No one was so well
acquainted with its resources as he; no one knew better than he what
policy ought to be followed. If he had despaired, it was because he
foresaw that the situation was hopeless. He had certainly made mistakes;
first, in believing that in January it had been Napoleon's serious
intention to abrogate personal control of the state, then that of
retaining, despite the long hesitation so well known to me, his position
as French Envoy to North America, after the plebiscite. That he should
now have turned his pistol against his own forehead told me that he
regarded the battle as lost, foresaw inevitable collapse as the outcome
of the war. When at first all the rumours and all the papers announced
the extreme probability of Denmark's taking part in the war as France's
ally, I was seized with a kind of despair at the thought of the folly
she seemed to be on the verge of committing. I wrote to my friends,
would have liked, had I been permitted, to write in every Danish paper a
warning against the martial madness that had seized upon people. It was
only apparently shared by the French. Even now, only a week after the
declaration of war, and before a single collision had taken place, it
was clear to everyone who carefully followed the course of events that
in spite of the light-hearted bragging of the Parisians and the Press,
there was deep-rooted aversion to war.
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