With dramatic completeness in the summer and autumn of 1864, the foundations of the Confederate hope one after another gave way.
Among the causes of this catastrophe was the failure of the second great attempt on the part of the Confederacy to secure recognition abroad. The subject takes us back to the latter days of 1862, when the center of gravity in foreign affairs had shifted from London to Paris. Napoleon III, at the height of his strange career, playing half a dozen dubious games at once, took up a new pastime and played at intrigue with the Confederacy. In October he accorded a most gracious interview to Slidell. He remarked that his sympathies were entirely with the South but added that, if he acted alone, England might trip him up. He spoke of his scheme for joint intervention by England, France, and Russia. Then he asked why we had not created a navy. Slidell snapped at the bait. He said that the Confederates would be glad to build ships in France, that "if the Emperor would give only some kind of verbal assurance that the police would not observe too closely when we wished to put on guns and men we would gladly avail ourselves of it." To this, the imperial trickster replied, "Why could you not have them built as for the Italian Government?
I do not think it would be difficult but will consult the Minister of Marine about it."
Slidell left the Emperor's presence confident that things would happen. And they did. First came Napoleon's proposal of intervention, which was declined before the end of the year by England and Russia. Then came his futile overtures to the Government at Washington, his offer of mediation--which was rejected early in 1863. But Slidell remained confident that something else would happen. And in this expectation also he was not disappointed. The Emperor was deeply involved in Mexico and was busily intriguing throughout Europe. This was the time when Erlanger, standing high in the favor of the Emperor, made his gambler's proposal to the Confederate authorities about cotton.
Another of the Emperor's friends now enters the play. On January 7, 1863, M. Arman, of Bordeaux, "the largest shipbuilder in France," had called on the Confederate commissioner: M. Arman would be happy to build ironclad ships for the Confederacy, and as to paying for them, cotton bonds might do the trick.
No wonder Slidell was elated, so much so that he seems to have given little heed to the Emperor's sinister intimation that the whole affair must be subterranean. But the wily Bonaparte had not forgotten that six months earlier he had issued a decree of neutrality forbidding Frenchmen to take commissions from either belligerent "for the armament of vessels of war or to accept letters of marque, or to cooperate in any way whatsoever in the equipment or arming of any vessel of war or corsair of either belligerent." He did not intend to abandon publicly this cautious attitude--at least, not for the present. And while Slidell at Paris was completely taken in, the cooler head of A. Dudley Mann, Confederate commissioner at Brussels, saw what an international quicksand was the favor of Napoleon. It was about this time that Napoleon, having dispatched General Forey with a fresh army to Mexico, wrote the famous letter which gave notice to the world of what he was about. Mann wrote home in alarm that the Emperor might be expected to attempt recovering Mexico's ancient areas including Texas. Slidell saw in the Forey letter only "views... which will not be gratifying to the Washington Government."
The adroit Arman, acting on hints from high officers of the Government, applied for permission to build and arm ships of war, alleging that he intended to send them to the Pacific and sell them to either China or Japan. To such a laudable expression of commercial enterprise, one of his fellows in the imperial ring, equipped with proper authority under Bonaparte, hastened to give official approbation, and Erlanger came forward by way of financial backer. There were conferences of Confederate agents; contracts were signed; plans were agreed upon; and the work was begun.
There was no more hopeful man in the Confederate service than Slidell when, in the full flush of pride after Chancellorsville, he appealed to the Emperor to cease waiting on other powers and recognize the Confederacy. Napoleon accorded another gracious interview but still insisted that it was impossible for him to act alone. He said that he was "more fully convinced than ever of the propriety of a general recognition by the European powers of the Confederate States but that the commerce of France and the interests of the Mexican expedition would be jeopardized by a rupture with the United States" and unless England would stand by him he dared not risk such an eventuality. In point of fact, he was like a speculator who is "hedging" on the stock exchange, both buying and selling, and trying to make up his mind on which cast to stake his fortune. At the same time he threw out once more the sinister caution about the ships. He said that the ships might be built in France but that their destination must be concealed.