It was not only the London Government that was trying to raise money for the Prussians; the French had not been idle either. However, they were not raising funds—they were busy wrangling.
When it came to economic development, Napoleon III could certainly be called outstanding. Over the past decade or so, the French economy had maintained rapid growth.
This was particularly evident in fiscal revenue. In 1851, France's fiscal revenue had been 1.273 billion francs. By 1864, it had already approached 2 billion francs.
And that did not even include the Kingdom of Sardinia. Otherwise, several hundred million more francs could have been added. Italy's most prosperous region had not earned that reputation for nothing.
After joining the French family, the market problem that had plagued Sardinian capitalists was finally resolved, and the local economy began to develop rapidly.
Where there were benefits, there were naturally drawbacks as well. French capitalists had also come charging in. The weaker Sardinian local capital was clearly no match for French capital and could only rely on its home-field advantage to contend with it.
These struggles were all concealed by the broader boom in economic development. After all, they were making more money. Even if competition had become more brutal, their bulging pockets could not lie.
Fiscal revenue of nearly 2 billion francs was equivalent to almost £80 million, while the United Kingdom's fiscal revenue at this time was still less than £70 million. The gap between them was as high as £10 million.
Of course, this did not mean that France's economic strength had already surpassed that of the British. In this era, every country's fiscal revenue referred only to revenue from the homeland and did not include colonial income.
Furthermore, one had to consider how revenue was divided between central and local