Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 10.djvu/156

 to allow the French army to cross into Belgium, to be disarmed and detained there. I had discussed also this eventuality with General v. Moltke on the previous evening and adduced the motive already given for not entering into the question of this course of procedure. With respect to the political situation, I myself took no initiative, and the Emperor went no further than to deplore the ill-fortune of the war, stating that he himself had not wished the war, but was driven into it by the pressure of public opinion in France. I did not regard it as my office to point out at that moment that what the Emperor characterized as public opinion was only the artificial product of certain ambitious coteries of the French press, with a very narrow political horizon. I merely replied that nobody in Germany wished for the war, especially not your Majesty, and that no German Government would have considered the Spanish question of so much interest as to be worth a war. I continued that your Majesty's attitude toward the Spanish succession question was finally determined by the misgiving whether it was right, for personal and dynastic considerations, to mar the endeavor of the Spanish nation to reestablish, by this selection of a King, their internal organization on a permanent basis; that your Majesty, in view of the good relations existing for so many years between the Princess of the Hohenzollern House and the Emperor, had never entertained any doubt but that the Hereditary Prince would succeed in arriving at a satisfactory understanding with his Majesty the Emperor respecting the acceptance of the Spanish election, that, however, your Majesty had regarded this, not as a German or a Prussian, but as a Spanish affair.

In the meantime, between 9 and 10 o'clock, enquiries in the town, and especially reconnaissances on the part of the officers of the general staff, had revealed the fact that the castle of Bellevue, near Fresnois, was suited for the accommodation of the Emperor, and was not yet occupied by the wounded. I reported this to his Majesty by desig-