As soon as Gladstone heard of the second demand of the Ollivier Ministry, he wrote to Lord Granville, then Foreign Minister: "It is our duty to represent the immense responsibility which will rest upon France, if she does not at once accept as satisfactory and conclusive the withdrawal of the candidature of Prince Leopold[30]." [Footnote 30: J.Morley, _Life of Gladstone_, vol.ii.p.

328.] On the other hand, we must note that the conduct of the German Press at this crisis was certainly provocative of war.

The morning on which Bismarck's telegram appeared in the official _North German Gazette_, saw a host of violent articles against France, and gleeful accounts of imaginary insults inflicted by the King on Benedetti.

All this was to be expected after the taunts of cowardice freely levelled by the Parisian papers against Prussia for the last two days; but whether Bismarck directly inspired the many sensational versions of the Ems affair that appeared in North German papers on July 14 is not yet proven.
However that may be, the French Government looked on the refusal of its last demand, the publication of Bismarck's telegram, and the insults of the German Press as a _casus belli_.

The details of the sitting of the Emperor's Council at 10 P.M.on July 14, at which it was decided to call out the French reserves, are not yet known.