In 1870 France found herself isolated, and compelled, in case of war with Prussia, to fight single-handed. If Napoleon III. had exercised the abilities he had shown at the beginning of his career, he would have found means to delay a conflict for which he was not prepared, or avoid it altogether; but in 1870 his intellect was shattered, and he felt himself powerless to resist the current which was bearing him away to his destruction. He showed the most singular incapacity as an administrator. He did not really know the condition of his army; he supposed he had four hundred and fifty thousand effective troops, but really possessed a little over three hundred thousand, while Prussia had over one-third more than this, completely equipped and disciplined, and with improved weapons. He was deceived by the reports of his own generals, to whom he had delegated everything, instead of looking into the actual state of affairs himself, as his uncle would have done, and as Thiers did under Louis Philippe. More than a third of his regiments were on paper alone, or dwindled in size; the monstrous corruptions of his reign had permeated every part of the country; the necessary arms, ammunition, and material of war in general were deplorably deficient; no official reports could be relied upon, and few of his generals could be implicitly trusted. If ever infatuation blinded a nation to its fate, it most signally marked France in 1870. Nothing was now wanting but the spark to kindle the conflagration; and this was supplied by the interference of the French government with the nomination of a German prince to the vacant throne of Spain. The Prussian king gave way in the matter of Prince Leopold, but refused further concessions. Leopold was sufficiently magnanimous to withdraw his claims, and here French interference should have ended. But France demanded guarantees that no future candidate should be proposed without her consent. Of course the Prussian king,--seeing with the keen eyes of Bismarck, and armed to the teeth under the supervision of Moltke, the greatest general of the age, who could direct, with the precision of a steam-engine on a track, the movements of the Prussian army, itself a mechanism,--treated with disdain this imperious demand from a power which he knew to be inferior to his own. Count Bismarck craftily lured on his prey, who was already goaded forward by his home war-party, with the empress at their head; negotiations ceased, and Napoleon III. made his fatal declaration of hostilities, to the grief of the few statesmen who foresaw the end.