He took it as a matter of course that if France was friendly to Prussia, she would require some recompense.

He had already instructed Goltz to enquire what non-German compensation would be asked; he was much disturbed when Benedetti met his overtures with silence; he feared that Napoleon had some other plan.

Benedetti in his report writes: "Without any encouragement on my part, he attempted to prove to me that the defeat of Austria permitted France and Prussia to modify their territorial limits and to solve the greater part of the difficulties which continued to menace the peace of Europe.

I reminded him that there were treaties and that the war which he desired to prevent would be the first result of a policy of this kind.

M.de Bismarck answered that I misunderstood him, that France and Prussia united and resolved to rectify their respective countries, binding themselves by solemn engagements henceforth to regulate together these questions, need not fear any armed resistance either from England or from Russia." What was Bismarck's motive in making these suggestions and enquiries?
German writers generally take the view that he was not serious in his proposal, that he was deliberately playing with Napoleon, that he wished to secure from him some compromising document which he might then be able, as, in fact, was to happen, to use against him.