[Footnote 31: This version has, I believe, not been refuted. Still, I
must look on it with suspicion. No Minister, who had done so much to
stir up the war-feeling, ought to have made any such confession--least
of all against a lady, who could not answer it. M. Seignobos in his
_Political History of Contemporary Europe_, vol. i. chap. vi. p. 184
(Eng edit.) says of Gramont: "He it was who embroiled France in the war
with Prussia." In the course of the parliamentary inquiry of 1872
Gramont convicted himself and his Cabinet of folly in 1870 by using
these words: "Je crois pouvoir déclarer que si on avait eu un doute, un
seule doute, sur notre aptitude à la guerre, on eût immédiatement arrêté
la négociation" (_Enquête parlementaire_, I. vol. i. p. 108).]

On the morrow (July 15) the Chamber of Deputies appointed a Commission,
which hastily examined the diplomatic documents and reported in a sense
favourable to the Ollivier Ministry. The subsequent debate made strongly
for a rupture; and it is important to note that Ollivier and Gramont
based the demand for warlike preparations on the fact that King William
had refused to see the French ambassador, and held that that alone was a
sufficient insult. In vain did Thiers protest against the war as
inopportune, and demand to see all the necessary documents. The Chamber
passed the war supplies by 246 votes to 10; and Thiers had his windows
broken. Late on that night Gramont set aside a last attempt of Lord
Granville to offer the mediation of England in the cause of peace, on
the ground that this would be to the harm of France--"unless means were
found to stop the rapid mobilisation of the Prussian armies which were
approaching our frontier[32]." In this connection it is needful to state
that the order for mobilising the North German troops was not given by
the King of Prussia until late on July 15, when the war votes of the
French Chambers were known at Berlin.