When he
was first elected as a member of the Legislative Body in 1857, he publicly
declared that he would appear before that essentially Bonapartist assembly
as one of the spectres of the crime of the Coup d'Etat. But subsequently
M. de Morny baited him with a lucrative appointment connected with the
Suez Canal. Later still, the Empress smiled on him, and finally he took
office under the Emperor, thereby disgusting nearly every one of his
former friends and associates.
I believe, however, that Ollivier was sincerely convinced of the
possibility of firmly establishing a liberal-imperialist _regime_. But
although various reforms were carried out under his auspices, it is quite
certain that he was not allowed a perfectly free hand. Nor was he fully
taken into confidence with respect to the Emperor's secret diplomatic and
military policy. That was proved by the very speech in which he spoke of
entering upon the war with Prussia "with a light heart"; for in his very
next sentences he spoke of that war as being absolutely forced upon
France, and of himself and his colleagues as having done all that was
humanly and honourably possible to avoid it. Assuredly he would not have
spoken quite as he did had he realized at the time that Bismarck had
merely forced on the war in order to defeat the Emperor Napoleon's
intention to invade Germany in the ensuing spring.
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