The scene now shifts to St. Cloud, where the poor emperor, who had supposed that Prince Antoine's telegram signified peace with honour, found a military party eager for war, and hotly asserting that the empire would be totally discredited unless satisfaction were demanded from Prussia for conniving at the Hohenzollern candidature. The interpellation of Duvernois in the Chamber was cited as a forcible expression of public opinion. M. Gramont now arrived at the palace with his report of the interview with Werther, in which the latter had persistently declared that the king had nothing whatever to do with Leopold's withdrawal. The emperor's unstable mind began to waver; he forgot or put aside his arrangement with M. Ollivier--that the ministers should meet him next morning for consultation over this new aspect of the affair--and he proceeded then and there to hold a Cabinet Council.
What passed at this Council has never been exactly known. The reproach of a ruinous blunder lies heavy on those who took part in it. Gramont says no more than that the deliberations were conscientious, and that every one, including the emperor, earnestly desired peace.[48] M. Ollivier tells us, in the volume now before us, that of all the Cabinet ministers the Duc de Gramont alone was summoned; whether he learnt subsequently who were also present, and what share they took in promoting the decision, he leaves his readers to guess. It is clear that the proceeding was irregular and totally unconstitutional, and other French writers hint that Gramont's silence is intended to shield _une personne auguste_ from responsibility for a decision that was fatally wrong. When the Council broke up at 7 P. M. (July 12) Gramont immediately despatched from the Foreign Office his famous telegram to Benedetti at Ems, instructing him to require from the Prussian king a positive assurance that he would not authorise the renewal of Leopold's candidature--a demand, in short, for guarantees. At his office he met Lord Lyons, to whom he expounded his reasons for treating the single renunciation as inadequate, to the great surprise of our ambassador, who objected so strenuously to Gramont's views and intentions that the minister, somewhat shaken, merely said that the formal decision would be made public next morning. While the emperor and two councillors were then taking irrevocable steps toward a collision, and were unconsciously playing into the hands of their arch-enemy, the leaders of the warlike faction in the Chamber and the Parisian press were clamouring with fury and vitriolic sarcasm against a faint-hearted and contemptible ministry that shrank from seizing the opportunity of humbling Prussia.