His Majesty, the King, thereupon decided not to receive the French ambassador again, and sent to tell him through the aide-de-camp on duty that his Majesty had nothing further to communicate to the ambassador.
Efforts have been made to represent Bismarck's "editing" of the Ems telegram as the decisive step leading to war; and in his closing years, when seized with the morbid desire of a partly discredited statesman to exaggerate his influence on events, he himself sought to perpetuate this version.

He claims that the telegram, as it came from Ems, described the incident there "as a fragment of a negotiation still pending, and to be continued at Berlin." This claim is quite untenable.

A careful perusal of the original despatch from Ems shows that the negotiation, far from being "still pending," was clearly described as having been closed on that matter.

That Benedetti so regarded it is proved by his returning at once to Paris.

If it could have been "continued at Berlin," he most certainly would have proceeded thither.