waters of Carlsbad in far-off Bohemia. I had hardly reached Carlsbad, when scanty news was received of a somewhat
Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern.
threatening character. I could hardly believe that anything very serious was likely to result; yet I was somewhat uneasy.
As I was going to drink the water at one of the health-giving springs, early in the morning of the 15th of July, my Alsatian valet brought me the startling news that a private telegram, received at midnight, gave the intelligence that France had declared war against Germany. The news fell upon the thousands of visitors and the people of Carlsbad like a clap of thunder in a cloudless sky, and the most intense excitement prevailed. The nearest railroad at that time was at Eger, thirty miles distant. The visitors were then all dependent upon the diligence, which only left Carlsbad at night. I immediately determined to return to Paris, as my post of duty. Hiring my seat in the diligence, I rode all night from Carlsbad to Eger. Taking the railroad from Eger to Paris, and passing through Bavaria, Baden, and the valley of the Rhine, the excitement was something prodigious, and recalled to me the days at home of the firing upon Sumter in 1861. The troops were everywhere rushing to the depots; the trains were all blocked, and confusion reigned supreme. After great delays and much discomfort, and a journey of fifty-two hours, I reached Paris at ten o'clock at night, July 18th. The great masses of people, naturally so excitable and turbulent, had been maddened by the false news, so skilfully disseminated, that King William, at Ems, had insulted the French nation through its Ambassador. The streets, the boulevards, the avenues, were filled with people in the greatest state of enthusiasm and excitation. The Champs Elysées, with their brilliant and flashing gas-lights and all the cafés and open-air concert gardens, were encumbered by an immense multitude who filled the air with cries of "A Berlin en huit jours!" and whose hearts were set on fire by the refrain of the Marseillaise, that hymn of free France:
"Allons enfants de la Patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrivé."
It soon turned out that all the reports which had been spread over Paris, that King William had insulted the French Ambassador, were utterly false, and had not the slightest foundation to rest upon. The French Ambassador, M. Benedetti, denied that he had received the least indignity from the King. The plain truth seemed to be that the French Ambassador courteously approached the King, while walking in the garden of the Kursaal, and spoke to him in relation to the pending difficulties then existing between the two countries. The good old King was kind and polite, as he always is to everyone with whom he comes in contact, and when M. Benedetti began to speak in relation to matters of such a grave character, he politely stated that he would have to talk upon such questions with the German Foreign Office. All that was very proper; and nobody thought of it or supposed that there was any indignity, as there was not the slightest intended. The very spot where this meeting took place is now marked by a tablet, bearing date of the day of the occurrence.
The exaggerations in Paris and France of this simple incident surpassed all bounds, and they were apparently made to inflame the people still more. It really appeared that the Emperor and Government of France had determined
