Final recollections of a diplomatist;

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FINAL RECOLLECTIONS
OF A DIPLOMATIST

B Y THE SAME A UTHOR

RECOLLECTIONS OF A
DIPLOMATIST

1849-1873
In Two Vols. Demy 8vo, 25s. nett

FURTHER RECOLLECTIONS
OF A DIPLOMATIST

In One Vol. Demy 8vo, 15s. nett

, FINAL

RECOLLECTIONS OF

A DIPLOMATIST

BY THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
SIR HORACE RUMBOLD, Bart., G.C.B., G.C.M.G.

SOMETIME H.M. AMBASSADOR AT VIENNA

LONDON
E D WA RD ARNOLD

41 &> 43 MADDOX STREET, BOND STREET, LONDON, W.

$ufcltefjcr to tf)e ffntua ©ffice
1905

All rights reserved

PREFACE

This concluding portion of my Recollections scarcely
needs any introductory words. It comprises the last
fifteen years of my official life, and tells my diplomatic
story to the end. I can only commend it to the
favourable notice of those who have kindly taken
an interest in the preceding volumes.

August 1905.

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2008 with funding from

Microsoft Corporation

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CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGK

I. ON THE WAY TO GREECE, 1885 . . . 1
II. ATHENS REVISITED, 1885 . . .17

III. ATHENS, 1885— THE REVOLUTION AT

PHILIPPOPOLIS 31

IV. ATHENS, 1885— WAR FEVER AND MOBI-

LISATION 45

V. ATHENS, 1 885- 1 886— THE DELYANNIS IN-
CIDENT 58

VI. ATHENS, 1886— THE BLOCKADE OF GREECE 75

VII. ATHENS, 1886— A HOLIDAY AT MALTA-
RETURN TO GREECE 96

VIII. ATHENS, 1886-1887— THE JUBILEE YEAR . 118
IX. ATHENS, 1887- 1 888— A GLIMPSE OF INDIA 138
X. THE HAGUE, 1 888-1 889— FIRST IMPRES-
SIONS 155

XL THE HAGUE, 1S88-1889— A VISIT TO HOM-

BURG 178

XII. THE HAGUE, 1S89-1890— THE LAST DAYS

OF KING WILLIAM 188

XIII. THE HAGUE, 1890-1892— THE COURT OF

LUXEMBURG 214

vii

viii CONTENTS

CHAP. PAGE

XIV. THE HAGUE, 1 892-1 894— SUMMER IN HOL-
LAND 236

XV. THE HAGUE, 1895-1896— LAST DAYS IN

HOLLAND 252

XVI. VIENNA, 1 896-1 897— THE AUSTRIAN COURT 261
XVII. VIENNA, 1897 — AUSTRIAN SOCIETY —

EASTERN POLITICS AND TROUBLES . 284

XVIII. VIENNA, 1898 — PARLIAMENTARY
TROUBLES— BUDAPEST— THE EMPRESS
ELIZABETH . . . . . . .310

XIX. VIENNA, 1899— OLD FRIENDS— COUNTRY

VISITS— THE BOER WAR . . . .336

XX. VIENNA, 1900— THE BOER WAR— COURT
CEREMONIES — PARTING VISITS — THE
END OF A CAREER 357

XXI. VALEDICTORY . . ... 382

INDEX

39i

FINAL RECOLLECTIONS OF
A DIPLOMATIST

CHAPTER I
ON THE WAY TO GREECE, 1885

On the 18th of February 1885 I left Stockholm with
my family for Gothenburg, and thence had a very
pleasant journey, for the time of year, direct to London
in the old-fashioned but most comfortable s.s. Bele of
the long-established Thule Line. Like the great mass
of travellers from foreign parts who are daily disgorged
at the Victoria or Charing Cross stations, I had never
before approached London by what is its truly Im-
perial avenue, and, favoured as we were by a beautiful
spring-like day, the passage up the Thames — assuredly
at all times a most striking and indeed unique ex-
perience in travel — interested me far more even than
I had expected.

Somehow the impression it made upon me recalled
to my mind a story which had been told me many years
before by Julian Fane. He was leaving the Embassy at
St. Petersburg, in the old days when railway communi-
cation with the Russian capital was still incomplete,
on board a steamer bound for some German port.
Apprehending a tedious passage, he proceeded to
take stock of his fellow-passengers, amongst whom

A

2 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

he soon singled out an intelligent-looking man —
evidently a Transatlantic cousin. On entering into
conversation with him, Fane thought it good policy
at once to express his admiration of the astonishing
strides made by the Great Republic in the paths of
progress and culture, and of the marvellous energy
and resourcefulness of its citizens. These, he ended
by saying, conveyed in his opinion such valuable
lessons that it seemed to him as if the education of
an Englishman who had never been in the United
States might almost be considered incomplete, and
he, for his own part, felt quite ashamed of not
having yet visited that wonderful country. In short,
he very freely buttered the American toast ; his new
acquaintance impassively listening to this flow of
buncombe, and, when it had at last come to an end,
dryly observing, " Well, sir, it is your duty to do so."

In the same way I would venture to say to
those among my much-travelled compatriots who by
chance have never had sight of the grand highway
of the Thames, from its mouth to the giant city that
lies astride of it, that it is almost " their duty to do
so." They will thereby have brought home to them,
in the course of a few brief hours, a far more im-
pressive object-lesson on the greatness of British
enterprise and wealth than they could derive from
even the most diligent study of the trade statistics with
which the country is now being flooded. The tide
that helps to bear the countless, deeply - freighted
vessels up the broad stream, to mile upon mile of
wharves and quays and docks, is a tide of Empire
in very truth, and, if an outburst of Jingoism be
excusable at any time or anywhere, it would be so
to my mind on the deck of a steamer passing up this
unparalleled thoroughfare of sea-borne traffic.

CENTRAL ASIATIC TROUBLE 3

As far as we were concerned, the only drawback
to this mode of arrival by the via triumphalis of
our so-called nation of shopkeepers was that, through
not getting up to Millwall Docks before nightfall
of the 2 1st, and being detained there by somewhat
vexatious Custom House formalities, we did not
reach our distant home in Sloane Street until past
9 p.m. I now indulged the hope of enjoying two
or three months' leave in England. Unforeseen cir-
cumstances, however, much curtailed my stay there,
and reduced it to little over six weeks. It so
happened that in the domain of foreign affairs our
political horizon at this period very suddenly assumed
a threatening aspect. The more than customary
activity manifested by Russia in Central Asiatic
regions brought about between the two Governments
a marked tension which, soon after, culminated in
the Pandjeh incident, and brought us to the very
verge of war.

Shortly before leaving Sweden I had been able
to furnish to Lord Granville information of some value
on this question which came from a perfectly un-
impeachable and dispassionate source, and revealed
the sentiments expressed, in private conversations on
Asiatic affairs, by the head of the Imperial Foreign
Office at St. Petersburg, M. de Giers, as well as
by the Governor-General of the Caucasus, Prince
Dondoukow Korsakow, who chanced to be on leave
from his command at this time. The pith of the
remarks attributed to M, de Giers was that Russia
might possibly be compelled " by circumstances " —
these no doubt being partly the favourable oppor-
tunity afforded by the difficulties in which the British
Government then found itself placed in Egypt, and
partly Russia's own entanglements in Turkestan — to

4 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

advance further than she desired in that direction,
and that she would not at any rate bind herself to
stop in such advance. Prince Dondoukow, on his
side — representing as he did the aspiring military
element to which, by force of circumstance, the lead
in these Russian warlike enterprises has always fallen,
from the days of Tchernaieff and Skobeleff to those of
AlexeiefF — was reported to have put the matter more
tersely by saying that Russia on her Eastward march
knew of no frontiers but such as she made for herself.
" Nos frontieres marchent avec nous " were the words
attributed to the Governor- General, and unfortunately
nothing could be in greater contradiction with the
friendly assurances given to our Embassy in the
Russian capital by the Government which was at
that very moment engaged with us on a peaceful
delimitation of the Afghan boundary.

Without attempting to go at further length into
the inner diplomatic history of that critical period, it
is, I think, worth pointing out, that this untoward re-
crudescence of Russian energies in the middle East
curiously coincided with a recent marked rapproche-
ment between Berlin and St. Petersburg, following
upon something like ten years' coolness — not to say
estrangement. This coolness originated in the part
taken by Russia, and more particularly by the Emperor
Alexander II., with respect to the " French scare "
of 1875, some graphic incidents of which have been
lately given to the world in the Blowitz Memoirs.
Shortly before, too, in September 1884, Prince Bis-
marck, as has since been revealed to us, had pre-
vailed upon the Russian and German Sovereigns
at the meeting of the three Emperors at Skier-
nievice, to enter into the so-called Ruchversicher-
ungsvertrag, or secret treaty guaranteeing to each

RUSSO-GERMAN RELATIONS 5

of the two contracting Empires the benevolent neu-
trality of the other in the event of its being attacked ;
an arrangement the more remarkable from its being in
some sense directed against the friendly Power with
whom Germany had, only a few years before, come to
the intimate understanding, for their mutual protection
against aggression, which was later on perfected in the
Triple Alliance. 1 The Skiernievice compact answered
its purpose for a time, but was allowed to lapse by
Count Caprivi after the fall of its author, the great
Chancellor.

Through these greatly improved relations with her
formidable Western neighbour — at that time in the
full zenith of world power and influence — Russia had
of course acquired a much freer hand. Indeed it
might, I think, be pretty safely laid down as an axiom
that neither of the two great Northern Empires can
well engage in any active course of policy, without
having previously, in some degree, made certain of what
has been well described as a circumspectly benevolent
attitude on the part of the other. In this respect, if I
do not entirely misread it, the history of the relations
between those Powers — from the far-distant days of
the Crimean war down to the Austro-German war of
1866, and to my own recollections of the repudiation
of the Black Sea clauses of the Treaty of Paris — shows
recurrent symptoms of a tacit understanding (by no
means excluding mutual watchfulness) between the
bordering Monarchies, based on a readiness to con-
cede something to each other's ambitions a charge de
revdiirlte. Similar symptoms might possibly be dis-

1 The defensive Treaty between Germany and Austria was concluded
on October 7, 1879, ^ut waa not made public till February 1888, alter the
signature of the Triple Alliance with Italy which bears the date of March
13, 1887.

6 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

cerned without much difficulty at the crisis of the
present hour, 1 and have in fact been freely commented
upon in such a sense by a more or less well-informed
press.

But I must turn from this digression to the affairs
with which I was now to be directly concerned. The
threatening outlook in Central Asia reacted on the
situation in the nearer Levant in the same way as it is
to be feared that the actual conflict in the Far East can
also scarcely fail to do. Although the great settlement
of Berlin in 1878, barely seven years before, had, it was
fondly hoped, set at rest for some time to come the
rival aspirations and conflicting claims of restless Bal-
kanic nationalities, the recoil from afar was already
making itself felt and producing disquietude in the
nearer Eastern regions. The first overt signs of im-
pending trouble in the Balkanic Peninsula were the
disputes that arose between the Governments of Servia
and of the newly - created Bulgarian Principality on
certain boundary questions, and about the asylum
given in Bulgaria to Servian political refugees. These
discussions, which covered the last six months of
1884, left behind them deep traces of ill-will that
finally led to open war in the following year. The
political atmosphere in the Near East was in fact suf-
ficiently charged to justify our Foreign Office in the
wish to see its representatives in that perturbed corner
of Europe present at their posts. Some local incidents
at Athens, which it is needless to enter into here,
further contributed to render it desirable that I should
repair to my new destination without too much delay.
Lord Granville none the less considerately made
due allowance for the fact that I had been very little
in England in the course of the last six years, and that

1 Written in the spring of 1904.

LUTON HOO 7

my private affairs therefore urgently required attending
to before I could once more take up my diplomatic
wandering staff. I thus went through a few weeks of
the earlier London season, during which I renewed my
intimacy of days long past with a valued Vienna col-
league, Christian de Falbe, who had now been for some
years Danish Minister in London, and, through his
marriage with the very wealthy widow of Mr. Gerard
Leigh, had acquired in society a position quite unique
of its kind for a Foreign representative in this country.
So kind a friend did M. de Falbe show himself
to me that I may be not unpardonably partial to
his memory. Certain it is at any rate that nothing
could be more genial than the hospitality which
he and his wife — the handsomest couple, though
no longer young, that could be seen — dispensed in
Grosvenor Square and at Luton Hoo, which fine place
became in their hands the most comfortable and luxu-
rious of country homes. Of course ,£60,000 a year
goes more than a long way towards keeping up a large
establishment, but it was the perfect organisation of
the entire household, the thorough finish of every
detail throughout the beautiful house, and the many
choice artistic objects it contained — picked up at
Christie's and other sales, which the Falbes much
frequented — that bore striking witness to their great
taste and discernment. Seldom within my experience
have great riches ministered with so much intelligence
to the more refined luxuries of life, and this without
the slightest vestige of ostentation. But the era
of the South African millionaire had not yet then
fully burst upon the London world, bringing with it
examples of a faux luxe and a proneness to excessive
display which have since become such questionable
features of much of the entertaining at the present day.

8 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

We went down to Luton for Easter, our first
visit to that delightful place, and met there a small
and pleasant party, amongst whom — besides a daughter
of the house, charming Mrs. George Forbes — were
the Swedish Minister, Count Piper, Percy Ffrench of
Monivea, and the universally-popular Major Seymour
Wynne Finch. Beautiful, I remember, was the
musical part of the service on Easter Sunday in the
private chapel, Mme. de Falbe taking a great interest
in the organ and choir. Luton Hoo, with its historic
memories of Lord Bute and its massive Georgian
grandeur, has now, it is sad to think, passed into
entirely new hands. Its last owner, Mr. Gerard
Leigh, succeeded to it on the death of his step-
mother, Mme. de Falbe, but shortly after he too
died, when all its contents were sold, including some
very fine tapestry that filled the panels of one of
the large reception rooms. These tapestries, it may
be remembered, ultimately became the subject of an
interesting law-suit involving the correct definition
of what ought in strict law to be considered as bond-
Jlde fixtures.

Among my social recollections of London at this
time are the dinners and musical evenings at the
Duff Gordons', very old friends of my wife. The
two kindly spinster ladies in Hertford Street, May-
fair — aunts of the late Sir Maurice Duff Gordon —
were most hospitable, and entertained in a simple
old-world fashion, having after dinner the very best of
amateur music and an assemblage of artistic and agree-
able people. These parties, which dated back to the
days of old Lady Duff Gordon, will be remembered
by many as a sort of landmark in a certain section
of society, and only ceased with the death, at a good
old age, of the younger of these typical English

THE BLUMENTHALS 9

gentlewomen of the fine old school ; the elder one,
known to her many friends as " The Captain," from
the decision with which she ruled the family quarter-
deck, still surviving.

Well worthy of mention, too, are the perfectly-
appointed dinners and interesting concerts given by
the Blumenthals in their picturesque and artistic
house at Hyde Park Gate, which to this day con-
tinues to be one of the pleasantest points de reunion
in London, paradoxically remarkable though it be
for the poor acoustics it affords to so much charm-
ing music. The walls of the quaint, low-pitched
rooms were decorated by Miss Jekyll, and Madame
Blumenthal, with her own delicate-looking but clever
hands, elaborately inlaid the mahogany doors and
panellings with ivory, &c. The popularity of Mon-
sieur and Madame, as they like to be called, grows
greater year by year, and their Tuesday invitations
seem to be more and more sought after. The
Blumenthal parties rank with the equally beneficent
and attractive Sunday musical afternoons of my old
ally Mrs. ltonalds, for innumerable are the real kind-
nesses thereby done by both hostesses to friendless
musical artists of all nationalities, too often rashly
launched on the uncertainties and risks of a London
musical season.

The date fixed for our departure for Greece now
came pressingly near. Shortly before Easter (on the
24th March) I had kissed hands at Windsor on my
new appointment, and on Easter Monday (April the
5th) my wife and I had a take-leave audience of the
Prince and Princess of Wales, at which the two young
Princes, whom I had not seen since their visit to
Buenos Ayres, were both present. The Prince of

io RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

Wales, as I have said elsewhere, had been so good
as to interest himself about my possible appointment
to Athens, when I was passed over for that post and
sent a second time to South America instead, and
H.R.H. was pleased to express his satisfaction at
the selection now made of me ; both he and the
Princess charging me with letters and particular
messages for the Court with which they w T ere so
closely connected.

The private matters I had had to look after
being finally disposed of, we left London on the
15th of April; our departure being marked by a
series of mishaps, which, however trivial in them-
selves, have since seemed to me, when looking back
upon them in the light of subsequent events, as
absurdly prophetic of the difficulties I afterwards
had to cope with in my new diplomatic sphere.
We provokingly began by missing the morning
express for Paris at Charing Cross, and, while wait-
ing at the station for a later train to Dover, I
was seized by a sudden attack of faintness and
prostration, which prevented our proceeding on our
journey before the afternoon. To complete our con-
tretemps a butler, whom we had engaged only a
few days before with the best of characters, showed
such signs of intoxication on our arrival at the
"Lord Warden," where we dined and awaited the
night-boat, that he had to be discharged and sent back
to London there and then. Altogether — as my wife
put it in the diary she kept very conscientiously at
this time and during most of our sojourn in Greece —
it was "a terrible day of disasters." The same ill fate
pursued us to Paris, where my wife was laid up for the
best part of ten days ; fortunately at the very comfort-
able Hotel Liverpool in the Hue de Castiglione.

LUDOVIC DE POLIGNAC u

Our forced stay in Paris was quite devoid of in-
cidents beyond a pleasant dinner at the Embassy, in
company with the Bonhams, the young Leghs of
Lyme, 1 and our two future successive Ambassadors
at Washington, Sir Julian Pauncefote and Mungo
Herbert, 2 and some family gatherings at the house on
the Boulevard Malesherbes of Alphonse de Polignac's
widow, who was remarried to a Comte Rozan. This,
by the way, was one of the last opportunities I had,
after a long interval, of foregathering with the eldest
surviving of my Polignac cousins, Ludovic, who died
only the other day (January 13, 1904) at Algiers,
where he had made his principal home for many
years. A retired colonel of the Etat Major, and
an officer of conspicuous merit and great scientific
attainments, he had fought, like his younger brother
Camille, all through the Franco-German war, during
which he served on the staff of General de Ladmirault.
On the renewal of diplomatic relations after the peace
he was sent as Military Attache" to the Embassy of
M. de Gontaut at Berlin, where, thanks to his name
and courtly ancien regime bearing and looks, together
with his thorough command of German, he soon
achieved great popularity, and enjoyed the special
favour of the old Emperor William. His recollections
of that period, if he has left any record of them, ought
to be highly interesting.

We pursued our journey Eastwards on the 28th,
with a day's break at Turin, where we put up at
the Hotel de l'Europe (formerly Trombetta) on the
Piazza Castello, the very same caravansary where I
had landed — then but a raw, new-fledged Attache —
in November 1849, over thirty-five years before. The

1 Now Lord and Lady Newton.

2 The late Right Honourable Sir Michael Herbert, G.C.B.

12 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

best part of our day was spent with our former
Stockholm colleagues, the Spinolas, who had an old,
rambling family Palazzo at Porta d'ltalia, and whom
we were to meet again at The Hague some years
later. I found the discrowned Piedmontese capital
immensely changed since the days of my youth.
It had quite lost its former distinct type of a
medium-sized Court residence, with a dignified his-
torical past that was well expressed by its formal,
somewhat somnolent aspect. Its ancient stateli-
ness and repose were now merged in the bustle
and activity of a greatly enlarged commercial and
industrial centre. The town had spread in all direc-
tions, and even in the older districts so much of it
had been pulled down and rebuilt, that I had much
difficulty in retracing some of my best-remembered
haunts, and went about with the feeling of being
an utter stranger, or as it were a ghost of the past,
in a city every stone of which had formerly been so
familiar to me. In my eyes certainly all charm and
character had departed from the place I had known
and loved so well in the glamour of my first burst
into the pomps and vanities of diplomatic life.

We went on to Brindisi by the crowded, sluggish,
ill-appointed night-mail of those days, having to turn
out and change at Bologna at three in the morning.
(Query : Why is it that travelling by rail through the
glorious land of an eminently kindly, intelligent people
is often made so singularly unpleasant by worn-out or
insufficient rolling-stock and bad management, and by
the too frequent want of civility of the Italian railway
staff — not to touch upon other far graver drawbacks ?)
Anyhow the journey to Brindisi seemed to us endless
and most wearisome — even though for the greater part
of the day we skirted the lovely Adriatic seaboard —

CORFU 13

and it was not until long after midnight that we were
settled on board the small Greek steamer bound for
Corfu. I had intended going on thence direct to the
Piraeus by the next boat, but, hearing that the King
was expected almost immediately, I determined to
await his Majesty's return to Corfu, and took up
my quarters at the Hotel St. George — now thoroughly
renovated and improved since I first knew it in 1864
when we gave up our protectorate over the Islands
in favour of Greece. His Majesty's customary Easter-
tide stay in his Ionian dominions had been interrupted
by the Ministerial crisis following upon the general
elections that had proved so unfavourable to the
Administration of M. Tricoupis, and which had led
to that statesman's resignation.

A day or two later the King arrived, just in time for
the feast of St. George, and his Majesty drove in with
the Queen from the country to attend the service at
the garrison church in the fortress. I went out on to
the esplanade to see them pass, and was gratified
when the King at once recognised me and greeted me
cordially with a wave of the hand. I had of course
immediately applied for an audience through the
Marechal de la Cour, Admiral Sahini. That dignitary,
however, having to go with the Queen in the Royal
Yacht to Trieste to meet H.M.'s brother the Grand
Duke Constantine Constantinovitch, the matter of my
audience had escaped his attention. I therefore had
to renew my application through the Aide-de-Camp
in waiting, when the King at once graciously sent
word that he would see me the next day at luncheon
at his country villa of Monrepos, built by Sir Frederick
Adam, and formerly the summer residence of our Lord
High Commissioners during the British occupation of
Corfu. Nothing could be kinder or more cordial than

i 4 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

the welcome which his Majesty was pleased to give me
at this strictly informal private interview. At luncheon
there was no one present but the young Princes and
Princesses, with their tutor and their French and Eng-
lish governesses, Mile. Hinal and Miss Boyd. The
King afterwards took me to his study, where he talked
with me for a long time on every kind of subject, begin-
ning with our common recollections of his first visit to
these Islands, when I had accompanied him as Charge
a" Affaires and had been in daily intercourse with him
for several weeks, as I have narrated elsewhere. 1

King George had now entered on his fortieth
year. The ingenuous youth of eighteen had, since I
parted from him, weathered some twenty-two years of
a chequered reign, during which he may well have lost
a good many of the hopes and illusions that gilded its
outset. Though still in the very prime of life, he had
matured into a monarch of many and not always satis-
factory experiences. He in part perhaps owed the
remarkable insight he had acquired into men and
things to disenchanting though unavoidable contact
with party leaders whose keen intellects were too
often bent on personal aims. Himself a thoroughly
conscientious and patriotic ruler, he had sometimes
been obliged by the exigencies of the hour to turn
for advice to politicians of a very different type.
H.M. had none the less steered his course with
great tact and ability through many difficulties and
disappointments. It so happened that shortly before
my arrival both he and Greece had lost, in M.
Coumoundouros, a statesman of great experience and
capacity, and that they were now deprived, by the
chances of a general election, of the services of by far
the ablest and most high-minded of Greek Premiers,

1 " Recollections of a Diplomatist," vol. ii.

KING GEORGE 15

Charilaos Tricoupis, a man fitted for a much bigger
stage than that to which his exceptional talents and
energies were confined. To his largeness of concep-
tion, in fact; to a generous tendency to view and
attempt things on a grand scale — partly arising out
of a liberal English education, 1 but mostly inspired by
the noble and genuine faith he nourished in the des-
tinies of the Greek people — M. Tricoupis chiefly owed
the crushing defeat he had just experienced.

The King was of course full of the recent crisis,
and spoke of it with real concern. He was of opinion
that M. Tricoupis had brought about his own down-
fall — and a very rough one it was — by an almost
reckless disregard of public sentiment. He had been
repeatedly warned of the danger of too largely in-
creasing the public burdens, and thereby preparing
serious financial embarrassments for the country.
Nevertheless, he had persisted in attempting to com-
pass too much in too short a time, with the result
that the nation had just unmistakably shown its
thorough disapproval of his policy. It was now to
be feared that the late Ministry might be impeached
by the hostile majority which had placed M. Delyannis
in power in its stead. Impeachment was a weapon
that had been used by the new Premier on former
occasions, and it would be surprising if it were not
resorted to again. Passing to other topics, King
George did not omit to touch upon the threatening
aspect of affairs in Central Asia. Personally he did
not anticipate that Russia would push matters so
far as to bring about a conflict, the issue of which
might possibly be unfavourable to her. Although

1 M. Tricoupis had passed much of his youth in England, where his
father had been Envoy for a good many years, and had afterwards been
attached to the Greek Legation in London.

1 6 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

the remarks made by the King were strictly guarded,
it was pretty clear that he had not lost his sym-
pathies for the country to which his Kingdom owed
the Ionian Islands, and which had been mainly
instrumental in enlarging his dominions by the
splendid province of Thessaly. I came away from
my audience much impressed by the shrewd sense,
and charmed by the frank simplicity and easy, affable
address of the Sovereign to whom I had the good
fortune to be accredited.

Three days later we were on our way to Athens
in the good ship Austria, reaching the Piraeus in
the early morning of the 1 3th of May — an inauspicious
date, as I have since been reminded, for entering on
duties which before long were to entail the gravest
responsibilities. At the Piraeus we were met by my old
friend, Consul Merlin, formerly Manager of the Ionian
Bank at Athens, and were taken on shore with all due
honours in the galley of the Captain of the Port.

CHAPTER II

ATHENS REVISITED, 1885

I was of course prepared to find the Greek capital
much improved and altered since my last view of
it in 1864, but was none the less surprised by its
development, and the signs it showed of steady ex-
pansion and growing prosperity. The kernel of the
small town of former days remained much as I re-
membered it. Its busiest part centred as of old
round the narrow streets of Hermes and Eolus with
their shabby shops and execrable pavement ; a few
picturesque types — islanders with the baggiest of
breeks, or swaggering fellows in fustanellas — still
giving here and there a semi-oriental relief to the
commonplace crowds with which they mingled. Un-
changed, too, was most of the yet more primitive
region round about the site of the recently excavated
Agora and the Temple of the Winds, which thence
went straggling up, in crooked lanes and wynds,
to the first slopes of the Acropolis ; a region still
enduring in witness of the sad level of Eastern mean-
ness and squalor to which the city of the violet
garland had sunk under Turkish rule. But, in
almost every direction beyond these narrow districts,
an entirely modern town had sprung up which was
intersected by spacious avenues or boulevards, laid
out on an ambitious scale, and a not too judicious
design as regards their proportions. Under the cloud-
less, burning Attic sky, they simply afforded long,

17 B

1 8 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

shadeless vistas of fierce sunlight, and in winter were
too often swept by hurricanes of blinding dust.

Nevertheless, these broad thoroughfares, which ran,
one above the other, in parallel lines, up to and along
the rocky base of Lycabettus, were not devoid of
dignity. At intervals their monotony was broken
by a few really fine public buildings, among them the
University and the Academy of Science and Art —
the latter the work of the eminent architect Hansen,
who, later on, was to erect that splendid Temple of
Discord, the Parliament Plouse at Vienna — and by
various large educational institutions like the Arsa-
keion, the Varvakeion, and others. Sparsely scattered
about these main streets, too, were a few sumptuous
private residences, as, for instance, Schliemann's some-
what pretentious " Palace of Ilion " ; the beautiful
house of that most munificent of Greek citizens, the
late M. Syngros ; and those of half-a-dozen other
rich Hellenes who, unlike the great majority of
their prosperous congeners of Trieste, Alexandria,
London, and other important Greek centres, had
returned to live in their own country instead of
contenting themselves with endowing it or financing-
it from a distance. For, splendid though be their
donations to the Fatherland, the leading members
of the Greek communities abroad show but little
inclination to come and reside amongst, and throw
in their lot with their own people. This seems a
pity, and may indeed be accounted in some degree
a national misfortune. In the complete absence of
any clearly defined aristocratic, or upper, class,
a cultured and patriotic plutocracy would furnish
a valuable reinforcement to the feeble conservative
elements of the country, and might serve as a counter-
poise to the clique of professional politicians and

DISILLUSION 19

office hunters who, from the first, have played too
great a part in its destinies, and are now subjected
to no check beyond the very limited powers of the
Crown. Both the political and social life of Greece
could not but benefit by such a remigration of her
sons who, together with their riches, would bring
back with them the sounder traditions and principles
current in their respective Western homes.

But if it was impossible not to note with satis-
faction the signs of progress and improvement which
Athens evinced at first sight, personally I was at
once doomed to bitter disappointment in the Legation
House which was to be our home. We drove there
straight from the Pirseus, and to our dismay found
it in a state of disrepair and neglect that was really
incredible, seeing that it had only a short time before
been vacated by my predecessor. I had preserved so
vivid a recollection of it in the days of its tenancy
by the Scarletts ; of its handsome vestibule and marble
staircase, and its great terrace facing the wondrous
temple -crowned hill, that I had given my wife a
glowing description of it. Great, therefore, was our
disillusion on realising the deplorable plight it was
in. There was nothing for it but to make up our
minds to remain at some hotel until this state of
affairs had been reported home and I had obtained
the requisite authority to thoroughly repair certain
parts of the house which by degrees had been allowed
to get into a positively ruinous and uninhabitable
condition ; next to nothing having been done to
keep it in proper order during the forty years or so
that it had been the home of British representatives,
from Sir Edmund Lyons onwards. Fortunately we
found comfortable apartments at the Hotel d'Angle-
terre, a well-managed establishment at the corner of

20 KEC0LLECTI0NS OF A DIPLOMATIST

the Constitution, or Palace, Square and the street of
Hermes, and there we had to live for over ten months
before moving into our official home.

The staff of the Legation, when I arrived, con-
sisted for a time solely of the Second Secretary, Ernest
Lyon ; the First Secretary of Legation, in the person
of Mr. Henry Howard, 1 only joining it some months
later. Ernest Lyon 2 — whom my wife had known from
his boyhood, and whose acquaintance I had first made
some eight years before at his historic family home
of Glamis — and his wife, a very attractive little
lady, with an unusually deep-speaking voice in
curious contrast with her slight, fairy-like figure, are
chiefly associated in my mind with a sadly painful
incident. One day, early in November, on getting
back from our usual afternoon drive, I found waiting
for me a telegram which, in accordance with the
custom of the place, bore on its envelope the name
of the station whence it had been despatched. This
was " Glamis," and, being addressed to me instead
of to Lyon himself, I felt certain that the message
must contain unfavourable news of some kind. Little,
however, was I prepared for what I read: "Tell
Ernest ship wrecked, baby and nurse drowned,
Hubert saved." Never before or since has it been
brought home to me with such force how brutal
can be the brevity of announcements by telegraph.
We knew that the Lyons were expecting their two
little children by long sea route in the s.s. Sidon
(she struck on some rocks off Corunna 3 ), and now fell

1 Now Sir Henry Howard, K.C.M.G., C.B., and H.M.'s Envoy at the
Hague.

2 The Honble. Ernest Lyon, third son of the late Earl of Strathmore.

8 I am tempted to extract an account of the circumstances of the
wreck from my wife's diary: "Nov. 18. The Lyons have just received
form Glamis a letter, written to Lady Strathmore by a Miss Evans, who

TRAGIC INCIDENT 21

to us the task of breaking to them this terrible
catastrophe. They had taken for the hot season a
small villa on the cliff at Phalerum ; where we
frequently went to dine and spend the evening on
the verandah whence, in the perfectly lovely Attic
moonlit nights, the outlook seawards and across the
bay towards Hymettus and the intervening plain of
Athens was quite enchanting. We drove out there
at once, and my wife went in to see and prepare the
unconscious mother while I paced up and down
outside in the gathering dusk waiting for Lyon, who
had not yet returned from his day's occupation in
town. Poor Ernest Lyon ! Full of intelligence, and
with a most pleasant manner and much social talent,
he too was destined to an early and violent end, being
killed a few years later at Belgrade by a fall from
his horse.

Almost my first association, however, with the

was one of the passengers on the wrecked Sidon. They had had very bad
weather from the moment of leaving Liverpool, and on the evening of the
27th October at 7.30 p.m., the ship struck on a rock off Malpica, which is
not far from Corunna. Two passengers and the head nurse and baby
got into a boat which was swamped at the side of the vessel, all four being
drowned. The remaining passengers were then placed on the forecastle
— the communicating bridge being swept away just after the Captain,
at the risk of his life, had carried Hubert over it. They then clung
on to ropes until ten o'clock the next morning, washed over and
threatened continually with destruction by the raging sea. Miss Evans
says that the young nurse, Annie Jackson, behaved admirably. Her foot
had been much crushed and injured, but she only let the child out of her
arms twice, just to enable her to change her cramped position, and what
that must have been may be imagined, for the ship was on her beam-
ends, and the passengers could only keep themselves from being washed
overboard by holding fast to the ropes. The two nurses, who had been ill
all the voyage, were roused from their cots when the ship struck, and
had no time to put on any clothes, so this poor Annie was in her night-
gown only. In the morning boats came from the land, which proved to
be so close that, when day broke, the poor wretched creatures could see
people sitting on the shore under umbrellas (for it was raining) watching
them."

22 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

Lyon menage was of an entirely different and decidedly
cheerful description ; when, in beautiful weather at
the end of May, they induced me to join them on
a day's trip to the Aero Corinth. The German
Charge d y Affaires, Prince Francis Thurn and Taxis,
and his extremely pretty wife — a Countess d'Orsay,
of an Austrian branch of the French family to
which belonged the well-known dandy of the first
half of last century — were also of the party. We
had a longish journey by rail there and back, and
upwards of an hour's steep climb — the ladies, of
course, mounted on mules — to the summit of the
rocky eminence and the triple line of mediaeval
fortifications which, from the Latin Crusaders who
erected them, passed successively into Venetian and
Turkish hands. The toil of the ascent in the
mid-day heat was more than repaid, for the view
obtained from the top is quite surprising, not
alone for its beauty and extent but for its entirely
exceptional character. Greece in fact — or as much
of it as enables one clearly to take in the entire
configuration of the country which looms so large
in the world's history and yet is territorially so small
— lies stretched out before one exactly as it looks
on the map.

From this fortress eyrie — rising abruptly to a
height of close upon two thousand feet above the level
of the isthmus, midway between the Corinthian and
Saronic gulfs, and with an incomparable outlook
over both — the horizon stretches far away to the
majestic background of Parnassus and Helicon, whose
masses tower above the plains of Phocis, Bceotia and
Attica in Continental Greece ; while in the opposite,
Peloponnesian, quarter, it is bounded by the barren
range that conceals Argos, and behind which, much

THE ACRO CORINTH 23

further to the south, the mind's eye takes in Laconia
with the rugged Spartan country. In the brilliantly
transparent atmosphere and the wondrous light that
lend a special enchantment to Greek scenery, even
when most bare and arid, the map-like prospect is
so clear that it looks almost possible to place one's
finger, as on the map itself, on half-a-dozen world-
renowned spots — Delphi, and Leuctra, and Platsea,
and Mantinea — let alone Salamis and Marathon — the
latter, however, being screened from view by the ridges
of Pentelicus. Every one of these sites is included
in the marvellous prospect, and the whole story of
ancient Greece is spread out, as it were, at one's
feet. We picnicked gaily in the shade of some
giant rocks just below the summit, and of all the
enjoyments of this delightful day perhaps the most
perfect was slaking one's thirst at an old well — the
kerb and orifice of which were thickly overgrown
with delicate maiden-hair fern, and which lay not
far from the famed Pirenian spring — a goat-herd who
was tending his flock drawing up for us a bucketful
of the most delicious ice-cold water I have ever tasted.

The Greek sky and climate lend themselves so
admirably to outings such as I have just described,
that we subsequently went, on several occasions, with
the pleasant Lyons and Taxis couples and a few other
colleagues, to that favourite resort of the tourist, Pen-
telicus. On leaving the sun-scorched, almost treeless
plain, after a hot, dusty drive, nothing can be more
grateful than the verdure with which the ravines by
the side of the ascent and the first acclivities of the
mountain are thickly clad. Further on one presently
comes to a group of splendid plane - trees, of im-
mense age, grouped round a fresh spring of bubbling

24 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

water, and giving shelter to a sort of platform just out-
side the old monastery of Mendeli. There could be
no more ideal setting to our midday feasts than this
charming shady spot, which is of course familiar to
most travellers in these regions. Nowhere do the
beauties and restfulness of foliage make them-
selves so keenly felt as in stony Attica, and yet no-
where are an ignorant peasantry more wanton in the
destruction of timber. The chief offenders in this
respect are the shepherds and goat-herds who, in
defiance of all forest laws, recklessly set whole planta-
tions alight for the sake of procuring a few acres of
meagre pasturage for their herds.

Only a few years after I left Greece, there occurred
a most disastrous conflagration which destroyed a great
part of the woods that I had seen standing on the
south-western slopes of Pentelicus. Half the garrison
of Athens was employed for several days in checking
the progress of the flames on the burning mountain.
To the laying waste of the forests which, in ancient
times, probably covered much of the Attic uplands, is
mainly due, no doubt, the excessive dryness of the
climate and the lightness of the soil. For the resident
at Athens it has this other disastrous effect, that, un-
like most southern capitals, there exist in the neigh-
bourhood of the city no shady retreats on the hill-
slopes, where one can take refuge from the oppressive
summer heat. Athens, in fact, is almost unprovided
with villeggiaturas, if one excepts the glaring sea-side
resort of Phalerum, and Kephisia with its few gardens
and, at that time, very second-rate hotel. 1 In the earlier

1 Kephisia, the guide-books remind us, was in ancient times a favourite
resort of the citizens of Athens, and is praised in the Nodes Atticae of
Aulus Gellius. It may of late years have been living up to its former
reputation, but in my recollection it is a hot, uninteresting place, with
little to recommend it.

A PHILHELLENE DUCHESS 25

days of King Otho it was not so. Some villas were
built on Pentelicus, chiefly at the initiative of that
eccentric Philhellene Frenchwoman, the Duchesse
de Plaisance, who then played a prominent part
in Athens society, at the same time as her
friend and intimate, the beautiful Ianthe, 1 whose
chequered matrimonial and other adventures brought
her to Greece before she finally ended her wayward
existence under the tent of the Bedouin Sheikh
Mijwal of Damascus. Strolling about in the neigh-
bourhood of the monastery on one of our excursions,
I found myself almost unawares inside a broken-
down fence enclosing a neglected old pleasaunce, half
garden and half orchard, which the rank growth of
vegetation had turned into a pathless jungle. Through
the great flowering shrubs and towering brambles there
peered out the pink marble walls of the deserted, only
half-finished villa built by the strangely capricious, and
romantic Duchess, 2 where, in the bright garden, with
its distant view of the iEgean waters, at the first dawn
of the newly - created kingdom, many a dream may
have been dreamt, and many a plan discussed for the
recovery of Byzantium. Why these perfect sites for
summer retreats should have been afterwards com-
pletely abandoned, I never heard satisfactorily ex-
plained. Possibly, in addition to the devastation of
the woods, the insecurity of the country due to the
plague of brigandage may account for it. As late as
1870, only a few miles from here, took place the
capture by brigands of the victims of the shocking
massacre of Oropos.

1 Lady ElK'iiborough.

2 One. of tlic singularities of this daughter-in-law of the Napoleonic
Arrhi Ghancelier Lebrun, Due de Plaisance, was to build houses of fan
tastic architectural design which Bhe never completed, from a superstitious
dread that she would die as soon as she had put the last touch to them.
See E. About's Grece contemporaine for her and Ianthe.

26 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

On his return from Corfu at the end of May, the
King opened the newly-elected Chamber in person.
In the speech from the throne reference was made to
Balkanic affairs in terms to which events that were
to follow soon gave a special significance. It was both
"the duty and the interest of Greece," it was said in
the speech, " to desire the maintenance of the territorial
status quo, established some years before at Berlin."
Peace, it was added, with a passing allusion to the
national aspirations, would best enable the country
to effect those internal improvements which it still
needed, " and thereby render itself worthy of its
mission." On the whole — making allowance for this
slight touch of Panhellenism — the language put in
his Sovereign's mouth by the new Prime Minister
was fairly correct and satisfactory. For the rest, the
ceremony was attended with little outward display
beyond the lining by troops of the road along which
the Royal carriages passed from the palace to the House
of Parliament. From our rooms at the hotel, overlook-
ing the Palace Square, we had an excellent view of the
military pageant such as it was. A battery of artillery
was drawn up right under our windows, but the only
really picturesque item of the show was a battalion of
Evzones, or Riflemen, clad in the national, or rather the
Albanian, dress, with the fustanella, or white kilt.
Wonderfully smart, active, soldier -like fellows, and
held to be the flower of the Greek army, though by
their extraordinarily slender waists, and starched full-
pleated white petticoats, they irresistibly reminded one
of a corps de ballet.

On the evening before the opening of the Chamber
I had had my official audience of the King, for the
delivery of my credentials, and had been afterwards

QUEEN OLGA 27

received by Queen Olga, whom I now saw for the first
time. The Queen, then barely thirty-four years of age,
was, like most of the grandchildren of the Emperor
Nicholas, strikingly handsome, and had besides in-
herited much of the good looks of her mother, the
Grand Duchess Constantine, one of the most beautiful
women of her day. Although brought up in the most
splendid and luxurious of Courts, no princess of a great
reigning house ever led a saintlier life of perfect self-
denial and charity than Queen Olga. Her days were
almost entirely given up to good works. The " Queen
of the poor," as she had been affectionately proclaimed
by the public voice, personally looked after the various
hospitals and other charitable institutions on which she
bestowed her patronage. Scarcely a day passed without
her visiting the Evangelismos — which, under her care
and supervision, had become a hospital worthy of any
great Western capital— and she was deeply interested
in the needle-work institution she had founded for the
employment of women, and for which so much has
been done in recent years by Lady Egerton. The Queen
received me most graciously, and captivated me by her
simple charm and dignity. Her Majesty kindly in-
quired after my wife, whose health, I explained to her,
had thus far prevented her applying for an audience.
When this indispensable form had been gone through,
we were at once, on the 8th of June, asked to
luncheon — or more properly early dinner — together
with the Lyons, at the Royal country place at Tatoi'.

This favourite residence of King George — entirely
his own creation — lies about eighteen miles to the
north of Athens, on one of the lower spurs of Parnes.
The first part of the road to it is of an uninteresting
character, and at that time of the year we found the
drive extremely hot and dusty. Beyond a certain

28 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

point, however, the ground gradually rises and is
covered with fir-trees, the road itself being planted
on each side with the beautiful oleanders which grow
so luxuriantly all over Greece. On entering the Royal
domain the trees become more varied and are more
thickly planted, and one soon finds oneself driving
through prettily laid-out and well-kept grounds. The
house, which is scarcely visible till one is close upon
it, is but a villa of moderate size, affording just suffi-
cient accommodation for the Royal family. The gentle-
men of the suite in fact were at that time lodged in
rooms above the stables and coach-houses. 1 We were
taken to one of these rooms to shake off the dust of
the road, and when we came down were met in the
grounds by the King himself, to whom I presented my
wife ; his Majesty then showing us the way through
the gardens to the house, where the Grande Maitresse
(Mistress of the Robes), Mme. Theocaris, took charge
of Lady Rumbold and conducted her to the Queen's
apartments. I will borrow here some details from my
wife's diary : —

"We were to have dined al fresco, as is the
pleasant custom here, but the clouds which had all
the morning shaded the sun, now burst, and a violent
thunderstorm, with heavy rain, necessitated the transfer
to the house of all the dinner arrangements ; this being
accomplished by the servants — some of them rather fat
Palikares in the Albanian dress — in their shirt-sleeves,
quite heedless of the passing to and fro of their Royal
masters and their guests. At about 3.30 dinner was
served in the dining-room, where we were rather
closely packed. The party besides ourselves was only

1 This description applies to the villa first erected on the estate, and in
no way to the present spacious Royal chdteau of Dekeleia, which was only
entirely finished shortly before I left Athens in 1888.

TATOI 29

a family one, including governesses and professors —
the latter coming out from Athens two or three times
a week to the Princes ; in all about sixteen people.
The dinner was good and not too long, and the table
decoration of the simplest, the only ornament being
a bouquet of flowers.

