Not the least impressive characteristic of these proceedings is the hot haste in which they hurried along. M. Benedetti neither in that respect nor in the swiftness and doggedness which he imparted to the negotiations, is to blame. The impulse and the orders came from Paris; he somewhat tempered the first, but he obeyed the second with zeal, and, without overstepping the limits of propriety in the form, he did not spare the King in the substance of his demands. Nor, in the first instance, were they other than those permitted by diplomatic precedent; afterwards they certainly exceeded these limits. The first was that the King himself should press Prince Leopold to withdraw his consent: indeed, direct him so to do. The answer was that, as King, he had nothing to do with the business; that as head of the Hohenzollern family he had been consulted, and had not encouraged or opposed the wish of the Prince to accept the proffered crown; that he would still leave him entire freedom to act as he pleased, but that his Majesty would communicate with Prince Antoine, the father of Prince Leopold, and learn his opinion. With this reply, unable to resist the plea for delay, the ambassador had perforce to be content. Not so the Imperial Government. The Duc de Gramont sent telegram on telegram to Ems, urging Benedetti to transmit an explicit answer from the King, saying that he had ordered Prince Leopold to give up the project, and alleging, as a reason for haste, that the French could not wait longer, since Prussia might anticipate them by calling out the army. The ambassador, to check this hurry, prudently warned his principals, saying, that if they ostentatiously prepared for war, then the calamity would be inevitable. “If the King,” wrote De Gramont, on the 10th of July, “will not advise the Prince to renounce his design—well, it is war at once, and in a few days we shall be on the Rhine.” And so on from hour to hour. A little wearied, perhaps, by the pertinacity of the ambassador, and nettled by the attempt to fix on him the responsibility for the Spanish scheme, the King at length said that he looked every moment for an answer from Sigmaringen, which he would transmit without delay. It is impossible, in a few sentences, to give the least idea of the terrier-like obstinacy displayed by M. Benedetti in attacking the King. Indeed, it grew to be almost a persecution, so thoroughly did he obey his importunate instructions. At length the King was able to say that Prince Antoine’s answer would arrive on the 13th, and the ambassador felt sure of a qualified success, inasmuch as he would obtain the Prince’s renunciation, sanctioned by King William. But, while he was writing his despatch, a new source of vexation sprang up in Paris—the Spanish Ambassador, Señor Olozaga, announced to the Duc de Gramont the fact that Prince Antoine, on behalf of his son, had notified at Madrid the withdrawal of his pretensions to the crown. It