As it fell out, a young Pole actually made the attempt on the next day. Stieber's men had shadowed him all through the night, till the very moment in which he fired at the Tsar, the outrage taking place, but without harmful results to the object of the attack. All had fallen out as Bismarck had foretold, and with the subsequent failure of a Paris jury to convict the youthful Pole, France was prevented, by the estrangement which succeeded, from assuring herself the friendship of an ally whose support might have changed the history of the Franco-German War of 1870. The story is told in detail in Stieber's own Memoirs, and we confess that, having read it several times with care, we are ourselves forced to the conclusion that Bismarck's supposition that a French jury would fail to convict the Pole was based upon something much more tangible than the arts and processes of divination. In other words, the impression left upon the mind is that Bismarck's gold had subsidised the conspirators in the plot as well as the Paris jurymen, in order to bring about a political situation which should not interfere with his plans. Bismarck had already more than once proved himself an expert in preparing his schemes far in advance, as the Danish and Austrian wars had already proved, and as the Franco-German War was even more fully to demonstrate. When, in due course, and as a result of Bismarck's plan of forcing a fight on the French at the psychological moment, war was declared against France in July 1870, Stieber and his two lieutenants, Zernicki and Kaltenbach, left for the Front with the headquarters staff. His title was Chief of the Active-Service Police and his duties, drawn up by himself, were as follows:— 1. To provide information to the Staff regarding the situation, strength and movements of each of the French armies in the field. 2. To provide all possible details with regard to the age, the disposition and character and the personal and military reputation of each commander, his possible successor in the command and other superior officers. In respect of this provision, it is interesting to learn that part of the report regarding the late General de Gallifet, the cavalry leader and hero of Sedan, was given in approximately the following terms:—"This officer is one who under Napoleon the First would have held the highest rank. A real Frenchman, with his heart in the war and a hater of all things Prussian. A fighter for the initiative, by every instinct, a dangerous adversary and, for us, better dead. Should be watched; has no thought for anything in the present war but the success of the French arms." 3. Reports as to the political dispositions and temper of all districts for twenty miles ahead of the advancing Prussian armies, as well as the capacity of each district for supplying the commissariat.