“‘The world desires to be deceived. Bismarck has known how to take advantage of this fact. Peoples and Governments have spared no trouble gradually to augment the power of Prussia and their own danger. Austria helped Prussia against Denmark, and was rewarded with Sadowa, and an impotence that makes her now powerless before the minority of her own population. France, or rather Napoleon III., at that time reckoned on being paid for his neutrality. The payment consisted in Sedan, the Paris Commune, and the International. England and Russia permitted the dismemberment of France. The former performs an act of penance in the Alabama affair, bows down before the ex-Emperor, and, placing herself under the orders of Prussia, sulkily pockets or hides under her petticoat (a delicate reference to the circumstance that a lady sits upon the throne of Great Britain) her defeat in the Black Sea question. Russia, by her readiness to fall in with the views of Prussia, has either dealt a deadly wound to the Slavonic cause, or incurred the necessity of an ultimate war to the knife in its defence.’ “We do not propose to gather all the flowers in this garden for the delectation of our readers. Those already submitted will suffice. It was thought in Sweden that the King, even if he were really not the author of this article, at least shared the views to which it gave expression, and therefore took no steps against the abuse of his _nom de plume_. This opinion has never been contradicted. It is true that about a week after the 7th of December, when the first article from ‘C.’ appeared, the Swedish newspapers denied that it had been written by the King; and on the 20th of December the correspondent of the _National Zeitung_ (who is, of course, semi-official) mentioned that a man so well informed on military affairs, and doubtless also on the military constitution of Germany, as King Charles XV. could not have written such nonsense. But for a whole fortnight there was no official _démenti_, and even then, so far as we are aware, it only appeared in England. It was only on the 16th of January in the present year that Baron Hochschild, the Swedish Minister in London, declared that the statement of a correspondent of _The Times_, to the effect that the article in question emanated from the King of Sweden, was entirely unfounded.... We, of course, accept the _démenti_ as we know that diplomatists never lie, but we are none the less glad to think that Sweden is no longer an absolute monarchy.”