" H. and I sat on the left respectively of their
Majesties, aud the Crown Prince and his sister on the
right. On my left was Prince Nicholas, a charming,
bright boy of thirteen, full of talk, and very keen to
hear all I could tell him about English boys and their
ways. Conversation was easy and pretty general, and
when the subject of ghosts incidentally cropped up,
the presence of the Lyons naturally led to the mention
of the mysteries and legends of Glamis Castle, which
were discussed with the greatest interest, as is indeed
always the case in any society.

" The storm was sharp but short, and after dinner
we were able to go out and admire the gardens, which
their Majesties showed us with an evident and justi-
fiable pride in their own work. Their work it really is,
for when they took it in hand twelve years ago, Tato'i
was little better than a bare, uncultivated hill-side. It
is difficult to realise, when wandering about this green
and luxuriantly shaded retreat, that one is within a two
hours' drive of sun-scorched, treeless Athens. (Shade
of the Olive groves, forgive me ! You are so grey and
dusty that you don't count.)

" The new building is in progress and will probably
be finished by next summer. It is not a palace, but a
well-planned, solid, stone house with a fine terrace,
from which there is a magnificent view right away to
the sea, including Athens and the Acropolis. Their
Majesties took much trouble in explaining to us the
details and arrangements of the house, letting appear,

30 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

in all they did and said, a simple, unaffected interest in
their new abode, such as might have been shown by
any ordinary country gentleman and his wife.

" Having exhausted the sights of the garden, we
were taken for a drive through the very fine oak woods,
again all planned by the King and his Danish bailiff.
The King drove H. in his phaeton, while I and the
Lyons were with the Queen, the Royal children follow-
ing in another carriage. On the way back we visited
the stables, farm-buildings, &c, and their occupants,
among them being a dear little baby donkey, which
was evidently on the best and most affectionate of
terms with the whole Royal family.

" On again reaching Tato'i we found our own car-
riages ready (7.30 p.m.). The Queen took leave of us
at the foot of the steps, and retired, while the King and
the children waited to see us off.

" It was a fatiguing day, but I shall soon forget
that, and only remember its being a very pleasant
one, passed in the society of this most charming and
amiable Royal family."

CHAPTER III

ATHENS, 1885— THE REVOLUTION AT PHILIPPOPOLIS

The summer wore away, and with it the well-nigh
intolerable heat. In our rooms, most of which looked
on to the narrow street of Hermes, it was almost
as trying by night as by day. The only approach to
relief from it was during our late afternoon drives
to the beach at Phalerum, whence we used to return
after dusk, when the lamps in the mean, populous
suburb on the way to the Piraeus were just being
lighted, and at the street corners one heard, through
the stifling haze, the clear tinkle of ice in the re-
volving machines of the vendors of lemonade and
other cooling drinks — a deliriously refreshing sound
which remains associated in my memory with the
purgatory we underwent during these endless Athenian
dog-days.

Contrary to all expectation, the first session of the
new Legislature, although sufficiently stormy, passed
off without any attempt on the part of the incoming
Ministry actually to impeach their predecessors. The
Government candidate for the Presidency was duly
elected in the person of M. Kalliphronas, a very old
Parliamentary stager who had sat in every Legislature
for the last forty years. M. Kalliphronas was quite
a survival of Edmond About' s Grece contemporaine,
and one of the few Greeks, of any standing, who
still clung to the national dress. I remembered the
picturesque old gentleman twenty years before as a

3t

32 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

deputy for Attica, where he was a considerable land-
owner. The story told of him then was that he had
come to a friendly understanding with the brigand
chief, Kitzos, at that time the scourge of the country.
When pressed too hard by the Gendarmerie, Kitzos,
it was said, was sure of a refuge in M. Kalliphronas'
house at Athens ; that gentleman's property and
tenants being in return exempted from the chieftain's
operations. At that period M. Kalliphronas held the
portfolio of Justice in the Provisional Government
of the day.

M. Tricoupis' financial administration did not, of
course, escape violent, and in some measure well-
merited attack in the Chamber. He had left the
Treasury in such a state of depletion that scarcely
one-third of the funds required to meet the July
coupon of the Foreign Debt was available at the
end of May. The heavy outlay incurred for so-called
productive purposes, such as the extension of the
railways and the making of new roads — though both
these were undeniably much needed — had been far
in excess of the normal resources of a country further
burdened with a military and naval expenditure quite
out of proportion to its reasonable requirements. That
the late Prime Minister had been actuated in his
financial policy by any but the purest patriotic motives
could not be questioned. None the less he had
brought Greece to a condition bordering on bank-
ruptcy. Heated discussions took place about the
Budget brought in by M. Delyannis, which was a com-
plete overthrow of the economic system initiated by the
preceding Government. Similar ruthless reversals of
policy have been seen elsewhere, but, in this in-
stance, the programme of M. Delyannis could be
summed up as a systematic undoing of everything

SHOWING A BOLD FRONT 33

attempted by his predecessor. The entire fabric of
fiscal legislation and administrative reform, patiently
reared by the late Premier during his three years'
tenure of office, was destroyed in as many weeks ;
the Chamber getting through the various stages of
the numerous Bills laid before it, at the rate
of from twenty to thirty in a single sitting, and
the Budget itself being disposed of in two days.
Hard words probably break fewer bones in Greece
than elsewhere, but the virulence of the onslaught
made upon M. Tricoupis and his policy was no
doubt proportionate to the exceptional duration of
his Administration.

The fallen statesman showed an undaunted front
to his adversaries. On the occasion of an attempt
made by the Governmental majority to invalidate the
election of one of the deputies for Missolonghi who
was a supporter of his, he challenged the Chamber,
in a speech of great vigour, to annul his own elec-
tion for the same constituency. If they annulled the
election of his colleague alone, he would forthwith,
he said, resign his own seat, for he would never
consent to be indebted for it to his position as
Leader of the Opposition. Whatever charges were
brought against the election of his friend, applied
equally to his own. Let them, therefore, have the
courage to strike the man at whom the blow was
really aimed, by declaring the entire election void
and expelling him.

The lamentable condition of the national finances
had the effect of bringing public opinion face to
face with the unpalatable truth that the only effectual
means of righting the country economically was a
reduction of its excessive armaments. A movement
in this sense was indeed observable iD part of the

c

34 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

public press, though it was difficult to say whether
it reached to any great depth. In the Chamber M.
Tricoupis at once grappled with this question with
characteristic boldness and much skill. If, he said,
a saving of Fifteen Million Drachmai could be effected
in the Estimates, the problem of achieving an equi-
librium in the Budget would at once be solved.
Such a result, however, could only be attained by
giving up those military preparations to which he had
himself so much contributed. Nothing would induce
him to consent to such a step, which must bring
with it the relinquishment of the national aspira-
tions or, as he preferred to put it, the national policy
of Greece. Greece, he maintained, could not be made
ready too rapidly to take her part in the inevitable
— to his mind the immediately impending — struggle
in the East. Whatever the cost of such prepara-
tions, it was far better it should be incurred than
that the country should be found powerless to assert
itself at the proper time. He dared the Govern-
ment to follow any other line. He knew that public
opinion of all shades was unanimous on this one
point of upholding the national policy. It was clear
that even the actual Ministry shared these views,
since they had only tinkered at the Military Estimates
with a few economies, but had practically left them
untouched.

I have quoted from M. Tricoupis' speech at great
length because of the unfortunate influence which
his attitude in this question had on the course of
the untoward events that were soon to follow.
Equally regrettable in its tendencies was the charge
he brought against M. Delyannis of having cut down
an item figuring in the Estimates of the Ministry
for Foreign Affairs under the head of " Unforeseen

A STORMY SESSION 35

Expenses," and which was devoted to fostering Greek
schools and Greek literature in the Turkish provinces.
The sum — some 800,000 Drachmai — set apart for
this object, was disbursed through a Syllogos, or
Committee, which had its seat at Athens, and, no
account being rendered of its expenditure, was
practically a secret service fund applied to the pro-
pagation of Panhellenic ideas and aspirations. M.
Delyannis made but a feeble defence against what
was in the eyes of every patriotic Greek a most
damaging imputation, and in fact allowed himself to
be brow-beaten by his masterful antagonist. Passion
on both sides of the Chamber rose to such a pitch
during the debate that at one moment it came to a
free fight with fists and sticks. Fortunately a ther-
mometer registering over 100 degrees in the shade,
and the approaching currant harvest, shortly after-
wards combined to bring the session to a desirable
close.

Among the efforts at retrenchment made by the
new Administration was the recall of the Greek
Envoys at Foreign Courts, and the substitution for
them of simple Charges d! Affaires with greatly re-
duced salaries. The candidate for the vacancy in
London was M. Gennadius, an old acquaintance of
mine, who had lived a great many years in England,
had been Secretary to the Legation there, and not
only spoke, but wrote English more perfectly than
almost any other foreigner I have ever known. M.
Gennadius was at Athens, and, when consulted about
his appointment by M. Delyannis, I strongly backed
him as extremely well suited for a post which he
before long filled with much distinction.

In another instance the new Premier who had

3 6 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

taken charge of the Foreign Department, was not so
well inspired. The Greek Legation at Berlin had
been held for a good many years by M. Rhangabe,
one of the most distinguished Hellenes of his time. 1
M. Rhangabe was a man of great erudition, a brilliant
writer and dramatist, and a charming poet, who stood
in high favour not only with the Emperor William
and the Crown Prince and Crown Princess, but with
Prince Bismarck himself. On his being recalled, in
accordance with the scheme for the reduction of
diplomatic expenditure, the German Charge d y Affaires,
Prince Taxis, was instructed to make an urgent un-
official representation, in the name of the Emperor,
for the maintenance of the Greek Minister at his
post. The action thus taken was undoubtedly of
an unusual character, but M. Delyannis was so ill
advised as to intimate his inability to comply with
the request in language which at Berlin was looked
upon as conveying a discourteous rebuff. He had
not counted, however, with the imperious Chan-
cellor, who not only returned to the charge, in almost
peremptory terms, but took the quite unprecedented
course of getting the Austrian and Russian Govern-
ments to support his request diplomatically at Athens.
L Affaire Rhangabe, in fact, attained quite serious
proportions, and certainly not a little contributed to
the very hostile attitude towards M. Delyannis per-
sonally, which was taken up by Prince Bismarck in
the serious crisis that ensued a few months later.

The simple, unassuming object of this sharp diplo-

1 Alexander-Rizos Rhangabe" (b. 1810, d. 1892) had been Envoy at
Washington and Constantinople and at one time Minister for Foreign
Affairs, and had represented Greece at the Congress of Berlin. Apart
from his diplomatic and literary labours, he had acquired distinction as
an archaeologist in the excavation of the ruins of the Temple of Juno
at Aruos.

M. RHANGABE 37

matic interlude was too interesting a personality to be
passed over without further notice in these Recollections.
M. Rhangabe, who must then have been considerably
past seventy, was a diminutive and fragile-looking old
gentleman, with a charming, mobile countenance, and
a splendid intellectual forehead crowned with a long,
carelessly-brushed silver mane. His talk was most
interesting and his manner was full of an almost
boyish vivacity which made it easy to understand his
being a favourite with so admirable a judge of intellect
and genius as the late Empress Frederick. We saw
a good deal of this fascinating old diplomatist, 1 who
had taken rooms in a house in Hermes Street almost
exactly facing our windows, and in the sultry summer
evenings it was amusing to watch the balcony opposite
where he and the handsome, rather showy, Miss
Rhangabes held their small court of friends and
admirers.

The Chamber now adjourned until October, and
the King started on his annual journey abroad, first
going to Vienna, and thence to visit his relatives at
Gmunden and at Copenhagen. Shortly before his
Majesty left an incident occurred which well illus-
trated the abnormal position of the Crown in Greece,
and, in some degree, foreshadowed the difficult situa-
tion that not long after arose between it and its
responsible advisers. Among the few intimates of
the Royal circle was the King's favourite aide-de-camp
Colonel Hadjipetros, who always accompanied his
Majesty on his travels, and filled the functions of
what at German Courts is known as a Reisemarschall.
The Colonel was a bluff, outspoken soldier, thoroughly
devoted to his master, and, although taking no active

3 A son of M. Rhangabe is now, I believe, Greek Minister at Berlin.

38 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

part in politics, an admirer of the late Prime Minister
M. Tricoupis. Some incautious remark he allowed to
drop at the time of the Ministerial crisis in February, as
to his belief that the King would certainly not grant
M. Delyannis power to dissolve the Chamber, reached
the ears of the new Premier, who thereupon pressed
his Majesty to dismiss his aide-de-camp in sign of his
confidence in his new advisers. On the King's demur-
ring to this request, M. Delyannis threatened to resign
if the obnoxious officer were not at once removed.
Under what was very improper pressure, the King
thought it well to acquiesce, and it was officially
announced, on the very eve of his Majesty's departure,
that Colonel Hadjipetros had ceased to hold his Court
appointment and was placed at the disposal of the
Minister of War.

The removal of the Colonel was stated to be
technically correct, inasmuch as the army regulations
did not allow of any officer being taken for more
than three years from the corps to which he belonged,
and the aide-de-camp had long exceeded that limit.
But of this petty display of power on the part of M.
Delyannis there could be no two opinions. The affair,
besides being the general talk of the town, caused much
indignation among the Foreign Diplomatists, who were
all agreed in blaming the conduct of the Greek Premier.
Shortly afterwards, at one of my frequent interviews
with him, M. Delyannis, to my great surprise, spoke
to me of the incident. The explanation which he
volunteered of it was that he had been compelled
to insist on M. Hadjipetros' dismissal because his sup-
porters in the Chamber threatened to desert him if
he did not obtain it.

I thereupon told the Minister that, since he him-
self alluded to a subject which I should certainly

A PAINFUL INCIDENT 39

not have broached to him, I would tell him, in as
friendly a manner as I could, what I thought of it.
I did not, I said, presume to judge whether he had
had what he considered sufficient reasons for acting
as he had done. I could not, however, conceal from
him that what had occurred had produced a very
unfortunate impression on me and on all my col-
leagues. We regretted that such undue pressure
should have been brought to bear upon the King.
It must be borne in mind, I said, that under the
Greek Constitution 1 the Crown was singularly power-
less, and for that reason any proceeding that infringed
upon the Royal dignity seemed to me, to say the least,
imprudent. Yet it was hardly to be supposed that
Greece could exist without a monarchy. I had myself
been a witness of the interregnum between King
Otho and King George, and knew what that had been
like. Monarchy being, therefore, a necessity for Greece,
she might deem herself fortunate in having a King
who commanded the sympathies of Europe. Since he
had started the subject I was glad of the opportunity
of frankly speaking my mind about it, and I must add
that, as the representative of the Power which had done
most to place the King upon the Throne, and had on
two occasions taken the lead in greatly increasing his
dominions, I should at all times, while carefully avoid-
ing immixing myself in internal politics, consider it
my special duty to support his Majesty. I will do
M. Delyannis the justice to say that he took what I
said in good part, and thought it right to assure me
of his devotion to his Sovereign.

'& j

With the Royal departure and the Parliamentary

1 See "Recollections of a Diplomatist," pp. 125 and 126, as to the
acquiescence of our Government in this very faulty Constitution.

40 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

recess, an absolutely dead season, both politically and
socially, came over Athens sweltering in the heat and
dust. But for the works at last begun on the Legation
House, to which, together with a sixteen years' lease
of it, Lord Salisbury had got the Treasury to agree,
there would have been nothing to interest or occupy
us. All of a sudden, at the end of September, the
startling turn of events in Eastern Roumelia woke
up Greece with a vengeance out of her summer siesta,
and threw her into one of those wild fever-dreams of
conquest and aggrandisement which have periodically
marked her troubled history since her first struggle for
freedom and independence.

Eastern Roumelia — a creation of the Congress of
Berlin — had been given a semi-independent existence
as a vassal province of the Ottoman Empire, and was
feebly administered by a Phanariot Pasha of the
name of Krestovitch. During the summer, Philip-
popolis had already been the scene of serious disturb-
ances between the Slav and Greek elements of the
population, in the course of which, the former being
unduly favoured by the Ottoman authorities, many
recriminations had been exchanged between Athens
and Constantinople. The sudden, bloodless revolution
of the 1 8th September — when the Turkish Governor-
General was seized in his Konak and expelled, and
Prince Alexander of Battenberg proclaimed ruler of
a greater, united Bulgaria — was so defiant a violation of
the arrangements sanctioned by all the Great Powers
at Berlin that it could not but produce a profound
impression at Athens. Not only did it constitute a
flagrant infraction of the status quo in the Balkans which
the King, in opening the Chamber, had declared it to
be the duty and the interest of Greece to respect and

THE KING'S RETURN 41

uphold, but it was a signal triumph for the rival Slav
in whom, far more than in their ancient oppressor the
Turk, the ITellenes had long come to see their most
dangerous enemy.

At first, nevertheless, I was able to report home
that, beyond a certain degree of effervescence at Athens
and in some of the provincial towns, there were no
signs of undue excitement. As for the Government,
they were of course much disturbed, and all the more
so that, only a few days before, they had received ad-
vices from Vienna to the effect that peace was now
more than ever assured ; nothing, therefore, they had
hoped, standing in the way of their devoting all
their attention to purely internal concerns. Unfor-
tunately, the Opposition press at once set to work
to increase the ferment by clamouring for the calling
out of the reserves, and when news arrived of a
mobilisation having been ordered in Servia, even the
Greek Foreign Office, though at first professing a
sincere desire to keep the country quiet, began to
admit that some active steps might become neces-
sary for the protection of Hellenic interests at so
grave a crisis.

The return of the King was now anxiously awaited.
His Majesty reached Athens on Sunday, the 27th
of September, having stopped on his way back at
Vienna. With the rest of the Diplomatic Body I
went to receive the Royal traveller at the Corinth
Railway station. The streets were thronged with
holiday folk, together with various corporations and
patriotic associations which, when the King drove
by, cheered enthusiastically, and, forming into pro-
cession with their banners, marched to the Palace
square where the bulk of them gradually dispersed.
An obstreperous mob, however, chiefly composed of

42 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

Thracians and Macedonians, continued shouting under
the Palace windows until the King came out on the
balcony with the Queen and the Royal children, and
said a few words to them, exhorting them to patience
and fortitude in the serious circumstances which had
arisen, and bidding them rely on his unceasing care
for the interests of Hellenism.

It soon became evident that the Government were
being swept along by the fast-rising tide, for before
the end of the week two classes of the reserve — some
12,000 men — were called out by Royal decree. I had
prepared Lord Salisbury * for this turn of affairs, and
had asked for definite instructions for my guidance,
giving it as my opinion, and that of most of my
colleagues, that M. Delyannis' Administration was
much too feeble to arrest the movement which had
set in for a vindication by force of arms, if neces-
sary, of the claims of Greece to her share in what
was then believed to be the impending final break-up
of the Turkish Empire. In reply, I was commissioned
to deliver a friendly but earnest remonstrance from
Her Majesty's Government against the course that
was being followed in Greece, coupled with the warn-
ing that that country would only be laying itself open
to humiliation and disaster if it persevered in it.

I found M. Delyannis very obdurate. He maintained
that, although certain military measures were being
taken with a view to meeting possible eventualities,
it could not be said that Greece was bent upon war,
since she had no immediate tangible adversary. In
the event, however, he added, of the unity of Bulgaria
under Prince Alexander becoming an accomplished
fact recognised by the Powers, or of the status quo

1 A Conservative Government had come into office at the end of June.

SWEPT ON BY THE MOVEMENT 43

in Macedonia being in any way infringed, he could
bind himself to nothing. After assuming this high
tone at first, he nevertheless presently let me perceive
what was the drift of his policy by insinuating that,
inasmuch as the events which had taken place must,
if ratified, entirely displace the equilibrium contem-
plated by the Treaty of Berlin, Greece might justly
pretend to some territorial compensation, such as
would be afforded for instance by the frontier which
she had in vain claimed at the Congress.

I strongly cautioned M. Delyannis against enter-
taining any hopes of that description. At the same
time I felt, as I reported home, that he was being
swayed in this crisis much more by the internal than
by the external difficulties of the situation. He had
not been strong enough to oppose at the outset a firm
resistance to the clamour raised against him by his
political adversaries, backed by the Macedonian and
other semi-revolutionary committees, on the score of
his inaction and apparent disregard of the interests
of Hellenism. * At first he had humoured the move-
ment without exactly lending himself to it, in the
hope that the action of Turkey or the intervention
of the Powers might restore matters in the Balkans
to their former condition. This hope proving vain,
and the excitement in Greece daily increasing, he and
his colleagues had resolved to turn events to account
for their own purposes. They had now practically
placed themselves at the head of the movement, and,
as far as could be judged, had embarked on a policy
of adventure. They had thereby acquired for the time
a fictitious strength and popularity, and, what was of
much greater concern to them, had relieved them-
selves of the irksome obligation of endeavouring to
restore some order in the finances of the country.

44 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

Their desperate financial position had, in fact, con-
tributed to make them reckless, and the alternative
that presented itself to their minds was probably
either bankruptcy or an accession of territory. What
they left entirely out of account was that the latter
would by no means stave off the former. As I said
to the Prime Minister, it seemed to me almost folly
that he should talk of the necessity of incurring the
expense of mobilisation in the very same room where,
all through the summer, he had poured out to me his
lamentations over the terrible straits in which he had
been left by his predecessor.

CHAPTER IV
ATHENS, 1885— WAR FEVER AND MOBILISATION

Meantime the warlike movement rapidly gained
strength. The Chamber was convoked in extraordi-
nary session, and money was raised by loans obtained
from the National Bank of Greece and two other
smaller Banks, in exchange for the privilege granted
to them of forced currency for their Notes. By these
means the Government at once secured the command
of something like £1,200,000, which was supplemented
afterwards by a further advance from the National
Bank. Finally, on the 12th of October, a decree was
issued calling up three more classes of the reserve
and mobilising all the military and naval forces of
the Kingdom. The Minister of Marine, M. Roma,
who disapproved the adventurous policy of the Premier
and seceded from the Cabinet at this juncture, told me
that it was intended to place at least 100,000 men in
the field.

We now began to experience the effects of these
measures at Athens. Large bodies of men poured
into the capital from every part of the Kingdom and
made the streets hideous both day and night by their
vociferations and shouts of " Zito polemos ! " (Long
live war !). After dark, these continuous processions
with banners and discordant bands of music, derived
an almost sinister character from the torches and red
Bengal lights that accompanied them. Seen and heard
from a distance, as they threaded the narrow streets,

46 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

the hoarse cries of the marching masses, the lurid
reflection on the white walls of the houses, and the
smoke and glare of the torches suggested riot and
arson, and every excess of mob law. In reality these
poor peasants and labourers, taken from their hearths
and homes, where many of them were the only bread-
winners, were harmless and inoffensive enough, though
some of the contingents from the interior of the
Peloponnesus — mountaineers of splendid physique —
certainly looked very ugly customers. No proper pro-
vision having been made for them on their arrival in
Athens, and the quarters assigned to them being quite
inadequate, they in some instances invaded the smaller
inns and eating-houses of the town and committed a
few excesses. But much the greater number of them
uncomplainingly lay out in the open in the chilly
October nights which gave but a faint foretaste of
the hardships that awaited them all through the
following weary winter on the bleak uplands of
Thessaly.

An attempt which was made to billet the reser-
vists on residents of the better class was the occasion
of my renewing acquaintance with George Finlay's
widow, in whose favour I interfered successfully and
got her relieved of her unwelcome garrison. We
went to see her in the old house where the historian
had died ten years before, which she kept in perfect
order, and in whieh she evidently took much pride.
This last link with Byronic days — a quaint, ancient
Levantine dame, very neatly attired in black silk and
velvet, with a smart little black-and-gold Greek jacket,
and wearing a funny and all-too-palpable wig — was
much gratified by our visit, and profuse in her thanks
for the small service I had been able to do her.

In the opinion of the most competent judges

RAW LEVIES 47

nothing could be more disastrous than the military
measures to which the Government had committed
themselves. General Vosseur, a French officer of
distinction whom M. Tricoupis had engaged some
years before to reorganise the Greek army, and place
it on a small working footing, made no concealment
of his dismay. It might have been useful and politic,
he said, to call up the first reserves as an earnest to
the country and to the Powers that the Government
were resolved to guard the interests of Greece ; but
the decree of mobilisation (which had been issued
without his being in any way consulted) was in his
view quite indefensible. There existed no provision
whatever for clothing or equipping this mass of men
or turning them into anything like soldiers. There
was further this most dangerous side to the step which
had been taken that on two occasions already (in
1877 and 1880) the reserves had been needlessly sum-
moned, so that in joining the colours now they would
probably do so with the determination not to be baulked
again. 1 General Vosseur spoke of these raw levies as
being quite incapable of any serious effort in the field ;
they were " des hommes avec des fusils et voila tout."

The ex - Garibaldian General Tiirr, who was at
Athens on business connected with the cutting of the
Isthmus of Corinth, held exactly the same views about
the mobilisation, and complained at the same time of
his undertaking being practically stopped for lack of
hands. In a variety of small ways we ourselves felt
the discomforts occasioned by this removal of such a
large proportion of the male population from their

1 In the event these fears proved groundless. The withdrawal from
the Turkish frontier and the general disarmament were acquiesced in
without any trouble by the reservists, who showed a very creditable and
orderly spirit.

4 8 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

avocations. The Athens tradespeople were unable to
supply customers punctually, on account of the loss of
many of their assistants. Much more serious in such
a climate was the insufficiency of the supply of ice,
nearly all the ice-making factories being closed for
want of workmen ; while half of our staff of inn-
waiters were enrolled and taken from their duties. In
a small country with limited resources, like Greece,
the strain of this state of things made itself felt very
keenly, and the game of bluff — for it was little else —
to which it was due, became quite exasperating. M.
Rhangabe who, to his great joy, had been reinstated in
his post at Berlin, came to say good-bye to us about
this time. He told my wife that he had a son with
the troops in Thessaly, but had managed to get him
back to Athens. She replied, in fun, that it was
depriving him of a chance of glory. " Non" replied
Rhangabe, " ce n' est pas le danger que je crains pour
lui, c'est le ridicule ! " And, with this valedictory shaft
at the policy of his Government, the evergreen old
Envoy took his leave, and bundled down the steep
hotel stairs, on his very shaky little legs, at a pace
that was quite alarming.

Meanwhile the Powers, in their very sincere desire
to prevent the spread of the existing complications in
the Balkans, lost no time in endeavouring to arrest the
action of the Greek Government. About the date of
the King's return from abroad, Prince Bismarck, whose
sentiments towards M. Delyannis, as I have already
explained, were far from cordial, proposed through the
Ambassador in London, Count Miinster, that effective
pressure should be brought to bear by means of a naval
demonstration of the Powers at the Piraeus. This
proposal was abandoned, partly on account of un-

A DEMARCHE COLLECTIVE 49

willingness on the part of the French Foreign Minister,
M. Waddington, to join in it. Shortly afterwards the
German Envoy, Baron de Brincken, on his return from
leave, was instructed to suggest some combined diplo-
matic action for the same purpose. This led to a
demarche collective, when the Ministers of the six
Powers — Italy, Germany, Austria - Hungary, France,
Russia, and Great Britain — waited upon M. Delyannis
by appointment, and each in turn warned him of the
dangers of the course on which he was engaged, im-
pressing upon him the thorough disapproval with
which it was viewed by their respective Governments.
In the discussions with my colleagues which preceded
this step I had urged that a written identic or collective
Note would carry more weight than our verbal expostu-
lations, but had been overruled. Our interview with
the Greek Premier, who looked downcast and ill at
ease, produced upon me, I confess, the not very digni-
fied impression that we were, so to speak, the ushers
of Dame Europa's school having up before them the
last offender reported for misbehaviour, and giving him
a good jobation.

The Powers, nevertheless, made it clear that they
were fully in earnest. The Greek Charge cV Affaires at
Berlin reported that nothing could exceed the severity
of the language held to him by Count Herbert Bis-
marck ; while, at Vienna, Count Kalnoky absolutely
refused to listen to the explanations by which the
Greek representative attempted to justify the line
taken by his Government. Lord Salisbury, about the
same time, took what ought to have proved a still
more effective step, by using very plain language to
M. Tricoupis, who was on a sort of political tour in
England, and urging him to use his influence with his
countrymen to allay the rising storm in Greece. It

50 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

was finally decided to make another joint effort to
bring the Hellenic Government to their senses ; the
form it took on this occasion being a collective Note,
signed by the representatives of the same six Great
Powers, and founded on a Declaration which had been
drawn up by the Ambassadors at Constantinople. 1 We
sent in our Note on the 22nd of October, the day before
the opening of the extraordinary session of the Cham-
ber ; our hope being that it might have some sobering
effect on the attitude of the Government at that critical
juncture. The tone of the Royal Speech, which was
exclusively devoted to the events in the Balkans, was
decidedly moderate. Referring to the complete change
which the revolution at Philippopolis had produced in
the situation, and the military precautions it had ren-
dered expedient, the Speech simply expressed the con-
fidence that the Powers, in their solicitude for peace,
would devise means for establishing a just and durable
equilibrium between the several nations that occupied
the Peninsula.

The guarded character of this language caused the
greatest dissatisfaction both in the Chamber and out-
side of it. On the following day the Tricoupist
organ, the Hora, issued a violent manifesto calling a
mass indignation meeting for that afternoon. This
was in exact accordance with the instructions sent
from London to his adherents by M. Tricoupis, which
were to support the Government, but only on condition
of their " doing their duty by the country," and being
prepared, if necessary, "to smash up everything" (sic).
Under the pressure of the threat of so formidable a
manifestation, M. Delyannis, who once before had been

1 The final arrangements as to the future of the two Bulgarias had
been entrusted to the representatives at Constantinople of the signatories
of the Treaty of Berlin.

PARLIAMENTARY ENTHUSIASM 51

the object of a similar outburst of public anger which
nearly degenerated into riot, a few shots being actually
fired under his windows, went down to the Chamber
and made a declaration which for the first time clearly
committed the Government to action in the national
cause in given eventualities. The Prime Minister in
fact saved himself by the skin of his teeth, and, to a
great extent, at the expense of his Royal Master, in
Avhose mouth he had placed unpopular language, re-
serving for himself all the credit of giving expression to
the national will and passion, while not even attempt-
ing to associate the Crown in any way with the policy
he announced. There was a great scene of fraternisa-
tion in the House ; M. Lombardos, the former arch-
agitator in the Ionian Islands, who acted as Tricoupis'
locum tenens, going up to the Premier and warmly con-
gratulating him. In the town, too, which was crowded
with rampant reservists, the enthusiasm attained de-
lirious proportions. The return, a few days later, of
M. Tricoupis, who received a tremendous popular ova-
tion, still further increased the ferment, and although
he was carefully moderate in his language and attitude,
his watchful presence acted as a constant warning to
his rival that at the least faltering he would be swept
from power.

Under these circumstances, we foreign representa-
tives could not conceal from ourselves and from our
Governments that the attempts made to stop the Greek
Cabinet in their perverse course had completely failed.
Our demarche collective had been replied to by the
decree of mobilisation, and now came the almost defiant
declaration of the Premier in answer to our joint Note
of warning and remonstrance. The warlike movement,
so far as could be judged, had passed beyond the
control of a feeble, irresolute Administration.

52 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

It has seemed to me indispensable to recount —
although it has been at immoderate length — the first
stages of these difficulties, because of my sincere desire
to apportion, with all due fairness, the responsibilities
of the principal actors in them, and at the same time
to set forth as clearly as possible the main causes that
led to this curious phase in the affairs of Greece, at
a memorable and decisive turning-point in Balkanic
history. I have, as will presently appear, special
reasons for seeking to deal in a spirit of the strictest
impartiality with the motives and acts of the persons
most concerned in the grave and painful crisis that
followed, and trust that the distance of nearly twenty
years which divides us from that period will enable me
to treat of it as dispassionately as it will be truthfully.

This may perhaps be the most fitting place for
speaking of the colleagues with whom I was now
closely associated in these affairs. The doyen of our
Diplomatic Body happened to be the Italian Minister,
Marquis Curtopassi, a lively little Neapolitan of
middle age, an intelligent man and a good fellow.
Next to him in seniority came the German Minister,
Baron de Brincken, who was an old London acquaint-
ance of mine. We worked together most harmoniously
at a very difficult time, and I never had, in the whole
course of my career, a stauncher or more loyal friend
and colleague. With the Austro-Hungarian Minister,
Baron de Trauttenberg (now the delegate of his
Government to the Caisse de la Dette in Egypt) my
relations were likewise very cordial. He showed some
hesitation at first as to going full lengths with us in
the pressure we were instructed to bring to bear on
the Greek Government. The position, however, of
Austria-Hungary in regard to Balkanic affairs is neces-

MY FOREIGN COLLEAGUES 53

sarily a peculiar one for geographical and racial reasons.
Certain advantages which were believed to have been
promised to Servia by the Cabinet of Vienna, and the
protecting shield later on thrown over that country in
stopping the short and, to Servia, disastrous war against
Bulgaria, made it still more difficult for Baron de
Trauttenberg to keep completely in line with us at the
beginning. He was subsequently able to give us his
full co-operation. Russia was represented in our com-
mittee of six by M. de Butzow, a pleasant man who
had won his spurs in the Far East. At the final, and
most critical, period of the crisis, however, he happened
to be away, and left in his place as Charge oV Affaires,
M. Bakhmetiew, who proved a very capable represen-
tative of his Government. M. Bakhmetiew has since
been playing a prominent part at the Court of Prince
Ferdinand of Bulgaria. Albeit typically Russian, or
rather perhaps Tartar, in outward appearance, this able
and astute diplomatist had been partly educated in Eng-
land, and was a graduate of Oxford. He spoke English
like an Englishman, and was married to a bright little
American lady, who was a valuable coadjutor to him in
his diplomatic duties. With a Russian Grand Duchess
as Consort of the Sovereign, M. Bakhmetiew's position
was in certain respects a responsible one and some-
what analogous to my own, both our Legations being
essentially Missions de famille. He agreed with me in
thinking that we had a common interest in the welfare
of the King and the dynasty, and I found him perfectly
straight and reliable during the most delicate phase
of our combined action. The French Minister, M. de
Moiiy, was an agreeable, eminently cultivated speci-
men of the older diplomatic school of his country.
His archaeological interest in Greece inclined him to
espouse her cause with something of the ancient

54 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

Philhellenic ardour. From the first he rather encour-
aged the Greek hankerings after aggrandisement, and,
by playing too much for his own hand at the last
moment, gravely compromised, and indeed partially
marred, the success of the joint efforts made to safe-
guard Greece from the evils wrought by an impolitic
Administration.

The autumn months brought no essential change
in the political situation, beyond accentuating the
tension between Greece and Turkey. An inferior
Agent of the name of Zygomalas, whom the Greek
Government had injudiciously placed in temporary
charge of their Consulate in Crete, was the cause of
much acrimonious correspondence between the two
Governments. The Turkish Vali, Sawas Pasha, charged
this individual with seditious manoeuvres in the island,
and finally expelled him. The Greek naval arma-
ments likewise contributed to raise Turkish suspicions.
Although small, the Greek navy was fairly efficient,
and there was wild talk at Athens of the ease with
which a coup de main might be attempted in Crete
and the signal of rebellion given throughout those
islands of the Archipelago which were still under
Ottoman sway. The mobilisation of the land forces,
which, owing to the alacrity of the reserves in respond-
ing to the call to arms, had enabled the Government
to place their raw levies, to the number of some
seventy thousand men, in the field, was another stand-
ing menace to peace. I informed M. Delyannis, on
the authority of our able and experienced Consul-
General at Salonica, 1 that the Turks had massed a
well -organised force of upwards of eighty thousand
men on the Greek borders. The warning, however,

1 Sir John Elijah Blunt, C.B., now retired on a pension.

BLUFF 5 s

produced little or no effect upon him, and all I was
able to obtain was a general promise that he would
see to the troops in Thessaly being cantoned at some
distance from the frontier.

The attitude of the Greek Premier now became
not a little disconcerting. He affected to be waiting
" les bras croises'" for the decision of the Confer-
ence of Ambassadors sitting at Constantinople as to
the fate of the two Bulgarias, and quite gave up the
apologetic tone he had before assumed of being con-
strained against his better judgment to adopt military
precautions. Early in December he became still more
plain-spoken. Echoing intemperate language used in
the Chamber by his colleague, the Minister of War
(Mavromichalis, a descendant of the old feudal Beys of
Maina), he now spoke of war as being unavoidable.
It would come to a duel with Turkey. Very erroneous
notions were entertained in Western Europe of the
Greek military aptitudes, but these would before long
be revealed to the world. His feeling at first had
been that Greece could attempt nothing without the
support of at least one of the Great Powers, and he
had indeed looked to England to back him, but he
had received no encouragement from that quarter, and
certainly the British representative " ne lui avait pas
souri." He was now, however, quite prepared to go
on alone at the right moment. His language, in fact,
sounded like a travesty of the famous " Italia fara
da se!"

There was some truth in his complaint of my " not
having smiled upon him," for, as I wrote home in a
report of one of my frequent interviews with the Greek
Premier, I had " gone the length of almost brutal frank-
ness " by telling him that his policy seemed to me to
savour much too strongly of what the French call

56 KECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

chantage. It is only fair to him to add that he voiced
to some extent the unreasoning public belief that to
force the hand of Europe " a Greek question must be
raised at all costs." M. Tricoupis himself had distinctly
stated on his return from England that, had he been at
Athens at the time of the Philippopolis coup d'etat, he
would, whether or not in power, have endeavoured to
effect a. fait accompli in favour of Greece by pushing a
small force across the border at all risks, and thereby
compelling attention to the just claims of his country.
And, although unable to displace the mechanical
majority in the Chamber of which the Administra-
tion disposed, he narrowly watched every move of
M. Delyannis, and, while carefully avoiding all sem-
blance of factious opposition, sedulously left him to
bear the full responsibility of affairs at this dangerous
crisis.

At the same time, as regards my personal views,
although bound by my instructions in no way to foster
any hopes of territorial compensation in the recalci-
trant Greek Government, I could not help thinking
that some degree of friendly intervention on the part
of Great Britain might have good results. In fact,
when asked for my opinion of a suggestion made by
the Ambassadors at Constantinople that the time had
come for threatening language to be used at Athens to
bring the Greeks to their senses, I represented that
the Hellenic Government were unquestionably in a
position of great embarrassment. For internal reasons
they could scarcely disarm without some hope of an
equivalent being held out to them. The alternative
that might, I thought, be placed before them was that,
if they did not disarm, Turkey would fall upon them,
and they would be left to the consequences of their
rashness ; while, if they did disarm, her Majesty's

ARMED TO THE TEETH 57

Government might possibly be disposed to support
their pretensions in reason. The Greeks I believed
would probably be content with less than they had
claimed at Berlin. As for Turkey, I thought she
would find some compensation, for whatever territorial
concession she might consent to, in an intimate
alliance with Greece against the common danger from
Russia or from the Slavs, while our friendly inter-
vention, if successful, must make us paramount in
Greece, and greatly strengthen the Royal authority.

The troublous year came to a close. Although,
after the departure of the noisy reservists, now shiver-
ing and sickening in the Thessalian mountains, Athens
was outwardly restored to calm, the country remained
armed to the teeth, and, while recoiling from actual
war, was obstinately bent on reaping some return for
its efforts and sacrifices,

CHAPTER V
ATHENS, 1 885-1 886— THE DELYANNIS INCIDENT

The winter season of 1885-86 turned out socially in
every respect as dull as it was politically gloomy and
fraught with anxiety. To begin with, the Athens of
twenty years ago, although it had so much increased
in extent and population, remained, for a capital of
its size and importance, singularly backward in the
amenities of modern life, and was absolutely devoid
of public amusements or resources. It had indeed
one theatre — a building of some pretensions — but
the doors of this were closed all through my three
years' residence in Greece, though it has since, I
believe, witnessed the revival, under Royal patronage,
of some of the masterpieces of the ancient Greek
drama. In the summer months, a second-rate open-
air theatre of varieties was to be found close to the
swampy banks of the slowly-trickling Ilissus, and a
similar institution of a superior class flourished on
the sea-shore at Phalerum — the latter much fre-
quented by the Athenian beau monde — with scratch
companies of Italian opera or French bouffes. Con-
certs, or musical parties, were absolutely unknown.
The modern Greeks are not much addicted to music,
or in fact to the cultivation of art in any form, though
living in the midst of so glorious an artistic heritage,
which, to render them justice, they do their best
carefully to guard and preserve.

The result of this state of things was that, beyond

its incomparable ancient monuments and ruins, and

58

THE PHANARIOTS 59

its art treasures — at the time I refer to only partially
put in order and not yet displayed in spacious
museums — Athens offered but few attractions by day,
and none whatever at night, to the passing stranger
or the habitual sojourner. There was not a single
club, nor were there even any large public restau-
rants. Cafes on the other hand abounded, as they
do all over the Levant. Hotbeds of political discus-
sion and intrigue, where the habits noirs of About,
now multiplied a hundred-fold, lounged half through
the day, and late into the evening, in eager dis-
putation over rival statesmen or parties, the claims
and wrongs of Greece and the future of Hellenism.

Neither had the Greek capital kept pace with
the nineteenth century in respect of its native society
as much as in its growth and external aspect. A
nucleus of very pleasant, cultivated people, in full
touch with Western life and ideas, was nevertheless
to be found there in a small group of Phanariote
families that had settled in Greece in the earlier
days of the young monarchy. These formed a some-
what exclusive circle or a sort of aristocracy, and
derived a certain lustre from the title of Prince which
a few of them had rather arbitrarily arrogated to
themselves, on the strength of the dignity of Hos-
podar having been held by members of their respective
families in the Danubian Principalities, when those
countries were still under the Turkish dominion. 1

1 The Hospodars were simply Valis, or governors, like those of the
other provinces of the Empire. With this difference that they were taken
from the Christian Phanariote functionaries of the Porte who had heen
dragomans of the Palace, or had held other civil employments. The office
was farmed out to them for a period which seldom exceeded three years,
though they were occasionally reappointed on fresh payment of the neces-
sary amount. The assumption of the title of Prince by the descendants
of those who at some time or other held the office seema in many cases to
have been purely arbitrary.

60 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

Prominent among these were the Soutzos. Prince
Jean Soutzo, who was a former Athenian acquaintance
of mine and a most gentlemanlike and agreeable old
man, had been Minister at St. Petersburg for a good
many years. He had a genuine taste for art, and
was one of the earliest collectors of the charming
Tanagra terra-cotta figurines which had been first
discovered only a few years before, and have since
been so extensively forged and imitated. His
sister was married to Demetrius Paparigopoulos, the
historian, who, together with Rhangabe, likewise of
Phanariote origin, was one of the ablest Greek writers
of that period. Madame Nathalie Soutzo, too, of
the same stock, was a very accomplished woman,
and had a salon that bore comparison with those of
great European centres. The head of another branch
of the Soutzos was the father of perhaps the prettiest
and smartest girls in Athens society, but, in true
Greek democratic fashion, he was simply an army
doctor and chief of the Medical Staff of the Greek
forces. Belonging to the same Soutzo connection
was a pleasant gentleman of the name of Typaldos,
who, being a personal friend of M. Delyannis, had
been induced by that Minister to accept the post of
Under Secretary at the Foreign Office, where he did
valuable service while professing to disapprove of
the adventurous policy of his chief. Of him I shall
have to speak again presently.

Besides these and other cultured Phanariotes, like
the Mavrocordatos, Karadjas, Argyropoulos, Murusis,
with their Byzantine traditions, there were the high-
sounding names of the descendants of leaders in the
war of independence, Colocotroni, Canaris, Papadia-
mantopoulos, Criesis, as well as a few Ionians of
distinction who sat in the Chamber or had migrated

A DINNER AT COURT 61

for good to the Greek capital — the Theotokis (one
of whom is now Prime Minister), the Romas from
Zante, and Messalas, some of whom bore titles that
had come down to them from the days when Venice
held sway over the Seven Islands. Count D. Messala,
Comptroller and Private Secretary to Queen Olga,
and his wife and very charming daughter, were among
the few intimates we had at Athens. The cheeriest
and most humorous of men, Messala was full of
affectionate memories of the old British connection,
having spent many days of his youth on board our
men-of-war, or at the messes of our regiments stationed
at Corfu, which did not prevent his being a devoted
servant and counsellor to his gracious and beneficent
Royal Mistress.

