coincided with the period of military failures and diplomatic slights.
Let Napoleon III., they said in effect, imitate the policy of his uncle,
who, as long as he dazzled France by triumphs, could afford to laugh at
the efforts of constitution-mongers. The big towns might prate of
liberty; but what France wanted was glory and strong government. Such
were their pleas: there was much in the past history of France to
support them. The responsible advisers of the Emperor determined to take
a stronger tone in foreign affairs, while the out-and-out Bonapartists
jealously looked for any signs of official weakness so that they might
undermine the Ollivier Ministry and hark back to absolutism. When two
great parties in a State make national prestige a catchword of the
political game, peace cannot be secure: that was the position of France
in the early part of 1870[9].

[9] See Ollivier's great work, _L'Empire libéral_, for full details of
this time.

The eve of the Franco-German War was a time of great importance for the
United Kingdom. The Reform Bill of 1867 gave a great accession of power
to the Liberal Party; and the General Election of November 1868 speedily
led to the resignation of the Disraeli Cabinet and the accession of the
Gladstone Ministry to power. This portended change in other directions
than home affairs. The tradition of a spirited foreign policy died with
Lord Palmerston in 1865. With the entry of John Bright to the new
Cabinet peace at all costs became the dominant note of British
statesmanship. There was much to be said in favour of this. England
needed a time of rest in order to cope with the discontent of Ireland
and the problems brought about by the growth of democracy and
commercialism in the larger island. The disestablishment and partial
disendowment of the Protestant Church in Ireland (July 1869), the Irish