good offices of some friendly power. [Footnote: Earl Granville to
Lords Lyons and Loftus, July 15, 1870,--Correspondence respecting
the Negotiations preliminary to the War between France and
Prussia, p. 35: Parliamentary Papers, 1870, Vol. LXX.] This most
reasonable proposition was rejected by the French Minister, who
gave new point to the French case by charging that Prussia "had
chosen to declare that France had been affronted in the person of
her Ambassador," and then positively insisting that "it was this
boast which was the _gravamen_ of the offence." Capping the
climax of barbarous absurdity, the French Minister did not
hesitate to announce that this "constituted an insult which no
nation of any spirit could brook, and rendered it, much to the
regret of the French Government, impossible to take into
consideration the mode of settling the original matter in dispute
which was recommended by her Majesty's Government." [Footnote:
Lord Lyons to Earl Granville, July 15, 1870,--Correspondence
respecting the Negotiations preliminary to the War between France
and Prussia, pp. 39, 40: Parliamentary Papers, 1870, Vol. LXX.]
Thus was peaceful Arbitration repelled. All honor to the English
Government for proposing it!

The famous telegram put forward by France as the _gravamen_,
or chief offence, was not communicated to the Chamber. The Prime-
Minister, though hard-pressed, held it back. Was it from
conviction of its too trivial character? But it is not lost to the
history of the duel. This telegram, with something of the brevity
peculiar to telegraphic dispatches, merely reports the refusal to
see the French Ambassador, without one word of affront or boast.
It reports the fact, and nothing else; and it is understood that
the refusal was only when this functionary presented himself a