All through this dismal, stormy winter, with its
hurricanes of sleet and snow at Christmas and the
dread shadow of war brooding over the country,
the Court very naturally abstained from giving its
customary entertainments. It happened also that a
considerable part of the Palace was then actually
under repair. The roof itself was in so bad a con-
dition that the poor ladies-in-waiting who were lodged
on the upper story of the great barrack-like structure,
built in the days of King Otho, had, when going
along the passages to their rooms in rainy weather, to
put up umbrellas. On the ist of December, never-
theless, we were bidden to dinner at Court on the
occasion of the Princess of Wales's birthday. We
were the only guests, the rest of the company con-
sisting of the ladies and gentlemen in attendance
upon the Royal Family. In every way it was a
most pleasant party, with scarcely any vestige of
Court etiquette, admirably served and tres soigne as
regards the essentials of food and wine. This was

62 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

our first opportunity of seeing the young Priucess
Alexandra, the King's eldest daughter and favourite
child, who afterwards so endeared herself by her
grace and beauty and charm of manner to all those
who approached her, and was destined to so early
a death after a short and happy union with the
Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovitch. She was at this
time little more than fifteen, and the Queen after
dinner told my wife that she was thus early accus-
toming her daughter to see strangers, on account of
the fear she had of her inheriting the extreme shy-
ness with which she herself was afflicted. In her
position, said the Queen, shyness was a positive
suffering which she had never succeeded in entirely
conquering. In the course of a long conversation
I had that evening with the King, his Majesty
spoke with sincere admiration of the prowess re-
cently shown by Prince Alexander of Bulgaria, 1 and
expressed some doubt of the success of any attempt
to impose upon him the status quo ante, now that
he was flushed with victory and had shown himself
in all respects so capable a ruler. The status quo
ante pure and simple, H.M. seemed to imply, could
scarcely be re-established in the Balkan Peninsula after
all these events.

With the opening of 1886 the situation in Greece
began to assume a more serious aspect, and to some
extent rendered the personal position of King George
more trying and difficult. His Minister gave out
that he was only waiting for the final settlement
of the Eastern Boumelian question by the Powers,
formally to claim the full execution of the decisions
of the Berlin Conference in favour of Greece. Till

' In the short war with Servia.

VAIN PERSUASION 63

then Greece would continue to arm and "keep her
hand on the hilt of her sword." In one of my
interviews with him at this period, I pointed out
that there were the best of reasons for believing that
"the final settlement" he awaited might be deferred
for months, and I dwelt strongly on the impossibility
of Greece bearing the terrible strain of her arma-
ments for so long a time. The Premier admitted
that the delay would be unfortunate, but said that
he saw no other alternative. I then did my best to
impress upon him that he had now an opportunity
of rendering the greatest service to his country, and
regaining for it at once the sympathies it was fast
forfeiting in Europe. I offered, I said, no opinion
either for or against the justice of the claims he
put forward in the name of Greece, but there was
no denying that the worst possible moment had
been chosen for urging them. It was as clear as
day that neither Turkey nor the Powers would listen
to them. It seemed, therefore, the part of a patriotic
statesman to open the eyes of his countrymen to the
mistake that had been committed, and bring home to
them the imperative necessity of disarmament. He
would thereby gain the good opinion and indeed
the gratitude of Europe, and when the proper time
came the attitude of Greece would certainly not be
forgotten. With the large majority he had in the
Chamber, no Minister was in a better position to
follow this wise and prudent course.

M. Delyannis did not deny that possibly the
"moment pyschologique" might not yet have come
for Greece to assert her claims, but, as to the strong
backing he had in the Chamber, he owed it, he said,
solely to his following a policy which was that of the
entire nation. He granted that he might of course be

64 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

left alone face to face with Turkey, but between con-
cession and war Turkey would probably choose con-
cession. Besides, it was well known at Constantinople
that he had only to give the signal for all the Greek
subjects of the Porte to rise in open insurrection. In
any case the time had arrived when Greece must settle
for good and all with Turkey.

Notwithstanding these vapourings of the Premier,
which were worthy of ancient Pistol's " prave 'ords at
the pridge," he had for some time past shown signs of
depression, and had even hinted that he would be glad
to be rid of the burden of office. Anyhow his grandilo-
quence was harmless as compared with the question-
able arts to which he now resorted in his difficulty.
He allowed it to be spread about that the militant
policy he had adopted was much more the King's than
his own, and went indeed so far as to give out that it
had been in some degree reluctantly forced upon him
by the impulse which the King had given to the warlike
movement on his return to Athens shortly after the
revolution at Philippopolis.

Nothing could be more disingenuous than this
attempt to distort a few words, spoken to the crowd
which had gathered under the Palace windows, into a
warlike manifesto addressed to the nation. Although
no one realised more clearly than did King George
the dangers that were likely to arise for Hellenism
out of the union of the two Bulgarias into an enlarged
Slav State, he was far too sagacious and too accurately
informed to expect any good from the game of brag
and bluster played by his responsible advisers. There
were, besides, reasons for thinking that the King had
carefully avoided committing himself to their adven-
turous policy, and was rightly determined to leave with
them all the responsibility of the critical situation it

A FRESH COLLECTIVE NOTE 65

had created. Not only was he supposed to disapprove
the line followed by M. Delyannis, but he was believed
to have expressed to him his dissent from it, and had
probably taken care to put it on record in writing.
He had in fact steadily applied himself to the task of
staving off the outbreak of war, although no doubt alive
to the risk he incurred that his Minister might seek to
withdraw from a hopeless position by casting on his
Sovereign the odium of the abandonment of a policy
which, he would not scruple to assert, had been initiated
by his Majesty himsel£

The Powers, meanwhile, did not relax their efforts
to restore tranquillity in the East by procuring a
general disarmament. Although these efforts were
really directed to stopping the war fever in Greece, the
forces of Servia and Bulgaria still stood facing each
other, pending the final settlement of their differences, 1
and it was deemed both fair and politic to address a Euro-
pean summons to the three Balkanic States simulta-
neously. We were, therefore, instructed to send in a
fresh collective Note to the Hellenic Government, the
drafting of which was on this occasion entrusted to
the Russian Minister as representing the Government
that had suggested this mode of procedure. Our Note,
dated the nth of January, strongly urged Greece to
proceed to an immediate disarmament, which would
be equally recommended to Servia and Bulgaria, and
which the Porte was disposed to imitate ; the Hellenic
Government being at the same time invited to name
the shortest period in which such disarmament could
be carried out, so as to insure analogous measures being
simultaneously taken by the two other Balkanic States.

1 Peace between Bulgaria and Servia was concluded at Bucharest two
months later, in March i386.

E

66 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

Coercion, I should observe, was in no way suggested in
this Note, although it contained in courteous terms a
peremptory summons having for its object to bring
home to the Greeks that all Europe was at this
juncture in perfect accord in the determination not
to be disturbed by war, or a vain pretence of war. Her
Majesty's Government were at the same time averse to
using minatory language, and I had personally taken
upon myself to point out to Lord Salisbury how un-
desirable it seemed to me to threaten coercive measures
which would afford the Prime Minister an opportunity
for retiring with undiminished popularity, and might
at the same time rekindle the expiring Chauvinism of
the nation he was misguiding. By resigning under
actual compulsion he could contrive to leave all the
difficulties and dangers of disarmament to the King,
so that, in the interests of his Majesty, it was far
better that M. Delyannis and his colleagues should fall
with all the discredit they deserved and without any
possible halo of martyrdom.

Two days after the despatch of our communication
the celebration of the Greek New Year took place.
There was a Te Deum at the Cathedral, to which
every one went in uniform, and afterwards a great
reception at the Palace with all the ladies in full
evening dress as at a drawing-room in London ; the
Queen and her ladies wearing the national costume,
or rather an adaptation of it, which consists of a full
white robe — simulating the coarse, long chemise of the
peasants, who wear no other garment — with a soft,
white, gold-embroidered train trimmed with red or
blue velvet. The short Greek jacket worn with
this was likewise edged with velvet and richly em-
broidered, the head-dress being a coronet of velvet —
studded with gold coins — to which was attached a long
white veil wound round the neck. Altogether a pic-

THE GREEK NEW YEAR 67

turesque and becoming dress that suited Queen Olga
to perfection. In the evening there was a State dinner
of some hundred and fifty persons, followed by a cercle
which lasted fully two hours. It was on the whole an
interesting but very fatiguing day, during which none
of us could help watching the countenances and bear-
ing of the Royal couple who, although under the stress
of such anxiety, were as pleasant and gracious as
usual, and allowed no trace of trouble or displeasure
to appear.

A few days later (on 18th January 1886) we re-
ceived the official answer to our collective Note. It
was couched in moderate language, but reiterated the
inability of the Hellenic Government to proceed to
demobilisation, on the grounds that the questions
raised by " the events of Philippopolis " had not yet
received a satisfactory solution, and that the negotia-
tions for peace between Servia and Bulgaria had not
even commenced.

Meanwhile, the stubborn attitude of M. Delyannis
had assumed a graver character in view of the com-
pletion of his naval preparations, which were much
more significant and threatening than was the gather-
ing on the northern frontier of a mass of 70,000 raw,
ill-organised soldiers, who suffered cruelly from the
cold of an exceptionally severe winter, and whose
ranks were being daily thinned by fever and hard-
ships. On the other hand, the squadron assembled
at Salamis was known to be in a very efficient state,
and was on the point of being reinforced by six new
torpedo boats of a large size which were on their way
to the Pirseus from Stettin. There was some reason to
fear that the Premier, relying on naval forces which
were equal if not superior to those of Turkey, might
attempt a bold stroke at sea, and, by pouncing upon

68 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

some Turkish island or bombarding a Turkish port,
create a fait accompli that would in a measure force
the hand of the Powers and compel them to take
cognisance of the Greek grievances and pretensions.

These apprehensions led to my being instructed
by Lord Salisbury to cause it to be brought privately
to the knowledge of the King that the Powers had re-
solved to intimate formally to the Hellenic Government
that no naval operations on their part against Turkey
would be permitted. My message, I was afterwards
informed, was received with much indignation by his
Majesty, who greatly resented what he considered the
unfair pressure applied to his country.

The crisis had now reached such a point as more
than ever to convince me that the only way out of what
seemed a hopeless impasse would be through a change
in the Ministry, if this could be compassed. A few
days later, on the morning of Saturday, the 23rd, I
received telegraphic instructions to warn M. Delyannis
himself, unofficially and in the strictest confidence,
that naval operations by Greece against Turkey would
not be permitted by the Great Powers. I at once
called upon the Premier at his private house in one
of the side streets leading out of the Boulevard du
Stade. At that hour, in the forenoon of a very mild
and sunny winter's day, the door of the Premier's
unassuming residence stood wide open, and its inner
hall was already crowded with the hangers-on and
applicants for favours who, all over the Levant, are
to be found on the threshold of those in power. I
was quickly shown into M. Delyannis' study. I had
brought with me, and subsequently at his request left
in his hands, a paraphrase of the telegram I had just
received. In doing so I strongly dwelt on the friendly
spirit of the private and confidential warning it con-
tained. I saw in it, I said, a final effort made by

A MOMENTOUS INTERVIEW 69

Lord Salisbury to spare Greece the humiliation of
the coercive measures which he indicated as impend-
ing. I had often before used considerable freedom
of speech in my remonstrances with M. Delyannis on
the headstrong course he was pursuing, and I was
now resolved to make a last attempt to shake him in
it, clearly discerning that, in spite of the bold front
he still affected, the responsibility for the situation
he had brought about was weighing more and more
heavily upon him. On previous occasions I had
already frankly told him that, in my opinion, and
in that of my colleagues, he ought, for his own
credit — let alone the good of his country — to yield
and disarm, or retire. Now that he was driven to
his last retrenchments I once more — speaking en-
tirely for myself — sought to impress upon him that
the moment had come when he must make up his
mind to listen to the friendly admonitions addressed
to him, or else resign. I put this to him in various
ways, and, among others, in language the character
of which was afterwards deliberately misrepresented,
and which I therefore quote, premising that we always
conversed in French, of which language M. Delyannis
had a fair but by no means a perfect knowledge.
" En vous opposant," I said to him, " h, la volontd, si
nettement exprimee, de l'Europe entiere, vous cherchez
1'impossible. C'est de la folie que de vouloir persister
dans la malheureuse voie que vous avez suivie jusqu' ici.
Croyez-moi : quittez la place et allez-vous-en plutot ! " l
The Premier took all this in perfectly good part,
but rejoined that his policy was not only that of the

1 M. Delyannis took no sort of exception at the time to this
French colloquialism, though it was afterwards quoted in his organ and
by his friends as purposely intended to be offensive. As the late M. de
Blowitz put it in a letter to The Times of the 19th February 1886, it was
as if I had been made to Bay, with an atrocious accent : " Allez-vous-ini^
<mr le Continong ! "

70 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

nation, but also that of the King. I interrupted him
here by saying, " C'est vous qui le dites ! " The
movement, he maintained, was irresistible. As for
that, I retorted, I had watched it carefully. It had
been started and fostered by got-up manifestations,
and was kept alive through a press the tone and spirit
of which I preferred not to characterise. On my
again adjuring him to weigh well the responsibility
he was incurring in face of such a demonstration as
that of which I had given him notice, he replied that
his responsibility was shared by the King. I rejoined
that I utterly denied this. The responsibility rested
with him alone, and I devoutly trusted that his
Majesty would take care to leave it with him to the
very end.

Finally, warming with my subject, I said to him
that, by so obstinately adhering to a fatal policy, he
was ruining Greece and imperilling the throne, and
that if he persisted in it he would go down to pos-
terity as the author of national disaster. 1 He seemed
considerably shaken by my earnest expostulations, and,
far from resenting their warmth and bluntness, he put
in now and then a deprecatory " Mais mon ami ! " and,
with a trick that was familiar to him, soothingly laid
his hand upon my arm. When at last I rose to leave
him, and asked what reply I was to give from him to
Lord Salisbury's message, he replied that, before coming
to any decision, he must take the King's orders and
consult his colleagues. We then shook hands, and he
accompanied me from his study to the open street-door,

1 At a much more recent period it has been M. Delyannis' unenviable
lot to damage the interests of Greece still more seriously. During a
debate which took place -only the other day in the Greek Chamber, the
Prime Minister, M. Theotokis, when attacked by M. Delyannis, vigorously
retorted with a reference to the last Greco-Turkish war. To M. Delyannis,
he said, must be attributed that disastrous struggle, with its ruinous
results to the Kingdom.

A CALUMNIOUS ARTICLE 71

seeing me get into my carriage and drive away in the
broad sunshine, honestly rejoicing, as I went, that I
had told him truths he had probably never heard
before, and had done my best to relieve the King and
the country of the evil incubus of his Administration.

On the following day (Sunday) the greatest excite-
ment was caused by an article in the Nea Ephemeris —
a paper often used by M. Uelyannis for party purposes
— which gave a most mendacious account of my inter-
view with the Prime Minister. I had deliberately in-
sulted him in the grossest manner, and on leaving him
had actually slammed the door in his face. My recall
would, no doubt, be insisted upon.

The attack, coming from such a quarter, was so
despicable that I should have been disposed to leave
it unnoticed, had not the article contained an almost
textual rendering of the paraphrase of Lord Salisbury's
telegram which I had left with M. Delyannis, and on
the strictly private and confidential nature of which
I had not failed to insist. The imparting of such a
document to the press was so flagrant a breach of
well-known diplomatic usage that it could not be
passed over. I therefore wrote a private line to the
Secretaire-General (Under Secretary) of the Foreign
Office, M. Typaldos, with whom I was on terms of
some intimacy, begging him to call upon me about
an urgent affair. I then went to my German col-
league, Baron de Brincken, and, placing him in
possession of all the circumstances, asked him to
be present at my interview with M. Typaldos.

On entering the room that gentleman at once
said that he knew what I wanted to speak to him
about. He had heard of the article in the course of
last evening, and had immediately gone to the office
of the newspaper to stop its publication, but had

72 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

unfortunately got there too late. M. Delyannis him-
self was extremely annoyed by it. If so, I said,
there could be no difficulty in putting a denial of the
statements contained in the calumnious article in the
Government official organ, the Proia. That, replied
M. Typaldos, was a matter of course, and I might
" look upon it as already done." I inquired what
form the denial would take, and said it might be as
well that we should agree upon the wording of it.
M. Typaldos assented to this, and, at my request,
wrote down a sketch of the proposed contradiction.
I made a few emendations in this, and copied it out
for him, of course keeping the original draft in the
Secretaire- General's hand writirj g.

We went on then to speak of the extraordinary
indiscretion committed by the publication of Lord
Salisbury's telegram ; M. Typaldos making the remark-
able admission that as he could answer for the dis-
cretion of the employes of the Foreign Office, he could
only conjecture that one of the Ministers present at
the Cabinet Council held the day before had seen the
document, and communicated its contents to the Nea
Ephemeris. Such a breach of confidence, observed the
German Minister, who had been listening with much
interest to what passed, was sufficient to make it very
difficult for any of us to carry on our relations with the
Hellenic Government.

To cut too long a story short, no contradiction of
the statement in the Nea Ephemeris ever appeared in
the Government organ. M. Delyannis did not hesitate
to disavow his subordinate, and M. Typaldos himself, I
regret to say, backed out, in anything but a creditable
manner, from the engagement he had taken towards
me in the presence of my German colleague. I had
been careful, meanwhile, to inform the King, through
a private channel, of the real circumstances of the

BREACH OF FAITH 73

affair, and received from him a very kind message to
the effect that he was well aware of its rights, but
hoped that in his interest I would let the matter drop,
I had of course also reported the occurrence at full
length to the Foreign Office, and on the 27th had the
satisfaction to receive a telegram from Lord Salisbury,
entirely approving my attitude and the steps I had
taken, and at the same time directing me to confine
my intercourse with M. Delyannis within the strictest
possible limits. The telegram — a very long one —
arrived after midnight, and Henry Howard and Lyon,
who deciphered it, most kindly came to our door and
woke us up to tell us of its satisfactory contents.

I never met M. Delyannis again, except casually
in the street, months afterwards, when he carefully
avoided me. His equivocal attitude in the circum-
stances I have described, bore, I may now say,
some bitter fruits as far as my after career was
concerned. The "Delyannis incident" has since
furnished a theme to the detractors and ill-wishers
with whom all those who attain a certain standing in
the public service have more or less to reckon. I
owe deep thanks to the great statesman — now justly
mourned by all England — who so loyally stood by
me at this sharp and trying crisis. But it is a good
case in point of the sardonic saying: " Noircissez,
noircissez ! il en restera toujours quelque chose ! " with
which Beaumarchais is generally, but wrongly, credited.
To those who in after years chose to remember against
me the generally-forgotten "Delyannis incident," it
may now be a surprise to learn that I was personally
much opposed to coercive measures being taken against
Greece; that I thought then, and still think now, that
it might have been better policy to help to enlarge her
narrow borders ; that having, during my first stay in
Greece, seen her enriched by the beautiful Seven

74 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

Isles, 1 it would have been gratifying to me to witness
her further endowment with the province of Epirus, or
practically the Berlin frontier she claimed ; and finally
that, in the unquestionably strong line I took towards
an irresolute and reckless Minister, I had chiefly at
heart the cause of his Sovereign, to whom I was
sincerely attached, and whom I knew to be anything
but faithfully served by him. The wrong-headed
policy of those who controlled the destinies of Greece
at that time, marred what chances she then had, and
turned all Europe against her. A desire to try and
make clear the complex causes that led to the events
of that troublous period must be my excuse for having
dwelt at such length on the otherwise unimportant
" Delyannis incident."

• •••••

While what precedes was passing through the
press, the Minister, with whom it was my unwelcome
duty to contend during the acute crisis I have de-
scribed in these pages, has fallen under the hand of
a brutal assassin. The tragical circumstances of his
end must alone have prompted me to attenuate, as
far as I justly could, the strictures I have felt bound
to pass on his policy. I can now only add that
M. Delyannis has been truly fortunate in his death ;
calling forth, as it has, so striking and so imposing a
recognition by his countrymen of his fervid Hellenism
and of the absolute integrity 2 of a long life devoted to
the service of Greece. The barrier between us is now
impassable, but to readers in a country where political
life, whatever its failings or blemishes, knows no per-
sonal rancour, I need not say that I have long since
shaken hands in spirit with M. Delyannis over our
differences of yore.

1 Heptanesos, the State of seven islands.

2 M. Delyannis lived and died a very poor man.

CHAPTER VI

ATHENS, 1886— THE BLOCKADE OF GREECE

The mischievous article in the Nea Epliemeris had
the desired effect of reviving the failing energies of
the Delyannist war party. A mass indignation meet-
ing was held in the Square immediately under our
windows, at which a resolution condemning the con-
duct of the British Government was passed, and was
ordered to be telegraphed to the Speaker of the House
of Commons. From the square the mob made a rush
for the Palace opposite, where they were stopped and
turned back by a cordon of the Evzones on guard, and
had to content themselves with a tumultuous visit to
the house of the Prime Minister, who addressed a few
words to them from his balcony. The general excite-
ment was further raised to the highest pitch by the
announcement that the Greek squadron at Salamis
had left its moorings and put to sea with sealed orders
" to avoid the brutal blockade of England." 1 British
ironclads, it was wildly rumoured, might be expected
to appear off the Piraeus at any moment. As a matter
of fact, however, there was probably at that time not
one of our ships any nearer than Malta.

At a general gathering of all the heads of missions
held at the Italian Legation, I gave my assembled col-
leagues a full account of the now famous " incident,"

1 It was soon afterwards ascertained llial the squadron, composed of
eight ships, one transport and twelve torpedo boats, had simply gone to
Chalcifl in Euboea,

75

76 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

and showed them the draft, which they unanimously
approved, of my note to the Premier demanding the
public rectification promised me — and which I never
obtained — of the calumnious version given of my
interview with him. There was so strong a consensus
of opinion as to M. Delyannis' proceedings that, all
through the following events, his official Wednesday
receptions at the Foreign Office were carefully avoided
by the Envoys of the Great Powers, who restricted
their personal intercourse with him to calls on business
admitting of no delay.

I now pressed on the despatch of the collective
Note, based on Lord Salisbury's instructions, by which
the Hellenic Government were formally notified that, in
the absence of any just cause of war against the Otto-
man Empire, no naval aggression by Greece would be
permitted. However distasteful to me had been till
then the notion of actually coercing the Greek Govern-
ment, I was now reluctantly convinced that, in the
interests of peace and of Greece itself, no other course
remained open. Thenceforth I applied myself to ren-
der coercion as effective as possible on the spot, by
seeking to keep all my colleagues well in line so as to
insure really cordial combined action. The too often
derided European concert certainly worked satisfac-
torily on this occasion, and was faithfully re-echoed
in the harmony of its mandatories at Athens.

The motives of M. Delyannis' unwarrantable
conduct soon became apparent. By means of the
misstatements which he tolerated even if he did
not actually inspire them, he not only succeeded
in inflaming the public mind, but was afforded an
opportunity of proclaiming, in a communique to the
papers, the complete solidarity of the Crown and its
advisers in the face of impending coercion, extolling

MR. GLADSTONE AND GREECE 77

at the same time the patriotic sentiments of the Sove-
reign. By dint of these manoeuvres he recovered some
lost ground and regained popularity for the time being.

Meanwhile the trend of affairs in England no
doubt contributed to encourage him in his adven-
turous course. The general elections in Novem-
ber had proved very unfavourable to the Conservative
party, and, three days after my interview with the
Greek Premier, the Government of Lord Salisbury
was outvoted in the House of Commons on Mr.
Jesse Collings' amendment to the Address. With
Mr. Gladstone's return to power M. Delyannis' hopes
of securing the support of England in his schemes
of aggrandisement were for a brief period revived.
He put off for several days replying to our last
communication, and, when he finally answered us,
did so in a still more high-handed manner than on
preceding occasions. What hopes he may have built
on the change of Administration were, however,
speedily dashed to the ground. In answer to a
telegram from the Mayor of Athens, Mr. Gladstone
clearly stated that, however great his sympathies for
them, he could not but tell the Greeks that the
attitude they had taken up was indefensible and
that the Powers were determined to oppose it. He
expressed his views still more plainly in a letter to
Mr. Mundella which was intended for communication
to M. Tricoupis. " It would be bad enough," he
wrote, " if the wishes of the Bulgarians were frus-
trated by Turkey ; but if their fulfilment were
prevented by Servia or by Greece, it would be a
disgrace to mankind." It so happened that, only a
few weeks before, we had been taken to see a statue
of the illustrious statesman, by the sculptor Vitalis,

?S RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

destined for a conspicuous position in front of the
University buildings — a really fine work of art, and an
admirable likeness on which we were conscientiously
able to congratulate its author. Mr. Gladstone's
message, and the very decided language he was
known to have previously used, produced such a
revulsion of feeling in the Greeks, who had hitherto
idolised him, that all thoughts of setting up the
statue, and exposing it to the public gaze and possibly
to a disagreeable manifestation, were wisely given up
for the time.

I cannot but contribute here my small meed of
praise to the new departure in questions of foreign
policy taken at this juncture by the incoming Liberal
Administration. From this period may be dated, if
I am not mistaken, a continuity in the conduct of
our external relations which had scarcely been prac-
tised before and had certainly not been openly re-
cognised. Thenceforward British interests abroad
were almost entirely withdrawn from the arena of
party contentions, and successive Ministries have since
then held fast, with but little variation, to certain
broad lines of policy in international affairs. The
effect of this has been to give much greater weight
with foreign statesmen and foreign public opinion
to our counsels, these being understood to be now
no longer chiefly guided by party considerations at
home. To Mr. Gladstone, and still more to Lord
Rosebery — who now made his debut at the Foreign
Office, where he was practically left a free hand — is
primarily due this great and beneficial change which
first signally manifested itself in the Greek crisis.

Warnings were not wanting to M. Delyannis from
other quarters as to the intentions towards Greece
of the new British Administration. My colleague

THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH 79

Baron de Brincken was charged with a private message
to him from Prince Bismarck, to the effect that he
must not indulge any expectation that the attitude
of the Liberal Cabinet would differ from that of
their predecessors, and that it might indeed prove
even more decided. The personal intimacy between
Lord Rosebery and Count Herbert Bismarck gave
additional significance to this hint. 1 M. de Freycinet,
too, held very uncompromising language to the Greek
representative in Paris. The Greek Government per-
sisted none the less in their preparations. A battalion
of Evzones was somewhat ostentatiously sent from
Athens to the front in Thessaly, and directions were
given to form additional corps of these troops. Several
steamers of the local companies were at the same
time taken up as transports, and 20,000 more men of
the reserves were called out by Royal decree. The
same exasperating game of defiance in reply to the
sternest admonitions went on as before.

Meanwhile the naval forces of the Powers were
collecting by degrees in Cretan waters, and early in
March the Duke of Edinburgh, who had succeeded
Lord John Hay in the command of the Mediterranean
squadron, took over the supreme direction of the
International Fleet gathered together at Suda Bay.
The illustrious Prince placed at the head of this Euro-
pean Armada — the formidable character of which was
out of all proportion to the task it had to perform,
and might well have gratified the susceptible Hellenes
as a tribute to the importance of their country, second
only to the vast armaments brought against it by

1 In delivering this message Baron de Brincken, who was mindful of
my own experience, strongly insisted on its confidential character. To

his great disgust it was reported at length almost the next day in two
of the Athenian papers.

80 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

Xerxes of old — was fully equal to the duties confided
to him. His officers, with many of whom I came in
contact during my stay at Athens, all looked upon
him as a naval commander and tactician of first-rate
ability, and, in the delicate management of his com-
posite forces, he showed a rare amount of tact and
judgment The task assigned to him was rendered
by no means easy of performance by the limitations im-
posed upon him. It was at first intended to blockade
the Greek squadron, wherever it happened to be,
simply paralysing any action it might be designed
for against Turkish territory, but without using any
force. The omelette in short was to be made without
any breaking of eggs ; Lord Rosebery wittily observ-
ing, in reply to the suggestion of some stronger
measures, that he did not quite see his way to shelling
the Parthenon. It nevertheless became advisable to
make inquiry as to the state of the defences at Salamis
and the approaches to the Piraeus, and these, according
to a report derived from the German officers who
had recently come in charge of the torpedo boats
purchased by the Greek Government at Kiel and
Stettin, were found to be fairly effective.

It may be doubted whether M. Delyannis ever
seriously contemplated naval operations, but reports
which reached me about this time through the well-
known correspondent of The Times at Athens, Mr.
Stillman, whose posthumous memoirs were published
not long ago, pointed to the Greek Government being
encouraged underhand to attempt a cowp de main
on the Dardanelles, for which purpose they had been
furnished with plans of the most recent defences
erected there. It is not impossible that at this phase
of the crisis M. Delyannis may have been secretly
instigated to hold out, but if so, he was soon again

CARNIVAL FROLIC 81

left to himself, and both at Athens and at Suda Bay
the concert of the Powers was effectually kept up.

A short and welcome truce to all this agitation was
afforded by the Carnival amusements which, though
by no means brilliant at Athens, engross the popula-
tion of all classes. In Athenian society these revels
take the form of house-to-house visiting of small bands
of maskers who call upon their acquaintances, and,
under cover of their disguise, try to intriguer them.

There was a fancy dress children's party at the
Russian Minister's where Henry Howard — who soon
afterwards, to our great regret, was transferred to
Copenhagen — was answerable for some excellent
fooling. He and M. Bakhmetiew, of the Russian
Legation, together made up a performing elephant
which was led in by its black keeper (one of the
Miss Rhangab^s) and followed by an old woman
(another of the Russian Secretaries) with a big
drum, and two boy clowns. The elephant was ad-
mirably done, and caused the greatest amusement,
but must have been dreadfully trying to Bakhmetiew,
who took charge of the hindmost part of the beast,
and was stooping the whole time in a very cramped
position. Later on, the same performers re-appeared,
all draped in long white Turkish bath towels, with
grotesque masks and wigs and a head-dress con-
sisting of an enormous sponge tied under the chin
with red ribbon. It was a capital get-up, and the
party were a merry lot. Among other antics, Howard
and one of the Russians fought and knocked each
other about in wonderful style. Howard was carried
off and presently brought back as a dead man ! The
ghastly but ingenious trick was executed as follows :
The Russian walking in front held his arms out straight

F

82 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

before him encased in jack boots. Howard followed
with his arms also outstretched — his hands resting
on the Russian's shoulders — and supporting a big
pillow which formed the body of the defunct. A
sheet tied round the necks of both men provided
the necessary drapery, the illusion being completed
by the hindmost man bending his head as far back
as possible, the effect produced being quite that of
two men carrying the body of a third on their
shoulders.

Our family circle now acquired a welcome addition
by the arrival of our two Etonians — my eldest son
Horace (now First Secretary to H.M.'s Agency at
Cairo) and my stepson Algy Caulfeild, 1 who were both
past seventeen. They came out to us in charge of a
German gentleman of the name of Homann, who turned
out a perfect paragon of tutors. Herr Fritz Homann
had been with young Lord Camden, and his thorough
knowledge of English and his familiarity with English
habits and ideas of course contributed to make him a
very pleasant and valued inmate of the Legation, into
which we were now at last able to remove from the
Hotel d'Angleterre. It was a great relief from the
monotonous strain of public affairs to have to busy our-
selves with the furnishing of the house, the pile of cases
we had brought with us from Stockholm many months
before having of necessity remained untouched till now.
We found the difficulties of housekeeping at Athens in
most ways much greater than elsewhere, but ended by
getting together a workable household and securing
the services of a very tolerable cook — a stout, oily
Neapolitan of the name of Ercole Belloni, who, apart
from his cuisine, which was savoury enough, is chiefly

1 Algernon St. George Caulfeild, of Donamon Castle, County
Roscommon.

GREEK INDEPENDENCE DAY 83

associated in my memory with the reply he once gave
when my wife had to remonstrate with him about
his arrangements. He had come up from his kitchen
for orders on a piping hot day, and, standing there,
in the not altogether spotless white garments of his
calling, made many shifty excuses, and finally, with a
gesture of despair, exclaimed : " Ah / ze voudrais bien
voir milady dans ma chemise/" by which dreadfully
graphic phrase the poor man of course only meant " in
his place."

The anniversary of the declaration of Greek inde-
pendence, which fell on the 6th of April, had been pre-
dicted as likely to be a day of disturbance and tumult. It
nevertheless passed off very quietly, with the customary
official Te Deum in the Cathedral, rendered picturesque
by the attendance of a small remnant of ancient fighters
in the national struggle, clad in old Palikari garb — a
sight that reminded me of the touching band of tattered
veterans of the grande armee whom, in my childhood
in Paris, I had seen following the ashes of the mighty
Emperor on the bitterest of December days. But for
an insulting article in an organ of the Athenian gutter-
press about the British flag which I hoisted as the other
Foreign Ministers did theirs, in honour of the national
solemnity, no unpleasant incident marked the day.

Our Governments now took an inopportune step
by instructing us to inform the Hellenic Govern-
ment officially of the settlement by the Conference at
Constantinople of the Turco-Bulgarian question, adding
the expression of the hope that Greece would in con-
sequence defer to the unanimous wish of the Powers
in favour of peace. After the menacing position
which we had already been made to take up, this
appeal seemed somewhat futile, and, as one of us

8 4 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

observed, reduced us, in transmitting the message of
the Conference, more or less to the part of facteurs or
penny postmen. The only result of this, as was to be
expected, was another unseemly reply, coupled with a
still plainer demand for the so-called Berlin frontier.

In the interval the Chamber had again been con-
voked in extraordinary session. During a protracted
debate which ensued on a vote of censure on the
Government, M. Tricoupis described the preparations
made for war as quite inadequate, and the organisa-
tion of the army as much too incomplete for any
serious military operations. He used scathing language
about a policy which aimed at reaping victory, how-
ever improbable, while reckoning on the country being
shielded from the results of almost certain disaster.
Such a policy was unworthy of a free people which
should have the courage fairly to face the consequences
of its acts. It was certain, he said, that Greece had
lost, for the time, not only the sympathies of the lead-
ing Powers of Europe, but those of the nations them-
selves. There could be no question, therefore, of public
feeling imposing on the Governments a reversal of their
bearing towards Greece. " At the same time," he some-
what perversely added, "the Powers must understand
that force would have to be applied in this case as
in that of any other nation, and they must not imagine
that Greece, because she was small, would give in to a
mere threat." It was Chauvinistic utterances like these
from the leader of the Opposition that wrought much
of the mischief, by hardening his irresolute adversary,
the Premier, in his pernicious course ; and to Tricoupis'
speech in fact the division in favour of the Govern-
ment was mainly due, the Chamber almost imme-
diately adjourning after voting the credits demanded
by the Premier and practically endorsing his policy.

GOOD FRIDAY PROCESSION 85

The patience of the Powers was now, however, at
last exhausted. Early on Sunday morning, the 18th,
I received an unusually long telegram in cypher in-
forming me in full detail of the measures it had been
resolved to take. A collective "Ultimatum would be
addressed to the Hellenic Government, calling upon
them to declare within a week whether they would
undertake to disarm and replace their land and sea
forces on a peace footing. A squadron, composed of
one ship of each of the Powers, would simultaneously
appear off the Piraeus to support the presentation of
this last summons, and, failing a satisfactory reply to it,
the Envoys would be withdrawn, and would go on board
their respective vessels. The East Coast of Greece would
then be blockaded against all Greek shipping. For my
part I was ordered in such case to repair to the nearest
point in H.M. dominions — by which, as was subsequently
explained, was meant Malta — taking the whole of my
family with me. It would be difficult to give an idea
of the excitement, and still more the relief, we experi-
enced at this decision after the long strain we had been
subjected to. Having received my instructions first,
with a caution to keep them secret until my colleagues
had received their orders, I waited somewhat im-
patiently for them to be likewise in a position to act.

We had now reached the beginning of Holy
Week, which naturally brought with it a complete
suspension of business. On Good Friday evening we
took our whole family party to our former quarters at
the Hotel d'Angleterre, as being the best point from
which could be seen the processions that came up,
long after nightfall, from the different churches in
the lower town, each of them escorting a closed bier
purporting to contain the body of the crucified Saviour
on its way to sepulture. The streets on the line of

86 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

road were packed with dense crowds, every one carry-
ing a long, thin, lighted taper. All the windows and
balconies were full of spectators, who contributed to
the illumination by the candles they held, the grease
from which dripped freely down on the people below.
It was a warm, beautiful evening, and, in the perfectly
still air, whiffs of garlic, mingling with the smell of
the burning wax and tallow and the pungent fumes
of tobacco, strayed up to us from the patient, orderly
throng, together with the nasal psalmodies of the
marching priests. The processions, as they filed past,
offered a curious, but scarcely an edifying spectacle.
The great cortege from the Cathedral was of course
much more effective than the rest, with its multitude
of banners and the Metropolitan and his Chapter
and clergy in splendid vestments — a magnificently
embroidered pall being thrown over the sacred sym-
bolic bier. Although there was but little real reve-
rential character about the function — the Bengal
lights and rockets, with the continual letting-off of
squibs and crackers and the discharge of firearms
being suggestive of a riotous day of rejoicing rather
than one of solemn mourning — the effect of these
processions, as they all converged on the large Palace
Square, and filled it with innumerable lights, and with
the sound of dirge-like chaunts and marches, was un-
questionably weird and impressive. It was a quaint
and interesting relic of those archaic forms of cere-
monial worship which have come down unbroken
from Byzantine days in the different branches of the
old Eastern Church.

During the respite afforded by these celebrations,
instructions similar to mine reached the other Minis-
ters, together with the text of the Ultimatum we had
to deliver. It was indeed high time that some action

A NAVAL DEMONSTRATION 87

should be taken to avert an almost inevitable collision
on the frontier. So dangerously near to each other
were the outposts of the forces that, on the Thursday
of this week of fasting and prayer, a sharp exchange
of shots took place near a village called Mitritza,
brought about, it was said, by the poor, half-starved
Greeks attempting to forage for sheep on the Turkish
side of the border, in view of the Easter repast they
were looking forward to after their long Lenten absti-
nence. Yet, even now, at the eleventh hour, the un-
expected departure of the Russian Minister, Butzow,
to wait upon the Emperor at Livadia in the Crimea,
threatened seriously to attenuate the effect of our
concerted action. As a matter of fact, the Russian
representatives in this part of the world were always
sent for when their Sovereign visited the southernmost
part of his dominions. The Greeks, however, were
only too ready to see in this journey an indication of
Russian support in their emergency. It was known
that the Russian Minister had had a long interview
with M. Delyannis before starting, and those who
had met the Premier afterwards declared that he was
beaming with satisfaction.

By Saturday evening we had completed our arrange-
ments for presenting the collective Ultimatum on the
following Tuesday, in the forenoon of which day the
squadron to be sent up from Suda Bay in support of
the summons, would appear off the Piraeus. All the
details of this naval demonstration had been carefully
settled with the Duke of Edinburgh, with whom I was
in constant correspondence. It was somewhat discon-
certing, therefore, to receive early on Easter Sunday a
telegram from H.R.II. to the effect that he had already
despatched the squadron, which would therefore arrive
thirty-six hours before the time appointed. This was

88 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

of course due to some unfortunate misunderstanding,
but it seriously deranged our plans. I at once requested
Captain Eardley-Wilmot of H.M.S. Dolphin — which
had been told off as stationnaire, or guard-ship to the
Legation — to put to sea as quickly as possible and
endeavour to intercept and turn back the squadron.
Before he could do this, however, the ships were
sighted off the coast in the afternoon, and though they
stood out again for the night, the news of their arrival
rapidly spread through the town, and produced the
most intense excitement. Under the circumstances we
concluded that our best course would be to sign and
send in the summons at latest on Monday evening.

At this stage of the proceedings it was that the ill-
timed intervention of our French colleague placed us
in a position of great difficulty. On calling on M. de
Moiiy in order to ascertain whether his instructions, as
we had been led to hope, enabled him to sign with us,
he, for the first time, informed me that on Good Friday
he had, by M. de Freycinet's orders, made a " supreme
attempt" to bring M. Delyannis to his senses. He had
warned the Minister that, if he did not give way, France
must take part in the impending pressure, and that
in such case he would have to do "with a united and
indignant Europe " from which he could certainly not
expect lenient treatment. M. de Freycinet's message
had, he believed, greatly shaken the Greek Premier,
and he seemed on the point of yielding. If this were
the case, I observed to my colleague, nothing could be
easier for M. Delyannis than to give at once in writing
some explicit assurance of disarmament that could
be submitted for the consideration of our respective
Governments. I was obliged, I said, to add that my
instructions precluded my holding back the Ultimatum

ILL-TIMED INTERVENTION 89

beyond Tuesday. M. de Motiy thereupon undertook
to try and obtain the indispensable written assurance,
and later in the day, whilst I was again in conclave with
my other colleagues, he sent me word, through one of
his secretaries, that he had already received very satis-
factory verbal assurances from the Premier, and had
been promised a written communication to the same
effect in the course of the evening.

These vague assurances nevertheless appearing to
all of us quite insufficient, we determined to accept
nothing less than a categorical written engagement
from the Prime Minister that the Greek land and
sea forces would be placed on a peace footing in
the shortest possible time. In the evening I went
once more to M. de Moiiy to acquaint him with this
decision, when he showed me a private note he had just
received from M. Delyannis, simply stating that the
Council of Ministers were prepared " to listen to the
advice of France," and that, " on the return of the
Minister of War from Thessaly in a few days," an
official communication to that effect would be addressed
to him, the French Minister. I told my colleague that
we could scarcely be expected to content ourselves with
vague assurances addressed to France alone, and prac-
tically leaving the other Powers out of account. As
regarded myself, I said, I begged him to place himself
in my position. I found myself by force of circum-
stance in charge of a combination, as delicate as it was
powerful and had been difficult of attainment. Ships
had already been sent to back up our demands, and
now, at the eleventh hour, I was asked to stop short,
at the risk of throwing everything out of gear, on the
strength of flimsy assurances coming from a Minister'
whom I, as well as my colleagues, had the best reason
to distrust. Nevertheless, I was ready, if he would

9 o RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

entrust it to me, to show M. Delyannis' communication
to my colleagues, and to take their opinion about
it. I soon found that the latter entirely shared my
view of the value of the Premier's professions. We
thought it right, however, to give him a last chance
of avoiding the delivery of the Ultimatum, and, for
that purpose, I was requested to address a private note
to our French colleague clearly stating the nature of
the assurances that would alone satisfy us.

Any lingering doubt, as to the expediency of the
course we were following, must have been dispelled by
the publicity given by the Prime Minister the next
morning to what had passed between him and M. de
Motiy. M. Delyannis not only inserted a communique
of his own composition in the Prota, but used every
means at his disposal to disseminate the idea that the
French demarche had been accompanied by promises
which would fully satisfy the national aspirations, and
that Greece, although consenting not to break the
peace, would continue in a full state of preparation
until their accomplishment. To the American Minis-
ter, Mr. Fearn, and to his own brothers and his most
intimate friends, the Premier stated, in so many words,
that he had been guaranteed nothing less than the
Berlin line, including of course Epirus. He was in
fact making capital out of the French intervention at
the expense of the other Powers, and was aiming at
maintaining himself in office by representing the
transaction as one in which Greece obtained all she
desired without herself in any way yielding. When,
therefore, we received from the Minister an identic
Note which simply covered M. de Freycinet's message,
together with the private note from M. Delyannis to
M. de Moiiy which the latter had already imparted to
us, we resolved no longer to suspend our action, and

ULTIMATUM OF THE POWERS 91

sent in the Ultimatum in the course of that evening
(Monday, the 26th).

The intervention of M. de Moiiy proved a regret-
table incident in the difficult crisis which led to
the blockade. By electing to act independently from
his colleagues, he placed us at the last moment, when
it was almost impossible for us to suspend our proceed-
ings, in a position of great embarrassment which, but
for the complete concord existing between us, might
have seriously impeded the action we were ordered to
take. At the same time, this distinguished diplomatist
and writer, who was afterwards French Ambassador
at Rome, must, I think, be absolved of any ill intent
in playing for his own hand. He had imprudently
allowed himself to be cajoled by the Greek Premier ;
but, a few days later, when he was shown by the
Italian Minister the terms of the communication by
which M. Delyannis had tried to stop us, he violently
struck the table with his hand, and exclaimed that the
Premier's conduct was positively sickening (e'cceurant).
At the same time the unfortunate fact remained that
France did not join in the final pressure exercised, and
furnished no contingent to the international squadron.

The Ultimatum of course increased the excitement
tl>at pervaded the town, and it was announced in all
the papers that "an armed demonstration " would take
place on Wednesday, the 28th, on the Palace Square.
Considerable military precautions were taken in view
of possible rioting, and all the Legations were guarded.
The threatening crowds on the Square confined them-
selves, however, to cheering the stock speeches of mob
orators; and when a cavalry patrol rode down from
the barracks above the Palace to clear the roads, a wild
stampede took place in which our boys, who had gone

92 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

with their tutor to see the fun, were swept along by
the fleeing demonstrators. It was only another instance
of the hollow character of the agitation kept up by the
Government.

