The conference of Paris succeeded, nevertheless, in its efforts; the Græco-Turkish difference was smoothed over, and with the spring of the year 1869 the cold wind of the propaganda whistled less strongly in the valleys of the Danube and the gorges of the Balkan. There was a sort of lull; but the combustible matters still remained heaped up, ready to catch fire from the first spark. The radicals of Roumania were not the only ones to foresee an offensive action of Russia in the Orient as soon as serious complications should break out in Occidental Europe; that was an almost universal conviction, and one which the children of Rourik shared the very first. The end of the year 1869 was signaled by an incident which did not fail to gravely impress all serious minds. They celebrated at St. Petersburg the centennial of the institution of the Order of St. George, the great military order of Russia, and of which the first class is only conferred on him who gains a brilliant victory. The Emperor Alexander II. sent this distinction to King William I., to the conqueror of Sadowa and the former champion of 1814. "Accept it," he telegraphed him, "as a new proof of the friendship which unites us, a friendship founded on the souvenir of that great epoch when our united armies fought for a sacred cause which was common to us." And the King of Prussia soon replied by telegraph: "Profoundly touched, and _with tears in my eyes_, I thank you for the honor which you have done me, and which I did not expect; but what pleases me still more are the expressions by which you have announced it to me. I see, in truth, in these expressions a new proof of your friendship and your remembrance of the great epoch when our united armies fought for the same sacred cause."[116]
At the commencement of the same year, and while the conference of Paris was still sitting, there died at Nice a faithful servant of the sultan's, one of the last great statesmen of Turkey. Before descending into the tomb, Fuad-Pacha traced with a faltering hand a memorial for his august master, which he said was his political testament. The document was to remain secret, and, in fact, only came to light quite recently.[117] "When this writing is placed before the eyes of your majesty," one reads in it, "I will no longer be in this world. You can therefore listen to me without distrust, and you should imbue yourself with this great and grievous truth, that _the Empire of the Osmanlis is in danger_." And after having reviewed the different states of the Continent, and marked out the conflict more or less near, but inevitable, between France and Prussia, Fuad-Pacha concluded by these words: "An intestine dissension in Europe, and _a Bismarck in Russia_, and the face of the world will be changed."