The moment news of the Paris Revolution's success and Napoleon IV's exile spread, a political earthquake erupted across the European Continent.
Anyone with even a little political sense knew that the emergence of a republican government at this moment would be an absolute disaster for France.
Controlling Paris and controlling France were two entirely different things. Without the threat of foreign enemies, the revolutionary government could have used political means to unify the country, then slowly purge the Bonaparte elements from the bureaucracy and military.
Clearly, that was impossible. The Anti-French Alliance would not leave them time to consolidate the nation. Faced with the Anti-French Alliance's armies of several million men, a revolutionary government controlling only Paris did not even have the strength to put up a fight.
Strength was the foundation of negotiation. Without sufficient strength, France dreaming of preserving its vitality after the war was simply a fool's dream.
In London, upon receiving this sudden piece of terrible news, Prime Minister Gladstone was so furious that he overturned the table outright.
He had no time to worry about what would happen to France. The crucial thing was that the Bonaparte Dynasty had fallen at the wrong time.
Not long ago, they had reached a secret agreement with Napoleon IV, paying eighteen million Pound Sterling to purchase all the French Navy's main warships.
They had thought they had picked up an enormous bargain. Yet before the ink had even dried, the Bonaparte Dynasty had ceased to exist.
With the Bonaparte Dynasty gone, naturally no one would honor the previous secret agreement. This was no longer an age when Britain could throw its weight around everywhere. Even if the London Government wanted to force the revolutionary government to continue fulfilling the agreement, it could not use the secret treaty as