The paper war between Count Beust and Baron Thile, ad
interim Secretary of Foreign Affairs in Berlin, continues, and grows hotter. Count Beust says he has neglected no effort to conciliate Prussia, but has always, failed. Baron Thile retorts that he has made none, the Austrian Ambassador never having spoken to Count Bismarck for eighteen months. That is an accident, rejoins Count Beust. Whenever Count Bismarck was in Berlin, Count Wimpfen was away, and whenever Count Wimpfen came back Count Bismarck was away. Certainly Count Wimpfen had orders not to call, but then that was because the Berlin papers were impertinent. However, the Austrian Chancellor is willing to forgive, and even to reward his enemies. He is " willing, in order to remove unpleasantnesses, to enter into a correspondence as to the conciliatory endeavours that have been made on either side during the past year." Think of that pro- mise as a boon. Were we wrong in describing the Chancellor as a man who could write about empires, but neither found nor preserve one?
