On May 7, 1866, he declared he would not accept the diet's
intervention in the duchies question, and on the 8th ordered the
mobilization of the Prussian army.
Napoleon III at this juncture proposed the holding of a congress
for settling the duchies question and that of federal reform.
Thiers had warned him in vain, in an admirable speech delivered
on May 3d, that France had everything to lose by aiding in
bringing about the unity of Germany. The emperor obstinately
persisted, proposing to tear up those treaties of 1815 which, two
years before, he had childishly declared to be no longer in
existence. His proposition of a congress, however, failed through
the refusal of Austria and the petty states to take part in it.
He next signed with Austria a secret treaty by which the latter
promised to cede Venetia after its first victory and on condition
of being indemnified at Prussia's expense. By a strange
inconsistency the French emperor proposed at the same time to
make Prussia more homogeneous in the north.
Bismarck acted in a far clearer manner than the French emperor.
On June 5th, General von Gablenz, the Austrian governor of
Holstein, convened the states of that country, Austria declaring
that the object of this measure was to enable the federal diet to
settle the question.
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