[Illustration: H.H. PRINCE ROLAND BONAPARTE.
President of the Geographical Society of France. Father of H.R.H. Princess George of Greece.
_Photographed by Boissonas et Taponier, Paris, and lent for this work by the Prince._
caused by the madness of our citizens--are not these things sufficient to fill with despair the heart of every Frenchman who sincerely loves his country?...”
A week later M. Pietri writes to tell Stoffel that all the news coming from France is very sad. He despairs of the future. Then comes a most remarkable passage, which I take upon myself to emphasize, for it shows, as I have always argued--years before this book was written--that Colonel Stoffel, if his warnings had been taken, might, and probably would, have saved France. M. Pietri himself admits it, and there is no more trustworthy surviving authority than the Empress Eugénie’s devoted Secretary and valued friend. M. Pietri writes to Stoffel: “I have always done you justice, and to-day more than ever _I recognize that you were right, and that if you had been listened to we should not have been where we are; but all were blind--Ministers, statesmen, the Deputies who were in the majority and those who formed the Opposition. Everybody worked against the country. The Emperor alone, perhaps, saw correctly, but, blocked every moment by the remarks of some and by the ill-will of others, he was carried away_ [by the current] _and unable to carry out many of the plans which he had formed. I admit that he must bear the responsibility, for in this world there must always be a scapegoat; but_ [public] _opinion will calm down, and by degrees will better appreciate the responsibility of each_ [individual]. _The Emperor’s responsibility will then be lessened._” These are noble words, ringing with patriotism and a desire to render justice to The Man who gave the Warning. And I rejoice that the Editor of the “Revue de Paris” has so generously afforded me an opportunity of making the English peoples acquainted with the fact that France had in Colonel Stoffel the most devoted and most prescient of servants, who made it as clear as daylight, not once, but again and again, that Bismarck meant to have war and meant to goad France into beginning it. At Grenoble most of us have gazed admiringly at the statue of Bayard, the preux Chevalier, who was “sans peur et sans reproche.” When will Paris “do the right thing” by Stoffel? _When?_