He added nothing to the truth; he only affirmed that his alliance with the Hapsburg in the war against Denmark had been a simple incident, and he allowed to be clearly seen his desire to keep for Prussia the countries recently conquered on the Elbe in the name of the Germanic Confederation. For the rest, he only varied the ancient theme on the inevitable imminent duel between Berlin and Vienna, on the advantages which Italy might gather from it, on the advantage that would accrue to France, having Prussia, with a better defined and firmer outline, as its natural, unfailing ally in all the questions of _civilization_ and _progress_. Such expressions, coming from a minister who had shown his character in the campaign of the Duchies, now met an auditory much more attentive than that of 1862. Without yet taking him for a perfectly _serious_ man, they began to recognize in him the qualities of a useful man, of a man of the future, whom Italy should cultivate with care, whom France, for its part, should watch carefully, encourage, and manage. The leaders of the imperial democracy, Prince Napoleon first of all, showed themselves especially taken with the prospectives which were opened to them. A distinguished member of this group, a diplomat reputed to be acute above all, and whose name even allied him to the Italian cause, was sought out in his retreat and placed at the head of the mission at Berlin, elevated now to an embassy. Another member of the "party of action," equally unattached for some time, a former ambassador at Rome, was not long in being recalled into the councils of the empire: by the side of M. Rouher, he was destined to form there a useful counterpoise to the slightly "antiquated" ideas of M. Drouyn de Lhuys. Finally, on the other side of the Alps, at Turin, a general, well known for his "Prussomania," had taken in hand the direction of political affairs on the 23d September. Each of these personages,--M. Benedetti, M. de La Valette, General La Marmora,--will have his _rôle_ and his day in the great drama of 1866.
At this time, however, in the autumn of 1864, no plan was fixed or even discussed: one had only come as yet to simple confidences, to vague and fleeting conversations, to that which, in diplomatic language, one had not even dared to call an exchange of ideas; but the impression which the Prussian minister obtained from this rapid journey to France was sufficiently encouraging for him soon to launch that circular of the 24th December, 1864, which became the point of departure for his action against Austria. It was in this circular, in fact, that M. de Bismarck broached for the first time the question of the countries of the Elbe, which he well knew to be a question of war. Six months before, in the peremptory declaration made the 28th May, 1864, in the midst of the conference of London, Austria and Prussia had demanded the "reunion of the Duchies of Schleswig and of Holstein in a single state under the sovereignty of the hereditary Prince of Augustenburg," and the cabinet of Berlin took care to add then that this prince had, "in the eyes of Germany, _the greatest right_ to the succession; that his recognition by the _Bund_ was consequently assured, and that, moreover, he would reunite the _indubitable suffrages_ of the great majority of the population of this country." Quite different were the sentiments of the Prussian minister towards the end of the same year, some time after his return from Paris. In a circular dispatch addressed to the German courts, the president of the council of Berlin declared now (24th December, 1864) that grave doubts assailed his mind touching the titles of the Duke of Augustenburg, that several serious competitors, such as the Princes of Oldenburg and Hesse, had arisen in the interval;[50] that in the midst of such multiplied and such confused claims he was perplexed; that his conscience was not sufficiently enlightened on this point of right; that he felt the need of meditating and of "consulting the legists!"