The squadron from Crete meanwhile was at anchor
in Phalerum Bay, where it was joined by the Russian
despatch-boat Plastoun, which had hitherto lain inside
the Piraeus. 1 We went down to see them on a lovely
afternoon, and the other Ministers following our
example, the amount of saluting that took place as
each Envoy passed from ship to ship was quite pro-
digious, something like 300 rounds being fired in less
than two hours. The waste of gunpowder on such
occasions has always seemed to me unnecessary if not
unjustifiable. That same Thursday evening the formal
reply of the Hellenic Government to the Ultimatum
reached our hands. In substance it was a repetition of
the very unsatisfactory communication we had already
received. Excepting for a reiteration of the statement
that, in deference to the counsels of France, Greece
would not disturb the peace, it was quite evasive as to
the all-important point of disarmament, its wording-
being such as to leave it practically in the power of the
Government to maintain, for an indefinite time, arma-
ments that would be an intolerable burthen both to
Greece and to Turkey. In view of the hopes which
M. Delyannis boldly asserted had been held out to
him by France, there was a serious danger in this.
While all of us agreed as to the objectionable character
of the reply, we of course could only refer it to our
Governments for their opinion.

The week's grace allowed in the Ultimatum was to

1 This international force was made up of the ironclads Neptune
(British), Friedrich Karl (German), Kaiser Max (Austrian), Ancona
(Italian), and the Russian despatch-boat Plastoun.

ST. GEORGE'S DAY 93

expire on Monday, the 3rd of May. In the interval
various private and unofficial attempts, into which I
need not enter here, were made, in London and at
Athens, to find a way out of the hopeless impasse into
which M. Delyannis had driven his country and his
Sovereign. All these efforts were rendered fruitless by
the attitude of the Greek Premier, who, as one who
knew him well expressed it, remained quite " insais-
sisable." In the end we had to inform him officially
that, while our Governments took note of the pacific
intentions expressed in his reply to the Ultimatum,
they did not consider these to be sufficiently explicit
for the object in view, and we must therefore request
him to furnish us in the course of the day with clearer
explanations as to disarmament. Late that evening
we received a reply expressing regret that the explana-
tions in his Note of the 29th April should be deemed
inadequate, but simply referring us back to that docu-
ment. In the forenoon of the next day (7th May) we
left Athens and went on board our respective ships
at the Piraeus.

The festival of St. George had taken place two days
before, and it being the name-day of the King, I had
attended the usual service at the Cathedral with the
other Ministers. The King and Queen both appeared
very depressed and sad, and to me more particularly
the whole ceremony was a mournful one. I looked
back to the days of King George's first arrival in
Greece, when he was yet but a slight, delicate strip-
ling, and, remembering his great kindness to me then,
as well as on my return to his Court after an interval
of some twenty years, I felt it hard that to me should
have fallen the distasteful lot of carrying out a policy
of coercion towards his Government and people. No
one knew better than I how difficult and indeed

94 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

painful had been H.M.'s position during this pro-
tracted crisis. In obedience to an, if anything over-
strict, observance of constitutional usage he had not
separated himself from a Minister who, by virtue of his
majority, was supposed to have the confidence of the
country, although he was really distrusted by its best
and soundest opinion. According to the generally
received constitutional doctrine, therefore, the King
had been right in not seeking to dissociate himself
from a policy which at heart he certainly disapproved.
Whether he might not have done better to take upon
himself the dismissal of advisers who were ruining
Greece, and make an appeal to the country, is a
question which I will not permit myself to judge.
Certain it is that six years later (in March 1892) he
dismissed the same Minister on the score of his
financial policy, and did so again in 1897 a t the
beginning of the war with Turkey. But by that time
he had acquired a much stronger hold on the affec-
tions of his subjects, who had come to recognise the
remarkable skill and sagacity with which he had
throughout his reign served the best interests of
Greece.

Before concluding this long account of tedious and
abortive negotiations, I would pay a sincere tribute to
the bearing of the Greek people at large during this
most trying period. As I wrote at the time, the
alacrity with which they responded to the calls made
upon them by a reckless Minister, who all along
deceived and misled them, and the patience with
which they endured the burdens and privations of
the mobilisation, were beyond all praise. What came
home to me, however, most strongly was the quiet
dignity with which the population of the capital,
although exposed to the constant incitements of a

GREEK NATIONAL BEARING 95

very low form of journalism, comported itself under
conditions most galling to the national pride. Not
a word nor even a gesture of disrespect was used
towards me or my colleagues during the fortnight
preceding and following the Ultimatum, though it
was impossible not to feel that the foreign coercion
applied deeply stirred the national sentiment. What-
ever the errors of their Government, the Greek nation
passed through the ordeal in a manner which only
heightened the sympathies I for my part have never
ceased to entertain for them.

CHAPTER VII

ATHENS, 1886— A HOLIDAY AT MALTA-
RETURN TO GREECE

H.M.S. Neptune, which had come up with the inter-
national squadron from Crete, was a big ironclad only
recently bought by the Admiralty from the Brazilian
Government, and had such excellent accommodation
that she had no doubt been selected on that account
by the Commander-in-Chief as well fitted to take in
so large a party as ours. When it came, however, to
settling the details of our embarkation with her Com-
mander, that gallant officer showed such undisguised
dread at the idea of having to provide room for a small
boy and his nurse, let alone my wife's maid, that I had
at the last moment to apply to the Duke of Edinburgh
for an additional ship, which H.R.H.. kindly sent in the
shape of the Carysfort, a corvette under the command of
Captain Dupuis, a very pleasant man, whose promising
career was cut short not long afterwards. We accord-
ingly went on board the latter vessel, telling off only our
elder boys and their tutor to the roomy Neptune, some-
what to the disgust of her exceptionally fussy Captain.
Before starting I placed in charge of the Archives
of the Legation Mr. Walter Baring, 1 who had only
just joined me as First Secretary, in succession to

1 Now H.M. Minister at Montevideo. Mr. Baring and the other
Secretaries left behind by their respective chiefs, had no official inter-
course with the Greek Government, beyond notifying the blockade. Bv
one of the nice distinctions which are dear to diplomacy, they were
charges dm affaires and not charges d'affaires.

96

SUDA BAY 97

Mr. Howard, and took with me our last new Attache",
Mr. Strickland Constable. Under instructions from
home, I had before taken the King's orders as to
whether he wished me to keep within reach off the
coast of Greece. H.M., however, declining the offer,
I shaped my course for Malta vid Crete.

We had a roughish day and night of it in the
Carysfort, but by 6 a.m. of the 8th anchored in Suda
Bay right in the centre of the allied fleet, which, in-
cluding first-class torpedo boats, made up a total of
forty vessels — a sight which of its kind was unique,
especially having regard to the composition of this
imposing force. The Duke, who had requested me
to come here to confer with him about certain details
of the blockade, instead of going straight on to Malta,
showed us much kindness and attention, but explained
that he was unable any longer to spare the large
ships which had brought us from the Piraeus, and must
therefore transfer us for the rest of our journey to
the Imogene, a yacht of 460 tons, whose habitual duty
it was to act as stationnaire to our Embassy at Con-
stantinople. After spending a very interesting and
busy day amidst all the bustle and preparation of this
great naval force, which was to put to sea the next
day, we went on board our yacht towards evening and
steamed away in great state, each ship, as we passed it,
turning out its guard to salute the Envoy's Hag we flew
at our main.

From these naval honours we all too soon subsided
into a condition of abject discomfort. We had experi-
enced half a gale in coming from the Piraeus, but that
evening, when once we were well out of the bay, we
found as nasty a sea as I can remember during many
cruises in the treacherous Mediterranean waters. In
the ugly North-Easter she had to face for the next

a

98 KECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

forty-eight hours the dainty Imogene was of course a
mere cockle-shell. It blew in fact as hard as must
have done "the tempestuous wind, called Euroclydon,"
encountered by the great apostle on his journey on this
very same track. The worst of it was that, from her
Commander downwards, almost every one on board
was lamentably sea-sick, even the cook and the ship's
steward striking work, so that it was scarcely possible
to get anything in the shape of food. We were in
fact absolutely neglected. The water, too, came in
freely and swamped me in my bunk, while, for want of
ventilation, the closeness of the luxuriously furnished
cabins became quite intolerable. The Imogene s record
for that, matter happened to be dead against her. She
had been sold to the Admiralty by her original owner,
Mr. John Burns, who had found her unseaworthy, and
was really only suited for the smooth waters of the Bos-
phorus, where all her ports could be kept open night
and day. In rough weather the forepart of the vessel
was always under water, and the men's things were
never dry. She had now been temporarily turned into a
store-ship for the squadron, with the unpleasant result
that she was anything but clean or fit for passengers.
In our family circle the miseries of that voyage in the
Imogene have remained proverbial to this day.

It was the greatest relief to find ourselves in harbour
at Malta early on Tuesday, the i ith. Soon after we
had come to an anchor, the Governor sent me a tele-
gram from Walter Baring informing me that M. Del-
yannis had tendered his resignation, which had not
been accepted by the King, who, I was very glad to
learn, properly insisted on his Minister bearing the
full responsibility of the situation he had brought
about. There was some satisfaction, too, in hearing
that the great fleet, after leaving Suda Bay for the

MALTA 99

blockade on Sunday, had been compelled to put back
by the violence of the gale that had well-nigh swamped
the wretched cock -boat to which our party had been
consigned. 1 Most welcome of all, however, was the
sight of the yacht Chazalie, and a pressing invitation
from its owners, our friends the Falbes, to dine with
them that evening. They were on their way to Athens
on a visit to the King, and I had for some time past
looked impatiently forward to Falbe's arrival there, as
his intimacy with H.M. might have proved very useful
to me at the acutest stage of the crisis. As it was, I
was able through him to convey to the King much that
it was desirable he should know.

Presently there came on board Captain Chesney —
A.D.C. to General Sir Lintorn Simmons, 2 the Governor
— charged with kind offers of service. By his advice
we went in quest of rooms to the Grand Hotel, a
rambling, tumble-down building where in bygone days
some dignitary of the old Sovereign Order of St. John
had no doubt dwelt in state. The rooms in it were
as large and lofty as they were bare, and inside some
of them nests of bedrooms had been run up with par-
titions, at varying levels ; corridors and stairs being-
contrived in them in the oddest way in the different
corners. In this strangely constructed hostelry we
none the less soon made ourselves quite comfortable.
It was admirably situated at the corner of the Strada
Reale and St. George's Square, at right angles with the

1 A few hours after our arrival, Prince George (now Prince of Wales)
embarked in the Imoyene for Lisbon, whither he was going to invest the
King of Portugal with the Garter. On his return H.R.H. came to see my
wife, and told her that the weather had been such that he had never left
his berth, the Captain consoling him by Baying it was nothing to what we
had gone through.

2 The late Field-Marshal Sir John Lintorn Arabin Simmons, G.C.B.,
G.C.M.G.

ioo RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

Governor's Palace and the mainguard facing it. After
our recent experience of raucous Athenian mob gather-
ings, it was a pleasing contrast to watch from our
windows trim detachments from the different splendid
battalions of the garrison — Gordon Highlanders, York
and Lancaster and' others — relieving guard at noon or
trooping the colours once a week. The sober, orderly
routine of English garrison duties struck one all the
more from its being carried on in the midst of all the
exuberance of Southern life and colour of this wonderful
Mediterranean stronghold of ours.

I gather from my wife's diary that after receiving
visits from some of the military and other dignitaries
of the place, we spent the rest of the afternoon with
Mr. Walter Hely-Hutchinson, at that time Secretary
to the Government of Malta, 1 and his mother, Lady
Donoughmore, at a Palazzo they rented a little way
out of town, and where Lady Mayo and one of her
sons were staying with them on a visit. We just
got back in time to dress for dinner on board the
Chazalie, and there, to my delight, we found my very
old friend the Marquis de Jaucourt as well as Major
Seymour Wynne Finch. To me it was genuine relaxa-
tion to meet people with whom I had been intimate in
days long past, and in wholly different circumstances,
and thus to get away entirely from the wearisome train
of thought by which I had been pursued and oppressed
all through these last months at Athens. In this re-
spect our few weeks' stay at Malta was the most perfect
holiday I had ever enjoyed. M. de Jaucourt, who has
left so many friends in England, belongs to that small
class among his countrymen which to this day remains
the fine fleur of French society, but has unfortunately,

1 The Honble. Sir Walter Hely-Hutchinson, G.C.M.G., now Governor
of Cape Colony.

CATHEDRAL OF ST. JOHN 101

through force of tradition and circumstances, kept too
long aloof from public affairs. He and I went the next
day over the Cathedral Church of St. John, where one
literally treads the dust of chivalry, the splendid fabric
being entirely paved with beautiful slabs of marble of
every colour — four hundred, it is said, in number — on
which are engraved the coats of arms and epitaphs of
the knights who are buried beneath. The walls, too,
are covered with armorial bearings, amongst which
Jaucourt discovered the escutcheon of one of his
ancestors, though his family happens to be one of
the very few remaining of the old French noblesse
which, having adopted the Reformed faith, have
adhered to it ever since. With its sumptuous monu-
ments of successive Grand Masters, from Villiers de
l'lsle Adam to Perellos and Rohan, its mass of gilding
and its beautiful mosaics, the cathedral is probably still
one of the most richly decorated churches in the world,
though the French, when they first took the place, de-
spoiled it of many treasures and relics. Among these
was the right hand of St. John the Baptist, encased in
a great golden glove studded with precious stones,
which was afterwards restored to the last of the Grand
Masters, Hompesch, and by him was taken, as an
offering, to the Emperor Paul, 1 to St. Petersburg,
where it is said to be still carefully preserved in the
Winter Palace.

Jn this church, too, are kept the famous tapestries,
after designs by Rubens, Poussin, and others, which
were made at Brussels by order of the Spaniard
Perellos, whose avmcs jmrlantes (pears) figure on
most of them. These had been allowed to get into

1 The Russian Emperor had been most irregularly elected Grand
Master of the Knights of St. .John in October 1798, six months after
Malta had been occupied by the French under General Bonaparte.

/

102 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

a ruinous condition, and, when they were shown to
us with a private order from Mr. Hely-Hutchinson,
were being repaired under the supervision of the Italian
artist Palmieri, who had already been engaged seven
years on the work. In fact the many traces still left
of the splendour and luxury of the Order, during its
rule of just over two centuries and a half, make
Valletta a singularly interesting place. No statelier
abode can be imagined than the great Palace on
St. George's Square, which our Governors have occu-
pied since the days of " King Tom " ; x and several
of the ancient Auberges — called after the different
nations or languages into which the Knights were
divided, with resonant names like Provence, Auvergne,
Castille, Baviere, and which now are turned into
quarters or mess-rooms for our officers — are equally
striking buildings.

Nothing could exceed the attention that was
shown us at Malta by Sir Lintorn Simmons and
his family at the Palace, with its monumental
staircase which is so wide and easy of ascent that
decrepit Grand Masters are said to have been carried
up it in their litters ; its splendid corridors and state
rooms ; and the noble armoury rich with Turkish
spoils taken during the memorable siege of 1563 ;
and, most precious of all, the silver trumpet that
sounded the retreat from Rhodes after its heroic
defence by lTsle Adam. The late Admiral Ward, 2
Superintendent of the Dockyard, likewise showed us
much civility at his commodious official residence by
the waterside, adjoining the immense Admiralty store-
houses and the dismal dungeons hewn out of the rock,

1 Sir Thomas Maitland, second son of the 7th Earl of Lauderdale, and
a great benefactor to Malta as well as to the Ionian Islands.
- Third son of the 3rd Viscount Bangor.

THE QUEEN'S BIRTHDAY 103

where the slaves who manned the Maltese galleys were
kept chained up when not at sea.

Certainly our Governors have inherited a number
of enviable habitations from their knightly pre-
decessors. San Antonio and its cool loggias and
spacious shady terraces, its quaint, formal gardens,
and the scent from its luxuriant orange groves, is
the very dream of a country home in this semi-
African climate, and the appropriately poetical birth-
place of one of the most attractive and interesting
of our Princesses. Verdala, too, and the then almost
disused tower of Selmoon, standing on a height that
overlooks the scene of St. Paul's shipwreck, are both
in their way delightful summer retreats.

The Queen's birthday, which was kept on the 29th
of May, is perhaps the most prominent of my Maltese
recollections. Shortly before noon of a very hot day
we joined the Governor's party at the saluting battery,
whence the view over the Grand Harbour was simply
magnificent. The men-of-war were all dressed in rain-
bow fashion for the occasion, the deep blue water being
dotted by any number of the picturesque tented native
boats, with tilted prows and painted in the brightest
colours, while the grim ramparts that girdle the harbour
were scarlet-lined by the troops of the garrison. On
the stroke of twelve the flagship gave the lead with a
Royal salute which was repeated by all the vessels in
harbour, and, when the thunder of the guns had died
away, there followed the feu de joie, ushered in by
twenty-one guns from Fort St. Angelo, fired in three
sets of seven, in the intervals of which the continuous
line of infantry manning the walls gave a running fire
of musketry. The strains of " God Save the Queen "
were taken up at the same time by one regimental

io 4 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

band after the other, the whole show ending by the
Governor, surrounded by a brilliant staff, mounting
the rampart at the saluting battery and leading off
in person a deafening cheer which, like the firing,
was borne echoing round the entire circle of the
bastions and battlements. It was altogether a most
imposing and inspiriting function, and the thought
that at the very same hour similar honours were
being paid to the Sovereign at every point of her
world-wide dominions could not but stir and affect
one at the time. The pageant of the day was fittingly
concluded by a grand tattoo and concert of the united
bands of the garrison on the Floriana Parade Ground,
which was lighted up by bonfires and by the torches
borne by a cordon of soldiers. Seated as we were with
the party from Government House in an embrasure of
St. John's counter-guard, and looking down through
the dark, sultry night on the troops and the crowd
in the fitful glare of the torches, the general effect
f was exceedingly striking and fantastic. From the

parade-ground we went on to supper with the hos-
pitable Gordon Highlanders. These loyal festivities
terminated two days later with a great evening garden
party at San Antonio, the palace and its square tower
being most artistically outlined, and the gardens illumi-
nated with a profusion of small coloured lamps — over
11,000 in all being used for this decoration; so we
were told by a smart little Canon of the Cathedral of
St. John who had designed and carried out the whole
scheme.

These halcyon days at Malta were soon to come
to an end, however. Affairs had settled down at
Athens. M. Delyannis had at last resigned, and a
transition Ministry had been got together which de-
creed the indispensable disarmament. The blockade

THE END OF A HOLIDAY 105

was raised, and M. Tricoupis then consented to form
a new Administration, which was still in office when
I finally left Greece nearly two years later. I received
orders to return to my post, the comfortable troopship
Humber of 1600 tons being placed at my disposal
for the journey. I have never revisited Malta,
but a few pictures of that curiously fascinating sea-
girt dependency of ours are still vividly stamped on
my memory. Quite unique is the treeless, wind-swept
aspect of the interior of the island, which has been
well compared to a vast stone quarry, so effectually do
the high inclosure walls that line the roads mask the
marvellous, painstaking husbandry which supports an
average of no less than 2000 souls per cultivated square
mile. A swarming population in fact, with scarcely
a visible tree or a blade of grass. Then, too, there is
the lonely, abandoned city 1 high up on the hill, with
massive seemingly untenanted buildings and empty
echoing streets — a city of the dead it seems — and its
grand cathedral full of dim memories of the ship-
wrecked apostle to whom it is dedicated, and built
on the traditional site where he was received and
" lodged three days courteously " by Publius. As for
Valletta itself, with the gay Southern life of its admir-
ably kept streets, the bells of its numerous churches,
the splendid lines of its ancient forts and ramparts,
and, above all, the singular mingling of British order-
liness and Philistinism with the exuberant animation
and the fervent Roman Catholicism of a population of
semi-Arabic descent and speech, it stands out as one
of the most striking of my crowded recollections, while
I am grateful to it to this day for the change and rest
I found within its walls after a season of much stress
and anxiety.

1 ( 'itta Vecchia.

106 KECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

We found Athens very hot and dull and empty
when we got back there on the 13th June. But few
of our colleagues had as yet returned, almost the
only one being the Turkish Minister, Feridoun Bey,
a friendly little man, somewhat of the type of his
countrymen whom Prince Gortchacow used to refer
to disparagingly as not real Turks, but only " Turcs
du houlevardr Feridoun, by the way, had taken a
house in the street which skirts the inclosure of the
beautiful Palace gardens, so wonderfully conjured up
some forty years before by poor Queen Amelie out of
the barren, stony Attic soil. In the scanty shade
of the pepper trees lining this street he used to
take his morning walks, and often meeting there our
small boy with his nurse, had made great friends with
the little fellow. One day he wrote in English to my
wife to ask us to lunch with him, and begged that
she would bring with her "the Turkey's best friend,"
meaning of course his juvenile acquaintance. Poor
Feridoun ! His French was superior to his English
and possibly to his diplomacy. His last post was
Madrid, after which he seems to have got into some
trouble with the powers that be at Yildiz Kiosk, and
vanished from the diplomatic horizon.

Peace, or rather the lassitude following upon a
protracted period of intense excitement, was now the
order of the day in Greece. Even the able and reso-
lute statesman who had fortunately returned to office
lay on his oars and allowed his ambitious aims to rest
for a while. In the course of the next two years I
saw a great deal of M. Tricoupis, who — I have it under
his hand — came to look upon me as a true friend to
Greece, and before long freely opened his mind to me
about his hopes and plans. His adherents in his own
country, as well as his many admirers in England,

A CAVOUR OF THE EAST 107

with the latter of whom he kept sedulously in touch,
saw in him the Cavour of the East, and confidently
hoped for results from his indomitable energy similar
to those we now witness in united Italy. Those who
thus thought and hoped, took insufficient account, it
seems to me, of the fact that the great Piedmontese
statesman had, ready to his hand, an ancient, well-
organised monarchy with a loyal and disciplined
people, instinct with the best military traditions — an
admirable nucleus in fact for the larger State of which
he laid the foundations. Greece, unfortunately, ful-
filled but few of these conditions, and was therefore
not in a position to leaven the East as Piedmont had
leavened Italy.

When Count Sponneck, at the dawn of King
George's reign, made his youthful Royal charge say
that it would be his task to found a model State in
the East, the programme, however aspiring, seemed
possible of performance. Such a State, it was not un-
reasonably thought, might by degrees attract to itself
the whole of outlying Hellenism, and thus realise
what was possible in the impossible dream of the
grande idee. Since then twenty years had been un-
profitably spent in Greece in party strife ; in the paltry
game of ins and outs, with its fatal results of new
men and new measures at every change, of reckless
finance and unsound administration. In the words
of one of our most eminent statesmen, written in
1887, "the Greeks had lost their opportunity. Be-
tween their declaration of independence and the Mara-
thon massacre they wasted about half a century, and
though they have made progress since that time, the
lost opportunity cannot be regained." In the interval
quite new and formidable forces had sprung up in
Eastern Europe. As Sir William White pointed out,

108 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

about this time, in a remarkable Memorandum on
"The Rivalry of the Greek and Slavonic Races in
the Balkan Peninsula," the real nationality of the
millions of Slavs in Austria and Turkey had been but
very imperfectly understood down to a quite recent
period, being in great measure obscured by their re-
ligious obedience to the Greek Patriarchate. The
Turkish Rayah, whatever the stock whence he came,
was roughly accounted a Greek in a region where
religion entirely overshadowed race. It is in fact just
possible to imagine a thoroughly prosperous and pro-
gressive Greece becoming at that period the paramount
State in the Levant by drawing to itself this great
body of Slavonic co-religionists in whom racial instincts
yet slumbered undeveloped. 1 But in the last quarter
of a century the Slav masses which were now arrayed
against Hellenism had become conscious of their
ethnical claims and destiny. Once more to quote the
same statesman : "The Bulgarian has been created ;
and though he may not be strong enough to hold the
Straits, he will be quite strong enough to prevent the
Greeks from doing so." With such a complete trans-
formation of its racial conditions scarcely any part was
left in the East for a Greek Cavour.

To be fair to M. Tricoupis, he was, in spite of his
Chauvinist attitude, much too clear-sighted to enter-
tain extreme views of aggrandisement. The object he
had at heart was rather to preserve to Hellenic culture
and Hellenic influences those districts of Central and
Southern Macedonia that were the last remnant of
the splendid inheritance to which the Greeks of the
grande idee not so long ago still laid claim. On one

1 The Bulgarian schism, so vigorously favoured by General Ignatiew,
when Russian Ambassador at Constantinople, was a death-blow to any
such hopes and dreams.

CHARILAOS TRICOUPIS 109

occasion he showed me on the map a line which,
briefly described, started from Durazzo on the Adriatic
and ran to the neighbourhood of Seres, a little to the
north of the iEgean, while keeping to the south of
Ochrida and Bitolia (Monastir). This he thought
quite acceptable, and all he looked for, he said, would
be a tacit recognition of a right to moral action within
this Hellenic sphere, the object he held to being that
" when the pear became ripe" and the final settlement
took place — say some ten or twenty years hence — the
region awarded to Hellenism should have been duly
prepared for Greece to take over, without fear of col-
lision with Bulgarian or other claimants. It is needless
to point out that since the period when the Greek
Premier imparted to me his views for a solution of
part of the racial difficulties in Macedonia, these have
only been intensified and rendered well-nigh insoluble
by the intricate local juxtaposition of hostile popula-
tions and the bitter warfare waged between rival
religious establishments.

M. Tricoupis' personality offers so interesting a
study that I must be excused for borrowing from a
sketch of it I made many years ago. Of his
habits and disposition, I wrote, it is not too much to
say that they are truly Spartan. He leads a life of
assiduous labour, with scarcely any relaxation. He is
frugal to excess, while his cast-iron constitution, which
seems indifferent to both food and rest, enables him
to get through an incredible amount of work, and, in
the case of protracted sittings of the Chamber, makes
it possible for him literally to tire out his parliamentary
adversaries. His one passion is power, and for that he
is willing to pay the price of continuous effort at the
fullest pressure. Add to this a complete absence of
self-seeking ; an exalted, though perhaps somewhat

no EECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

unreasonable, patriotism ; the most scrupulous integ-
rity and an absolute rigidity of principle ; and you get
a statesman of no ordinary type and, what is above all
striking, having but little in common with that of his
countrymen. It need hardly be said that M. Tricoupis
is not, and cannot be, popular in the ordinary sense of
that term. He resembles Aristides far too much for that.
When thus writing of the upright, masterful
Minister — in some respects the most remarkable I ever
had to deal with — I little foresaw that, after a few
more years of restless activity, he would be carried
off in all the vigour of middle age by an insidious
malady, 1 leaving Greece the poorer by the loss of the
greatest statesman she had known since the days of
her ancient glory. No account of Charilaos Tricoupis
would be complete without a mention of his Egeria,
the faithful sister who attended to his few wants,
watched over him with untiring devotion, and was to
him the most valuable of collaborators. In her simply
furnished rooms on the upper story of a quiet corner
house of the Boulevard de V Universite, and surrounded
by beautiful palms and other plants of all kinds — her
only luxury — Kvpla *2,o<pla sat, morning, noon, and night,
at the receipt of custom ; interviewing at all hours
Tricoupis' friends and supporters, and indefatigably
doing the work of half-a-dozen able private secretaries
for the brother whom she passionately worshipped and
to whom she was useful beyond words. A very clever,
highly educated woman, brought up in England and
familiar with the best of English society, but whose
sole interest in existence was centred in the austere,
sardonic companion of her youth. The years she went
through after his loss must have been sad and empty
indeed.

1 M. Tricoupis died at Cannes on the nth April 1896.

A VISIT TO LONDON in

I was soon able to establish cordial relations with
the new Cabinet and its chief, with whom I had had
more than one interesting conversation during the
crisis that preceded the blockade. Very shortly after
our return from Malta we had a big diplomatic dinner
forM. Tricoupis and his colleague and intimate friend,
M. Etienne Dragoumis, to whom the Foreign Depart-
ment had been entrusted. I have preserved a real
regard for M. Dragoumis, who was an enlightened and
highly honourable man and a credit to Greek public
life. The Dragoumis' home, where the Minister's
mother, wife, and sisters — all very pleasing, cultivated
women — lived together in patriarchal fashion, was one
of the most attractive interieurs in Athenian society.
Altogether the Tricoupis Cabinet was well composed,
and comprised, as Minister of Marine, the actual Prime
Minister, M. Theotokis, who belonged to one of the
best Corfiote families and had an agreeable wife with
considerable musical talent.

Meanwhile, private business of a pressing nature
obliged me to apply for a few weeks' leave of absence.
I got to London on the 22nd July just after the general
election which followed the decisive defeat of Mr.
Gladstone on the Home Rule question. The Liberal
Government were in fact on the point of leaving office. 1
Nevertheless, a pleasant surprise was in store for me
on the part of Lord Rosebery, who wrote to tell me
that the Queen had been pleased to confer on me the
honour of a K.C.M.G., and obligingly added the hope
that I would " find in this distinction some compensa-
tion for my labours during the late crisis in Greece."
The grant of this decoration could not have been better
timed, as being an admirable answer to renewed violent

1 Lord Salisbury's second Administration, in which Lord Iddesleigh
held at first the seals of the Foreign Office, came in on the 3rd of August.

ii2 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

attacks made upon me in the Delyannist press, which, in
reporting my departure from Athens, stated that I had
been suddenly recalled and had fallen into complete
disgrace. I had dined in Berkeley Square a few days
before, and had already been much gratified by Lord
Rosebery's reception of me. A circumstance worth
relating occurred at this dinner. Among the other
guests were Lord and Lady Grey, the handsome Mrs.
Brown Potter, whose first season in London it was, and
old Sir John Drummond-Hay, who had just retired on
a pension after rendering really eminent service for a
quarter of a century as our representative in Morocco.
Sitting next to our host, after the ladies had left us, I
was pointedly asked by him whether I did not think
that Sir John, who faced us, looked in the best of health
and still quite equal to the work and responsibilities
of his post. The fact was, added Lord Rosebery, that
as regarded the seventy years rule, under which Sir
John was retiring, he himself was strongly of opinion
that it was desirable that, in applying it in certain
cases, a wise latitude and discretion should be allowed
to the Secretary of State.

Although my time was mostly taken up with tire-
some business, I with my younger boys Willie and
George spent a few days at Luton Hoo, where the
Falbes had a party in honour of Princess Mary and the
Duke of Teck, and their elder children Princess May
and the present Duke. Percy Ffrench and Maffei l
were there, and the young Cavendish Bentincks and
the Duchess of Marlborough with her daughter Lady.
Sarah. I had to take in the old Duchess, I remember,
and found her naturally and touchingly radiant over

1 The late Marquis Maffei, Italian Ambassador at St. Petersburg,
who had served a long time in England and was well known in English
society.

COUNTRY VISITS 113

the success of her son Lord Randolph. The whole
party was extremely gay and animated. A band of
straw-plaiters from Luton, led by the local chemist,
played during dinner and afterwards for dancing,
when even Princess Mary was induced to take a turn
with Falbe. On the following evening the dance
music was provided by my boy George, then a Naval
Cadet in the Britannia, who, even at that age, showed
unusual musical talent and played with all the swing
and go of a young Viennese. Of other social doings
of these few weeks I remember dining en 'petit comite
at Holland House, with a few habitues such as Lord
Fortescue, Miss Throgmorton and Mrs. Leo Ellis (now
Harriet, Viscountess Clifden), and meeting there Count
Hiibner, the ex-ambassador and traveller, with whom I
arranged to go down the following Sunday to White
Lodge, where we were both asked to dine with ever
kind and cheery Princess Mary. The next day I went
for the night to Knebworth, the Hertfordshire home of
my old friend and colleague, Lord Lytton. The object
of my visit was to thresh out with the ex-Viceroy of
India the question of certain old claims against the
Government of the Nizam of Hyderabad in which I
was deeply interested. Lytton, who could be a grand
charrneur when he chose, gave me some valuable hints
about this affair, and I spent a delightful, and not
altogether unprofitable, evening under his roof —
sadly disfigured, it seemed to me, by the question-
able heraldic ornamentation it had received at the
hands of his father. The only visitor besides myself
was beautiful Miss Mary Anderson, then at the zenith
of her short but brilliant career on the stage. She
appeared to me to be as charming as she was attrac-
tive, and was evidently a great favourite with the
gracious lady of the house and her daughters. Leaving

H

ii4 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

London on the 12th of August, I took the French
Messageries Mail-boat Donnai at Marseilles on my
return to my post.

The heat all through this summer at Athens had
been terrific, the thermometer registering as much as
98 degrees inside our spacious rooms at the Legation,
and this lasted till well into September. The only
respite we had were the lovely moonlit evenings passed
on our great terrace overlooking the gardens of the
Ministry of Finance, and the queer, dark little church
of St. Theodore, which is one of those whose founda-
tion is attributed to the Empress Helena, the mother
of Constantine, and was rebuilt so long ago as the
eleventh century. The tranquil tenour of our lives
in the empty, sun-baked town was first disturbed
by the deposition and violent abduction of Prince
Alexander of Bulgaria, soon followed by his return and
final abdication — startling events which once more for
a time set all European diplomacy agog, and seriously
threatened the general peace. Shortly after this
political upheaval in the Balkans, Greece itself was
visited by a very severe and calamitous earthquake.
The shock, which brought back to me my Chilean days,
was strongly felt at Athens and in Continental Greece,
but its worst ravages were confined to the western
coast of the Morea ; the centre of the disturbance being
the Gulf of Arcadia, along the shores of which flourish-
ing places like Philiatra and Grigoliani were laid in
ruins, upwards of six thousand dwelling-houses and
several hundred lives being destroyed by the visitation,
which attained the proportions of a national disaster.
I telegraphed to the Duke of Edinburgh, and, partly
at my suggestion, the Agamemnon and the Iris were
ordered to the scene of the catastrophe with stores,
tents, and succour of various kinds for the sufferers. A

AN ILL-JUDGED VISIT 115

good deal of money, too, was sent from England, but
the resentful spirit engendered by the blockade was still
so strong that a very inadequate sense of this efficient
help to them in their trouble was evinced by the Greek
Government and people.

The same uncordial attitude was observed towards
the Mediterranean fleet when, in the course of its
autumn cruise, it visited the Piraeus early in October.
We of course did our best to entertain the Duke of
Edinburgh and Prince George, then serving as a lieu-
tenant in the Dreadnought, and had a couple of dinner-
parties and a small dance for them at which the members
of the Government and a few other Greeks of distinc-
tion were present. The visit, which had been arranged
by express orders from the Admiralty, was on the
whole, I am bound to say, unfortunately timed, and
gave scope to caricatures and articles in very question-
able taste in the Opposition press, of which my
excellent friend Martelaos, our model chancelier and
translator, made for me copious extracts every morning.
One regrettable result of these unfriendly manifesta-
tions was to make the officers of the squadron chary of
granting leave to their crews, none but picked, good-
conduct men being allowed to go on shore. A great
deal of money thus remained untouched in our sea-
men's chests, to be spent afterwards at Zante and Corfu
instead of benefiting the not over-prosperous victuallers
and petty tradesmen of Athens and the Piraeus.

Later on, some British travellers of distinction
visited Athens. Lord and Lady Herschell, Sir John
and Lady Lubbock, and after them Mr. Chamberlain,
with his family and Mr. Jesse Collings, came there .
on the way from Constantinople. It was a great
pleasure to us to renew acquaintance with the dis-
tinguished statesman whom we had seen for the first

n6 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

time at Stockholm some four years before. Mr.
Chamberlain was treated with great distinction at
Athens. A dinner was given in his honour at Court,
and the King received him twice in private audience.
He had some important conversations with M.
Tricoupis, whom he sounded as to his views of a
possible future settlement of national spheres in
Macedonia. On one of those occasions it was that
Mr. Chamberlain spoke to the Greek Premier of the
line of division I have already referred to above, and
which had first been suggested to him at Constanti-
nople by Mr. Washburne, of Robert's College, a great
authority on all Balkanic questions, and the educator,
so to speak, of Bulgaria, and of most of the men who
have had any leading part in that country. The
meeting between two statesmen of so high an order —
differing in many respects, but having in common the
rare attributes of unflinching determination and ex-
ceptional clearness of vision — could not but be in-
teresting. I have little doubt myself that the cordial
attitude towards him of the eminent English Liberal
leader contributed to the vigorous action taken by
M. Tricoupis shortly afterwards.

The Greek Premier was just then, it may be said,
at the culminating point of his career. Six months
before, in June, in the midst of the last throes of the
mobilisation crisis, he had fearlessly forced through
a reluctant Chamber a most drastic programme of
electoral and administrative reform, greatly reducing
the number of deputies and enlarging the electoral
districts, and thereby dealing a heavy blow to the
corrupt wire-pulling by which so much pressure was
brought to bear on the representatives, and through
them, on the Government. His measures likewise
comprised the suppression of numerous eparchies, or

A SUMMARY DISSOLUTION 117

sous-prefectures, each of which had been a focus of
intrigue and bribery. Public opinion had strongly sup-
ported him in these sweeping reforms. 1 In November
the Chamber met for the autumn session, and M.
Tricoupis had to lay before it a Budget which, on his
own showing, imposed the heaviest financial sacrifices
on the country, and provided for additional taxation
to the amount of twenty-two million Drachmai.

It was not to be expected that the deputies who
had been made to perform a sort of hari-kari would
give a favourable reception to the Prime Minister's
financial proposals. The Opposition at once resorted to
systematic obstruction, which was met by M. Tricoupis
in a highly characteristic manner. He announced to
the Chamber that, in view of the difficulty in which
they were placed of keeping together a sufficient
quorum for the transaction of business, the Govern-
ment could not conceal from themselves that they
had reached a crisis which required serious considera-
tion. He hoped, therefore, to make next day some
communication to the House that would remedy this
unsatisfactory state of things. Meanwhile he pro-
posed that the House should adjourn. In the evening
he obtained the King's signature to a decree of dis-
solution, which was placarded, the following morning,
on the walls of the Boule, the gates being closed two
hours before the appointed sitting. Such was the
contumelious treatment dealt to, and well deserved
by, a body which, after backing M. Delyannis in his
disastrous policy, had then deserted him, and through-
out its brief existence had shown neither principle nor
real patriotism.

1 M. Tricoupis' measures diminishing the parliamentary representation
and enlarging the constituencies were subsequently repealed.

CHAPTER VIII
ATHENS, 1886-1887— THE JUBILEE YEAR

Early in November we paid a short visit to the Tiirrs
at their villa of Isthmia near Kalamaki on the Saronic
Gulf, at the eastern entrance to the Canal which
General Tiirr was then engaged in cutting through
the Isthmus of Corinth. The railroad from Athens
to Kalamaki, which passes through Eleusis of the
dread mysteries and ancient Megara, is extremely
picturesque, besides being a fine bit of engineering,
and in some places indeed, notably near the Kake
Skala, almost trying to the passengers' nerves — the
line being boldly carried along a narrow ledge on
the face of the steep Skironian cliffs, with a sheer
fall of several hundred feet to the waters of the
Gulf that wash the rocks below. Close to the
station at Kalamaki the Tiirrs had built themselves
a very pretty house, surrounded by broad, shady
verandahs, and with a spacious garden which, for
Greece, was exceptionally well laid out and cared for.

The General's wife, nee Bonaparte Wyse and
granddaughter of Lucien Bonaparte, Prince of Canino,
still preserved great traces of beauty and was an
agreeable woman and an excellent hostess. The
only guests besides ourselves were a waif from the
days of the Second Empire in the person of the chief
engineer of the Canal, a brother of the too notorious
Marshal Bazaine, with his plain, but bright and
pleasant daughter, who acted as a sort of dame de

ISTHMIA 119

compagnie to Madame Tiirr. We were made most
comfortable in every way, and were taken early next
morning by the General to see the works on the
Canal. Of its length of six kilometres only two and
a quarter had been completed at that period and the
water let into the cutting. On the occasion of a
recent visit of the Royal Family, a sort of balcony
had been built out at a point whence one could scan
the whole extent of the works and form some idea
of the difficulties of the undertaking, the channel
being in great part cut out of the solid rock. The
General told us that the navvies employed on it
were almost all Italians, Armenians, or Montenegrins,
the Greeks showing little aptitude, and still less
liking, for that class of labour.

At the Corinth end of the Canal we were
taken in a small steamer for a short run into the
Gulf, which here appeared as a great inland lake
with lovely views over the carefully cultivated shores
towards Aegion and Patras — the centre of the im-
portant currant-growing industry — the sharp profile
of the Aero-Corinth, and further back the jagged
summits of Penteskouphia and Phouka soaring high
above the smiling prospect. It was altogether an
interesting visit to interesting people. The great-
niece of Napoleon and her handsome old Gari-
baldian General, who had long turned his sword into
a ploughshare, or rather into the pickaxe of the
engineer, seemed to be a thoroughly well-assorted
couple, and led Darby and Joan like lives on their
property, much taken up with their poultry-yard and
bee-hives, and aviaries full of rare birds. After fight-
ing stoutly in his youth in the cause of Hungarian,
and then of Italian, liberty, Stefan Tiirr was devoting
himself to opening a new route for international com-

120 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

merce, and had exchanged the revolutionary ideals of
his youth for the more harmless utopia of universal
peace and brotherhood among nations. Isthmia — now
probably deserted since the death of its mistress — figures
in my memory as the scene of a pleasing idyll of past
middle age set in beautiful, classical surroundings.

This winter of 1886-87 at Athens differed in all
respects from the preceding one. The war-clouds had
passed away from the horizon, and we were at last
given an opportunity of judging the social resources
which the Greek capital afforded. The coming
of age, too, of the Crown Prince Constantine, Duke
of Sparta— a title, by the way, by which H.R.H.
is scarcely ever spoken of in Greece 1 — was made
the occasion of rejoicings and festivities on a great
scale at Court and in Society. The young Prince,
who had just completed his eighteenth year, and,
on leaving the Military Academy, had attained
officer's rank, took the military oath in the Cathedral,
the King himself leading him to the altar, whither
the colours were brought up by a detachment of the
Mavromichalis regiment, the Prince reciting the words
of the oath in a clear, steady voice, while holding a
fold of the flag in his hand. He really seemed the
only person unmoved in the crowded Church, the
Queen and the young Princesses showing much
emotion, and even the crowd of bearded and gor-
geously robed bishops and ecclesiastics grouped round
the altar unmistakably manifesting their feelings.
A great cry of " Zito " resounded through the Church
when, at the conclusion of the service, the young heir
to the throne embraced his father and mother. As
much eclat as possible was judiciously given to this

1 Under the extremely Democratic Greek constitution titles, and more
particularly those with territorial designations, are not recognised by law.

DEMOCRACY AT COURT 121

celebration of the coming to man's estate of the first
Orthodox Prince born in, and called to reign over,
Greece. An historically interesting detail of the
ceremony was the conveyance of the Queen and her
daughters to the Cathedral in a very handsome State
coach, used for the first time, and only recently
bought in Paris, where it had originally been made
for the proposed solemn entry of the Comte de
Chambord on his restoration to the throne of his
ancestors.

But much the most important and characteristic
feature of these fetes was the attendance from all
parts of the Kingdom of upwards of three-fourths
of the Demarchs or Mayors. The majority of these
were simple villagers, and came to a State Ball at
the Palace in their ordinary clothing, many of them
in fustaneUa dress, but all showing perfect good
manners and decorum. A few of them were accom-
panied by their wives in the homeliest attire. I
noticed one of these — a rather pretty, bright little
woman, in a dark green stuff gown and black gloves
— being presented to the Queen in the course of the
evening. She was evidently delighted with H.M.'s
kindness, but was quite at her ease, and showed none
of that mauvaise honte which would have made most
Englishwomen of her class awkward under such cir-
cumstances. The innate dignity and good-humoured
simplicity of the country people in Greece are indeed
remarkable. " Rien," writes the mordant About, " nest
plus doux, phis honnete et phis bienveillant que la
gaiete des paysans grecs. Le me'rite en revient a leur
bon naturel, mais surtout a leur sobrie'te." The De-
marchs — some four hundred of them — were feasted the
next day at a Court banquet, and much amused their
Royal hosts by coming up afterwards, one by one, and,

122 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

after heartily thanking them for their hospitality, simply
taking their leave without waiting to be dismissed.

