that the Prince would never have been allowed to ascend the throne, so that his retirement was a matter of course, and could not allay the excitement in the country. Baron Werther had informed him that the King had not imagined that the affair of the Spanish crown would be taken as an insult to France. The Duke proposed that King William should repeat this declaration in a letter to the Emperor. He said that if the King explained his good intentions, and expressed a hope that all ground of future quarrel would be removed by his assent to the Prince's retirement, the publication of such a letter would have an excellent effect in France. He also required that the King should forbid the Prince to retract his renunciation at any future time.

If the French Ministers had contented themselves with the concession of their original demand, it is probable that their moderation would have come too late to avert the war. But it was this fatal determination to make the King acknowledge his error that brought overwhelming