After having given an account to the Prince of the plans of my friends, finances, and the elections, he repeated that he depended on me ... and I was to come and see him often.
_Letter from Émile Zola to the Comte de La Chapelle._
I thank you heartily for your kindness in sending me the reply which you were good enough to send to the question of the “Figaro.”
It is calculated to make me feel very proud, and I assure you that I am greatly touched because of the solid support which it gives to the historical portion of my work.[148] I shall always be extremely grateful to you.
Je vous écris pour vous faire faire la connaissance de M^{ r.} de La Chapelle, littérateur distingué, qui a publié un récit très bien fait de la campagne de 1870, et qui m’a donné des preuves de dévouement dont je suis fort touché.
Recevez la nouvelle assurance de ma sincère amitié,
I am writing in order that you may make the acquaintance of M. de La Chapelle, a distinguished littérateur, who has published a very admirable account of the campaign of 1870, and who has given me proofs of devotion which have greatly touched me.
Receive this new assurance of my sincere friendship,
And Colonel Stoffel was the French Military Attaché at Berlin from 1866 until 1870.
This clear-headed artillery officer, ever on the alert, saw what would inevitably happen sooner or later, and he bombarded his Government with warning reports, which were either pigeon-holed by Ministers, after a perfunctory glance at their contents, or perused and treated as waste-paper. Those who assume (which I do not, and never shall) that Napoleon III. was, as a Ruler, as black as his detractors have painted, and continue to paint, him, will now learn for the first time that, while in the highest military circles Stoffel’s repeated warnings of Prussia’s preparations for war were scoffed at, and he himself regarded by many at the Tuileries as a bird of ill omen, the Emperor attached the utmost importance to his Military Attaché’s reports,[150] insisted, through M. Pietri, upon being kept fully informed of what was being done by Prussia, and did his best to prepare his forces for the struggle which he, like Stoffel, foresaw in the near future. We know all this now, and how we know it I will presently show. As, however, Stoffel[151] is the hero of this chapter, his personality must not be neglected.