Another significant circumstance of these celebra-
tions was the presence of deputations from most of
the Greek communities abroad with congratulatory
addresses and valuable offerings. Among these, two
cheques, of 100,000 francs (^4,000) each, were presented
to the Crown Prince by the Greeks of Pera and Alex-
andria, to be applied to any purpose he might think
fit. It was manifest that the whole Hellenic world
took a lively interest in these rejoicings, following
as they did upon a period of much and deeply felt
tribulation.

Two balls were given at Court, for the first of which
something like two thousand invitations were sent out.
The Bavarian architect who designed the great unlovely
Royal abode seems almost to have foreseen these demo-
cratic crowds, for there was space enough for all, except
in the immediate vicinity of the Royalties, who, there
being no estrade or dais for them, were hemmed in on
all sides, no attempt even being made to keep a clear
floor for them when dancing. In other respects these
State functions did much credit to the officials who had
charge of them, for in the monde egalitaire of Athens
the order and etiquette without which no Court can be
properly kept up are but little understood or respected.

The example set at the Palace was promptly fol-
lowed during this winter season ; really fine entertain-
ments being given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs,
the rich banker and philanthropist Syngros, M. Criesis
of the Crown Prince's household, and the Schliemanns
at their Palace of Ilion with its strange mixture of
admirable classical decoration and incongruous furni-
ture and upholstering of a deplorable German middle-
class type. Alas ! for these Athenian balls ! Although

ATHENIAN BALLS 123

the brightest and most indispensable element of such
diversions was not wanting in a number of pretty,
well-dressed girls, conspicuous among whom were the
strikingly handsome daughter of the General Vassos
who afterwards commanded the Greek expeditionary
corps to Crete in 1897 ; charming Edith Messala, now
the wife of the Austro-Hungarian Envoy at Dresden,
L. de Velics ; and a very attractive Mile. Mourousi,
the male contingent was sadly deficient. The jeunesse
dore'e of Athens were too deeply immersed in politics or
business to condescend to take part in these frivolous
amusements. With the exception of a few officers
like Hadjipetros (the son), young Messala and others,
these serious youths were scarcely ever to be seen in
the salons of Athens. It thus happened that almost
the most energetic beau valseur of the place was an
ancient General Ralli — a great character in his way —
who in his youth had served in the war of independ-
ence, and was certainly past seventy when I knew him.
In spite of his tanned, parchment skin, and thick-
set Quasimodo-like * figure, the old gentleman never
missed a dance, and was an enrage leader of cotillons.
He lived and danced on, I suppose, for a good many
years afterwards, till one fine day, when he found that
his legs had quite struck work, he deliberately blew
his brains out.

There were, nevertheless, in the best set of Greek
society, some extremely pleasant people, of whom I
must not forget to mention kind, spirituelle Madame
Zoe Baltazzi, since dead, who kept a most agreeable
salon and entertained charmingly, and also her niece,
the clever, handsome wife of the Deputy Boudouris,
who some years after we left Athens met with a sad

1 Quasimodo, the bell-ringer in Victor Hugo's Notre Dame de Pa/ria.

124 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

fate, being drowned with her husband and the Crown
Prince's private secretary, M. Maskaki, by the capsizing
of a sailing boat in a sudden squall in Phalerum Bay.

At Athens we had no large British community like
those which in some continental capitals prove so
doubtful a blessing to the unfortunate British repre-
sentative abroad. Beyond the small staff of the Lega-
tion, where poor Francis Carew l had now replaced
Ernest Lyon as Second Secretary, the only resident
English we saw much of, besides old Consul Merlin
and his son (now Consul at Volo), were the Penroses
and the Dicksons. The eminent architect and archae-
ologist, who only recently died at a very advanced
age, was at this time guiding the first footsteps of the
British School at Athens (founded in 1886), which has
since, under Professor Gardner and his successors,
achieved so brilliant a record by its work in Crete and
other Hellenic regions. Mr. Penrose was a long, frail-
looking, mild old gentleman, with an absent, hesitating
manner that rather detracted from his powers as a
lecturer. The truth being that, for a man of his
great attainments, he was singularly shy and diffident.
Nevertheless, a thing to be remembered was hearing
him, on a glorious afternoon, when the western glow
was just beginning to fade from the Acropolis, expound,
as he stood on the steps of the marvellous temple, the
secret he had wrung from it of the perfect harmony
and proportions of its lines. 2 The last time I came
across Penrose was a very few years ago in London,
when I casually strayed into the great Cathedral to
the care of which he gave much of the closing period
of his life.

He was blest with a devoted wife and three

1 Mr. Carew died at Paris, much regretted, in March 1888.

2 See his " Principles of Athenian Architecture."

THE PENROSES 125

daughters — a learned one, a lively one, and a lovely one
— all charming in their several ways, and the last and
youngest so strikingly statuesque in her good looks, in
the poise of her head and the line of her neck and
shoulders, that she might well have stepped down from
the " Portico of Maidens " in the ancient fane so
eruditely commented upon by her father. Such a
type as hers necessarily, one might say, bound her
to Athens, and there she met with a husband in
Arthur Dickson, who is now the manager of the Ionian
Bank. The elder Dicksons, too, were very good friends
of ours. What slight knowledge I acquired of modern
Greek I got in puzzling through the graphic pages of
Loukis Lavas * with the worthy Uickson, who, in col-
laboration with the present Sir Edgar Vincent, had
compiled a very useful handbook of the euphonious
Romaic idiom. Dickson was a great favourite at the
Palace, where he gave English lessons to the young
Princes. Eventually, at my recommendation, he was
appointed British Vice-Consul at Athens. He and
his helpful, capable wife — both dead now — were of
great service to us when we first set up house at the
Legation under considerable difficulties.

There was yet another English-speaking family
that contributed to enliven existence at Athens,
and more particularly made that place of limited
resources very pleasant for our grown-up youths and
their tutor. I refer to the United States Minister,
Mr. Fearn, and his wife and daughters, who were
exceedingly popular at Athens and in much favour
at Court, where sprightly Miss Mary Fearn's frank
ways and quaint Americanisms afforded not a little
amusement in exalted circles. Mr. Fearn, in whom
I had a very pleasant and cultured colleague,

1 The very interesting novel of D. Bikela.

126 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

hailed from Louisiana, and was therefore thoroughly
at home in French — an accomplishment which my
experience tells me is not very general in a service,
preparation for which seems to me to be somewhat
injudiciously neglected by our Transatlantic cousins.
Private theatricals, country junketings and other
amusements brought our respective young people a
great deal together, and have ever since made the
friendly Fearns a household word with us. Visits
from a few distinguished travellers, too, helped to
diversify our lives. My old friend Sir Henry Drum-
mond Wolff passed through on his way back to
Constantinople to negotiate his last, non-ratified,
Convention about Egypt, while Mr. Samuel Plimsoll
— of load-line fame — with his wife, and Professor
and Mrs. Westlake, made a stay of a few days at
Athens. Later on the Duke and Duchess of St.
Albans came in their yacht with Miss Mary Higgins,
and Mr. Frederick Leveson Gower was another of
our visitors about this time, and went with our
family party, one brilliant day, I remember, on a
pleasant picnic to the interesting old abandoned
monastery of Ksesariani, which lies half concealed
in a romantic wooded dale at the foot of Hymettus.

In the midst of this round of unaccustomed
gaieties I was much shocked by the tidings of the
sudden death of the Foreign Secretary, Lord Iddes-
leigh, some interesting particulars of which were
sent to me from the Foreign Office. This tragical
event produced all the greater sensation from its
coming in the midst of the difficulties caused by the
abrupt secession of Lord ltandolph Churchill from
the Government. There is every reason to believe
that, with the object of facilitating any new combi-
nation that might become necessary, Lord Iddesleigh

LORD IDDESLEIGH 127

had some days before offered to resign, and thereby
make matters easier for Lord Salisbury, towards
whom he had none but the friendliest feelings. On
the afternoon of the 12th of January, at a quarter
to three o'clock, he was talking in his usual cheer-
ful tone to one of the staff of the Foreign Office,
and had then put on his overcoat to go across to the
Treasury to keep an appointment with the Prime
Minister. Five minutes later news came to the
Foreign Office that he had broken down, and his
private secretary, who at once went over to him, found
him lying in a state of collapse, on a sofa in the
ante-room to the study of the Prime Minister. He
recovered consciousness sufficiently to say, " Leave me
alone," and, when his clothes had been loosened,
asked for a chair. Soon afterwards, however, there
came two convulsive struggles, and he passed away
without those who were with him being able to say
precisely when. Heart failure was of course the
cause of his death, brought about, it was afterwards
maliciously and unfairly hinted, by emotion con-
sequent on a serious disagreement between him and
his colleagues in the Cabinet. In Lord Iddesleigh
the country lost one of the most upright and un-
selfish of its public men. 1

The winter soon passed away, marked by a brief
spell of cold such as had not been known at Athens
for many years. Snow fell so abundantly on the
21st of January and following days, and lay so deep
on the ground, that I had a regular snow-balling
match with our boys at the lawn tennis court on
the Kephissia road. For a short week one was

1 Mr. Gladstone spoke of him as "a man in whom it was the fixed
liabit of thought to put himself wholly out of view when he had before
him the attainment oi great public objects."

128 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

driven entirely to forget southern latitudes, and was
carried back to northern winter seasons at Berne
and elsewhere, so bitter was the north wind blow-
ing across the mountains and sweeping the bleak,
whitened Attic plain. Presently came all of a sudden
the first burst of spring, which in no region that I
have lived in is more surprising than in Greece.
A few days' rain and the entire aspect of the country
was changed as though by magic. A touch of the
wand, as it were, brought out the new tender tints
of the olive groves round Colonus, the first silver
foliage of poplar and plane trees, and, in their
slender shelter, the sprouting of the wheat and
barley. The dry water-courses by the wayside were
now so full to the brim that, in places, the rushing
water overflowed the roads which but yesterday
were smothered in white dust a foot deep. Every-
where, beneath the trees and in the fields, the bare,
brown, fissured soil was hidden by an eager, vivid
vegetation, and made bright by myriads of wild
flowers — hyacinths, scarlet poppies, and glowing
anemones — while, in the blue vault above, the fleecy
clouds threw marvellous violet-tinted shadows across
the pale green shimmer of plain and hillside. In
the fresh, vernal air there was the rustling of boughs,
the song of birds, the cooing of doves, and the buzz
and hum of the countless insect world. It was spring
in right earnest, loud pulsating spring come into the
land over-night. How different from our feeble coun-
terfeit of it; the weary, half-hearted struggle with
winter and " the rough winds " which, with us, all
too often " do shake the darling buds of May." The
ideal transformation scene lasted only a very short
time — the pitiless sun-rays saw to that — but, while
it lasted, it was incomparable.

THE QUEEN'S JUBILEE 129

For us it was the spring of the memorable Jubilee
year, and our thoughts turned homewards. I applied
for, and was granted, the cumulative four months'
leave to which I had long been entitled. Before
we availed ourselves of it, however, I obtained the
Queen's permission to celebrate her Jubilee and
birthday together on the 24th May, when we gave a
big official dinner for the King and Queen, followed
by a small dance. With the scanty resources of
Athens this was no light undertaking. We had to
order the requisites for a really pretty cotillon from
Paris, the lights for the illumination from Vienna,
and essential items for the dinner and ball-supper
from Marseilles. The hot weather which had now
set in enabled us to include the terraces at each
end of the Legation House in our field of operations.
We lighted up the splendid long one facing the
Acropolis with a profusion of small coloured lamps,
and rigged up on it a small tent for the Royal
Family, decorated with Oriental stuffs, and flags
and trophies of arms from H.M.S. Condor, Captain
May, 1 which the Duke of Edinburgh had sent to
the Piraeus for the occasion. Certainly the vista of
the great terrace, brilliantly roofed in by arches of
light, was very effective, and our fdte was in every
way successful.

Our Royal guests were most kind and compliment-
ary about all the arrangements, and I was much amused,
I remember, by King George's asking me how we had
contrived to get together none but clean-shaven extra
waiters (whom we had put into spare liveries), no
self-respecting Greek servant consenting as a rule to
part with his hirsute appendages. How our excel-
lent butler — whom I had brought out from England,

1 Rear-Admiral May, now Controller of the Navy.

I

i 3 o RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

and who proved a very able organiser — had managed
to find these men was more than I was able to explain
to his Majesty. It was in its way quite a tour de
force. One very sad memory attaches to that even-
ing. It was literally the first debut of the lovely Prin-
cess Alexandra, then barely seventeen, whose bright
promising life was to close so few years afterwards.
The Queen had graciously 'Consented to let her daughter
enjoy her first ball at our house with her brothers the
Crown Prince and Prince Nicholas.

We got to London in June, a full week before the
great celebration, and parted there, to our sincere re-
gret, with Mr. Homann, of whose pupils Algy Caulfeild
was now going to an army crammer in Essex, while I
proposed sending my eldest son, Horace, to Lausanne
to perfect himself in French before competing for the
Diplomatic Service. Of my two other boys Willie was
at Wellington, preparing for the Woolwich Academy,
and George had become a midshipman in the Alex-
andra flag-ship in the Mediterranean, to which the
Duke of Edinburgh had kindly got him appointed.

It would be idle, and quite beyond the scope of
these reminiscences, to dwell at any length on a
solemnity which is present to the memory of so many
of us. Nevertheless, to an Englishman whose fate
had been cast abroad since early youth the sight of
London at this time, and the spirit animating the vast
crowds that thronged its streets, conveyed many a valu-
able and satisfactory lesson. The Jubilee, it is now
generally admitted, gave open expression, for the first
time, to those Imperialist sentiments which had been
growing apace — though more or less unheeded, or ill-
understood — throughout the component parts of the
Queen's world-wide dominions, and it thenceforth
made the Queen, as has been well said, the living

WESTMINSTER ABBEY 131

symbol of British unity, and of the great Imperialist
movement to which the South African war was later
on to lend additional force and impetus.

We were fortunate in seeing to the best advantage
most of the festivities and official functions that took
place during this memorable season. As for the
splendid and impressive thanksgiving service in West-
minster Abbey, we had, from the places allotted to
us in a gallery immediately above the Royal estrade,
a much better view of the ceremony and the principal
personages concerned in it than we obtained of the
recent Coronation from the more dignified Choir stalls
reserved for the Foreign Ambassadors and Envoys and
the Privy Councillors. At this crowning moment of
her reign, which the aged Sovereign had, it is said,
so much dreaded as an ordeal beyond her powers, the
Queen's countenance bore, as far as one could judge,
an aspect of mild and perfect serenity which was well
expressed in the reply she is reported to have after-
wards made to the Duchess of Cambridge's anxious
inquiries : " I am very tired, but very happy." The
touching central figure of the great Queen, who,
although so small in stature, bore herself with such
incomparable grace and dignity ; the splendid group
of Princes w T ho surrounded her, so conspicuous among
whom was the knightly presence of her son-in-law,
even then doomed to a cruel and pathetic fate ; and
the extreme beauty of the music (far more effective
it seems to me than that performed at the late
Coronation) were what impressed one most in this
historic scene with all its splendid accompaniments.

In spite of the fairly good arrangements made for
the carriages, we had to walk a long way before we
found ours, and so reached the Borthwicks in Picca-
dilly too late to see the State procession go by. We

132 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

returned there in the evening on foot without diffi-
culty for the illuminations, which were really fine
of their kind, Piccadilly being a perfect blaze of
light. No doubt the most striking features of the
whole day were the admirable temper and behaviour
of the masses which filled the great thoroughfares
from side to side, and were admirably regulated into
two streams coming and going. The huge town with
its millions, in unwonted festal garb, and in the most
brilliant weather imaginable, bore so different an ap-
pearance to its every day, mostly unlovely, aspect as
to be well-nigh unrecognisable. The series of great
receptions held at the Foreign Office and the India
Office, as well as the State Balls at Court, seemed
to me, too, unusually magnificent. There was also
a delightful garden-party at Buckingham Palace,
and a splendid ball given by Lord Rosebery at Lans-
downe House, where the number of Royalties gathered
together was so great that it reminded me of the
descriptions I had, in my boyhood, heard from my
aunts of the Congress of Vienna. In this crowd of
illustrious personages I remember being struck by the
appearance of the late Queen of the Belgians, who,
without any special good looks, attracted attention
by her grand air and dignity. Another to me inte-
resting recollection of this period was a party given
by Countess Karolyi — fairest and most popular of
London ambassadresses — at the Austro-Hungarian
embassy in Belgrave Square in honour of the Crown
Prince Rudolf. It was the only time I ever met this
rarely-gifted but ill-fated Prince, the mystery of whose
terrible end still remained the subject of endless
speculation at Vienna when I went there seven years
after the date of the sombre tragedy.

At a man's dinner at Lord Derby's early in July I

THE JUBILEE NAVAL REVIEW 133

made the acquaintance of the late Sir John Pender,
and was pressed by him to join, with my wife, a party
of guests whom the Eastern Telegraph Company had
invited to see the Jubilee Naval Review from the
cable-laying ships belonging to them. We were taken
down to Portsmouth in special carriages on the 22nd,
the large party comprising among others the late Lady
Galloway, Lady Jersey, Lord and Lady Tweeddale, the
German Ambassador, Count Miinster and his daughter
Comtesse Marie, Lord Derby, Lord Wolseley, Mr.
Maurice de Bunsen, Mr. Davidson of the Foreign Office,
the Pauncefotes, &c. The numerous guests were
divided between the Mirror and the Electra — both
fitted up as luxuriously as private yachts — we being
told off to the latter vessel where Lord and Lady
Tweeddale acted as hosts, and where nothing could
exceed the comfort of the arrangements made by the
Company for their visitors. What with the glorious
weather ; the imposing sight of the great fleet drawn
up in interminable lines — most effective, I remember,
were the big white hulls of the old troopships, long
since, I believe, done away with — and the indescribable
stir and movement on the gleaming waters, as count-
less steamers, their decks piled with holiday folk, came
in and took up their berths for the review, I can
imagine no more delightful outing than was this one
in every way. After the grand pageant of the review
itself, and the brilliant illumination of the ships at
night, we steamed the next day up and down through
the lines, and on Monday were taken round the Isle
of Wight and landed in the afternoon at Southampton.
( ioing up to town in the same carriage as Count
Miinster, whose habits and sympathies made him
almost an Englishman, I recollect his expatiating, as
we sped through Hampshire, on the extraordinary

134 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

luxuriance of our English foliage, and his remarking
that, tree for tree, he felt certain that, if the leaves
upon them could be counted, an English oak or
beech would be found to bear a much greater number
than any such tree of the same size growing on the
Continent.

Before leaving England on the 22nd of September
we stayed a few days with the Falbes at Luton Hoo,
where there was a small party that deserves mention
as including a few of the people best known in
London society in those days. Besides Lady Cork
and Lord and Lady Coke, we found Lady Charles
Beresford, Sir W. Gordon Cumming, Colonel Oliver
Montagu, 1 Henry Calcraft and Alfred Montgomery.
Oliver Montagu was perhaps the most popular officer
of the Household Brigade of his time, while Calcraft,
familiarly known as the hangman, was a bright light
of the Treasury, and one of the last causeurs of the
older caustic school of Bernal Osborne, Quin and
others. As for dear old Alfred Montgomery, then
in his seventy-fourth year, with his great experience
of the world, his charming looks, exquisite manners,
and a slight, engaging stutter, he had been for half
a century the pet of all that was best in London, and
when lying on his death-bed a few years later, almost
his last visitors were their present Majesties. Such
types as these have, it seems to me, almost disappeared
with the last century. An incident of this Luton
party, I remember, was the baccarat played one
evening with unpleasantly heavy losses to some of
those who took part in it. An exciting but purely
gambling game baccarat, though scarcely more disas-
trous in its results, I fancy, than the bridge which one

1 A younger brother of Lord Sandwich, and then in command of the
Pioval Horse Guards.

PET WORTH 135

hears of as being played in certain houses at the
present day.

The only other visit we paid was to Petworth,
meeting at this great house, celebrated for its splendid
gallery of pictures and wonderful Grinling Gibbons
carvings, the late Lord Inchiquin and his wife. We
had two of our boys with us, and were made very
welcome by Lord Leconfield, another perfect specimen
of the fast vanishing gentilshommes de la vieille roche,
who has only lately left us, and by our kind and
charming hostess, both very old friends of my wife.

At Marseilles we took the Messageries steamer
Mendoza, and were fortunate in having for a fellow-
passenger M. de Moiiy's successor, Comte de Mon-
tholon, who happened to be an old Berne acquaintance
of mine. Prince Henri d'Orleans was also on board,
on his way to Constantinople and the East. We all
had our meals at the Commandant's table, and it was
not a little amusing to watch the stiff, distant manner
which the representative of the Republic — himself of
course a Bonapartist by family tradition, and, as it
happened, curiously like the Emperor Napoleon the
Third — thought it right to assume towards the Orleans
Prince. It was the only occasion on which I came
across this young scion of the branche cadette, who
subsequently distinguished himself by his adventurous
journeys in Extreme Asia, and acquired less enviable
notoriety through his inordinate Anglophobia.

On our return to Athens we were fully prepared to
settle down there for the winter with an almost entirely
new set of colleagues. My friend Brincken had been
transferred to Copenhagen and the Trauttenbergs to
Berne, and had been replaced by M. Le Maistre at the
German, and Baron Kosjek at the Austro-ITungarian
Legation. A very pleasant addition had been made to

136 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

the Russian Legation in the Katkoffs. Mme. Katkoff,
nee Princess Lobanow Rostowski and a niece of my
Russian sister-in-law, was a sort of connection of mine,
and we saw a good deal of her. Like her aunt, she
was a very accomplished woman and an admirable
pianist, and has since, as the wife of Sir Edwin
Egerton, 1 done wonders for the native school of
needle-work and art-embroidery at Athens. Our
own Legation staff, too, had undergone a complete
change. Frank Carew had left us for the Embassy
at Paris, and Mr. W. D. Haggard (now H.M.
Minister at Buenos Ayres) joined as First Secretary.
The friendly, hearty Haggard and his wife, who is
gifted with a lovely voice, were a welcome addition
to the Legation, which now also included Mr. Ernest
Lehmann— a brother, I believe, of the composer of the
melodious " Persian Garden " — who did not continue
long in the Diplomatic Service.

The chief event of this autumn was the arrival of
the Dreadnought, Captain Stephenson, 2 with Prince
George, who came on a visit to his uncle the King.
Prince Louis of Battenberg, whom I had scarcely met
since he came to Buenos Ayres in the Bacchante, was
also on board. We were asked to a luncheon at Tatoi
given for the officers of the Dreadnought, and thus had
another opportunity of seeing something of the delight-
fully simple country life led by the Royal Family in
their rural home, which we found greatly improved
since our first visit to it eighteen months before.
Prince George was as great a favourite with his Royal
relatives as he was popular throughout the squadron.

1 Sir Edwin Egerton, who has just been appointed H.M. Ambassador
at Rome, was Minister at Athens for more than twelve years.

2 Admiral Sir Henry F. Stephenson, G.C.V.O., now Gentleman Usher
of the Black Rod.

INDIA BOUND 137

He was soon afterwards transferred to the flag-ship, the
Alexandra, where my son George, to whom he showed
much kindness, was midshipman of his watch.

An unexpected turn now took place in my affairs.
During my short visit to England in the summer of
the preceding year I had made the acquaintance of the
late Mr. Cordery, then Resident at Hyderabad, and, in
talking over my Indian business with him, had been
led to hope that I might perhaps achieve something in
the matter of my claims by going out to Hyderabad
myself. Subsequent correspondence confirming me
in this view, I asked Lord Salisbury to give me leave
to make the attempt. To this he kindly agreed,
and at the same time apprised me that he had sub-
mitted my name to the Queen as eventual successor to
Sir William Stuart, who was about to retire from The
Hague. The move, I was however told, would not
take place for some months to come. The future out-
look being thus entirely changed for us, we at once
made ready for a journey to India in strictly light
marching order, having been strongly advised to take
no European servants with us,

CHAPTER IX

ATHENS, 1887-1888— A GLIMPSE OF INDIA

We left the Piraeus for Alexandria on the 26th of
November in a steamer of the Khedivial line, and had
a good tossing, which quite upset, among others, one
of our fellow-passengers, the gallant General Vosseur,
who, having done with his task of Greek military re-
organisation, was going to have a look at the Pyramids
before returning home. At Alexandria the Consul-
General, Sir Charles Cookson, obligingly looked after
us, and quite late in the evening we reached Cairo,
where we were welcomed by General Grenfell's
A.D.C., Captain Maxwell, 1 and taken to the home
which the Sirdar and his bright, clever wife, an old
friend of ours, had made for themselves in a lovely old
Arab house, the Maison Ali Fehmi. At a dinner,
followed by an evening party, which the Grenfells
gave the next day, we met that greatest of living
British Administrators, Sir Evelyn Baring 2 and his
wife, the Egyptian Premier, Nubar Pasha, General Sir
F. Stephenson, then in command of the army of occu-
pation, Sir Edgar Vincent, Lord and Lady Dunmore,
and the best part of the Cairo world. We devoted
the next two days to the Pyramids, the citadel and the
bazaars, and then took the train to Suez, arriving
there after dark on the 1st of December. A wretched,
over-crowded steam-launch carried us a long way out

1 Now Colonel Sir J. G. Maxwell, K.C.B., at one time Governor of
Omdurman.

2 Now Earl of Cromer.

'38

BOMBAY 139

to the s.s. Siam — a vessel of very moderate dimensions
as compared with the leviathans in which the P. & O.
Co. now convey their passengers — but which much
impressed us, I remember, by its brilliant electric
lighting, a luxury at that time but little known on
board ship. Of the numerous passengers going like
ourselves to Bombay I can only recall the lively wife of
one of the Judges of the High Court, a Civil Commis-
sioner of one of the Bengal Provinces and his family,
and a very full assortment of newly-married couples
India-bound.

On the 13th we reached Bombay, where Lord
Reay, to whom I had given notice of our journey, sent
to meet us the two native servants he had very kindly
engaged for us, together with an invitation to come up
at once to Government House at Malabar Point. We
found the Governor and Lady Reay on the point of
starting on an official tour through the Presidency, but
they insisted on our accompanying them as far as the
ancient city of Ahmedabad, which, being rather off the
beat of the ordinary globe-trotter, is comparatively
unknown, although for the splendour of its mosques
and other buildings it deserves almost to rank with
Agra or Delhi. We travelled through the night in the
Governor's special train, and, drawing up at the station
at nine o'clock in the morning, were straightway
ushered into all the pomp and circumstance of Indian
public life. The station, red-carpeted and profusely
beflagged and decorated with rich hangings, was
thronged with a variegated crowd of European and
native officials en grand gala. A guard of honour
was mounted, and we steamed in to the strains of the
National Anthem ; Lord Reay being received by the
Municipal Council with an address of welcome to
which he replied in an excellently worded speech.

i 4 o RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

Only here and there did its intonation slightly recall
the earlier surroundings of the distinguished peer and
statesman whose curious lot it has been, after first
entering official life as Attache to the Dutch Legation
in London, to attain finally so conspicuous a position
in the public and intellectual life of the country of his
ancestors. From the station we were driven, barbari-
cally bedecked with sweet-smelling garlands of honour,
in open carriages, with a brilliant cavalry escort,
through the marvellously picturesque old city, rendered
a bewildering mass of colour by the brightly clad,
many-hued crowds that covered every inch of ground,
clustered on the flat house-tops, the walls and parapets
of the ancient structures, and availed themselves of
every possible coign of vantage. The hurried glimpse
we had had of beautiful Bombay, and this progress
along the streets of what had been the chief city of
Western India and the capital of one of its oldest
dynasties, afforded us a most dazzling introduction to
the splendours of our Eastern realm. No more over-
powering impression can well be conceived.

From the outskirts of the populous city a drive of
some three miles on a thickly-planted road, under over-
arching trees alive with parrots and big monkeys,
brought us to the Governor's camp, the tents of
which were pitched round a curious old building —
once a hunting-lodge of the Emperor Aurungzebe —
where quarters had been prepared for Lord and Lady
Reay with their staff and guests. When I looked
out, early the next day, and saw before me, in the
yellow morning light, the wide but shallow stream of
the Saburmuttee river forded by strings of natives with
buffalo-carts and pack-horses, the typically Indian colour-
ing and grouping of the bright picture somehow seemed
strangely familiar to me, and I once more experienced

AHMED AB AD 141

the sensation I have recounted elsewhere as produced
upon me some twenty-eight years before at first sight
of the tropical vegetation and aspect of Point de Galle 1
in Ceylon. It was as though a curtain had suddenly
been lifted in some remote corner of my memory ;
the explanation no doubt being that amidst similar
scenes I had been born, and had lived as a child a few
brief years, before being sent home by my widowed
father.

During the two days we passed at Ahmedabad we
were taken a round of the most notable architectural
wonders in which the place abounds. We saw
the Jumma Masjid with its many cupolas and royal
tombs, said to be one of the most beautiful mosques
in the East ; the dainty Queen's Mosque or Rani
Masjid ; the strange Jain temple outside the town ;
the tomb of Shah Alam, with its adjoining great tank
or reservoir ; and loveliest of all, the lace-like stone
tracery of the windows of an ancient palace which
has now been turned into a jail. Then came, as a
last sight, the elaborate and most interesting cere-
monial of a great Durbar held by the Governor and
attended by the Maharajah of Idar and numerous
other Guzerat princes and chiefs. We took leave of
our kind hosts immediately after this function, reach-
ing our destination at Hyderabad on the afternoon of
the 1 8th of December. Here we were met by Major
Gilchrist, the Military Secretary to Mr. Cordery, whose
guests we were invited to be at the palatial British
Residenoy at Chudderghaut.

Nothing could exceed the kindness and attention
bestowed on us during the seven weeks we were under
his roof by that able and distinguished member of the
Indian Civil Service, the Resident. But for indifferent

1 See " Recollections of a Diplomatist," vol. ii. p. 4.

1 42 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

health and other causes, Mr. Cordery must have risen yet
higher, and have borne out, as an Indian Administrator,
the brilliant promise of his University career. The
Resident was a man of many accomplishments, and
among other things a great classical scholar and the
author of a remarkable version of the Iliad. Although
his instructions precluded his affording me any official
support in the business which brought me to India,
I owe his memory a real debt of gratitude for the
moral backing, so to speak, and the valuable advice he
gave me throughout the arduous task in which I was
engaged. Nor must I — leaving entirely aside the nego-
tiations I had to carry on — omit to put on record my
sense of the great courtesy and consideration shown
to us by H.H. the Nizam himself, and by his Ministers,
during our stay at Hyderabad.

Altogether this visit to the scene of my unfortunate
father's fruitless exertions, and of his premature and
almost tragical end, 1 was a unique and deeply interest-
ing experience in a life of many vicissitudes. In my
case a very sad family history attached to Hyderabad.
My father was buried in the cemetery in the Resi-
dency grounds, and the big house in which he and my
mother had lived — now turned into a college for young
natives of distinction — still went by the name of the
Rumbold Kothi. Here, in the old days I had been
told of, had been the centre of such society as then
existed, " causing," as the then Governor-General, Lord
Hastings (my mother's guardian), put it, " offence "
to the newly-appointed Resident, Mr. (afterwards Sir

1 He was found dead in Ins bed on the morning of August 24, 1833,
in his forty-sixth year. The Governor-General, Lord William Bentinck,
in apprising the Duke of Devonshire of the event, wrote : "lam induced
to address you as one of poor Sir W. Rumbold's best friends. The loss of
the warm, kind-hearted man to the cause to which he had devoted such
incessant anxiety and labour will be irreparable."

SIR JOHN MACLEOD 143

Charles) Metcalfe, " by throwing him somewhat in
the shade." At a distance of more than half a
century I found myself treading ground made familiar
to me from childhood by the story I had repeatedly
heard of the ruin of Palmer & Co., and the great
wrong inflicted on that House by that same Resident,
Sir Charles Metcalfe.

It so happened that, some ten years before, I had,
by a singular chance, acquired irrefutable testimony of
the injury then done to my father and his descendants
by that very eminent official. Quite by accident I
learned in 1877 that Sir John Macpherson Macleod,
who had been sent to Hyderabad in 1835 to arbitrate
upon the outstanding claims of the House of Palmer
and Co. after its failure, was still living in London
at a very advanced age. I sought him out at his house
in Stanhope Street, Victoria Gate, and, although in
extremely feeble health, he at once received me on
hearing my name. The intellect of the wellnigh
nonagenarian who, together with Macaulay, had drawn
up the Indian Criminal Code, and had been made a
Privy Councillor and a K. C.S.I, for his services, still
shone as brightly as ever in the frailest of tenements.
He was eager to assist me in the prosecution of the
claims. The story he told me, or rather confirmed to
me, was that, after giving his award in favour of the
trustees of the ruined House in a large claim against
a powerful subject of the Nizam, 1 he had been abrupt! v
and arbitrarily withdrawn from Hyderabad, when about
to inquire into and deal with other equally well-founded
claims of the Firm against certain Hyderabad subjects
and the Nizam's Government itself, by Sir Charles Met-
calfe, who, after being the main author of the downfall

1 The Nawab Mooneer ool Moolk ; out of the proceeds of thLs award
a settlement was effected with the creditors of the Firm.

144 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

of Palmer & Co., was at that time acting as Governor-
General between the departure of Lord William
Bentinck and the arrival of his successor Lord
Auckland. On my mentioning at the India Office
what Sir John had said to me, Lord Salisbury,
then Secretary of State, commissioned the Permanent
Under Secretary, Sir Louis Mallet — who proved the
kindest of friends to me in all this business — to see
Sir John, who told him in so many words that, in his
opinion, the responsibility for the irreparable mischief
originally wrought rested far more with the then
Government of India than with that of the Nizam.
But I have been led away at undue length into
this digression about affairs which have darkened the
history of my family for three generations, and must
turn to the more cheerful aspects of our stay at
Hyderabad. Our host, Mr. Cordery, carried the tradi-
tional hospitality of our great Indian officials to its
fullest lengths. Among the numerous visitors he
entertained during our stay under his roof were Sir
Howard and Lady Elphinstone, Miss Bradley, niece
of the Dean of Westminster, Professor Jex Blake, with
his wife and their distinguished daughter, and Duke
Ernest Gtinther of Schleswig-Holstein-Augustenburg,
brother of the German Empress, who was on a sport-
ing tour in India, and arrived at the Eesidency almost
at the same time as ourselves. We did the wonderful
arms' and other bazaars together, went to see the
tombs and the ancient fort of Golconda, and were
taken to a cheetah hunt, which my wife and I went
through the novel experience of following on the back
of an elephant. It was Christmas-tide, and on Christ-
mas Eve I joined the Duke and his companions, Baron
von Leipziger, of the Prussian Gardes du Corps, and
Professor Friedrich, in their rooms at the Residency,

H.H. THE NIZAM 14 5

where they had lighted up a diminutive Christbaum,
(really a dwarf palm), and, over a Punschbowle, cele-
brated the Weihnachts Fest in true German fashion,
to the melody of familiar old students' ditties sung, I
fear, in somewhat doubtful parts.

We were shown very great civility by the Nizam
himself, and were asked to lunch and to dine at H.H.'s
immense rambling palace in the city, where as many
as seven thousand retainers and attendants, including
of course the numerous inmates of the Zenana, are
said to be housed. A beautiful, open, tent-covered
state coach (yellow picked out with blue, something
like the Lowther colours) with four handsome blacks
was sent, I remember, one morning to fetch my wife,
and after luncheon the splendid contents of H.H.'s
stables, together with his carriages, performing horses,
and fighting rams, were paraded before the young
German Prince and ourselves. H.H. Mir Mahbid Ali
Khan, who had only recently completed his twenty-
first year, could not but impress one favourably by
the simple dignity of his manner and his somewhat
sad, pensive countenance — marked of course by the
Oriental reserve behind which it is given to no Euro-
pean really to penetrate. Small of stature and very
slight, he habitually wore well-cut English clothes,
only the black cloth cap or fez, with an aigrette,
distinguishing him from the ordinary Europeanised
members of his suite. Although his hair, which he
allowed to grow unusually long, gave him a somewhat
effeminate appearance, he was a fine rider and was said
to be an excellent shot, and to all outward appearance
seemed a worthy ruler of the greatest of our feudatory
states. It is both right and satisfactory to add that
the reign of this premier native Prince of India has
thus far shown a notable record of progress, and in

K

146 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

his personal dealings with me H.H. evinced a liberal
and generous spirit.

Among other great houses at which we were
entertained, the most splendid was that of the late
Mooneer-ool-moolk, the younger son and heir of
the well-known Minister, Sir Salar Jung, and a very-
attractive type of the young Indian grandee. A
state banquet he gave at his palace — known as the
Barahdari, or "twelve doors" — in honour of Duke
Ernest Giinther and ourselves, was the embodiment
of a fete of the "Arabian Nights." One wandered
through endless apartments of the most original
shapes, with profusely gilt walls covered with many-
coloured looking-glasses and costly china, the rooms
being littered, in true Oriental fashion, with trumpery
musical boxes and mechanical figures, but all open-
ing on to a series of inner courts with gardens
and great tanks and fountains brilliantly illumi-
nated. The owner, who spoke English perfectly,
and had charming manners — but who had already
then, it was said, what proved a fatal penchant for
green Chartreuse — had shortly before met, on some
tiger-shooting expedition, a young French couple,
the Marquis and Marquise de Mores, and had asked
them to stay with him as his guests at Hyderabad.
M. de Mores was the son of the Due de Vallom-
brosa, whom I remembered well when I was a boy
in Paris, and who, together with his charming
Duchess, nee des Cars, was so well known some
thirty years ago to the English colony at Cannes.
Considering that up till a very recent period the
great Mussulman city, with its population of nearly
half a million, remained one of the most fanatical
centres in India — our soldiers from Secunderabad
being still strictly prohibited from showing them-

THE MARQUIS DE MOR^S 147

selves in it in uniform for fear of insult and trouble
— the experience of Mme. de Mores (an American
by birth and very clever and handsome) of life
in an Indian palace in the heart of it, was ab-
solutely unique of its kind. Mores himself, then
still quite a young man, was, as to physique, an ex-
cellent specimen of the high-bred French aristocrat.
He was a very good sportsman, had an unusually
fine seat on horseback, and distinguished himself, I
remember, in the tent-pegging and sheep-cutting at
a great Gymkana which was held on the Futteh
Maidan under the auspices of Afzur Jung of the
Nizam's household, smartest and most active of
A.D.C.'s, and at which my wife presented the prizes.
Mores, who was unfortunately anything but friendly
to England, was said to be absolutely fearless. The
stir occasioned later on by his mysterious disappear-
ance, when adventurously exploring the desert to the
south of Tunisia, where he had no doubt been mur-
dered by Touareg banditti, and the insinuations made
in the extreme French Nationalist press of English
complicity in the crime, may still be remembered.

The Hyderabad grandees were certainly well
housed. Vikar-ul-Umra, one of the most powerful
among them, who afterwards became Prime Minister,
was putting the last touches to a splendid palace, on
a rise just outside the town commanding a beautiful
prospect, which he only lived to inhabit for a few years;
and the Minister of the day, the late Sir Asman Jah,
owned a very fine mansion in the centre of the town
where he dispensed hospitality on a great scale. For
barbaric show, however, none of these surpassed the
house of an Arab chief, of the name of Ghalib Jung,
the furniture of whose state-rooms — chairs, couches,
tables, &c. — was of massive gold and silver, some of

148 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

it studded with emeralds, and, by the side of these, a
monstrous mixture of coloured Bohemian chandeliers
and ornaments, musical animals and toys and other
dreadful rubbish. Judging by the wasteful display
and extravagance of these Indian magnates, the fabled
riches of Golconda did not belie their fame.

There was a curious and amusing contrast between
the glimpses we got of the life of these great native
folk and what we saw of existence in the large British
cantonment at Secunderabad only a few miles away.
We spent the inside of a week with Mr. Cordery at
the Residency bungalow at Bolarum, which stands on
high ground not far from the cantonment and its big
barracks and lines and immense parade-ground, and
we thereby acquired some notion of the round of life,
in their distant exile, of the forces which garrison our
vast Indian dependency. There seemed to be no
lack of amusement among the officers of this body of
several thousand men. Polo matches, dinners and
dances given by the different regiments, amongst
which was the crack 7th Plussars, gaily succeeded
each other, and we were present at a very creditable
performance of that old stock piece " Dandy Dick "
by Secunderabad amateurs. Nor was sociability
wanting in the small set of British officials and others
who clustered round the Residency at Chudderghaut
and its populous bazaar. The Private Secretary
to the Nizam at that time, Colonel Marshall, and
his handsome wife, did a great deal for the com-
munity in the way of entertainment, and there was
plenty of quiet dinner-giving by other residents, and
among them Dr. and Mrs. Laurie, the able Resi-
dency physician, who subsequently made a name for
himself by his researches into the effects of anaes-
thetics. Very interesting are my recollections of the

LEVER'S DAUGHTER 149

semi-European home of the Finance Minister, Mehdi
Ali, with whom my negotiations were mostly carried
on, and whose wife, whom mine saw several times,
spoke excellent English, read a great deal, and
had all the manners of a refined Englishwoman.
Although her family life was evidently a happy one,
she confessed to often suffering from its seclusion
and restrictions, and longed for greater freedom, and
especially the possibility of travelling with her hus-
band and seeing the world she had read about. Syed
Hussein Belgrami was another accomplished native
gentleman who showed us much attention.

But before closing my recollections of Hyderabad,
over which I have lingered too long, I cannot omit
mentioning a very old acquaintance whom I quite
unexpectedly found settled here, and from whom we
received the warmest of welcomes — the wife, namely, of
Colonel Nevill, then in command of the Nizam's Regular
troops, and daughter of Charles Lever — his eldest
daughter "Jack," the image of her brilliant, inimitable
father, and, like him, bubbling over with wit and
humour. We spent several delightful evenings at
"Nevill's Folley," and I found Mrs. Nevill's shrewd sense
and knowledge of the place and people of real use to
me in the business I had in hand. By far my greatest
debt in this connection, however, is due to Mr.
Alexander Johnstone Dunlop, Assistant Commissioner
of Revenue, to whom was entrusted the first inquiry
into my claims. Without the friendly countenance of
this experienced civilian, who at once took a decided
view of the strength of my case in equity, and the
justice of my appeal for redress, I must have entirely
failed in the object of my journey.

At last, in the first week in February, after weari-
some, protracted discussions, the Government made up

150 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

their minds to allow me some compensation on the
particular claims I was urging, and, terms being agreed
upon, a settlement of them was effected and I was able
to leave Hyderabad. It was highly characteristic,
however, of Oriental methods that the document
embodying the compromise on the claims was only
brought to me on the morning of my departure, and
I actually signed it in a hurry just before leaving
the Residency for the railway station. Although for
many reasons keen to get back to Europe and my
diplomatic duties", Ti-eft Hyderabad with much regret.
Among my many memories I have preserved a
specially bright and distinct vision of that place
and of the friends I made there. I often think of
the stately Residency with its spacious rooms and
broad verandah, the beautiful, restful park in which
it stands, and the shade of its grand old trees, over
the tops of which, in the brief Indian twilight, the
weird flying foxes go circling round and round.
Pictures, too, stand out clearly before me of the
big eastern city itself, of the motley crowds from
every part of India that fill its bazaars and streets,
with now and then an elephant or a string of camels
forcing its way through the dense throng, or a group
of Arab swash-bucklers, armed to the teeth and carry-
ing ancient long-barrelled, brass-inlaid guns — a sur-
vival of the fierce old lawless days — passing along
with evil looks at the hated Feringhee ; and, at the
central crossing of the ways, the four tall minarets
of the great ornamental domed archway known as the
Char Minar that soars high above all the busy stir and
life of the Nizam's strikingly picturesque capital.

We had engaged berths in the next steamer home-
ward bound, but a slight touch of fever that befell my

MALABAR POINT 151

wife almost immediately after our arrival at Bombay
kept us there for ten days as guests of the Reays at
Malabar Point, where we were put up in a charming
bungalow forming part of the Government House, and
standing on the very brink of the cliff, our windows
looking straight down some eighty feet into the deep
blue waters of the bay beneath. It was a perfectly ideal
residence. To the stay occasioned by this temporary
indisposition we owe most grateful and pleasant re-
collections of the Reays and of their staff, which com-
prised Colonel and Mrs Lyttelton * with her sister
Miss Stuart Wortley, now Mrs. Firebrace, and Captain
Bruce Hamilton, 2 two officers who have since in the
hour of need in South Africa done such conspicuous
service. Here, too, I first met Sir William Lee-
Warner, now a distinguished member of the Council
of India. It was the height of the winter season
at Bombay, and its principal event was a great
Charity Fancy Fair, held in some of those magni-
ficent tents peculiar to India, that had been pitched
on the esplanade facing the great public buildings
which are deservedly the pride of the beautiful city.
Lady Reay, who is one of the most accomplished
mattresses de maison I have had the good fortune
to meet, and a capital organiser at the same time,
made a great success of this charitable undertaking,
in which the Duchess of Connaught also took a
lively interest, and we all laboured hard to assist
her, getting scratch meals between whiles at the
Secretariat close by. In these few days we indeed
came in for a perfect round of festivities, mostly in
honour of the Duke and Duchess of Connaught, who

1 Lieut. -General the Honble. Sir Neville Lyttelton, K.C.B., now Chief
of the General Staff of the Army.

• Major-General Sir Bruce M. Hamilton, K.C.B.

