And he began to explain what historians call “the Schleswig-Holstein question.” I won’t bore you with it here, because even diplomats agree that it is the most infernally complex affair that ever bedevilled European politics. Nobody has ever got to the bottom of it—indeed, Palmerston once said that only three people understood it: one was Pam himself, and he had forgotten it, another was a famous statesman, and he was dead, and the third was a German professor, and he had gone mad thinking about it. So there. But the nub was that the two states, which lay directly between Denmark and the German Confederacy, were nominally ruled by the King of Denmark, although most of the inhabitants were Germans. Both Germany and Denmark claimed Schleswig and Holstein, and the people living there were forever arguing about who they should belong to.

That, then, was the famous question25—and of course, Bismarck knew the answer.

“It is beyond dispute,” says he, “that these two states are German by right. It has become of the first import that they should be German in fact.”

I couldn’t see what the devil this had to do with me, and said so.

“Be silent, and listen,” he snarled. “You will see very soon. Now, answer me: in the intervals between your drinking and whoring and hunting, do you take any interest in politics?”

“Well, I’m a Tory, I suppose. Haven’t ever bothered to vote, mind you. Why?”

“Gerrechter Herr Gott,” says he. “This, gentlemen”—he glanced at the others—“is a specimen of the ruling caste of the most powerful country on earth—for the present. Incredible, is it not?” His eyes scornful, he turned back to me. “You know, in effect, nothing of affairs of state—your own, or any others. Very good. But even you, Mr Flashman, must be aware that of late, all over Europe, there have been storm clouds gathering. There is a dangerous sentiment of liberalism, fostered by so-called progressive groups of intellectuals, which is infecting the populaces of states. Discontent and disaffection have been created; everywhere there are movements for reform”—he spat the word out—“reform, that slogan of the shiftless by which they mean destruction of stability in the hope that they will find some pickings among the ruins. Reform! Yes, your own country has given in to it, as probably even you have heard—”

“Should think I have. My guv-nor lost his seat in the House.”

“—and with what result? Concession has bred anarchy, as it always does. Are your masses satisfied? Of course not: they never are.”

“Not that he ever spent much time there, of course….”