lO-t Prince Bismarck and his Policy. 



coming storm. Komanism, however, was the visible dawn 

 behind all these machinations. Empress Eugenie and her 

 followers were merely the marionettes in this dark play. 



Bismarck hastened the consolidation of the i^orth Ger- 

 man confederation, and tried to overcome the opposition 

 of the different states. In all his speeches, np to the time 

 when the war drum silenced all admonitions, he urged 

 harmony and united action against the common foe. 



Documents found in France prove conclusively, that the 

 church party was chiefly instrumental in hastening the 

 issue. Jesuitism forced Melac and Turenne across the 

 Rhine; devastated the Palatinate; wrenched Strassburg 

 from Germany. The followers of Loyola had settled in 

 France, Belgium and Holland, to keep up the fight against 

 Protestant Prussia. Father Bekh gained the ascendancy 

 over Pope Pius IX., and the latter saw in the former's 

 doctrines alone the expression of true faith. Italy's unifi- 

 cation and Austria's loss of Lombardy had robbed the 

 Jesuit curia of the material nerve of their power. 



Austria's defeat in 1866 annihilated their cherished hope 

 of regaining their worldly (temporal) possessions by means 

 of the sword, and filled them with terror lest the German 

 race should triumph over their Latin neighbor. 



To frustrate this, two motors were set in motion : the 

 so-called invincible military power of France : and the 

 dogma of papal infallibility. I^"apoleon took the part 

 assigned to him. The first card played was Napoleon's 

 request, through Benedetti, that Prussia might assist 

 France in the annexation of Luxemburg. Bismarck 

 refused. 



The church and military party in Paris proposed further 

 demands, when opportunity should ofier itself. It needed 

 little to set the ball in motion. The candidature of Prince 

 HohenzoUern Sigmaringen for the Spanish crown off'ered 

 the desired pretext. In inducing his kin to withdraw his 