152 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

had gone into camp at Bombay for the winter. There
were several big dinners and a great State Ball at
Government House, and a brilliant entertainment was
given by the Byculla Club. I have scarcely met the
Duchess of Connaught since those days, but H.R.H.
made upon me a charming impression for which a
certain reserve — greatly due to shyness — did not at
first prepare one. Once the ice was broken, I found
her most agreeable and full of conversation, and
evidently highly amused and interested by her Indian
experiences and surroundings. Both she and the
Duke had made themselves exceedingly popular at
Bombay. To us they were most gracious and kind.
We dined with them en petit comite the evening
before our departure ; the Duchess, who has a very
pretty voice, doing some music with my wife after
dinner. Besides these Royalties several other guests
of distinction arrived or were entertained at Govern-
ment House. The Portuguese Governor-General came
from Goa on a visit of ceremony, and the Maharajah
of Mysore was received one day with the full honours
due to him. Most interesting to me was the arrival
of the young Due d'Orleans, then just turned nineteen.
H.R.H. , accompanied by Colonel de Parse val, was on
his way to join a battalion of the Rifle Brigade in the
Punjab with which he did duty for some time. The
youthful Prince, who is accounted a " grand charmeur "
by his intimates, was very civil to me, and owing to
my French connections, most of whom are among
his staunchest adherents, we had many subjects of
interest in common. A few years later I had other
opportunities of seeing and getting to know more of
the exiled head of the " Maison de France?

We sailed from Bombay on the 17th of February
in the P. & O. s.s. Verona, looking back with unmixed

FAREWELL TO GREECE 153

pleasure to all we had seen and enjoyed in India, and,
last not least, to the great kindness of our hosts of
Malabar Point. By the 2nd of March we were back
again in our Greek home, and before long set to work
making preparations for our new move, my transfer to
The Hague having by this time been officially made
known. We did not, however, finally leave Athens
for some weeks, during which Victor Montagu, 1 a very
old friend of mine, arrived with Lady Agneta, on a
visit to their Hellenic Majesties. With the Montagus
and Mr. Hamilton Aide, who turned up about the same
time, we made farewell excursions to our favourite
haunts of Pentelicus and Ksesariani, and had our last
look at the wonders of the Acropolis. Personally I
was loth to leave Greece. The last traces of the
troublous period of stress and commotion which
I had gone through had now passed away, and I
should have been glad to stay on some time longer
at my interesting post and watch the progress made
by the country under the Tricoupis Administration.
Its material condition had already much improved.
Public undertakings of great utility had been inaugu-
rated, important railway concessions had been granted,
and the remote districts of the Kingdom were in a
fair way to be opened up. Above all, the prestige
of the Crown — temporarily somewhat shaken by the
crisis of which I have above given so full an account
— had entirely recovered the ground it had lost,
while the perfect understanding between the Sove-
reign and his gifted Minister gave the best of pro-
mise for the future. It was indeed a great satisfaction
to me to feel, when I took my last leave of the Kin*. 1 ;
and Queen at a family luncheon party to which we
were asked after I had had an audience to present

1 Rear- Admiral the Honble. Victor Moir

154 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

my letters of recall, that so bright a prospect was
opening out for their Majesties, in whose welfare I
could not but take the sincerest interest. Very glad,
too, was I to know that our Legation would be en-
trusted to such capable hands as those of my old ally,
Sir Edmund Monson.

On Sunday, the 22nd of April, we embarked in
the Messageries mail-boat Amazone, at the Piraeus,
whither we were escorted by a crowd of kind col-
leagues and friends. As the afternoon wore on and
we got abreast of Egina and its lofty summits, we had
a parting, far-off view of the famous city " the eye of
Greece " — glorious in the past, and still strangely fasci-
nating in the present — the outlines of plain and town
and sheltering hills all blurred in the golden flush and
haze of the rapidly westering sun. Another chapter,
and that not the least interesting, of my diplomatic life
had in its turn come to a close.

CHAPTER X

THE HAGUE, 1888-1889— FIRST IMPRESSIONS

From Marseilles we travelled across to Biarritz and
stayed a week with my sister and her husband at the
Pavilion La Rochefoucauld, where we found my second
son Willie on his Easter holidays from the Military
Academy at Woolwich, and also the old Duchesse de
La Rochefoucauld. This was destined to be my last
visit to my sister in her luxurious home by the blue
Gascon gulf. As I write, mournful memories have
gathered for me round the spot where she gave us so
affectionate a welcome, and where her bright, unbroken
spirit so long defied age and infirmity, shedding to the
very last gladness around her. Over all that country-
side the memory of the " bonne Comtesse " will not
easily fade away. . . . We reached The Hague on the
6th May. I had never been in Holland before, and it
would be difficult to conceive a greater contrast than
that between its general aspect and conditions of life
and those of the country whence I had just come. At
first sight, in the tardy Dutch spring, the cold, grey, stag-
nant waters bordered by almost leafless trees — which,
later on, with their rich summer foliage reflected in
placid surfaces, make the "village capital" so attractive
a spot — did not give one a very cheerful impression of
The Hague. Equally depressing was our first inspection
of the old Legation House in the Westeinde, which,
like the house at Athens, had been badly looked after

156 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

and stood in sore need of thorough repair. We did
not linger, however, over these first impressions, but
went over for ten days to England, where I had to kiss
hands on my appointment and get my credentials. I
received a command to dine and sleep at Windsor
Castle, and had my audience of the Queen on the
17th. Being in deep mourning for my wife's father,
Mr. Crampton, we saw no one, only going on a short
visit to Alfred Caulfeild and his wife at Twickenham.
We were soon back again in our temporary quarters
at the Oude Doelen, a quaint but comfortable hostelry
on the Tournooiveld, with a name x and traditions that
go back to the days when it had been the meeting-
place, and had contained the butts, of the ancient
guild of burgher marksmen founded in the fifteenth
century under the patronage of St. George. The
house — whose front bears the date of 1636 — stands
on the site of a still older building erected on
ground originally granted by Charles the Bold,
Duke of Burgundy. Mine host of the Doelen
Hotel — a ceremonious Dutchman of somewhat eccen-
tric ways — was most attentive to us, and at his
cosy inn we spent nearly the whole summer while
the Legation House was being put in order. The
sum required for the purpose was advanced me by
the Treasury, which repaid itself by annual deduc-
tions from my house-rent allowance — a curious
arrangement not a little characteristic of that great
Department.

Towards the end of August we were at last able to
move into the Legation, and even then had to drive
out dilatory workmen room by room. Having suffered
for some time from acute chronic dyspepsia, the origin
of which I trace to immoderate indulgence in iced

1 Doelen, an obsolete Dutch word for shooting-place.

THE SALISBURYS 157

water and other cooling drinks during the oppres-
sive heat of our first summer at Athens, I had been
advised to try the waters of Royat, and accordingly
went there alone, breaking the journey in Paris at
Edwin Egerton's hospitable rooms in the Rue Jean
Goujon. I did not like Royat, and its waters did me
no good. Poked down in a narrow valley that affords
a level space of at most a few hundred yards for
the perambulations of the baigneurs, the Auvergnat
watering-place produced upon me from the outset
an unpleasant sense of being "cabined, cribbed, con-
fined." In that respect it reminded me of Carlsbad,
without the redeeming points of that far-famed health
resort.

The stuffy little promenade, up and down which
one stumped when drinking the waters or waiting
for one's bath, was as dull as it was cramped, in spite
of the efforts of a feeble band discoursing the typical
stock pieces of the French repertoire, such as the
eternal overture to the " Cheval de bronze' 1 or some
vapid waltz by Waldteufel. Fortunately Lord Salis-
bury was here with his family, and, in the mostly
commonplace company of visitors, the massive form
of the British Premier stood out conspicuously. It
was almost the only opportunity I had had of meeting
him otherwise than officially, and those who knew him
well have not to be told of the kindly charm of his
manner. He had, I think, an extraordinarily winning
smile, and, seen thus en villegiature, he showed no
trace of the aloofness with which he has been some-
times charged. As far as I remember there was
nothing in those late summer months specially to
engage his attention in the domain of foreign affairs,
though the dreadful red boxes came and went with
their usual regularity, but his talk was always capti-

153 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

vating, and he easily won my heart by his kindly
references to the work I had had to do in Greece.
Much as I disliked Royat I owe the place some thanks
for the rare chance it gave me of a passing glimpse
into the intimate life of the most united and gifted
of families, thereby enabling me to know not only
Lord but Lady Salisbury as she really was — clever,
agreeable and sympathetic a ses heures beyond words
— and the very opposite of the impression which a
somewhat unfortunate manner too generally gave of
her. There were other interesting people besides
the Salisburys at Royat at this time. Henry James, 1
a very old friend of mine, was there with his niece,
and also Sir John Gorst, then Under Secretary of
State for India. With the latter I went longish
walks over the hills and through the woods, away
from the valley and its closeness, and with the James's
I sampled the cookery of the "Gastronome" — an old-
fashioned ordinary patronised by the officers of the
garrison — in a back street of gloomy old Clermont
Ferrand, dreariest, it seemed to me, of French pro-
vincial capitals.

I was back at The Hague by the middle of Septem-
ber, having in no way benefited by my cure, and this
led to my trying what the then celebrated Amsterdam
masseur Metzger could do for me. A very clever sketch
of Metzger is given in M. Maarten Maartens' last, and
otherwise somewhat disappointing, book. The Pro-
fessor — as he called himself to the great wrath and
disgust of the learned Dutch Faculty — was a remark-
able instance of the success of self-advertisement and
assurance. He unquestionably achieved wonderful
results in cases which had defeated the best surgical
science, but his phenomenal reputation was not a little

1 Now Lord James of Hereford.

THE KING OF MASSEURS 159

enhanced by the stories that were current of his cavalier
ways towards patients of even the most exalted rank,
his almost brutal bluffness of manner, and rough,
unsparing humour and sarcasm. The dingy waiting-
room at the Amstel Hotel — where, by the way, he
made it a point that his patients should stay during his
treatment — was a perfect kaleidoscope, so strange was
the mixture of persons of all countries and conditions
that passed through it. Semi-royalties, artists, great
ladies, worn-out ministers, and politicians resignedly
sat there waiting for their turn, cheek by jowl with
much humbler folk. Presently the Professor would
appear in the doorway — a fine, burly figure in a white
blouse, with shirt-sleeves half rolled up above the
strong hands that kneaded so searchingly, and yet
were capable of the softest, almost velvety, touch —
and would shout out " Einsteigen" / — as they do at
German railway stations — together with the name
of the next patient, sometimes accompanying it by
a bantering apostrophe or sobriquet. He would then
stride back with his victim along an overheated
passage redolent of the sickly smell of cold cream,
to the torture chamber, past a row of dressing-rooms,
full of more patients who had already been through
his hands.

No doubt Metzger did me some, though not last-
ing, good. His cleverest cure in my time was that
of a young good-looking Count von der Groben, of
the German Legation — a connection of the Sidneys
of Penshurst — whose right arm had been almost
paralysed by a bad fall with his horse. The cruel
hands put him all right, but tortured him abomi-
nably. Although the roughest, Metzger could be on
occasion the kindest and most humane of creatures,
and he assuredly had an almost mesmeric influence

160 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

over many of his patients. There was, nevertheless, a
good deal of charlatanesque pose about him, and par-
ticularly in his being no respecter of persons. He
went out of his way once, it was said, to be unpar-
donably rude to the beautiful Empress Elizabeth of
Austria, which did not prevent another Empress 1 —
dethroned alas ! and no longer young, but still most
se'duisante — being one of his constant patients. At
this time I had an audience of H.M. to which I
have referred in the first part of these Reminiscences.
A not uninteresting circumstance of the interview
was that I was charged for the Empress with a
message of respectful sympathy from the Duchesse
de Doudeauville, wife of the head of the French
Legitimist party, who was likewise staying at the
Amstel with her sister-in-law, Princesse Edouard de
Ligne.

In what might almost be called the salon Metzger
I came across an old lady of whose sadly stormy history,
which closed shortly afterwards, I had often heard :
Lady * # # , at the time of my boyhood in Paris, had
been, when a young girl, the innocent object of a
scandalous action brought against her father by a
rascally Polish doctor, and, after great matrimonial
misadventures, had ended by marrying a Belgian of
obscure birth with whom, it was said, she lived very
happily. Another patient of the great masseur was
Baron de Goltstein, well known as the successor to
Count Bylandt as Dutch Envoy to our Court, who
was drowned in so strange a manner by missing his
footing in the dark, when crossing a narrow causeway
between two shallow ponds in his grounds at Olden-
alla, near Utrecht, where we had paid him a visit one

1 The Empress Eugenie. See u Kecollections of a Diplomatist," vol. i.
p. 163.

AMSTERDAM 161

summer. At Metzger's, too, I again met our old
Stockholm friends, the Hochschilds, who had long
retired from the Swedish Foreign Office to their snug
country home in Scania. But of all my fellow-
patients the one with whom my acquaintance,
first made here, was to ripen into friendship was
Mrs. C. Labouchere, ne'e Munro of Lindertis, who,
with that best of good fellows, her husband — a
partner in the banking house of Hope & Co. — then
lived in a lovely old house on the Heerengracht
at Amsterdam, one of the four great canals that
wind their stately course through the ancient city
—and here we were afterwards more than once their
guests.

Wonderful, bustling, and yet half-dreamyAmsterdam !
The tall, massive seventeenth-century mansions of the
opulent burghers of old that line its more secluded
waterways, seem ideal homes of ease and contemplation,
and truly fitting habitations for the men and women,
in rich dark clothing and beautiful snowy collars and
ruffs, who look down upon you so placidly as you pass
along the walls of the Rijksmuseum. And hard by
these quiet, sleepy backwaters — perfect in all but their
too often doubtful exhalations — are to be seen the stir
and movement of a great modern town full of active,
strenuous lives, still set in the mellow framework of
the days when there were abroad in its streets and
market-places those wonderful limners who have ren-
dered the features and humours of the queen of
Dutch cities with such incomparable force and truth.
Indeed so little changed is the outward aspect of the
country and people, that, all over Holland, in town
and village, you may yet at some corner chance upon
a living scene or group that seems taken from the
panels of Metzu or Jan Steen.

L

1 62 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

My cure took me a good deal to Amsterdam this
autumn, and, in following years, too, I went there
constantly, the curious charm of the intensely pic-
turesque old city growing upon me with each visit.
The splendid Rijksmuseum alone would have been
an irresistible magnet, but to us it was an end-
less pleasure simply to wander without any definite
object, along the ever-changing ways and winding
quays, from the broad open spaces about the Palace
of National Industry, to the queer, steamy lanes of the
Jewish quarter, the workshops of the diamond-cutters,
or the dreary ancient Breestraat where, through eighteen
years, poor Rembrandt dwelt and did a giant's work,
until, crushed by penury and misfortune, he was finally
driven from house and home. I will not say that, after
doing justice to M. le Lorrain's excellent dejeuner de la
Bourse at the Cafe Riche, there was not a more special
attraction for us in a stroll in the busy Kalverstraat,
teeming with life and full of fascinating bric-a-brac
shops. The genuine treasures stowed away in . his
drawers by old Boazberg for instance, which that
greatest character I ever met among the tribe of anti-
quaires made it quite a favour to show one, were in those
days, when fraudulent imitations had already spoilt the
market, absolutely marvellous. But perhaps the most
interesting occupation for the idler at Amsterdam was
to watch the first laying of the foundations of some
new building. The sight of the great piles being
driven, side by side to any depth, by steam-hammers,
into the black ooze and slush, made one realise the
wonders of this hive of 500,000 souls, all housed in
dwellings artificially raised above the swamp, and
living "like crows perched on the tops of trees," to
quote the ancient jest of Erasmus about them. At
my first visit to the great city in 1888 the magnificent

OUR DUTCH HOME 163

Central Railway Station, on which millions of florins
had been spent, was being in great part rebuilt after
the serious settlements that had taken place in its
foundations two years before. Between the solidity
of the Dutchman, and the quaking nature of so much
of his soil, there is an almost humorous antithesis
that cannot escape one's notice even in a country of
which it has been well said that, in every sense, it is
quite by itself.

It was ordained that I should hold my post at The
Hague for upwards of eight years, and pleasant, peace-
ful years these were on the whole, until there came the
embittering sense of hope deferred, as time went on
without bringing the promotion to which I considered
myself justly entitled. But on this point I may have
more to say further on.

One result of our being left so long at The Hague
was, that in many ways it grew into much more of a
home to us than had been either Athens or Stockholm.
For the first time, too, we were now able to set up a
real family centre for our grown-up sons, and to take
them all in when away from their several avocations.
But for the depressing character of the Dutch climate,
with its trying, all-pervading damp, few posts offer
greater attractions than The Hague to a British repre-
sentative content with duties of an interesting though
not of an absorbing nature, and disposed to make the
most of what has become essentially a poste d'observa-
tion. For much can be gathered there by carefully
watching the big current of international affairs as it
flows past the quiet backwater that lies so conveniently
near to our own shores. Then again, although Holland
has, since the days of Waterloo and of the Belgian
revolution that followed so speedily, almost entirely

1 64 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

ceased to have any active concern with the larger Euro-
pean transactions, it remains of course in touch with
them. At this moment, indeed, there is perhaps on the
map of Europe no spot which might all at once, under
given eventualities, become of greater importance to
us. The unimpaired independence and neutrality of
the Dutch Kingdom, under its time-honoured national
dynasty, cannot but be to us a matter of paramount
interest, since, in certain given conditions, it is pos-
sible, without too great a stretch of the imagination, to
conceive of its peaceful harbours serving once more as
a base for fleets far more formidable than those which,
some two centuries and a half ago, fought with ours
for the dominion of the seas — gallant contests of
which, in the inner quadrangle of the Rijksmuseum at
Amsterdam, the great coat-of-arms taken from the stern
of the Royal Charles to this day remains an unpleasant
reminder. There is a good deal for the vigilant diplo-
matist to watch at The Hague. Such speculations as
these, however, may seem to be somewhat outside my
present subject, and I will not pursue them further.

The Legation which, as I have said, became for us
so attractive a home, fully deserves more particular
description, being in some respects the most interest-
ing house I ever occupied in the many changes of my
career. It was situated in the old street called West-
einde, or, as its name denotes, the western region of
the town, whence, contrary to the tendency observable
in other capitals, the tide of wealth and fashion had
long set in other directions. A serious drawback to
it was its position in this very narrow street which
leads out of the picturesque but untidy Groenmarkt,
with its busy stalls and the rough market folk who
crowd the immediate neighbourhood, while the heavy

THE ASSENDELFTHUIS 165

country carts too often block the way. The dignified
old building had in fact been deserted and left by
itself in the slums. The arms of Castille carved over
the archway or porte cochere of the house, marked
its purchase, not long after the peace of Minister, by
the Spanish Envoy, Don Emanuel de Lyra, who, as
well as his successors, lived in it in great state until
the end of the eighteenth century, when it was sold,
and, after passing through different hands, became the
property of the Jesuits, from whom we rented it. Its
fapade had been renewed and many changes made in
it by its Spanish owners, but the main structure and
the vast basement and cellars beneath it unquestion-
ably formed part of a far older building which had
belonged to the patrician family of Assendelft in the
middle of the fifteenth century, the house being still
traditionally known as the Assendelfthuis. Concern-
ing this older house there was a vague and probably
unfounded tradition that the ruthless Alva had resided
in it, and that the basement aforesaid had been used
for sinister purposes by the Inquisition.

The commonplace entrance to the more modern
building, up a few steps under the archway, little pre-
pared one for the really fine proportions of the suite
of reception rooms on the ground floor, the main
feature of which was a beautiful ball-room nearly forty
feet square, with a perfect parquet floor, for which, in
after years, I would have given a great deal at the
wretchedly scamped Embassy House in ball - loving
Vienna. Upstairs, above this great apartment, there
ran a long dark corridor with a number of good-sized
bed-rooms opening into it on either side, some of which
we made as bright and liveable as we could, without,
however, entirely succeeding in divesting the passage
itself of a depressing gloominess for which it was diffi-

1 66 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

cult to account. Vague stories were indeed current of
the building being haunted, and the occupants of one
room in particular were certainly plagued by vivid night-
mares which, through the recurrence in them of the
same distinctive features, were singularly akin to spec-
tral visitations. There is, I am told, no doubt that my
successor in the house found it advisable to give up
using the room in question as a bed-room, and turned
it into a box-room. Be this as it may, we were all
of us from the first conscious of an undefmable atmos-
phere of creepiness and mystery pervading the entire
rambling building after dark.

I am careful to insist on this point, because it was
only towards the end of my tenancy of it that I became
aware of the gruesome and thoroughly authentic tradi-
tion attaching to the house, and which, had I known
it at the outset, would have more than accounted for
the uneasy sense of mystery I have spoken of. I am
indebted for the story to M. de Kiemsdijk, the Director
of the State Archives at The Hague, whose wife, by
the way, was one of the Loudons, a very charming
family of Scotch descent. In his searches in the mar-
vellously rich records under his care, M. de Biemsdijk
had come upon the complete evidence of a criminal
trial that took place at The Hague in the middle of
the sixteenth century, and was closely connected with
the Assendelfthuis. The owner of the house at that
period was one Gerard van Assendelft, an eminent
magistrate and President of the High Court of Holland
under the Emperor Charles the Fifth. Assendelft, pre-
sumably a man of mature age, had married a French
lady of good family in Touraine younger than himself.
One can imagine the lively Catherine de Chessoir —
brought from the sunny banks of the Loire to a sombre
manor-house in the mists of Holland, and subjected to

A SIXTEENTH-CENTURY TRIAL 167

the rigid rule of a Dutch household conducted with
all the national regard for due economy — soon evincing
a rebellious spirit. The union turned out far from
happily ; but the device resorted to by Catherine to
procure means when her supplies were stopped, was
not a little strange. She imported from her own
country two " young fellows " (gesellen), who were
experts "in the art of coining," and furnished them
with the " stamps, implements and materials " re-
quired for making false money, which she issued
surreptitiously, at the same time "clipping the gold
and silver coin of the realm, to the detriment of the
dignity of His Imperial Majesty and the common wel-
fare." 1 The unfortunate woman was tried with her
accomplices, and, having confessed to the crime, "under
pain (torture) and iron bands," was sentenced to be
burnt to death, and all her goods confiscated to the
Emperor. Her fellow-culprits were publicly beheaded,
but, by special mercy of the Queen of Hungary, then
Regent of the Netherlands for her brother the Emperor,
Catherine's sentence was commuted — no doubt in con-
sideration of the high station of the Assendelfts — to
private execution in prison and burial in consecrated
ground. The wretched creature had been taken, when
arrested, to the grim old jail well known to visitors to
The Hague as the Gevangenpoort — the walls of which
have many another dark tale to tell — and here, in
April 1540, she was barbarously and ignominiously
put to death by drowning, her head being forcibly
held down in a pail of water.

In exploring — for such was their labyrinthine
character and massive structure — the vaulted cellars
of the old building, where a bricked-up door marked

1 Taken from the quaint old Dutch of the sentence passed by the
High Court.

1 68 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

the entrance to a subterranean passage leading, it was
said, to the Groote Kerk a few hundred yards away,
one could not help speculating whether they had been
made use of by the ill-fated Catherine in her foolishly
wicked venture. That the memories of her misdeeds
and miserable end hovered about the house, and gave
it the indescribable tinge of latent sadness and secrecy
we all noticed in it, I will not assert, and, by asserting,
expose myself to just derision. We are all of us, how-
ever, more or less ready to grant that stone walls some-
how keep the impress of things they have witnessed.
For that matter, are not our homes coloured, if not
haunted, by our own lives and the lives of those before
us ? There had unquestionably been tangible traces of
a mystery about the house in the Westeinde, for not
many years before, on what I would call its redeeming
garden-side, a skull and a few bones had been dug
up — possibly those of some obscure agent in Catherine
van Assendelft's sordid little tragedy.

Its garden-side was indeed the redeeming feature
of the fine uncanny old building. The original manor-
house had stood on the outskirts of the town, in
spacious grounds which successive sales on change
of ownership had by degrees curtailed. Its worst
devastators had been the Jesuit fathers who, on a
great slice of the property, had built, in the early
forties of last century, a big church, the high, dead
wall of which formed the western boundary of what
garden was left to us, and took from us half our sun-
shine. The effect of conventual peace and seclusion
which the overshadowing wall, the subdued peal of
the organ and the chant of the faithful behind it,
imparted to our pleasaunce, was not without its charm.
The grass on our lawn grew lush ; the tall tops of the
lovely elms — beneath which the guilty Frenchwoman

AN OLD-WORLD GARDEN 169

may have sat and dreamed of her fair country far away
— swayed in the evening breezes, gently rocking the
nests of cawing rooks, and, in the summer nights, now
and then sheltering a stray nightingale ; what few
flowers we had seemed all the brighter and sweeter
for their rarity ; and as the hours sped away they
were marked by the chimes from the gaunt bell-tower
of the Groote Kerk close by — varied by the sweetly
quaint carillon which, all over the Low Countries,
sends, from many a grey town and market-place, its
dreamy message through the land. We loved our
garden, even though the trying Dutch climate robbed
us of much of the enjoyment of it.

I remained so long at The Hague that the staff
of the Legation was several times entirely renewed
during my stay there. On arriving I found as First
Secretary my former colleague at Florence, Mr.
Fenton, who had served here sixteen years, having
several times declined promotion rather than leave
a place he knew and liked so well. His experience
of the country and people, which he unreservedly
placed at my service, was of the greatest use to me.
Dear old Fenton ! — spending the peaceful evening
of his days in retirement in a snug little house in
the Praktizijnshoek — almost the last specimen left of
a school of diplomacy more formal and precise than
that which obtains in these days, but which was
scarcely less efficient. I found, too, at the Legation
Vincent Corbett, who has in recent years made his
mark in Greece and Egypt, and Alan Johnstone,
now Councillor of Embassy at Vienna, but who that
summer, as a true Yorkshireman, was successfully
running his good horse ''Moscow" at the Clingendaal
races.

170 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

And here the mention of Clingendaal — prettiest
and most enjoyable of Dutch country places, with
its bright gardens and beautiful grounds, its admir-
ably appointed house, its race-course and golf-links
— evokes in me the saddest memories. I had known
its charming, capable mistress from her childhood.
Her parents, the Vincent de Tuylls, were constant
frequenters of Baden-Baden and Nice in long bygone
days which I remember so well. One of my earlier
recollections of her was escorting her — then a per-
fectly lovely girl of seventeen — together with " Jacob
Omnium," the father of Mr. H. V. Higgins, from Nice
to Paris, as I have said elsewhere. 1 Almost imme-
diately afterwards she had married Baron Arnaud de
Brienen, one of the greatest landowners in Holland,
and when, long after, I was appointed to that country,
she was the mother — quite a case of mater pulchrior
— of the young ladies who for years, with herself,
were so thoroughly at home and so popular in
London society. In less than a twelvemonth both
she and her husband, the kindest of friends to me,
have now gone, and, with them, her brother and
next-door neighbour at Oosterbeck, Baron Reginald
de Tuyll, another highly valued friend of mine. That
cheeriest, most hospitable corner of the whole pleasant
Hague country-side knows them no more. Only by
those who remember what a centre Clingendaal was
for so long to both the native and the foreign society
of The Hague, can the void caused by the death of
its owners be truly realised.

Misfortune in another shape has also, in the last
few years, befallen the hospitable Oudermeulens, who.
next to the Brienen s, were the wealthiest people
in the most exclusive set at The Hague, and saw

1 See " Further Recollections of a Diplomatist," pp. 1 60-61.

DUTCH SOCIETY 171

many people both at their fine old house in the
Kneuterdijk and at a big chateau in the French
style they had built on their estate of Oud Wassenaer
on the road to Leyden. One venerable couple who
likewise received a great deal deserve special men-
tion — Baron Verschuer and his wife. The Baron
was close upon ninety when I left The Hague in
1896, and only died some four years afterwards,
being very soon followed by his wife, who was
at least ten years his junior. For his age he
was, I think, physically the most surprising man
I ever met, standing six foot three or four in his
stockings, and to the last being as straight as an
arrow. He was one of the very few who might
in their childhood have remembered the days at
Amsterdam of well - intentioned King Louis and
flighty Queen Hortense, and, as a young officer, he had
served under Chasse" in the splendid defence made
by the Dutch during the Belgian revolution. He
and his wife, an Amsterdam heiress, celebrated their
diamond wedding shortly after we got to The Hague.
Up till the end this indestructible couple continued
to entertain at a house in the Voorhout, which was
remarkable for its fine carved oak panellings, and
had been for many years the residence of one of my
predecessors, Sir Edward Disbrowe, being mentioned
in the interesting reminiscences lately published by
his daughter. 1 Madame Verscbuer's salon and hei-
st; ige-box at the theatre were the very centre of
the gossip and tittle-tattle in which society in the
Dutch capital, as elsewhere, not a little indulged.
There was too in those days a dear old American
lady who was a kinswoman of John Jacob, the

1 Sir Edward Disbrowe died in this house in October 1851. It had
been occupied before by Lord Clancarty, as Ambassador to the Netherlands.

172 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

founder of the Astor dynasty, and the widow of one
of the Boreels who had been Dutch Minister in Paris.
She lived the greater part of the year in a bright,
comfortable house in the Bezuidenhout where she
gave excellent little dinners, spending her winters
on the cote d'azur. She and her two daughters,
Baronne de Pallandt van Neerijnen and Baronne de
Groeninx van Zoelen, were among our best friends,
and they too have all passed away since then. The
gaps in society at The Hague in the last few years
have indeed been unusually great.

The Dutch are an eminently sociable people much
given to hospitality, and in the winter season dinners
and parties were plentiful at The Hague. Although
but few families of the somewhat exclusive aristo-
cracy could be said to have large fortunes, they have
all been trained for generations to careful habits,
and seldom live up to their incomes. Thus, while
eschewing as a rule all idle show and display, they
are in far better circumstances than many of their
congeners in larger and richer communities. The
same feature is noticeable in the different grades
of Dutch society, so that the average of substantial
well-being throughout the upper and middle classes
is probably higher in Holland than in most countries.
The solid, unostentatious comfort of their homes is not
to be exceeded. In the dignified patrician houses on
the Lange Voorhout, the Prinsegracht, and Heeren-
gracht — the finest of which by the way are mementoes
of persecution, having been originally built by the
Sephardim Jews who were driven out of Portugal by
Pombal — rich heirlooms in pictures, antique furni-
ture, rare Delft and Chinese ware abound, but their
owners live in them in perfectly simple, unpretentious
fashion.

NIBELUNGENLAND 1 7 3

There is of course a gay set in The Hague world,
and scarcely any society I have lived in can show a
greater proportion of nice-looking, well-dressed, and at
the same time intelligent, highly cultivated women.
The subscription balls given by a very select club —
a sort of Dutch Almack's — known as the Society
du Casino, in the rooms of the Oude Doelen Hotel,
were some of the best functions of their kind I can
remember seeing anywhere. The pretty daughters
of Countess Limburg Stirum, handsome Mile. Sarah
de Pallandt, and the seduisante Mile. Kiline Nepveu
of the perfect figure, among others, would have
been admired even in a room full of London
beauties.

That constantly fluctuating quantity, the Diplomatic
Corps, contained many pleasant elements, renewed at
intervals during our long stay in Holland. Of our
former Italian colleague at Stockholm, the Marquis
Spinola and his family, I have spoken before. The
German Minister, when I first arrived, was the late
Baron Saurma, afterwards Ambassador at Constan-
tinople, a friendly type of the North German junker,
whom I chiefly remember in connection with an excur-
sion he induced me to make with him across the
German frontier, in the summer of 1889. The object
of the trip was a visit to the splendid old church of
St. Victor, at Xanten, on the Lower Rhine, which
is said to be one of the most ancient towns in
Germany, and the traditional birthplace of Siegfried
of the Nibelungen. At the frontier fortress of Wesel
we put up at a moderate inn much frequented by
the officers of the garrison, and the next day went to
see this perfect gem of mediaeval architecture which,
with its beautiful twin spires and grand proportions,

174 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

seems to have been, as it were, left stranded in the
shrunken, decayed little place that drowses in its
shadow. Even the most fervent of Wagnerians would
be hard put to it to find any trace of romance or poetry
in the fabled cradle of the dragon-slayer as it is to be
seen at present. We went on the next day to Cleves,
whence came the poor lady whom our royal Bluebeard so
coarsely dubbed " a Flemish mare," and whose uncomely
head — so much did he dislike her — he possibly deemed
unworthy even of the headman's axe. But we were in
the Nibelungen country and little concerned in the fate
of the ill-favoured Anne. In the castle in which she
was born there stands on high the Schwanenthurm, the
tower of Lohengrin. From its battlements the pros-
pect stretches away over the broad valley where — its
course having ages ago been diverted — the Rhine,
alas for Lohengrin ! now flows and glitters a long
distance away, which is somewhat detrimental to the
mise en seme, inasmuch as it is distressing to imagine
the son of Parsifal steering his fairy skiff up to the
castle of the persecuted Elsa along the mean little
water-course which alone now marks the former bed of
Father Rhine. It is curious that traditions of descent
from the Schwanenritter subsist in the very ancient
Dutch house of Pallandt. Baron " Dop " Pallandt
van Neerijnen, the husband of the lady I have men-
tioned above, once showed me a very old pedigree in
which there figured, in the tenth century, a knight of
the swan with armes parlantes to match. The neigh-
bourhood of Cleves, with gentle, verdant hills and
hanging woods, is exceedingly attractive, and has
become a favourite health resort for the Dutch from
across the border.

Ancient Nimwegen, the next stage on our return
to The Hague, took us still further up the tide of cen-

COUNT KAPNIST 175

turies to Carlovingian days, for here, dominating the
sluggish Waal, stands the Valkburg, with scanty ruins
of the palace stronghold of Charlemagne. But I was
to see Nimwegen, and all the pleasant Gelderland, in
quite different company a few years later.

I must return, however, to my other colleagues from
whom I have allowed myself to stray too far. We
found at the Russian Legation Count Pierre Kapnist
and his wife — the latter as nice and pleasing as she
was delicate — with whom we soon became great
friends. I had known all Countess Kapnist's people
at St. Petersburg, her mother, Countess Stenbock Fer-
mor, being the elder sister of Princess Soltikow, whom
I remembered as one of the most attractive of Russian
ladies, and of the beautiful Princess Mary Dolgorouki.
For my part I early acquired a real regard for Count
Kapnist, which was further strengthened at Vienna,
where we were again colleagues later on. Placed
there, as every representative of his country must be,
in a position of great delicacy, having regard to the
tendency of the Slav elements in Austria to look for
Russian countenance and support, he showed remark-
able tact and judgment, and acquired the full confi-
dence of the Imperial Government to which he was
accredited. I know no straight er or more high-minded
diplomatist than Count Kapnist, who has not a little
contributed to the smooth working of the valuable
understanding arrived at between Vienna and St.
Petersburg in Balkanic affairs. But, in touching
on this subject, I am in some degree anticipating. 1
With the Kapnists, I remember, we spent a very plea-

1 The above had only just been written when the news came of the
almost sudden death of my much valued friend and colleague. The
official messages exchanged on the occasion between Vienna and St.

Petersburg more than confirm what 1 have said above.

i;6 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

sant day at Leyden in June 1890, on the occasion of
one of the quinquennial celebrations of the foundation
of that ancient University. We engaged rooms at
the Hotel Levedag in the main street, and from its
windows watched the humours of the Dutch crowd,
the town being full to overflowing for the historical
procession of the students representing Charles V. and
his court. Some of the costumes and the armour were
really fine, it being a point of honour in the best
Dutch families to rig out their sons for these functions
with becoming splendour ; but the cortege was badly
marshalled and came past in straggling detachments.
It was a pretty sight, nevertheless, and interesting to
me as the first I saw of these pageants for which the
Low Countries have been celebrated from time im-
memorial, though on this occasion the great Emperor
was not surrounded, as in the great picture of his entry
into Antwerp, by the Vienna painter Makart, by groups
of lovely creatures in striking disarray.

Our doyen at The Hague was the Belgian Envoy,
Baron d'Anethan, with whom I was on the most
cordial terms, and who served afterwards for many
years in a like capacity at Paris, where he is now
living in well-earned retirement. The Austro-Hun-
garian Envoy at this time was Baron de Walters-
kirchen, both he and his wife being very old friends of
mine. With the latter, when she was Countess Lili
Hunyadi, I had had many a fixe Tanz in my Vienna
dancing days. Walterskirchen, one of the cheery
lot whom the Metternichs had gathered round them
at their brilliant Embassy in Paris, entered upon his
duties at The Hague under peculiarly mournful circum-
stances. I well recollect calling upon him at his hotel
one morning late in January 1889, a ^ ew days after his
arrival, and learning from him the bare news which

AUSTRIAN COLLEAGUES 177

had only just reached him of the death of the Crown
Prince Rudolf. He was then still in ignorance of the
particulars of the tragedy which had taken place at
Mayerling. Six weeks after this terrible event came
the almost sudden death of his own Secretary of
Legation, Count Seilern, the husband of the beautiful
Countess Mary Hohenwart, of whom we saw a great
deal later on in her quiet home in the Heumarkt at
Vienna. M. Okolicsanyi, formerly the right-hand man
of Count Andrassy at the Ballplatz, succeeded the
friendly, hospitable Walterskirchens, who did not re-
main very long at The Hague. Of Okolicsanyi, and
his wife, Princess Olga Lobanow, I have already made
mention in my Swedish reminiscences. An amiable
couple, M. Louis Legrand and his wife, then repre-
sented the French Republic, and were deservedly
popular with their colleagues and with Dutch society.

M

CHAPTER XI
THE HAGUE, 1888- 1889— A VISIT TO HOMBURG

Our first summer at The Hague has left me many
pleasant recollections. Let alone the resources of
the place itself, the de Brienens had so many
friends in English society that after the London
season there was generally a succession of visitors
at Clingendaal for the races, or the cricket-matches,
which latter the Brienen young ladies did a great
deal to encourage ; scratch teams of their English
acquaintance coming over to play against some local
eleven or other. The increasing interest which is
now, by the way, shown in Holland in cricket, foot-
ball and lawn-tennis, and latterly in golf, is the
more remarkable that the Dutch were formerly little
addicted to any form of athletics beyond their
national pastime of skating. The Hague, too, is
an admirable centre for excursions to many inter-
esting places within easy reach of it by rail.
Lord Bury and the Arnold Keppels x made a
pilgrimage this summer to the ancient home in
Gelderland whence their forebear had come in the
days of Dutch William. Colonel and Lady Mabel
Slaney and Lady Lascelles (now Lady Harewood) also
made some stay at The Hague, and one day we took
bonny, bright Lady Blanche Hozier, who was on a
visit to the Brienens, to Haarlem with us, where at
the Town Hall is to be seen the wonderful epitome

1 The late and the present Earl of Albemarle.

LORD GRANVILLE 179

of the life-work of joyous, rollicking Franz Hals ; the
last pictures of the series pathetically revealing the
gradually failing hand and waning powers of the man
who went on painting till close upon his death at the
age of eighty-six.

Meanwhile the same trouble that had taken me
to Royat the year before induced me, at the end of
August, to try the waters of Homburg. It was the
height of the season, and the early morning crowd
round the Elisabethbrunnen was more than usually
brilliant and interesting. The Prince of Wales was
on his annual visit ; a genial and much surrounded
centre for the small world of his future subjects who
flock hither at this time of year, mostly following the
cure in very perfunctory fashion, and practically going
through a supplementary London season. Of the
immediate Royal suite and entourage I remember
Colonel Teesdale, one of the gallant defenders of
Kars; also Christopher Sykes, and Mr. Reuben Sassoon.
The Duke of Cambridge, with the late Colonel Greville
in attendance, was here too as usual. Of the more
distinguished English visitors I can recall sprightly
Lady Dorothy Nevill, Lady Hayter, Lord Morris of the
unctuous brogue that gave such zest to his capital stories,
and Lord Bowen of the ready wit, whom no one ever
met without wishing to meet him again. The Prince
gave his customary pleasant little dinners on the terrace
of the Kursaal, and at one of these I recollect sitting
next to Lord Granville, who had taken in the beauti-
ful Marchesa Montagliari, the daughter of my old
friend Mrs. Fuller, nee Bagge, and happened to be
in the best form and spirits. In the course of dinner
he told us a story which he had heard, he said, not
long before from Lady * * * A very attractive and

180 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

fascinating woman of somewhat Bohemian antecedents
and undetermined nationality was being laid siege to
by an enterprising Frenchman, who was doing his best
to find out something about her birthplace and former
existence. The lady fenced very skilfully with him.
She had evidently been everywhere, knew every-
body, spoke every language, but carefully avoided
committing herself to any country, while apparently
at home in all. Her admirer was completely non-
plussed, and at last said : " Mais enfin, Madame quelle
est votre veritable patrief" "Ah! Monsieur /" she
replied, with a sigh and a languishing air, " la seule
veritable patrie est celle oil I' on a aimef" "Dans ce
cas la, Madame," replied the Frenchman, " votre patrie
doit etre la Macedoine ! " Lord Granville went on to
say that he had retailed the story to a lady he had
soon after sat next to at dinner, who was so de-
lighted with it that she at once passed it on to her
other neighbour. Lord Granville listened of course
with some interest to her telling of it, and was quite
pleased to find how correctly she repeated it, until
she came to the Frenchman's brutal reply, which, to
his great amusement, she gave as : " Dans ce cas
la, Madame, votre patrie doit etre la mayonnaise ! "
One dish, the poor lady probably thought, would do
quite as well as another.

This was, I think, the last time I ever saw Lord
Granville, for whose memory I have preserved a
special regard. He had been the best and most
considerate of chiefs to me, while, as to his social
gifts, they were almost unrivalled amongst men of
his generation. " He always seemed to feel," one
who knew him well wrote of him, "or at least could
show, a gracious interest in what interested his com-
pany, and possessed in supreme perfection the happy
knack of putting those to whom he spoke in good

THE EMPRESS FREDERICK 1S1

conceit with themselves." Unfailing was his personal
kindness to us whenever we came to England, and very
different were his ideas of hospitality from those of
some of his successors at the Foreign Office who
almost seem to ignore British Representatives at home
on leave, whose often onerous task it is to keep up
abroad the good name of England, not only officially
but socially.

It is quite another figure, however, that stands out
with special prominence in my memories of Homburg
that season and during a stay I made there after-
wards in September 1893. The Empress Frederick
was residing at the curious old Schloss at Homburg,
the abode of the former Landgraves, whose petty
dominions were merged in Prussia in 1866, and which
was for many years the dull home of our Princess
Elizabeth, third daughter of George III. I well
remember my old chief Sir Hamilton Seymour tell-
ing me of a surprise visit he had, with more zeal
than discretion, thought it right to make there to
the Princess, when he was left temporarily in charge
of the Legation at Frankfort. After some difficulty in
effecting an entrance, a servant in faded livery having
at last let him in, he had been very graciously received,
but the next day the Princess sent him a message
begging that he would kindly give her notice when
next he proposed coming to see her ; the fact being,
as he afterwards found out, that on such occasions
gardeners, stable helpers, and other dependants were
whipped up and put into spare livery coats and a
semblance of Royal state thus improvised for the
emergency.

By some unfortunate chance I had never seen
the Empress until February of this year. In tho
autumn before — the year of her cruel bereavement —
she had passed through Holland on her first visit to

1 82 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

the Queen, the Prince of Wales coming to fetch her at
Mushing in the Victoria and Albert. Through an
omission on the part of our worthy Vice-Consul de
Bruyne — of all members of that service probably
the one who has had most opportunities of shaking
hands with our Royalties — I had not heard in time of
these arrangements. To make this good I went to
receive the Empress on her return from England and
travelled with her as far as the junction at R,ozendaal.
I shall never forget the impression she made upon me
during the long audience she granted me on board the
Royal yacht. The sufferings she had passed through,
the wrongs she had endured, were still so recent that
she spoke of them with an exceeding bitterness,
emphasising what she said with clenched hands, and
betraying an emotion which speedily gained me, and
more than explained the Queen's well-known reference
to her as her " dear, persecuted daughter." * How severe
had been the moral martyrdom she had undergone only
those who knew the highly-gifted, impulsive Empress
well can truly judge. With her generous hopes and
ambitions, so cruelly foiled, the tragedy of her life
seems to me one of the most complete of our times.
I was soon asked to a small dinner at the Schloss,
the only guests besides myself being Lady F. and
her lovely daughter. A few years later the Empress
showed herself the best of friends to me.

