being ready for action, the _Bund_ and the claimants of the duchies were summarily shoved aside. The question of the right of succession in the duchies was referred to a high Prussian court for adjudication. It was decided that _the King of Denmark alone_ had possessed the right of sovereignty in Schleswig and Holstein, and that, by the cession which he had been forced to make after being conquered in war, this right was now vested in Prussia and Austria. Austria was politely requested to sell her share to Prussia, which she declined to do, and the next step was to wrest it from her by force. The dark intrigues—at the time so hidden from sight and so almost desperate, even in the view of the “maniacal diplomat” who held their threads in his hand and wove them into a mesh around his victim—by which Bismarck planned the ruin of Austria, have since been fully disclosed. With the government of Victor Emanuel a strict and secret treaty was contracted. At the same time, and for several years after, a correspondence was kept up with Mazzini, looking to the overthrow of Victor Emanuel in case of any action on his part unfavorable to the schemes of the arch-conspirators. Arrangements were made for fomenting an insurrection in Hungary under the leadership of Garibaldi. The neutrality and connivance of Louis Napoleon were secured by playing upon his Italian sympathies and holding before him vague expectations of compensation for France. Prince Gortchakoff lent an underhand but most valuable help to his friend all through, beginning with the attack on Denmark. It was Louis Napoleon, whose incapacity and weakness were not yet fully revealed even to Bismarck’s keen eye, who was most feared and distrusted. Enfeebled as he was in respect to whatever capacity he had really possessed in his prime, and weakened as was the power of France, yet, with the help of the statesmen and soldiers who were at his disposal, he still retained the power of determining the main issue in the politics of Europe, and Bismarck knew it. He would not stir in any decisive action until well assured that he had mastered the French emperor by his superior craft. He had less difficulty in this than he anticipated. Louis Napoleon, like most other European observers, overrated the military strength of Austria, and underrated the new Prussian army with its almost untried leaders, Von Roon and Von Moltke; which even Bismarck himself somewhat distrusted up to the last moment. The French emperor desired and hoped for the liberation of Venetia. But he expected the defeat of the Prussian army in Germany, and for himself the _rôle_ of a mediator, an umpire, a general referee for settling all things on the basis of a new treaty of peace. He let Bismarck play his game out, with what result is known to the world. Although victorious in Italy, Austria nevertheless ceded Venetia to Louis Napoleon, who handed it over to Victor Emanuel.