If the French Government had really wished for peace, it would have let
the matter end there. But it did not do so. The extreme
Bonapartists--_plus royalistes que le roi_--all along wished to gain
prestige for their sovereign by inflicting an open humiliation on King
William and through him on Prussia. They were angry that he had evaded
the snare, and now brought pressure to bear on the Ministry, especially
the Duc de Gramont, so that at 7 P.M. of that same day (July 12) he sent
a telegram to Benedetti at Ems directing him to see King William and
press him to declare that he "would not again authorise this
candidature." The Minister added: "The effervescence of spirits [at
Paris] is such that we do not know whether we shall succeed in mastering
it." This was true. Paris was almost beside herself. As M. Sorel says:
"The warm July evening drove into the streets a populace greedy of shows
and excitements, whose imagination was spoiled by the custom of
political quackery, for whom war was but a drama and history a
romance[28]." Such was the impulse which led to Gramont's new demand,
and it was made in spite of the remonstrances of the British ambassador,
Lord Lyons.

[Footnote 28: Sorel, _Hist. diplomatique de la Guerre Franco-Allemande_,
vol. i. chap. iv.; also for the tone of the French Press, Giraudeau, _La
Vérité sur la Campagne de 1870_, pp. 46-60.

Ollivier tried to persuade Sir M.E. Grant Duff (_Notes from a Diary,
1873-1881_, vol. i. p. 45) that the French demand to King William was
quite friendly and natural.]

Viewing that demand in the clearer light of the present time, we must
say that it was not unreasonable in itself; but it was presented in so