The Prince of Wales soon left Homburg on his
return to England, and most of us, including Lord
Granville, went to see him off at the station. There
was the usual little cercle in the waiting-room ; the
Prince, when he said good-bye to me, charging me to
give his best remembrances to the King of the Nether-
lands when next I saw his Majesty. I replied that I
would of course not fail to acquit myself of H.R.H.'s

1 See Mr. Sidney Lee's " Queeii Victoria, a Biography."

MADAME MELBA 183

message, but it might be some time before I was able
to do so, as I had not as yet had an audience of the
King. "What? not seen the King yet?" exclaimed
the Prince, and then, turning to Lord Granville, added,
with a hearty laugh : " Do you think he is properly
accredited?" and, with this pleasantry, left us and
got into the train.

I was unfortunately so far from well at Homburg
that I joined but little in the gaieties of the place,
and was more than content in the society of my
dear friend and relative Mrs. Wellesley, with whom
and with Miss Ethel Cadogan I generally dined at
quiet restaurants and went for long drives, going on
one occasion to see the beautiful house which the
Empress was having built at Kronberg. Before long
my wife joined me from The Hague, and the waters
having proved a complete failure, we went on a few
days' visit to the Blumenthals at their chalet above
Montreux — an enviable house in an ideal situation,
looking down on the turquoise lake and facing the
magnificent Dent du Midi. During our stay here
two ladies came down one afternoon from the Hotel
des Avants, above Glion, to do music with " Mon-
sieur " and try over some of his songs. One of these
was Mrs. Arkwright, an old and charming acquaint-
ance of ours, the other, a Mrs. Armstrong, being quite
unknown to us. Our host took them upstairs at once
to his room, whence there presently proceeded the
sounds of the loveliest voice I had, I think, ever heard,
with a roundness and purity throughout its whole
compass, and a perfection in the production of it
that were absolutely unapproachable. The effect was
entrancing, and it was a musical experience worth
noting, for the voice was that of Madame Melba —
whose name even we then hardly knew — and whom,
without seeing her, we now heard for the first time.

1 84 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

Her voice was already then, what it has since remained,
the most admirable vocal instrument it is possible to
conceive. We were back at The Hague by the end of
September, but went over to London for a few weeks,
where, thanks to the able treatment of Dr. Harper
of Hertford Street, I was in great measure relieved of
the ailment I had suffered from for so long.

At the end of the year we were asked to a wedding
in the Luynes family at Paris, the young head of which,
Honord, Due de Luynes, was engaged to the only
daughter of the Duchesse d'Uzes. The marriage was a
great event in the monarchical set of French society, and
all the relatives and connections of these two houses,
which stand in the forefront of the old French noblesse,
mustered in force for it. The young bridegroom was
the representative of a very ancient family, closely bound
up with the history of France, and specially noteworthy
for the distinguished character of its heads for several
generations, and the services they had rendered to the
country, from the days of the great connetable of that
name in the reign of Louis XIII. onwards.

The Luynes are one of the few territorial families who
succeeded in preserving their estates during the stress of
the great Revolution. It is a remarkable circumstance
that, in the worst days of that hideous, sanguinary period,
their splendid domain of Dampierre — with its chateau,
built by Mansard, full of precious historical souvenirs
of all kinds, and its magnificent park and gardens, laid
out by Lenotre — remained unscathed, the citoyen Luynes
being left quite undisturbed, he being accounted a bene-
factor to the whole neighbourhood. Few, if any, are the
great homes of pre-revolutionary France that passed
in like manner through the fiery ordeal, and one cannot
but ask oneself whether, if the majority of the landed
aristocracy had manfully stuck to their acres, instead

A FAUBOURG ST. GERMAIN WEDDING 185

of swelling the futile ranks of the emigration or of the
Armee de Conde, the results might not have been very
different for the country at large as well as for the for-
tunes of their own valuable class. The great-grand-
father of Honore de Luynes was a man of the highest
culture, an eminent savant and archaeologist, while his
father, as I have said elsewhere, 1 had gallantly met
death on the battlefield in the Franco-German war.

We took with us to Paris for the occasion of this
marriage my eldest son, Horace, who had now been
appointed Honorary Attache to the Legation, and put
up at the Hotel Chatham in the Rue Neuve St.
Augustin in very cold December weather. There was
a great reception on the evening of the 9th at the
d'Uzes' house in the Champs Ely sees for the signature
du contrat and the display of the presents which, I need
hardly say, were if not so " numerous" certainly more
" costly " than those often chronicled by our penny-a-
liners at a so-called fashionable London wedding. It
was an exceedingly brilliant party, and to me doubly
interesting by the number of people present whom I had
known formerly or was connected with through the
Polignacs. Much the prettiest person in the crowd was
Lili de Luynes, then just nineteen, who, three years later,
married the present Due de Noailles, and is, I believe,
the only French great lady who was personally asked to
the late Coronation. The wedding itself took place on
the 12th at the Church of St. Philippe du Roule, my
wife being provokingly prevented by a sharp attack of
influenza from going to it. The great feature of the
function was the display of state carriages which the La
Tremoilles, d'Harcourts, Noailles, La Rochefoucaulds,
and other great Faubourg St. Germain people turned out
for the occasion from the coach-houses where they had
stood unused for years past. They made a brave show,
1 " Kecollections of a Diplomatist," vol. i. pp. 212-214.

1 86 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

which in fact had almost the character of a party mani-
festation, and I remember the Due de Doudeauville —
the grandfather of de Luynes and one of the heads of
the French Koyalists — who had brought out the gala
coaches and liveries he had used when, as Due de
Bisaccia, he was ambassador in London, telling me
with some glee, at the afternoon gathering at the
d'Uzks after the wedding, that, amongst the crowd
in the Champs Elysdes attracted by this very un-
Republican spectacle of ancient Court splendour, he
had seen the President himself, M. Sadi Carnot. The
hopes the ever faithful, ever sanguine party may have
nourished in those days have since then been dashed
time after time to the ground, but France remains as
ever the country of the unexpected, and no one can
tell what may yet be in store for her.

It was during this short stay at Paris that I saw
my old colleague Lord Lytton for the last time. He
and his wife, a perfect pattern of what an ambas-
sadress should be, had acquired as much popularity as
any representatives of ours could hope for, at a period
when a certain dislike and distrust of England still
lingered among the higher circles of French society to
a greater extent even than in its inferior strata. Our
Government indeed, as the Queen herself had once, it
is said, pointed out, amply showed their desire to do
full honour to France by accrediting as successive
ambassadors at Paris two ex-Viceroys of India, both
highly gifted and essentially cosmopolitan in their
tastes and habits, and certain, it might have been
supposed, to acquire at once tous les droits de
bourgeoisie with the refined and intellectual French
people. It may be doubted, nevertheless, whether
Lord Lytton, and Lord Dufferin after him, achieved
in this respect the full measure of success to which
they had every right to pretend, so strong remained

THE PARIS JOCKEY CLUB 187

among cultivated Frenchmen, down even to much more
recent days, the instinctive antipathy to England as
the traditional adversary and rival. I say this ad-
visedly, and as a slight tribute to the wise and skilful
policy which has now brought about the entente cordiale
— by far the greatest and most beneficent diplomatic
achievement of our time.

That the feeling in certain Parisian circles in
December 1889 was not altogether favourable to us,
the following little anecdote may help not un-
amusingly to illustrate. I dined one evening with the
Jaucourts, meeting there a few people, among whom
were Colonel Talbot, 1 then Military Attache at Paris,
and his beautiful wife. Colonel Talbot had not been
long at his post, and had just been elected to the
French Jockey Club. In a small way this was quite
an event, the " Jockey " being the most exclusive of
Paris clubs, and many of its members belonging to
a set reputed to be anything but cordially disposed
towards the English. Talbot had in fact been warned
that he ran considerable risk of being pilled, very
few black balls sufficing to exclude an obnoxious
candidate. After dinner he told me about his elec-
tion. He had got in triumphantly, with only one
black ball, and the first time he Avent to the Club
had been careful to get presented, as is the custom
in France, to most of the members. As he was going
the round of the rooms, an old gentleman had come
up to him, and, raising his hat with the greatest
urbanity, had introduced himself as the Marquis de
* # , and then said : " Je tiens, Monsieur, a vous dire
que cest 7)ioi qui vous ai donne une boule noire, et
que je Vai fait parceque vous avez pour ancStre le
cilbbre Talbot quia fait brMer Jeanne d'Arc/"

1 Major-General the Ilonble. Sir Reginald Talbot, K.C.B., now
Governor of Queensland.

CHAPTER XII

THE HAGUE, 1889-1890— THE LAST DAYS OF
KING WILLIAM

Well might surprise be expressed that an Envoy
who had been at his post for upwards of fifteen
months should not yet have had an audience of the
Sovereign to whom he was accredited. My position
in this respect was indeed almost without prece-
dent. On my arrival, in May 1888, I had called at
once on the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Jonkheer
Hartsen, and when I requested him to take the
King's orders as to the delivery of my credentials,
he had told me that his Majesty much regretted being
unable to receive me at the Castle of the Loo, where
he was spending the summer, and therefore desired
that I would hand my letters to his Minister for
transmission to him. The same course was followed
in the case of other foreign representatives who were
accredited subsequently.

King William III., then in his seventy-second
year, had been for some time past in an unsatisfactory
state of health and unequal to the strain of any state
functions. The chronic complaint with which he
was afflicted before long assumed a more serious
character. For many months, during which he was
nursed day and night, with unflagging devotion, by
Queen Emma, there were such frequent ups and
downs in the King's condition, and so little tran-
spired about it, that it was next to impossible, even

KING WILLIAM III. 189

for the best informed, to arrive at an accurate opinion
on the subject. A dark and impenetrable cloud
seemed to hang over the remote country house where
the last male representative of the illustrious line
of Orange-Nassau lay lingering in the grasp of an
incurable malady.

The position during this weary time was before
long aggravated by complications that arose in the
transaction of the public business, owing to the diffi-
culty of obtaining the Royal signature, which, under
the forms observed in Holland, is indispensable for
even the simplest decrees or appointments. The
Ministerial Departments were in fact constrained
day by day to overstep their powers by taking upon
themselves decisions which were practically illegal
without the Royal sanction, and the entire adminis-
trative machinery was temporarily thrown out of
gear.

At the beginning of March 1889 there were un-
mistakable signs that the King's normally vigorous
intellect was partially obscured, and the necessity of
providing before long for a due exercise of the
renal functions had to be taken into immediate con-
sideration. The establishment of a Regency was
surrounded with difficulties. The articles of the
Dutch Constitution dealing with this question are
so framed as to bear the construction that the
Sovereign, whose powers have to be delegated, is
incapacitated from exercising them either by tender
age or by mental decrepitude. The Constitution
indeed appears only to contemplate the case of a
Regency to be installed during the reign of a minor
or of a lunatic, and in no way provides for such a
contingency as the temporary illness of the Sove-
reign. The Ministers naturally, therefore, recoiled

1 9 o RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

from a decision which would have the effect of
making public the painful fact that the last male
Sovereign of the revered House of Orange was ending
his days in a state of mental incapacity.

Meanwhile it became their first duty personally to
assure themselves of the actual condition of the King,
whom none of them had seen for some months past.
Accordingly the Prime Minister, Baron Mackay, 1
together with his colleagues of the Foreign Office
and of Justice, went down to the Loo on the
23rd of March, and acquired sufficient proof of the
King being, for the time at least, incapacitated from
exercising the Royal powers, to justify their making a
formal announcement in this sense to the Legislature,
and taking the initiatory steps necessary for the
installation of a provisional Regency. Queen Emma
herself was, on many and the best of grounds, very
unwilling to assume functions which might interfere
with what her Majesty considered her paramount
duty of tending the Royal sufferer. Fortunately,
the Constitution provided for such an emergency by
giving powers to the Council of State to act for a
period of thirty days pending the formal appoint-
ment of a Regent, and this expedient was accordingly
resorted to.

Some particulars of the visit of the Ministers to
the Loo, which afterwards became known, were of
a very interesting character. They were unable, it
seems, to see the King, who was in bed, but from
the next room they recognised his well-known voice,
and easily convinced themselves that his Majesty
was wandering in his mind. Nor were they ad-
mitted to an audience by the Queen, who, as M.

1 Baron Aeneas Mackay is a cousin of Lord Reay, and heir presumptive
to the Reay peerage.

ILLNESS AT THE LOO 191

Hartsen put it to me, had, with characteristic tact,
preferred, under the painful circumstances that had
arisen, to keep as much as possible personally aloof
from these delicate transactions. Her Majesty, how-
ever, had taken due care that the Ministers should
be placed in possession of all the information they
could possibly desire, and from the King's resident
physician, as well as from the gentlemen in attend-
ance upon him, they had received the most circum-
stantial details as to his Majesty's condition.

A pathetic little incident which occurred about
this time was the King's reconciliation with one
of the officers of his household, who had long been
a great favourite with him, but had incurred the
Royal displeasure by venturing to offer a respect-
ful remonstrance on some decision taken by his
Majesty. The officer in question, after a somewhat
prolonged absence from Court, had just returned
to the Loo for a month's duty. The King had got
out of bed that morning at an unusually early hour —
one of the strange features of his condition being that
he no longer had any exact notion of time — and was
dressing. lie suddenly asked for his Aide-de-camp,
and on recognising his familiar features, at once
addressed him in jocular fashion, as in the days of
his favour, as " Seigneur Comte ! " forthwith adding :
" Passons une eponge sur toute cette histoire et donnez-
raoi la main!" and then, quite unconscious of the
hour — it was barely half-past six — directed his Aide-
de-camp to have the carriage brought round. Count
* * * left the room, pretending to carry out the order,
and, on his return, found that the King had put on
several wraps, and over these his fur pelisse, and had
then gone quietly to bed ajrain, apparently satisfied
that he was out for his morning drive.

1 92 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

M. Hartsen gave me another instance which well
illustrated what he called the inherent nobility of
King William's disposition. The King was known
to be subject to almost ungovernable fits of temper,
partly perhaps attributable to his maternal descent
from the Russian Emperor Paul. 1 M. Hartsen, who
always spoke of his Sovereign in terms of real affec-
tion, said he well remembered being once consulted
by the King at Amsterdam on a point of business
respecting which he had given an opinion that was
distasteful to his Majesty, who had then dismissed
him from the presence very roughly. The next day,
at dinner at the Palace, the King had come up to
him and said, "There were two of them quarrelling
here yesterday, and you were not the one who was in
the wrong." Together with his well-known foibles
and defects King William unquestionably had re-
deeming qualities.

The King's first marriage with the singularly
brilliant and accomplished, indeed erudite, 2 Princess
Sophie of Wurtemberg turned out unhappily, the
more so that their disagreements in some measure
affected the prospects of the dynasty. There can
be little doubt that the promising eldest son of that
ill-starred union, the Prince of Orange — the universally
popular "Prince Citron" whom I knew well in old
days at Baden-Baden, in a set of which the Duke

1 King William the Third's mother, Queen Anna Paulovna — a re-
markable woman, very favourably mentioned in the recollections of Miss
Disbrowe — was the daughter of the unfortunate and eccentric Emperor.

2 The late M. de Gonzenbach (see " Eecollections of a Diplomatist,"
vol. ii. pp. 193-5) told me how amazed he had been when, in referring in
conversation with Queen Sophie to some question of dogma that had been
discussed at one of the earliest and least known Councils of the Church,
and being at a loss for its name, the Queen had at once supplied it. It
was, I think, the Council of Utica.

THE HOUSE IN THE WOOD 193

of Hamilton 1 and Baron Vincent de Tuyll (the
father of Madame de Brienen) were prominent mem-
bers — was more or less driven from his home, into the
restless, erratic courses which hastened his untimely
end, by the dissensions between his parents. Other
circumstances, however, may have contributed to the
Prince's self-imposed exile. Perhaps the only occa-
sion en which the King and Queen Sophie were
found to be in agreement was in preventing a mar-
riage on which their eldest son had set his heart.
The handsome and quite charming young lady for
whom the Prince had conceived a very sincere affec-
tion belonged to one of the best and most highly
connected families in the Kingdom. So bent was he
on making her his wife, that the question whether the
marriage of the heir to the throne with a lady who,
however bien nee, was not of royal rank, should, for
State reasons, be allowed or not, was actually referred
to the Council of State, and was decided in accordance
with what was for once the joint will of both his
parents. The Prince was then sent on a tour to the
principal European Courts in the hope that he might
find there some suitable consort. The attempt entirely
failed, and he soon afterwards took to a wandering
Bohemian life which ended sadly in Paris at an
early age.

Travellers visiting The Hague are well acquainted
with the House in the Wood where dwelt and died
the gifted, but ill-mated Queen Sophie, full of am-
bitions that were never to be realised, and profoundly,
indeed exceptionally, versed in the political transac-
tions of her time in which fate denied her the part she
was so well qualified to play. Her rooms are shown as
they were lived in by her. Portraits of her children

1 The father of the late Duke.

N

i 9 4 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

and of a few friends and intimates — the historian
Motley's in a place of honour — hang on the walls ;
the furniture is symmetrically arranged in the stiff,
formal lines dear to the fifties and sixties of last
century, and all things have been left religiously un-
disturbed. In the room where ended her much-vexed,
unsatisfactory life, there stands the simple bedstead
draped with heavy hangings of dark-green silk — a dismal
colour befitting a dreary chamber — and her big Bible
still lies open on the table. But a careless glance at
these rooms, and at one or two others chiefly decorated
with exquisite Japanese needle-work and lacquer-ware
— curiously reminding one of the days when the Dutch
were the only people allowed any contact with the
then stubbornly secluded race which is now amazing
the world by its exploits — suffices for the tourist, who
passes on to the great octagonal, painted saloon known
as the Oranjezaal. It is here that his widow, Amalia
von Solms, caused the deeds of Frederick Henry to be
so oddly immortalised in the bewildering allegories, by
Jordaens and others, in which nude goddesses and un-
clad captives of the hero's bow and spear so boldly
obtrude themselves as to have made the room, one
cannot help thinking, an incongruous meeting-place
for sedate plenipotentiaries to the famous Conference
that has become the new titre a la gloire of the
deserted house in the beautiful shady wood. The
latter, by the way, one is glad to note, has lately been
preserved by a discerning Municipality from the eye-
sore of the " Palace of Peace " projected for its adorn-
ment by well-meant but somewhat self- advertising-
philanthropy.

Truly beautiful is this Hague wood — a genuine
fragment of the primeval forest that formerly covered
the country as far as Leyden, and is spoken of by St.

THE "HAAGSCHE BOSCH" 195

Evremond, in one of his letters, as " le plus agre'able
que faie vu de ma vie." So dense is the shade of
its hoary oaks and beeches that in the damp Dutch
climate it chills one even on a warm summer day. Its
glades and recesses are diversified by a graceful chain
of lakes which in winter are much frequented by
skaters. But the Haagsche Bosch is seen at its best
on the occasion of some national holiday, such as the
birthday of the Queen or the Queen Regent, when
the trees along the main roads are all hung with
Chinese lanterns, the margins of the great ponds
are outlined with festoons of coloured lights, while
big illuminated barges with bands of music move
slowly upon the water. Nowhere have I seen more
effective illuminations.

Our first experience of one of these typical Dutch
high-days was the memorable celebration, on the 1 2th
May 1889, of the fortieth anniversary of the King's
accession to the throne which, for weeks past, it had
been feared would never be held. What might almost
be called the King's miraculous resurrection had been
accompanied by incidents of a well - nigh dramatic
character. On the fourth day after the transfer of the
Royal powers to the Council of State the King had
suddenly quite recovered his normal consciousness.
On waking in the morning he had at once asked
what was the date and the day of the week — he had
before lost all count of time — and his brain thereupon
clearing completely, he without hesitation approved
all the steps that had been rendered necessary by his
mental breakdown, and himself expressed his desire
that the Queen should be invested with the Regency.
He then sent for his resident physician, Dr. Vlaan-
deren, and with his own hand bestowed on him the
order of the Golden Lion of Nassau. As a result

1 96 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

of this astounding change, the States-General which
had been called together in plenary session on
the 2nd of May to pass the Regency Bill, were
in lieu thereof officially informed that the Sovereign
had recovered sufficiently to resume the reins of
Government.

Under such circumstances as these, the Jubilee was
celebrated with truly striking demonstrations of loyalty
on the part of the population. It was clear that, with
all their Republican traditions and their largely demo-
cratic sentiments, the feeling of devotion to the House
of Orange had not in the least lost its hold on the
Dutch people. The whole town was spontaneously
illuminated a giorno, and the old traditional Kermesse
spirit being roused in the Dutch lieges, the rejoicings
took a decidedly noisy, convivial turn. Bands of revel-
lers of both sexes, linked arm in arm — hossajjartijen as
they are called — swept the narrower streets from side to
side with uproarious cries and songs; soldiers in uniform
— alas ! for the enforcement of discipline in the Dutch
army — here and there forming part of them. A staid,
orderly lot the Dutch lower orders as a rule, but, on
these occasions, prone to indulge in the roughest of
horse-play. Even in our remoter corner of the town
the shouts of " Oranje bove ! " and snatches from the
grand old chaunt of " Wilelmus van Nassouwen " kept
one awake half through the night.

Though, when once we had settled down in the
Hooge Westeinde, we fairly did our duty by colleagues
and Dutch society, in the shape of dinners and small
dances — for the latter of which the young people we
had at home and the excellence of the parquet floor
in our ball-room offered a ready excuse — the quiet,
even tenour of our lives has left me, I fear, but little

MUSIC AT THE HAGUE 197

of real interest to chronicle. In one respect, however,
the closeness of The Hague to bigger centres afforded
us, with our musical proclivities, many opportunities
of hearing and doing music in the pleasantest way.
Poor Arthur Goring Thomas stayed with us for
ten days one spring — the last time, if I remember
right, that we saw much of this most graceful of
English composers of his day. We went through
the scores of his "Esmeralda" and "Nadejda" with
him, not to speak of his many charming songs,
some of which had been written expressly for my
wife. We had besides almost yearly glimpses of two
distinguished artists — both Dutchmen by birth — who
have made London their musical centre and enjoy
there the greatest popularity : MM. Hollmann and
Wolff. Hollmann, when on his way to his native
home near Maastricht, never failed to put in an ap-
pearance at the Legation, and, after dining with us,
would casually say : " J'ai laisse Madame Hollmann
(his 'cello) a V antichambre" and then would play for
us most good-naturedly all through the evening as he
only can do. I cannot say that there was much music
in society at The Hague, but there were a few really
good musicians among our friends and colleagues, and
these we gathered together at our little musical parties.
Monsignor Rinaldini — the Papal Internuncio — an
amiable specimen of the mundane prelate, who was
frankly fanatico per la musica, was a constant visitor
on these occasions, but was before long succeeded
by Monsignor Lorenzelli, a learned ecclesiastic of a
very different type, whose name bids fair to go down
to posterity in connection with the great conflict now
being waged between Church and State in France,
where he was, up till the other day, the representative
— possibly the last in that country — of the Holy

198 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

See. To go back to music, the admirable Lamoureux
orchestra, which has since lost its great conductor, gave
a series of splendid performances in the hall of the
Gebouw voor Kunst en Wetenschappen — a concert-
room such as London cannot boast of. The fine
Philharmonic band of Kass from Amsterdam, too,
came over occasionally to play at the Diligentia
rooms ; a feature of these concerts being the rapt
attention of audiences mostly taken from the
higher middle class where serious music is sedu-
lously cultivated.

The theatre, on the other hand, was sadly neglected
at The Hague, and offered no real resource. In the
earlier years of the reign of King William III. some
interest had been taken by the Court in the Italian
or French opera companies which came for the winter
season to the small, but fairly attractive, theatre in
the Korte Voorhout. At the time of our stay, the
cessation of the Royal subvention, added to the nig-
gardly spirit of the Municipality — where a narrow-
minded Calvinistic clique, who objected to the stage
on principle, then ruled the roast — reduced successive
impresarios to such straits that they had to recruit
their leading singers from second-rate French or Bel-
gian theatres, while the mise en scene was wretched,
and the chorus and ballet-corps were absolutely gro-
tesque both in their performances and appearance.
A set of us, both Dutch and diplomats, did our best
to help the struggling undertaking by subscribing to
a large omnibus box, one of the members being a
worthy colleague of mine who was the cheeriest of
men and had a keen sense of humour which, when
tickled, was apt to find vent in formidable peals of
laughter. There were, among the so-called ballet-
girls, a few matronly frumps whose looks and dancing-

THE OPERA 199

attire defy description. My genial colleague's hearty
guffaws at sight of these poor creatures enlivened
many a dreary performance, though they not a little
startled sedate Hague audiences. I am afraid there
is no denying that the behaviour of our omnibus box
was not at all times strictly decorous.

It is only fair to add that the quality of the opera
troupes improved later on. We had through two
or three seasons a good tenor who, as Don Jose*
in " Carmen," for instance, both acted and sang
extremely well, while the French mezzo - soprano
who took the part of the Philistine enchantress in
" Samson et Dalila " — that masterpiece of Saint
Saens, the production of which in England has been
prevented by, to my mind, a most absurd prejudice
— had made a very clever and brilliant study of it
which would have brought her success anywhere.
She had all the makings of a great artist, but died
quite young, and almost unknown except to the
audiences of a few provincial theatres. Even the
name of the poor thing has escaped a memory which
I too often find oblivious of important matters and
idly tenacious of trifles.

If music did not stand on a pinnacle in Holland
in my time, the same could not be said of the great
sister-art of painting, in which Josef Israels, the
Marises, Mesdag, of the living, with Mauve and
Bosboom among the lately departed, had done or
were doing more than honour to the splendid tradi-
tions of the Dutch school. The almost unbroken
line carried down from the giants of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries to the foremost painters
of our day is in every way remarkable. Pictorial
art has taken such deep root in Dutch soil that the
men of the present time may fairly claim to be the

200 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

direct continuators, both in landscape and in genre,
of their great forefathers, whose footsteps they cer-
tainly follow in their earnest search after truth and
honesty of design. With all due diffidence I venture
to hold that among modern schools of painting the
Dutch stands on a very high plane. We paid several
pleasant visits to the studio of Josef Israels, then
already turned seventy, but still brimful of life in
that tiny frame of his — for, like his celebrated con-
temporary " die Heine Excellenz" Menzel, of Berlin,
he is one of the most diminutive of mortals. Sadly
sombre though may be his conception of the poor
and desolate, as expressed in the almost painful
pathos of his presentments of hard, narrow or broken
lives, the shrewd countenance of the great painter
nevertheless has a bright, kindly look. Very interest-
ing are the appliances he resorts to for the exact
rendering of some of his favourite scenes ; part of
his big studio being turned into a fac-simile of a
room in one of the poor cottages he mostly chooses
for the setting of his pictures, with its scanty furni-
ture, and homely implements and utensils. Very
different in appearance is his fellow-townsman of
Groningen, Hendrik Mesdag, the celebrated marine
painter. With his strong, burly build he looks made to
stand on occasion the buffetings of the rough element
he depicts so admirably. Half his day is spent on the
sands at Scheveningen, watching the changing moods
of the grey North Sea and the quaint ways of the fisher-
folk, and the rest of it in his luxurious home in the
Zeestraat where, with his artist wife, he has gathered
together a splendid collection of French pictures of
the Barbizon and other schools. M. Mesdag is or
was President of the Pulchri Studio Society, the
annual exhibitions of which are among the most

THE MAURITSHUIS 201

interesting to be seen abroad, and take a very credit-
able place even in the capital which contains the
Mauritshuis, to my mind perhaps the most perfect
picture gallery I know. But I must check myself
lest these recollections should turn into an inferior
Baedeker or Murray.

Having, however, mentioned the Mauritshuis, I
may go on to say that the building has, for an
Englishman, a special interest besides its gruesomely
splendid " School of Anatomy," its lovely Vermeer of
Delft, the mighty bull of Paul Potter, and — at right
angles with what I permit myself to think that rather
overrated picture — the saddening presentment, by Van
der Heist, of its great painter already visibly a dying
man. At the Mauritshuis it was that Charles II. was
lodged, and most sumptuously entertained by the
States-General during the few days he passed at
The Hague, when on his way to England in May
1660. A banquet given to him there was com-
memorated, together with other incidents of his
sojourn, by the contemporary Dutch artist F. T.
Vliet. 1 At an auction at The Hague I secured the
original drawing for this banquet scene, in which
the Royal group, seated above the salt, is historically
of great interest. The restored monarch is at the
head of the table, between his aunt, Elizabeth
Queen of Bohemia, and his sister, the widowed
Princess of Orange. To the King's left are his
brothers of York and Gloucester, and to his right
is a boy of ten, looking over his shoulder, who is no
other than William Prince of Orange, and who imme-
diately faces the uncle whose daughter he was to
marry and whose throne he was to usurp. The

1 There is a set of six or eight engravings, known to collecturs, which
depict the principal incidents of the King's stay in Holland.

202 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

departure of the Merry Monarch for the Kingdom
to which he was recalled became a favourite theme
for the painters of the day. The Dutch museums
contain various pictures of more or less merit, de-
picting his embarkation at Scheveningen, with a
grand display of troops on the sands, the lumbering
state coaches that brought him and his suite from
the town, and, in the offing, the tall masts of
Montagu's fleet. Changed though be the place
since those days, there is not much difficulty in
reconstructing the whole memorable scene.

But in a space of at most a few acres there are at
The Hague half-a-dozen spots, but little altered, that
have witnessed remarkable, and in some instances
terrible events. Leaving the Mauritshuis, and cross-
ing the inner square of the Binnenhof, one passes the
steps leading up to the old Hall of the Knights on
which was erected the scaffold of the venerable Olden
Barneveld, judicially murdered by Maurice of Orange.
In the ancient chapel of the Counts of Holland hard
by, the headless corpse of the Grand Pensionary was
temporarily deposited, and here, too, were found at
the close of the eighteenth century, the embalmed
remains of a daughter of the Lamoral Egmont equally
murdered judicially by Alva at Brussels. Not five
hundred yards further, at the angle of the Kneuter-
dyck, stood the Wassenaer house — now turned into
the Ministry of Finance — where their High Mighti-
nesses, 1 with characteristic munificence, during forty
years, lodged and provided for all the, by no means
modest, wants of the Queen of Hearts, after she had
been driven from her one year's kingdom at Prague
to seek an asylum in Holland. In this house were
celebrated the nuptials of the valiant Frederick Henry

1 The official style given to the Dutch States-General.

HISTORICAL ASSOCIATIONS 203

and his Amalia von Solms, then attached to the Court
of the refugee Queen. Here, too, bold Rupert of the
Rhine used to stay when on his holidays from the
University of Leyden, and within those walls may
have been hatched the daring plot for the assassina-
tion of Cromwell's Envoy, Dorislaus, with which the
younger, wild, dissolute sons of poor Elizabeth were
credited. On the Plaats, close by, on the site of
Van der Pyl's much-frequented fashionable restaurant,
there had stood the ancient hostelry of the Witte
Zwaan, where, not six months after the execution
of King Charles, in whose trial he had been deeply
implicated, the Republican Envoy, when at supper
with the other inmates of the inn, was surprised by
a band of masked men, who, extinguishing the lights,
fell upon him and cut him to pieces. 1

1 I am tempted to subjoin an extract from a curious letter in The
Hague Archives, written by a Royalist, signing himself G. Lane, and
addressed to his namesake "at H.M. Court the King of Brightaigne at
Brugge," and dated Hage the 9th of April 1658 :

" Both the Dukes " [York and Gloucester] " are heere, they came on
Tuesday night late, with the Earle of Norwich, Mr. Jermyne and Mr.
— ; they were yesterday with there sister over all the faire and in the
dancing of the Ropes, and to-day they are at Ryswyk at dinner, enter-
tained by La and some other of our Dutch gentry, but Downing

hath complained already of there being heere, he is a fearful! gentleman,
and the next day after the Princess came to toone from Breda, he set two
of his footmen to stand sentry the whole day : one on the top of the stairs
before the doore, and the other below at the corner of the house at the
end of the little streete over against prince Maurits his house, to watch
the Bar* 1 gate in that Lane, but since that day (nor before) I never 8a w any,
bee is now removed to a house that hee hath hired (or Mr. Harvy for him)
at the end of the Caesemart [Cheese market] for 700 gs. [guilders] ye
yeare, but hee would faine have put it of againe if hee could : and have taken
a house in the forehoult [Voorhout], but I hope his next (with all the
rest of his comrades) remove will be to the gallowes, where they may
have that they soe justly feare and their due rewards,"' &C. &c.

The "fearfull gentleman " trimmed his sails so well that at the Restora-
tion he was confirmed in his appointment, and created a Baronet hy Charles
II. Downing Street, built on land purchased hy the successful diplomatic
trimmer, will carry his name down to the remotest generations.

204 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

In the same Kneuterdijk, barely a stone's throw
away, stand, divided by the narrow lane called Har-
togstraatje, two old houses, of which one became in
later days the abode of my first chief in diplomacy,
Sir Ralph Abercromby, while in the other we were
present at the wedding of the beautiful Mademoiselle
Corry Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, daughter of
one of the Queen's Dames du Palais — an important
social event in The Hague world of our time. In
the last quarter of the seventeenth century these
two houses were respectively lived in by the Grand
Pensionary John de Witt and his brother - in - law
van Zwyndrecht. To the last-mentioned of the two
houses was addressed on the morning of the 20th
August 1672, a message to de Witt from his brother,
Cornelius, who some time before had been arrested,
and was confined in the prison of the Gevangenpoort
close by, on a trumped-up accusation of complicity in
a conspiracy to murder the young Stadtholder William
III. Cornelius had been barbarously tortured in
prison, ,but in vain, and finding they could extort
nothing from him, his judges had sentenced him, on
a charge they were unable to substantiate, to banish-
ment for life from his native province of Holland.
The innocent man wished, before submitting to an
iniquitous sentence and going into exile, to have
speech with his brother, and therefore sent him word
to come to him. 1 De Witt happened to have gone
over to his relative Zwyndrecht in the opposite house
across the lane, and there the fatal message, which
had been entrusted to a maid-servant of the gaoler
of the Gevangenpoort, Van Bossi, was delivered to

1 The generally received version of the incident is that the message
was a trap devised to get hold of the Grand Pensionary. This, however,
M. Lefevre Pontalis entirely disproves in his very line work entitled
Jean de Witt.

MOTLEY THE HISTORIAN 205

him. In the dead wall of the lane can still be seen
the garden door through which the statesman uncon-
sciously went to his doom. A few hours later both
brothers were dragged out of the prison by a raging
Orangist mob, and massacred, with every possible
indignity, in the public square, in full view of the
house where their aged father was then residing.
By a curious chance one of these two houses —
Zwyndrecht's I think — became the appropriate abode
of John Lothrop Motley when he was American
Minister at The Hague, and here, on the very spot
that had witnessed some of the most dramatic occur-
rences of Dutch history, he wrote the greater part of
his admirable account of the rise and growth of the
Netherlands.

But I must go back from this historical digression
to my somewhat disjointed narrative. In some rough
notes I have by me, I find that the opening of 1890
was marked at The Hague by one of the most severe
visitations of the fiend influenza that I can remember.
The Government departments were thrown entirely
out of gear by it, and at the Legation not only were
most of our servants laid up, but the only two mem-
bers of the Chancery, Mr. Fenton, the First Secretary,
and Mr. Conyngham Greene, 1 were both confined to
their houses for several weeks. I had just lost the
services as Honorary Attache of my eldest son, who,
having obtained a nomination for the forthcoming
competitive diplomatic examination, had gone to
England to prepare for it, so that I was actually re-
duced to asking my wife to copy my despatches for
me. Conyngham Greene served with me for nearly

1 Sir William Conyngham Greene, K.C.B., is now H.M. Envoy at
Berne.

206 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

two years, and acquired a knowledge of the Dutch
and their language that was to be very useful to him
later on. More than a passing mention is due to him,
as well as to his wife, Lady Lily, full of bright Irish
humour, and happily blest with a fund of spirits
which must have been a godsend to her and her
husband during the trying period preceding the out-
break of the South African war, when, as our Agent
at Pretoria, he well earned the K.C.B. afterwards
conferred upon him.

The Slave Trade Conference then sitting at
Brussels gave us an unusual amount of work through-
out this year at The Hague ; thanks to the deter-
mined opposition made by the Dutch Government to
the proposal, accepted by the other Powers, that the
newly created Independent Congo State should be
authorised to levy certain import duties for fiscal
purposes. This tiresome business took me twice to
Brussels, where I stayed at the Legation with Creppy
Vivian, 1 an old Foreign Office friend of mine, and
made the acquaintance of Baron de Lambermont,
Secretaire-General at the Belgian Foreign Office, who
was presiding over the Conference with great skill
and tact. I had several important interviews with
him which impressed me with a sense of his excep-
tional abilities. During one of these flying visits to
Brussels, I renewed acquaintance with the Dowager
Princesse de Ligne, ne'e Princesse Lubomirska, whom
I had known in my youth in France — a delightful old
lady whose salon at the Hotel de Ligne in the Rue
Royale was open to her friends every evening, and
who up till the last preserved the peculiar charm and
seductive manner that so distinguish Polish women of

1 The 3rd Lord Vivian, afterwards Ambassador at Rome, where he
died a very few years afterwards.

A MEMORABLE AUDIENCE 207

her class, and have not a little contributed to keep
alive the interest felt in the wrongs and misfortunes
of Poland. The Princesse de Ligne came to The
Hague a year or two afterwards and dined with us,
I remember. She was then well on her way to
eighty, but still the prettiest of old ladies, and almost
a Ninon de Lenclos in her quick intelligence and
active ways.

Meanwhile a great surprise was in store for the
heads of Missions accredited to the Court of the
Netherlands, in the quite unexpected invitation to
a State Banquet at the Castle of the Loo, for the
19th February, on the occasion of the King's seventy-
third birthday. From time to time one had heard of
the improvement which had taken place in the Royal
invalid's condition since his wonderful recovery nearly
a twelvemonth before. The Royal invitation none the
less came as a surprise. The only drawback to it was
the railway journey of two hours and a half in full
uniform, to xApeldoorn, which is fifty-five miles from
The Hague. A special train, however, took us there,
together with the Cabinet Ministers, the Dames du
Palais and other Court dignitaries, Royal carriages
meeting us at the station. We had been given to
understand that it was uncertain whether the King
would be able to go through the fatigue of seeing any
of us. We were, therefore, scarcely prepared to hear,
on our arrival, that it was H.M.'s intention to receive
the Belgian Minister, Baron d'Anethan, as Doyen of the
Diplomatic Corps, and then those Ministers who, like
myself, had been prevented by the King's prolonged
illness from delivering their credentials to him in
person.

On entering the audience chamber, I found the

208 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

King seated in a big arm-chair, and wearing the
undress uniform of an AdmiraL I was familiar with
his features from the portraits I had seen of him, and
found him looking far better than I expected, though
somewhat pale and worn, while the exceptionally
strong voice for which, like the first Duke of Cam-
bridge, he was well known, remained quite unim-
paired. I have kept a vivid recollection of this
audience. Nothing could be more gracious than the
King's reception of me. He spoke in excellent
English of the Queen, for whom he professed the
greatest regard, and referred to his constant friend-
ship for England and the many " members of our
aristocracy " whom he had known and liked, inquir-
ing after several of them by name. He dwelt, too,
on the ties " that bound together the two greatest
seafaring nations of the earth," and, during the ten
minutes' interview he granted me, clearly laid himself
out to show me special kindness and cordiality. After
dismissing me he received the Austro - Hungarian
and United States Ministers, and one or two Charges
cV Affaires.

Queen Emma in the meantime had been holding
a cercle, in a long gallery adjoining, with Princess
Wilhelmina, then a little girl not ten years old, in a
short frock with her hair down her back. I joined
the cercle after my audience of the King, and, as
I stood waiting there for the Queen to address me in
my turn, could distinctly hear the King speaking in
loud tones to my colleagues or his own Ministers.
The sounds, however, soon came to an end, and
almost immediately a gentleman of the Royal house-
hold approached the Queen with a message ; the little
Princess thereupon leaving her mother and going to
the upper end of the gallery where two doors, one of

A REGAL EXIT 209

which led into the presence chamber, faced each
other. In a minute or two she reappeared walking
hand-in-hand with the King, who passed straight
across the gallery into his private apartments beyond.
It was an interesting and memorable sight, and there
was a touching contrast between the slender figure of
the child-princess, and the tall, big frame of her father,
side by side with, and towering over, her. The King
walked quite briskly, but with a slight halt in his gait,
and held himself singularly erect, though, in doing so,
it was evident that he was pulling himself together.
His exit was wonderfully dignified, and proved to be
final, for having once passed the door, he was never
beheld again by any of those who watched the scene,
except by a few of his more immediate attendants.
Altogether, he went through the ordeal, which he con-
fessed to one of his intimates had been most trying to
him, with extraordinary pluck. He had not put on
a uniform, nor seen any one beyond the persons of
his household, for upwards of eighteen months. A
curious circumstance of this his last birthday was that,
among its honours (to which he always personally
attached much importance), he conferred the Grand
Cross of the Lion of the Netherlands on Prince
Henry of Prussia and on President Kriiger.

After this supreme effort, there were constant
alternations in the Sovereign's condition, though, in
August, he was sufficiently well to see his brother-in-
law, the Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar, who, with his
daughter the Duchess John Albert of Mecklenburg,
paid a visit to the Loo after the Scheveningen bathing
season. At last, early in October, there came a
sudden change for the worse, and the States-General
had to be called together again in plenary session to
provide for the due exercise of the Koyal powers.

o

210 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

Affairs in fact took exactly the same course they
had followed a twelvemonth before, with this
difference, that Queen Emma, knowing the King's
wishes, now consented to assume the Regency, and
accordingly, on the 20th November, took the oaths
before both Houses of the States-General assembled
in joint session. The Queen proceeded to the Binnen-
hof in semi-state, and throughout the solemn, and to
her necessarily painful, function, bore herself with
admirable composure and dignity. Three days later
the King passed quietly away, having been quite
unconscious for some time before.

The Royal obsequies were celebrated with great
solemnity, the ceremonies in connection with them
being of a very impressive character. On Monday,
the 1st of December, the King's remains were con-
veyed to The Hague from the Loo in a train that
passed through Amersfoort, Utrecht, and Gouda. At
all the stations, and along the whole line, great
crowds were assembled to watch for its passage, and
at the principal towns, where the train drew up and
was received with full honours by the civil and
military authorities, the entire population was afoot.
Thus, steaming slowly through a short December
day, along the flat Dutch country, to the tolling of
bells from village churches half shrouded by the
winter mists, past ancient cities whose records are
wrapped up with those of the dynasty, the Royal
funeral train finally reached the capital late in the
afternoon.

The procession which was formed from the Railway
Station to the Palace was wonderfully striking. I
saw it from the windows of the German Legation
on the Vijverberg. It took fully an hour to reach
the Palace in the Noordeinde, so that by the time

FUNERAL RITES 211

it came along the line of the Vijverberg, facing
the splendid old Binnenhof across the water, with
its picturesque buildings and countless historical asso-
ciations, the winter light was fast fading away, and
the passage of the great Royal hearse, surrounded
by all the high officers of State, took place by
torchlight, leaving an impression not readily to be
forgotten. The last direct male representative of
William the Silent could not have been brought
back in more solemn and fitting guise from the
secluded seat in Gelderland where he breathed his
last.

