the Duchies to Prussia, neither would the Diet; the majority remained loyal to Augustenburg.  The people of the Duchies were equally determined in their opposition to the scheme; attempts were made by Bismarck’s friends and agents to get up a petition to incorporate them with Prussia, but they always failed.  Even the Prussian people were not really very anxious for this acquisition, and it required two years of constant writing in the inspired Press to bring them into such a state of mind that they would believe that it was, I will not say the most honourable, but the most desirable solution.  The King himself hesitated.  It was true that ever since the taking of the Dueppel the lust of conquest had been aroused in his mind; he had visited the place where so many Prussian soldiers had laid down their lives; and it was a natural feeling if he wished that the country they had conquered should belong to their own State.  On the other hand, he still felt that the rights of Augustenburg could not be neglected; when he discussed the matter with the Emperor of Austria and the subject of annexation was raised, he remained silent and was ill at ease.

If Bismarck was to get his way, he must first of all convince the King; this done, an opportunity might be found.  There was one man who was prepared to offer him the Duchies, and that man was Napoleon.  It is instructive to notice that as soon as the negotiations at Vienna had been concluded, Bismarck went to spend a few weeks at his old holiday resort of Biarritz.  He took the opportunity of having some conversation with both the Emperor and his Ministers.

He required rest and change after the prolonged anxieties of the two years; at no place did he find it so well as in the south of France: 

“It seems like a dream to be here again,” he writes to his wife.  “I am already quite well, and would be quite cheerful if I only knew that all was well with you.  The life I lead at Berlin is a kind of penal servitude, when I think of my independent life abroad.”  Seabathing, expeditions across the frontier, and sport passed three weeks.  “I have not for a long time found myself in such comfortable conditions, and yet the evil habit of work has rooted itself so deeply in my nature, that I feel some disquiet of conscience at my laziness.  I almost long for the Wilhelmstrasse, at least if my dear ones were there.”

On the 25th he left “dear Biarritz” for Paris, where he found plenty of politics awaiting him; here he had another of those interviews with Napoleon and his Ministers on which so much depended, and then he went back to his labours at Berlin.