For centuries the French had kept a jealous eye on Germany, and had done everything they could to keep it from becoming a rival. Louis XIV. had taken away from Germany the two provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, which you will see on the map between the Moselle and the Rhine. Napoleon I., as you know, stole a good deal of Germany, and gave it away to his marshals and to the members of his own family. After his fall, the Germans began to grow in power by good government and by peaceful industry, and France regarded this growth with a very unfriendly eye. When Prussia beat Austria and made herself head of the North German Bund, the French began to think that the time had come for clipping Prussia's wings. Soon a quarrel arose, as quarrels always do if you seek for them. The King of Spain died, and Bismarck put forward a German prince as a candidate for the vacant throne. The French people were much alarmed at the prospect of a German king ruling Spain, and there was great excitement in all parts of France. The German prince was withdrawn; but this did not satisfy the French people, who were eager for war. At this time King William of Prussia was at Ems,[95] enjoying a holiday, and his chief ministers were away on holiday too. The French ambassador went to Ems and demanded that the Prussian king should apologize, and give a promise never to put forward a German candidate for the Spanish throne again. King William refused to do this, and sent a telegram to Bismarck, giving him an account of the interview. Bismarck, you will remember, wanted war in order to unite North and South Germany into an empire. He saw his chance, and cut out part of the telegram so as to make it read in a way that angered both the French and the Germans. Then he published it, and almost at once the French declared war. On July 16, 1870, the North Bund met, and agreed to fight. Three days later, to the great surprise of Napoleon, the South German states held a meeting, and declared that they would join with the North states in making war against France, under the leadership of the King of Prussia. This was a great triumph for Bismarck, who now saw clearly that if the united German armies could beat France, their comradeship in arms and their common joy in victory would make a German Empire very probable.