("Plon-Plon") and Lavalette, and the wheedlings of the Prussian
ambassador as to compensations which France might gain as a set-off to
Prussia's aggrandisement, told on the French Emperor's nature, always
somewhat sluggish and then prostrated by severe internal pain; with the
result that he sent his proposals for a settlement of the points in
dispute, but took no steps towards enforcing them. A fortnight thus
slipped away, during which the Prussians reaped the full fruits of their
triumph at Königgrätz; and it was not until July 29, three days after
the Preliminaries of Peace were signed, that the French Foreign
Minister, Drouyn de Lhuys, worried his master, then prostrate with pain
at Vichy, into sanctioning the following demands from victorious
Prussia: the cession to France of the Rhenish Palatinate (belonging to
Bavaria), the south-western part of Hesse Darmstadt, and that part of
Prussia's Rhine-Province lying in the valley of the Saar which she had
acquired after Waterloo. This would have brought within the French
frontier the great fortress of Mainz (Mayence); but the great mass of
these gains, it will be observed, would have been at the expense of
South German States, whose cause France proclaimed her earnest desire to
uphold against the encroaching power of Prussia.

Bismarck took care to have an official copy of these demands in writing,
the use of which will shortly appear; and having procured this precious
document, he defied the French envoy, telling him that King William,
rather than agree to such a surrender of German land, would make peace
with Austria and the German States on any terms, and invade France at
the head of the forces of a united Germany. This reply caused another
change of front at Napoleon's Court. The demands were disavowed and the
Foreign Minister, Drouyn de Lhuys, resigned[5].

[5] Sybel, _op. cit._ vol. v. pp. 365-374. Débidour, _op. cit._ vol. ii.