Having disposed of his _first_ accomplice in the great scheme, gradually matured during his sulky meditations at Frankfort and St. Petersburg under the tuition of his master in diplomacy, Prince Gortchakoff—namely, having put down Austria—Bismarck proceeded with his next plot: against his accomplice in the one just successfully carried into execution. Austria had been lured on by the expectation of sharing in the spoliation of Denmark, defrauded of her portion of the spoils, and stripped of a great part of her original possessions, to the advantage of Prussia. In like manner Louis Napoleon was disappointed of the acquisitions he hoped to receive as a reward for conniving at the spoliation of Austria; he and his dynasty were overthrown completely, and we trust finally; France was humiliated to the dust and compelled to ransom herself from captivity by the price of her treasure and her territory. The disruption of the European bond left France, as Austria had been left, at the mercy of her perfidious ally, converted into an open and relentless enemy. During the preliminaries of peace at Nikolsburg, afterwards ratified by the treaty of Prague, by which the German hegemony of Prussia was established, Bismarck persuaded the French emperor through his envoy, the unfortunate M. Benedetti—the same one who knew his man and followed him up so skilfully—that “the reverses of Austria allowed _France and Prussia to modify their territorial situation_.” Hints were thrown out about the Rhine provinces and Belgium. After Prussia had completed her own modification of her territorial situation for the time being, Bismarck continued, while Prussia was taking a rest and making all her political and military arrangements perfect, what he called his “dilatory negotiations” with Louis Napoleon. The latter was asking for compensations, for which he had not stipulated when he placed his services at the disposal of his employer. Mephistopheles qualified this demand as a “policy of _pour boire_.” You engage a _fiacre_ in Paris, you pay the stipulated price to the driver, and he presents his hand again, unless you anticipate him by a voluntary gratuity, with the familiar phrase: “Pour boire, monsieur, s’il vous plaît!” If you are a good-humored gentleman, you hand over a few sous and he departs contented. If you are gruff and parsimonious, and show unwillingness to comply with his polite request, he will reiterate it with less deference and civility. Whereupon, if you are violent and profane, and have sufficient command of the French language to speak after the manner of the _gamins de Paris_, you refer him to a person beyond the “_Porte de l’Enfer_.” The history of the secret treaty of offensive and defensive alliance between France and Prussia, giving the aid of France to carry out the further programme of Prussian ascendency in Germany, and the aid of Prussia to secure Luxembourg and Belgium to France, signed by France,