New Orleans Republican

ANOTHER QUESTION SETTLED.

A question that perplexed the world very seriously at the time of the declaration of war between France and Prussia, has recently been explained, very much to the astonishment of some of the friends of Bonaparte. It will be remembered that Bismarck published what purported to be the draft of a treaty which had been submitted to Prussia by France, by which the latter was to be allowed Belgium, while the former was to be gratified with a portion of Denmark. In addition, the two nations were to enter into a secret treaty, binding themselves to the support of each other in any conflict that might arise from this rectification of boundaries. Bonaparte denied the authenticity of this pretended treaty, and explained that Bismarck was the really guilty party, he having propounded the project while the French minister wrote it down. This reduced the whole matter to a question of veracity between Bismarck and Napoleon, and so it continued to remain until the other day, when Count Benedetti, who was the French minister at Berlin at the time of the outbreak of the war, attempted to explain the origin of the unpleasantness so as to relieve himself from the blame which has been laid up as his share of that terrible calamity. Benedetti, unfortunately, accepted Napoleon's statement of the secret treaty, and founded his defense upon Bismarck's conference with him, at which he remembered that he acted as secretary to write down the heads of the proposed arrangement. He was not in the entire secret, as it appears, for now the Prussian government replies to Bonaparte and Benedetti with documents captured from the foreign office at Paris, that at once fix upon the Emperor Napoleon the guilt of having not only proposed to annex Belgium to France, but of having urged Prussia to extend her boundaries in a most aggressive and unpopular fashion. Bismarck had corresponded with Bonaparte upon this subject, and had constantly resisted entreaties to enter an arrangement to spoliate Europe by virtue of the united armies of Prussia and France. This revelation, made from the archives of the French government, at once clears up all the stories about the secret treaty and locates the responsibility of its suggestion upon the Emperor Napoleon. If Benedetti had been in possession of all the facts he would not have been so prompt to rush into print with his defense, perhaps; or, if he had known the extent of the captures made by the Germans at Paris, probably this fact would have claimed his silence. Prussia gets the advantage of France in the matter of the late war now as she did in the beginning.