Then came the lying-in-state in a large room
on the ground floor of the Palace ; the throngs of
people of every class, all in deep mourning, that
filed past the catafalque surrounded by the King's
aides-de-camp and the grenadiers of the guard, being
such as had never before collected in the quiet
Dutch capital. The King was buried at Delft in
the Royal vault — in the so-called New Church built
at the end of the fourteenth century — close by the
fine monument to the Silent One who was murdered
in the Prinsenhof a few hundred yards away. From
the house of the antiquaire Teunissen in the
Noordeinde, we saw the great funeral procession
leave the Palace. It was of imposing proportions ;
and its extreme length, with the narrow streets and
roads along which it had to pass, unfortunately so
impeded its progress that it took upwards of four
hours to reach its destination, barely six miles
distant. One of the Court carriages, with the foreign
princes attending the funeral, contained the Grand
Duke Alexis of Russia, the Comte de Flandre and
Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar— the latter repre-
senting our Queen — who were all unusually tall, big

212 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

men, and to them the drive may well have appeared
endless. After the procession had started, my coach-
man drove me round by devious ways, with Conyng-
ham Greene and George Jolliffe, 1 to the Delft road,
thus easily outstripping the sombre cortege. In true
Dutch fashion, the avenue to Delft hugs a canal the
whole way, and the banks of this were lined by dense
masses of people, who occupied every point of vantage,
from the bridges to the barges on the canal and the
platforms half way up the quaint, giant windmills.
The scene in the great, bare, whitewashed church,
where we waited some three hours in the cold, was
unquestionably striking, but to me the very short
ceremony seemed bald and unsatisfactory, no religious
character attending it beyond a sort of funeral oration
by the Court chaplain. Not a single prayer was said,
and not even a blessing pronounced over the coffin.
The whole function unmistakably bore the stamp of
the sternest Calvinism. Its only emotional feature was
the ancient melody of " Wilelmus van Nassouwen"
which was finely played on the organ with minor
chords as the coffin was lowered into the vault. This
beautiful archaic tune dates from William the Silent,
and is said to have put heart into the hard-pressed
citizens of some besieged town during the great
struggle against Spain when the strains of it reached
them from the vessels that were bringing them succour.
I was reminded of Kadetzky's funeral at Vienna, 2
when the splendid bands, as they filed past, played
the dare-devil Radetzky march in the same way as a
dirge in a minor key.

In accordance with a custom which is traditional

1 Now the 3rd Lord Hylton, who left The Hague all too soon, and,
a few years later, retired from the Diplomatic Service.

2 " Recollections of a Diplomatist," vol. i. pp. 262-64.

A CHANGE OF REIGN 213

at the Dutch Court, the ceremonies concluded with
a great banquet, given the same evening in honour
of the numerous Foreign Princes and the other
Foreign Representatives who had attended the
funeral ; the Grand Duchess of Saxe- Weimar, the
late King's sister, presiding at it on behalf of the
Queen Regent.

The death of King William made a profound
impression all over the Kingdom, although he had
during the space of more than two years been with-
drawn by ill-health from the public gaze. The atti-
tude of the Dutch people had throughout been
exemplary. Devoted to the House of Orange, they
had sadly watched the decay of its last King, con-
doning, as it were, his foibles — those of Henri IV.,
of Charles II., and other popular monarchs — in their
recollection of his sturdy patriotism, of his love for
the country and of his conscientious discharge of
his kingly duties. It now became the earnest prayer
of all but a small fraction of ultra Democrats and
Socialists, that the youthful Queen might be pre-
served to her people, and . attain marriageable age, the
tender years and grace of the new Sovereign appealing
with irresistible force to the loyalty and to the best
instincts of the nation.

CHAPTER XIII

THE HAGUE, 1890-92— THE COURT OF LUXEMBURG.

By the death of King William III. the personal
union under one Sovereign between the Grand Duchy
of Luxemburg and the Kingdom of the Netherlands
had come to an end ; the Duke of Nassau, as head of
the senior, or Walram, line of that illustrious House,
succeeding to the throne of Luxemburg in virtue of an
old compact between the two branches of the family.

When dispossessed of his old hereditary dominions
by the events of 1866 the Duke had retired to Vienna,
which he had made his chief home, and where he
built, in what is known as the Ambassadors' quarter,
a fine house which was afterwards purchased by the
Russian Government for the use of their Embassy. At
his advanced age — he was then in his seventy-fourth
year — it seemed almost hard upon the Duke to have
to leave Austria — where he was held in the highest
esteem by the Emperor and was universally popular —
in order to make a fresh departure in the government
of what was practically to him a strange country.
The exercise of power and authority has undeniable
attractions, but in the case of the Grand Duke Adolf
it was principally a high sense of duty towards his
new subjects that influenced a decision which neither
he nor they have since had any cause to regret. No
European ruler is more respected and beloved than is
their venerable Grand Duke by the inhabitants of the
smiling, rose-growing land of Luxemburg.

It was my good fortune to be specially accredited

LUXEMBURG 2 1 5

to this kindly Sovereign when the political severance
between the Kingdom and the Grand Duchy took
place, having before been Envoy to the late King
William in his capacity as Grand Duke. In June
1 89 1 I went to Luxemburg to present my letters.
The traveller who enters the country for the first
time as I did from Belgium — that being the nearest
approach to it from The Hague — might easily imagine
that he is crossing the German frontier, the Customs
line being that of the German Zollverein, and the
Luxemburg railroads forming part of the German
Kail way system. None the less, though to outward
appearance folded in the German embrace, the small
country is very tenacious of its idiosyncrasy among
autonomous States. There are a few German and
French sympathisers in the Grand Duchy, but the
Luxemburgers rightly prize their neutrality, as guaran-
teed to them by the Treaty of London of 1867, and
still more the accompanying advantages it brings to
them of exemption from all military burdens. They
had indeed already enjoyed full administrative free-
dom under their Dutch ruler; — the Netherlands
Government scrupulously avoiding even the appear-
ance of any interference in the internal concerns of
the Grand Duchy — but they were now for the first
time in their history invested with complete national
independence under a Prince of their own, and were
thoroughly resolved not to sacrifice their privileged
position to any neighbour, however powerful.

These were indeed halcyon days for the peaceful
little city, which, not a quarter of a century before,
had still been the most formidable of fortresses — a
sort of inland Gibraltar — and, as such, gave rise to a
t^rave European crisis which well-nigh antedated by
three years the great Franco-German conflict. Even

216 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

in unfavourable June weather the small town — raised
on its rocky platform, and surrounded by deep pre-
cipitous ravines, with only just a few remaining
fragments of the fortifications, such as part of the
picturesque old Spanish towers, left to adorn it and
recall its martial history — had an engaging well-to-
do aspect. I was fetched for my audience with the
Grand Duke from the then somewhat mean and
primitive (since greatly improved) Hotel Brasseur by
an extremely well-turned-out Royal carriage, and in
the evening was asked to dinner at the Chateau de
Walferdange, which is about half-an-hour from the
town, and was the Grand Ducal residence for the
time being. The Royal household was admirably
organised in all respects, as indeed it had been in
the old days at Wiesbaden, where I could remember
going over from Frankfort to the prettiest of balls
with my chief Sir Alexander Malet. Towards the
end of a very soigne dinner, the Grand Duke's own
particular Steinberg Cabinet was handed round, and,
turning to me, H.R.H. pledged me in it in the kindest
of terms as the representative of " la jmissance la
plus amie," adding in a sort of aside : " Ce vin est
tout ce qu'on w!a laisse ! "

I went to Luxemburg again six weeks later for
the celebration of the Grand Duke's birthday on the
24th of July. My wife was with me this time, and
several of our Hague colleagues who, like myself, were
accredited to the Grand Ducal Court. The Walters-
kirchens, the Spinolas, the Nuncio, Mgr. Rinaldini,
and the Spanish Minister, Villa Urrutia, all travelled
with us, and the journey became a diplomatic outing
which was repeated nearly each year during our stay
at The Hague, and was one of the most enjoyable
interludes of the summer season. There were great
festivities on this occasion in honour of the accession,

A "JOYEUSE ENTREE" 217

and the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess, together
with the Hereditary Grand Duke and his sister the
charming Hereditary Grand Duchess Hilda of Baden,
made a State entry into the Luxemburg capital. This
joyeuse entree, as it was called, was an extremely pretty
sight. One of its most pleasing features was a guard
of honour composed of young landowners, uncom-
monly well mounted, and wearing a neat hunting dress
in the Anhalt colours, out of compliment to the
Grand Duchess — a Princess of that House who still
preserved great traces of beauty. These gentlemen
escorted the Royal carriages, which were admirably
appointed in every respect ; the general effect of the
small cortege as it passed through the gaily decorated
town being remarkably smart. In lieu of troops, the
streets were lined by some two hundred associations
from all parts of the country, composed of fire-
men, workmen's unions, gymnastic, choral and other
societies, who all marched past the Palace by torch-
light in the evening.

There was a Te Deum in the old Gothic Cathedral
of Notre Dame, where, almost hidden away in a dark
corner, is the quite plain tomb of the blind King John
of Bohemia — of the House of Luxemburg — killed when
charging at Crdcy. His remains, however, no longer lie
beneath it, having loug since been removed elsewhere. 1

1 The strangest vicissitudes attended the remains of the grand old
fighter whose crest and motto are borne by our Princes of Wales. He
was first buried in the Abbey of Valloire, but was afterwards moved no
less than five times — the coffin being twice saved from the flames which at
two different periods destroyed the Abbey of Miinster. At the French
Revolution, when the Luxemburg Franciscan Monks — in whose custody it
then was — were expelled, a baker of the town rescued and preserved the
coffin, and it came later into the possession of a rich manufacturer, who
placed it in his collection of curios. Here it was seen and purchased in 1838
by Frederick William IV. of Prussia, and was finally interred by him at
Ca8tell on the Saar under a monument — the fourth erected to this heroic
son of the Emperor Henry VII., and father of the Emperor Charles IV.

218 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

After this function came an official luncheon given
to the Diplomatic Corps and the principal authorities
by the Ministre d'JEtat, M. Eyschen, an able ad-
ministrator well fitted to play a leading part in a
much more important country than that to which
he devotes his services. The only drawback to this
entertainment was its lasting so long that one barely
had time after it to get ready for the Grand Ducal
State banquet at Walferdange.

In the course of our yearly visits we came to
know the Luxemburg Royalties and their suite so
well — the charming wife of the heir to the throne, a
Princess of Braganza, and sister of the Archduchess,
Marie Therese of Austria, being soon added to the
Royal circle — that the birthday celebration which took
us to the Grand Duchy became a date we looked
forward to with no little pleasure. No Court of its
size is on a better footing or more perfectly organised
than this, the ample private income of the Grand Duke
enabling him to live en tres grand seigneur. He is a
thorough sportsman, a capital shot, and an experi-
enced whip. His stables are full of first-class horses,
and his teams of thoroughbred Hungarian juckers do
great credit to his master of the horse, Count WolfT-
Metternich, who is the best type of an Austrian
cavalry officer. After dinner, in the summer even-
ings at Walferdange, the Grand Duke himself would
take us for a drive in a light break, tooling his team
over the hilly roads with much skill and judgment
notwithstanding his somewhat failing sight. Varied
by excursions to Diekirch and the splendid ruins of
the castle of Vianden, or across the border to Trier
or Liege, these summer diplomatic holidays were
among the most pleasant I can look back to, and
in writing of them here I rejoice to think that the

MOURNING IN HOLLAND 219

doyen by age of European sovereigns, the Grand
Duke who showed us so much kindness, and from
whom I took my final leave in 1896, is still in the
enjoyment of excellent health, and more firmly than
ever established in the affections of his subjects. A
model Court of its kind is that of Luxemburg, with
its gracious Royal Mistress, and her amiable Grande
Maitresse, Baronne de Preen, and her strikingly pretty
lady-in-waiting, Baronne Apor.

Meanwhile the mourning for the late King put
an almost entire stop to social life at The Hague.
Even in private society mourning is more rigidly
observed in Holland than in any other country I
know. A widow for instance must not drive in an
open carriage, and for two years after her bereave-
ment she may pay no visits. When that period has
elapsed, her cards are left on her friends by her nearest
male relative, after which she may in a measure re-
sume her old life, though at the risk perhaps of being
thought somewhat worldly if she does so. These out-
ward tokens of reverence for the dead — very different
from our own practice, which tends more and more to
diminish and shorten the observance of mourning —
are a characteristic feature in Dutch life, and somehow
seem to accord with all too often leaden-hued skies,
and gloomy and severe — however earnest — forms of
religious worship. They are, too, a part of the con-
servative attachment of the Netherlander to ancient
customs and traditions. The aanbidder, in funereal
garb of knee-breeches, white stockings, and high
white neckcloth, who passes from door to door with
black-edged announcements of the decease of some
local worthy, and the big Dutch hearse with its driver
and attendant mutes in long cloaks and wide-brimmed

220 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

seventeenth-century hats, are relics of the bygone age
so vividly personified in the " pot-boilers " by Govaert
Flinck or Backer — not to speak of Franz Hals and
others — those splendid "Regenten" pieces, with the
speaking groups of earnest, rather tiresome-looking,
civic dignitaries, that people the walls of every Dutch
museum.

The Court mourning made it impossible for me to
present my new credentials to Queen Emma until the
end of March, when, on my return from a short stay in
England, I was able to deliver the specially affectionate
messages with which the Queen, during a visit I
had made by command to Windsor, had charged me
for the widowed Regent. The earliest break that
occurred in the strict seclusion of the Court was at the
end of May, when Queen Emma took her daughter
with her to Amsterdam and Rotterdam for the laying
of the first stone of a hospital at the former, and of a
new quay at the latter place. These public functions,
although performed as quietly as possible, necessarily
partook of a popular character, and, for the first time,
brought the youthful Sovereign into touch with large
numbers of the citizens of these great commercial
centres, by whom she and the Queen Regent were
enthusiastically welcomed, the little Queen, by her
vivacity and intelligence, making an excellent im-
pression upon all those who approached her.

No task, even though in this case it was a labour
of love, could have been undertaken and carried to
an end with greater personal solicitude than that to
which the Queen Regent devoted herself of preparing
the young Queen for her regal duties. From the
first she gave herself up to it with complete self-
abnegation. She made it a point, when possible, to
assist at her daughter's lessons, scarcely let her out

TWO QUEENS 221

of her sight, and shared the same bed-room with her
until, at eighteen, Queen Wilhelmina attained her legal
majority, and assumed the reins of government. The
young Queen was most carefully educated ; and equal
pains were taken to develop her physically no less than
intellectually. She soon took to riding and driving and
other out-of-door exercises, was devoted to her dogs
and horses, and grew up fresh and blooming and the
very picture of health, with a strong will of her own
and a fitting sense of her exalted rank and of the high
destiny in store for her. When still quite a young girl
she used to have small children's parties at the Palace
at The Hague, to which among others the younger
members of the diplomatic families were bidden. The
invitation in our case, addressed to my wife, ran quaintly
as follows : Par ordre de la Reine Regente, Mile, van
de Poll prie Lady Rumbold de permettre a son jils
Hugo de venir jouer avec Sa Majeste la Reine.
According to the accounts brought us by the boy
thus privileged to be one of her playmates, the little
Queen, while the most gracious of hostesses, could be
the greatest of romps.

Certainly Queen Wilhelmina's childhood and first
youth were wisely guarded and must have been
truly happy in every respect. It is a curious and
interesting circumstance that the tender years of
the rulers of the two nations which, three centuries
before, were locked in deadly struggle, should now,
in our own times, have been left to the guidance of
two such devoted and remarkable women as Queen
Christina of Spain and Queen Emma of the Nether-
lands. The Dutch people owe Queen Emma a deep
debt of gratitude, and it is satisfactory to know that
her Majesty's popularity and the regard in which she
is held have gone on increasing year by year.

222 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

But the seclusion of the Dutch Court was soon to
be broken into by a Royal visit of no ordinary import-
ance. In the course of the spring the German Em-
peror privately notified his wish to pay his respects to
the two Queens when on his way to England in July.
Nothing could be more cordial and complimentary than
the proposal, and, having regard to the general char-
acter of the relations between the two countries, it was
not without significance. There was no denying that
a certain degree of distrust and apprehension of the
great German neighbour had grown up in Holland ever
since the victorious issue of the contest with France
had made Germany the paramount military Power in
Europe. At Berlin no pains had been spared to
attenuate these impressions, and it was a singular
fact that the improvement which had more recently
shown itself in the intercourse between the two
Governments coincided with the appointment some
years before of the Iron Chancellor's son, Count
Herbert Bismarck, to the mission at The Hague.
Several causes of friction had then been removed by
the adjustment of pending questions like those of
the salmon fisheries in the Rhine, and the surtaxes
levied on Dutch vessels engaged in the German
coasting trade.

The arrangements for the Emperor William's visit,
which was fixed for the ist of July, were minutely
gone into some weeks before. H.I.M. had announced
his intention of coming by sea with the Empress
to Ymuiden with a powerful naval escort, and
wished to pass up the North Sea Canal to Amster-
dam in his yacht the Hohenzollern. The measure-
ments at first sent from Berlin of this large vessel
unfortunately proved to be erroneous, it being finally
only just discovered in time that she could barely

IMPERIAL GUESTS 223

scrape through the locks. It was therefore settled
that Their Majesties should transfer themselves for
the canal passage to the smaller yacht the Jagd,
which could be sent inside the lock. The Imperial
party had to land and walk about 150 yards through
a tent which had to be put up and decorated in
a hurry. This, and the very large suite brought
with him by the Emperor, which somewhat taxed the
resources of the Dutch Court — especially as regards the
stable department — at a time when, owing to the long
illness of the King and the change of reign, that Court
was in some degree disorganised — were the only, very
slight, difficulties that attended an otherwise most
successful and memorable visit. It was favoured by
glorious weather, during which the aspect of one of
the most picturesque of cities and the demeanour of
its inhabitants could not fail to make a deep impression
upon all who witnessed them.

Our friends the Laboucheres asked us to stay with
them for the occasion, and, with a number of our
colleagues and other people from The Hague, we saw
the entry of the Imperial and Royal party from the
windows of a restaurant at the corner of the great
square on which stands the Royal Palace. An uneasy
impression had got abroad, and was shared, it was
said, by the Emperor himself, that although the
reception given to him would be such as befitted
the occasion, and would be in keeping with the
traditions of an essentially decorous and hospitable
people, it might, under the influence of the latent
distrust I have referred to above, be wanting in cor-
diality. When, however, the Emperor was driven
in state across the Dam to the Palace, with the little
Queen by his side, there was a spontaneous outburst
of enthusiasm from the surging crowd that filled the

224 ERCOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

square and the adjoining quays which plainly showed
that all cautious reserve had been thrown aside, and
the Amsterdammers were bent on giving the best of
greetings to their Imperial visitors. It was in fact
a triumphant welcome which gained in intensity as
certain graceful acts on the part of the Emperor were
noticed and bruited about, such as, during a tattoo
of the massed military bands on the Palace Square,
his remaining at the salute all through the perform-
ance of the Wilelmus National Anthem ; his going
on foot to the Nieuwe Kerk to deposit a wreath on
the tomb of De Ruyter ; and his laying special
stress on his descent from Frederick Henry of
Orange through the marriage of that national hero's
daughter with the Great Elector.

There was a great Court dinner at the Palace,
to which all the heads of the Foreign Missions were
asked. This gave me the only opportunity I ever
had of meeting the ruler who looms so large on
the world's stage, and is perhaps the most interest-
ing of living personalities. The Emperor was in a
very gracious mood, and when I was presented to
him, as we all were, in the cercle after dinner, by the
Queen Regent herself, spoke warmly of the pleasure
with which he looked forward to his visit to Eng-
land. To the distinguished Dutch Admiral Casem-
broot, who had been attached to his person and
addressed him in French, he at once replied in
Flnglish, observing that he was a British Admiral
and that English was the proper language for sea-
men. On comparing notes afterwards with my col-
leagues I found that the Emperor had, in each case,
said to them what was most appropriate and most
gratifying. Of the French Minister he inquired par-
ticularly after " His Excellency the President of the

THE EMPEROR WILLIAM 225

Republic," eulogising the activity he showed in his
tours in all parts of France, and little foreseeing
that in the course of one of them M. Carnot
was destined to be assassinated. To the Papal
Internuncio he expressed admiration of the last
Encyclical, being, he added, greatly pleased to find
himself at one with His Holiness on " the social
question," and, passing to the Italian Envoy, he
spoke in highly cordial terms of the great promise
shown by the young Prince of Naples, whom he had
recently met for the first time. All through this
function — which is in some degree a touchstone for
all Princes — he showed unusual tact and aptness, and
fully vindicated his reputation of being, when he
chose, singularly captivating.

The Imperial visit was in every way a success.
It was appropriately terminated by a magnificent
display of fireworks on the basin of the Y, which we
saw from a private steamer engaged by the Labou-
cheres, and our enjoyment of the striking scene
would have been perfect had not the stillness of
the hot summer night been torn by the deafening
screams from the sirens of the steamboats plying to
and fro with their cargoes of sightseers. Politically
too, the visit was decidedly beneficial to the rela-
tions between the two countries, and proved the
starting-point for the many attentions subsequently
shown by the Emperor to the girl-Queen towards
whom his attitude has since remained one of chival-
rous solicitude.

In the autumn of this same year the Dutch Court
had another interesting visitor in the person of the
Prince of Naples. The Prince stayed a few days at
The Hague, where I met him several times and was
greatly struck by his quickness and intelligence, and,

P

226 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

for so young a man, his remarkable information on
a variety of subjects. At that period he seemed very
well disposed towards England, and certainly did me
the honour of singling me out at a party at the Italian
Legation and conversing with me most of the evening,
somewhat to the exclusion of the other Foreign Repre-
sentatives. We ourselves had a big reception in his
honour, to which he kindly came after a fatiguing day
of sight-seeing, including a luncheon party at the Loo,
where a somewhat ludicrous incident had occurred. On
the Queen Regent proposing H.R.H.'s health, the band
struck up what its conductor evidently imagined to be
the Italian National Anthem, but was simply that well-
known old Neapolitan ditty " Santa Lucia," played in
very slow, dirge-like time, to the, with some difficulty
suppressed, amusement of the young Prince and his
suite, among whom was a very old Turin acquaintance of
mine, General Count Morra di Lavriano, who has since
till recently been Ambassador at St. Petersburg.

I have said nothing thus far of the great summer
resort of Scheveningen, which is perhaps too well
known to require description. We found it a rela-
tively primitive place, but it altered much and
greatly improved in the course of the eight years
we spent at The Hague. On the really fine summer
evenings, which, with the changeable Dutch climate,
can almost be counted, it offered an animated scene,
always making allowance for the dreary stretch of
beach, thickly covered with great hooded wicker
chairs, and the still drearier outline of dunes that
framed in a highly respectable, but by no means
brilliant crowd, mostly drawn from the well-to-do
German and Dutch burgher class. Our own people
do not affect Scheveningen, and except the late Lady

SCHEVENINGEN 227

Jersey, Lady Headfort, and Lady Edward Cavendish
with one of her sons, I scarcely remember any English
of note making a lengthened stay there. With
Vienna society on the other hand Scheveningen is
decidedly in favour, and there was generally a coterie
of genial Austrians and Hungarians whom I had
known before and was ere long to meet again. The
late pompous old Grand Duke of Saxe- Weimar —
whom his brother-in-law, King William, could not,
it was said, abide — was a regular visitor every year,
and the Princess of Wied, who was the daughter of
Prince Frederick of the Netherlands, and almost the
last of the House of Orange, came there pretty often,
as did one of the very nicest but shyest of Royal ladies,
the Hereditary Grand Duchess Hilda of Baden.

Unfortunately the cost of living at Scheveningen,
as indeed all over Holland, is decidedly high, and
the hotels some ten years ago were big and expensive
caravansaries affording but small comfort. The Cur-
haus itself, rebuilt, shortly before we arrived, on the
site of a former one destroyed by fire, is, however,
a fine building which redeemed its character as an
hotel by its great Cursaal where the magnificent
Philharmonic orchestra from Berlin gave the most
interesting symphony concerts. The pretty woods
that extend behind the desolate dunes to the gates
of The Hague and, in particular, the ancient avenue
known as the Oude Weg, shaded by splendid trees
planted some two hundred and fifty years ago, are
attractive features which no other seaside resort can
boast of.

But it is only those who have known Scheveningen
in severe winter weather who can realise how seriously
exposed, were it not for the protection of its huge
desolate ramparts of sand, would be the pretty woods,

228 EECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

and even the streets of the capital beyond them, to
incursions from the ocean which lies barely three
miles away. The level of The Hague happens in
fact to be considerably lower than that of the shore-
line ; and close to the Plein, in the heart of the
town, there stood, not long ago, a stone marking the
furthermost point reached by the flood that came
pouring down the Oude Weg, through a gap in the
dykes, in an exceptionally violent tempest in 1609.
The water, it is chronicled, stood several feet high
in some of the streets, and fish were caught in the
low-lying quarters. I well remember our going down
to Scheveningen one Sunday morning in February
1889, to look after the wants of the crew of a British
three-master which was driven ashore at daybreak
in a heavy gale from the north-east which lasted
fully a week. The hands, twenty-two in number,
had been all taken off by the plucky life-boatmen
of the village and were lodged at the Curhaus. No-
where, even on our own storm - swept coasts, have
I seen a more raging sea, or been better able to
gauge the force of wind than on this and other
occasions at Scheveningen. A still more severe
gale caught the fleet of picturesque pinken, 1 while
snugly laid up for the winter on the sands, the
waves banging them about and driving them further
up the shore, where they remained wrecked and
disabled for weeks afterwards, to the great misery
and impoverishment of the poor fisher-folk.

All Holland on skates, too, is an experience little
known to the bulk of English visitors to that country.
From one extremity of the kingdom to the other,
every stream and canal is covered with skaters of
all classes, swinging freely, with the Dutch roll, on

1 The name given to the Scheveningen fishing-boats.

A FROZEN RIVER 229

immensely long skates, turned up at the end, and
frequently only loosely tied on with a mere piece
of string. Across the snow-bound flat endless moving
lines of them can be seen as far as the eye can reach
in the low winter light. Half the marketing between
town and country is done by them with hand-propelled
sledges, and in the well-to-do classes the younger
folk make expeditions to distant places, such as
Amsterdam or Utrecht and back, the party on these
occasions keeping in single file, and leaning, as they
make their swinging, rhythmic stroke, on a long stout
pole held at each end by the two strongest and safest
skaters amongst them.

We had one or two very hard winters during
our stay in Holland, exceptionally severe being that
of 1894-95. For several weeks there was excellent
skating in the private grounds at Oosterbeek and
Clingendaal, where the Tuylls and Brienens kept
the ice on their ponds in perfect condition. But
by far the most interesting expedition we made
was to Dordrecht, where the great river Maas was
completely frozen over, a thing which had not hap-
pened for a great many years, though in the days
of the old Dutch painters these Arctic seasons must
have been of pretty frequent occurrence, to judge
by the winter scenes that were such favourite sub-
jects with Van Goyen, Molenaar, and others. The
wide expanse of snow and ice was studded with booths
where food and drink were for sale, and thronged
with merry skaters of all ages : burghers with their
wives and families, girls and children in bright
peasant garb, and, passing through and scattering
the crowd, sleighs with bells and jingling harness,
the grey mass of the Dordrecht minster looming in
the background through the winter mist. It was a

2 3 o RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

perfect embodiment of one of those old pictures,
and, skating through this kermesse on the ice, one
could easily fancy oneself back in the days when
Dort and its fateful Synod engrossed the attention
of the Protestant world. There is in truth a curi-
ously unbroken continuity in these popular Dutch
scenes, and the land of the Mynheers remains in
not a few respects unchanged. On this skating trip
we took with us, besides the sons we had at home,
two of the four daughters of my Russian colleague,
M. de Struve, a widower, who had succeeded my
friend Count Kapnist. The eldest of these capti-
vating little maids — they are all married now — kept
house for her father, and managed her gay, turbu-
lent sisters quite admirably, although she was barely
nineteen. For the gilded youth of The Hague the
cheery, hospitable Struve home in the Korte Voorhout
was a real godsend.

Two of our winters were unexpectedly darkened
by mournful events. It was at the wedding of
M. van Haeften's second daughter with the eldest
son of my Belgian colleague, Baron d'Anethan,
that the Minister for Foreign Affairs took me aside
and showed me a telegram he had that moment
received announcing the death of the Duke of
Clarence. I was the more shocked that the day
before I had, at the request of Queen Emma, wired
to the Foreign Office for news of the Prince, and
not having received any answer, had no idea of the
gravity of the case. The greatest possible sympathy
was called forth in all classes of Dutch society
by the painful circumstances attending the event.
We were overwhelmed with visits and messages
of condolence even from people with whom we

A MEMORIAL SERVICE 231

bad no personal acquaintance — deputies, artists and
professors amongst them — while the veteran Dutch
poet, Nicolas Beets, gave voice to the general feel-
ing in a touching poem of which I sent a copy
to the Duke of Teck. An official memorial service
was held at our pretty English Church in the Bosch-
straat, 1 at which places were of course reserved for
the representatives of the Queen Regent and the
Court, the Dutch Ministers and the Diplomatic
Corps ; all the foremost private seats, including
our own, being given up for that purpose, and
the main body of the church being left free for
the general public who attended in large numbers.
Sir George Bonham, who had now joined as First
Secretary on Mr. Fenton's retirement, and the other
gentlemen of the Legation, saw to every one being
properly seated, and the whole service, with the
musical part of which we had taken special pains,
was conducted with great decorum and was very
impressive. It so happened, however, that an
English lady connected with the Court, but whom
no one belonging to the Legation knew even by
sight, was, entirely by accident, kept out of her
habitual seat, which, as afterwards appeared, she
looked upon as an intentional slight, and resented,
with consequences that in the end proved very far
reaching. But here I am anticipating, and will
only add that I have good cause to remember that
memorial service.

Having, however, referred to church matters, 1
may take this opportunity for saying that, according
to my experience, one of the most troublesome of

1 The church was built by Mr. Tinnc, a Liverpool merchant of Dutch

extraction, partly in memory of a sister of his who had been murdered by
a fanatical tribe when engaged on an adventurous journey in the Soudan.

232 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

the duties that fall to the lot of British representa-
tives abroad is that of looking after the chaplaincies
at their respective places of residence. At The
Hague, for instance, I found on my arrival a
venerable chaplain of the name of Brine — a dis-
tinguished Greek scholar and in many ways a re-
markable man — but who, having held the appointment
for nearly forty years, was well past his work. His
health entirely broke down at this time, but as he
was generally respected, and had the best reasons
for not resigning his post, it became necessary to
provide a temporary substitute. This was no easy
matter, and, besides entailing upon me endless cor-
respondence with clergymen at home, once or twice
actually reduced me to drawing The Hague hotels
at the week's end for a stray parson to take the
service. I remember similar difficulties at Stockholm
and at Athens, and not to speak of the objections
which were frequently offered by members of the con-
gregation to the manner in which the services were
conducted, there was the still graver question of
obtaining the subscriptions indispensable for the
support of the church. The British Minister is in
fact saddled with most of the responsibilities, with-
out the patronage, of an unendowed living. At
The Hague I was fortunate at last in securing the
services of the present Legation chaplain and my
very good friend, the Rev. H. Ratford, who has
done excellent work among the congregation, and
is deservedly popular even with many of the best
Dutch families, several of whom now attend his
church.

Early on Christmas eve of 1893 I received an
alarming telegram from Florence about my brother

MY LAST BROTHER'S DEATH 233

William. He had long been in indifferent health,
and had never entirely got over the loss of his wife,
Nadine Lobanow, 1 but the last accounts of him had
given no cause for immediate anxiety. We left for
Italy at once that afternoon without any servants,
travelling all through Christmas day and only break-
ing the journey for a couple of hours at Milan
the following evening. Thence on by the night-
mail to Florence, which we reached in the early
winter daylight. We arrived too late, however, for
at the Villino Cusumano, where my brother had
lived, in an out-of-the-way corner of the town,
we learned that he had passed away in the course
of the night. He had been the companion of my
childhood and youth, but my necessarily roving diplo-
matic life had long separated us, and we had not
met for a good many years which, for him, poor
fellow, had been troublous ones, making a sad
ending to what at first had bid fair to be a
brilliant life. He was the most pleasant and agree-
able of companions, full of wit and fancy, and in
these respects much resembled our gifted cousin
Edmond de Polignac. We buried him in the Russo-
Greek cemetery at Leghorn near his Russian wife
who had died there three years before. Looking
through his papers and settling his affairs kept
us a week in Florence in bitter, sunless weather,
during which I met for the last time my very old
friend Charles de Talleyrand 2 and his wife, and also
his cousin the old Due de Dino, who had all been

1 " Recollections of a Diplomatist," vol. i. pp. 185-187.

2 The. Baron de Talleyrand had been French Ambassador in Russia.
See "Recollections of a Diplomatist," vol. i. pp. 221-223, and vol. ii.
pp. 242-243, 258, 265-266, 270, 304.

234 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

intimate with my brother and had shown him much
kindness.

We were glad to turn our backs on Florence,
which, after the many bright days I had formerly
known there, had now for me none but mournful
recollections. On our homeward way we passed a
day or two at Nice, with the La Rochefoucauld s
who were wintering there, and at Paris, to see
our friends the Malaspinas who had some time
before been transferred thither from The Hague.
We took great interest in the Malaspina menage,
having from the first watched the Italian Secre-
tary's attachment for Mile. Louise de Zuylen, who,
with her sister, Madame Van der Staal, was among
the most intimate of our friends in Holland. The
husbands of both these ladies have since dis-
tinguished themselves in diplomacy ; the Marquis
Malaspina having till quite recently been Italian
Ambassador at Constantinople, while M. van der
Staal now holds the blue ribbon of the Dutch Diplo-
matic Service in the Legation at Brussels.

At Paris I had a long talk with Lord DufTerin,
and was much concerned, I remember, at the some-
what desponding view he took of our relations with
France, which he had certainly done his very utmost
to improve. I was still more impressed, when
dining en famille the same evening with the Dou-
deauvilles, by the suspicions which the Due, for
whom I have a great regard, scarcely attempted to
conceal from me of unfriendly sentiments towards
France on the part of our Embassy. Lord Dufferin's
correspondence at that period unquestionably be-
trayed some anxiety, and indeed manifested fears
of matters taking a serious turn between us and
France in the event of any general complication

FRENCH SENTIMENTS 235

arising. This seems to me worth mentioning as an
instance of how deeply rooted still were in France, some
ten years ago, those feelings of distrust and of tradi-
tional animosity against us which have been now, it
may be hoped, overcome for good.

CHAPTER XIV

THE HAGUE, 1 892-1 894— SUMMER IN HOLLAND

Were it not for the fickleness of the Dutch climate —
on which I may possibly seem to harp unduly —
nowhere would the best months of the year be more
enjoyable than in Holland. Although, when it is fine,
it is sometimes intoxicatingly so, the genial influences
of spring and summer have great difficulty in getting,
and still more in keeping, the upper hand. No more
interesting struggle can be watched than that between
a vigorous vegetation, favoured by superabundant
moisture, and the blighting action of froward, incle-
ment skies. The beautiful hyacinths, for instance
— soon to be replaced by the tulips — that turn
the ground of certain districts round The Hague,
and the entire neighbourhood of Haarlem, into a
gorgeous carpet where all the colours of the rain-
bow run riot, for "all too short a date," almost
invariably come out under leaden skies or in the
teeth of a nipping east wind. It was piteous to see
the glorious glowing blossoms shiver and shake
through half their brief lives, only in the end to
be ignominiously consigned to the dunghill. When
we first went to Holland there was so little market
for these lovely flowers, that in the fields at well-
named Bloemendal could be seen cut hyacinths in
great odorous mounds reaching half-way up the
walls of the farm-buildings, and left there to decay

as mere refuse. The blooms which now easily find

236

THE OLD LEYDEN ROAD

237

their way to Covent Garden, were then quite worthless
in Holland, and we often brought home from the
Wassenaer gardens, on the Leyden road, great baskets
full of gorgeous tulips which the owner was only too
glad to part with for a florin.

None the less in Holland there is a wonderful
i*enouveau — to borrow the expressive French word —
which is nowhere more enchanting, when spring has
at last asserted itself, than on the same umbrageous
road to Leyden. The highway to that ancient seat
of learning runs, for several miles after leaving the
Haagsche Bosch, between the old-world grounds and
parks of the Prince of Wied, the Lyndens, Ouder-
meulens, Stirums, and other wealthy owners, which
are not screened from view by unsightly walls, but
are bounded only by ditches and luxuriant hedges
topped with the finest timber. The lilac bushes toss
their fragrant sprays across the grassy slopes that line
the road, and bright clumps of rhododendron here and
there overhang it. The thickets are resonant with
bird-calls, and the " piping clear of merry thrush "
and blackbird proclaim the advent of May almost more
lustily than in our English groves and lanes. Even
the wearisome Dutch stretches of meadow lose some
of their monotony and put on a beauty of their own
under a summer sky, the rich verdure and the cloud-
less vault above producing a pleasingly restful symphony
in blue and green.

I have many pleasant memories of our summers
in Holland, where Lord Reay had kindly prepared
the way for us with his kinsfolk and his many
friends. Among these — besides his distinguished
cousin, Baron Mackay, who was Prime Minister when
I arrived, but was succeeded in 1892 by M. Tak

238 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

van Poortvliet with a Radical Government — there
was the late Baron de Brantsen, with whom, and
with his wife and charming only child and heiress,
since married to Count C. von der Goltz, we soon
established the most cordial relations. We paid a
good many visits to the Brantsens at their place in
Gelderland, close to Arnhem. The Zyp is a typical
Dutch manor-house of the beginning of the seven-
teenth century, surrounded by a deep moat where the
ducks come quacking under the dining-room windows
to be fed. It stands in a good-sized park, with much
broken, well-timbered ground, and is altogether a
dignified and most enjoyable place. Nothing can be
prettier than the whole of the country round Arnhem,
with its mixture of purple moor and hill-sides clad
with splendid beech-woods, and grand views over
the fertile plains of the Betuwe and the valley of the
Rhine. The district contains a number of pleasant
country houses, the homes of Pallandts, Bentincks,
Heeckerens, and other leading families of the Dutch
aristocracy. Middachten, the seat of Count William
Bentinck, with many traditions of William III. and
Queen Mary, is a large and stately place, as is also
Amerongen, which belongs to his younger brother
Count Godard. We were taken many drives by the
Brantsens along the well-kept, shady roads to see
these and other sights of the neighbourhood. One
of them is the old castle of Doorwerth, which,
although deserted by its owners, still remains in a
complete state of preservation, and is a very interest-
ing specimen of mediaeval work, with massive double
towers mirrored in the moat that runs right round
it and is fed by the Rhine hard by. A truly charm-
ing liveable country is Gelderland, and among my
recollections of The Hague there are none that give

A DUTCH TOURNAMENT 239

me greater pleasure than those of the summer or
autumn days we spent at the hospitable manor-house
of that perfect specimen of a Dutch gentleman of
the best school, the last Baron Brantsen van de
Zyp.

A very pleasant visit, too, we made in the June
of our last summer in Holland to La Foret, the
country house, near Utrecht, of the Louis van Loons
who are closely connected with the banking-house
of Hope of Amsterdam. Besides our hostess, Mme.
Adele van Loon, there were the wives of the two
other Van Loon brothers, and 1 can scarcely ever
remember meeting in any family three prettier women
than this trio of sisters-in-law, the palm to my mind
being due to Mme. William van Loon, nee Egidius,
the Norwegian wife of the eldest of the three brothers.
The party were specially asked for the occasion of a
great tournament got up by the students of the
University of Utrecht, to which we were all taken in
a well-turned-out coach and other smart carriages.
The pageant, which was honoured by both the Queens,
who came to it from the Castle of Soesdyck, was a
great success; the jousting and tilting at the ring
being extremely well managed, and the armour and
horse-trappings of the knights very splendid and
historically correct. An unfortunate contretemps hap-
pened to young Count * # # (an exceedingly nice
fellow, and the best match in Holland), to whom
the principal part as King of Bohemia had been
assigned. Just as he was entering the arena with
the whole of his court and retinue, his charger, being
scared by the band, bolted and threw its rider, so
that the poor young fellow had to walk on foot in
the procession to his royal tent at the further end of
the lists.

240 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

But I have given more than enough space to these
notes of summer in hospitable Holland. We were so
close to England at The Hague that friends came fre-
quently to stay with us at the roomy Legation. Among
our guests at various times were the Bishop of Ely and
Lady Alwyne Compton with her niece Miss Florence
Anderson. Cheery Admiral " Rim " Macdonald also
came to us, as well as Miss " Cossy " Graham ; and the
Dowager Lady Lonsdale and a very old Madeira friend
of my wife's, Miss Hinton; while Lady Adelaide
Taylour stayed with us for some time. Of a number
of other travellers passing through, or staying at, The
Hague, I remember my cousin, William Levinge, 1 who
had come to Amsterdam in the yacht Dolphin with
his Sutton brothers-in-law ; the Duke and Duchess of
Abercorn ; the late Lord Arran and his son ; and the
Evelyn Ashleys. The Duke of Westminster, with
his charming Duchess, made a longer stay, chiefly
devoted to visiting the picture - galleries under the
guidance of that eminent authority on Dutch art
Doctor Bredius. The Duke afterwards sent several
pictures from Grosvenor House on loan to the Maurits-
huis, one of which — a small Paul Potter — quite
eclipsed for a time the celebrated bull.

And this visit of the Westminsters reminds me
that, being two years afterwards (in June 1893) on a
week-end visit to Cliveden, the Duke, on our arrival
there, told us that he had just concluded an arrange-
ment for the sale of that lovely place, the sum offered
to him for it being such as, with a second family grow-
ing up, he did not feel justified in refusing. He made
no concealment of the great wrench it was to him, and
spoke at the same time somewhat bitterly of certain

1 The late Sir William Levinge, Bart., of Knockdrin Castle, Co.
Westmeath.

CLIVEDEN 241

pretensions put forward by the purchaser to the pos-
session of one or two family souvenirs in the house.
It so happened that some weeks later we came over
again for a few days on business, when the heat in
London on a certain Sunday in August was so insuffer-
able — the empty town being wrapped in a thick haze
almost resembling a November fog — that we escaped
from it to Maidenhead, and spent the afternoon in a
boat on the river. Towards evening as we lay in
the shade of the trees almost opposite Cliveden, we
noticed a pair-oar putting off from there with a
lady and some children. Presently, as the boat
neared us, we saw that it contained the Duchess,
who, on recognising us, came alongside and told
us that it was her last day at Cliveden, which she
was leaving for good the next morning. Beautiful
Cliveden — the pearl of the river, and quite unique
among properties of its kind — one could well imagine
with how sad a heart its mistress was bidding it
farewell.

In that same summer of 1893 there came, too, the
Duke and Duchess of Leinster who, like the West-
minsters, were on a tour of the Dutch galleries. They
dined with us, in travelling clothes, I remember, the
evening they went back to England by the new Hook
of Holland route, and, having myself to go to London
on urgent business, I crossed over with them. For
various reasons that short journey is still present to
my memory. I had formerly known very well the
family of the Duchess, who was certainly at this
time the most beautiful woman in English society,
and I could not have had pleasanter travelling com-
panions. I parted from them at the Liverpool Street
station, much looking forward to meeting them again
before long. In December of that year the Duke

Q

242 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

died after a very short illness, his lovely widow
following him in less than eighteen months.

Many changes took place in course of time in our
Legation and in the diplomatic set in general. The
friendly, hospitable Bonhams, at whose engagement
years ago at St. Petersburg I had so to speak assisted,
and their pretty daughter, now the wife of Mr. Evelyn
Grant Duff, left us and were succeeded by the
" Mungo " Herberts, a delightful couple whose stay
at The Hague was unfortunately but short. Charles
des Graz joined the Legation about the same time,
and later on Bryan Clarke Thornhill, one of the most
entertaining of men and the very best of good fellows.
At the French Legation the Legrands were replaced
by M. Bihourd, now Ambassador at Berlin, and the
Comte de Se'gur and his wife, who were universally
liked, were transferred to Vienna. M. Legrand had
represented France at The Hague for thirteen years,
and only left it on his appointment to the Conseil d'Etat.
Baron # # # , who was well known for his want of tact,
thought it right on meeting my French colleague, to
condole with him on his retirement, saying : " Mais
cest un enterrement ! " "Non pas!" was the ready
reply, " cest une exhumation ! " We had, too, a suc-
cession of American Ministers ; Mr. Roosevelt, a cousin
of the actual President, being followed by my excel-
lent colleague Mr. Samuel R. Thayer, of Minneapolis,
and, after him, by Mr. Quinby.

The effect of these diplomatic shuffles was to make
us respectively doyen and doyenne of the corps, which
placed us in more immediate relations with the officials
of the Court, the doyen becoming on occasion the spokes-
man of his colleagues in questions of ceremonial and
etiquette, and the doyenne having to apply for and assist

BISMARCK'S SON-IN-LAW 243

at the audiences of presentation of the diplomatic
ladies, communicating for that purpose directly with
the Grande Maitresse or Mistress of the Robes, who
was then the Baronne de Hardenbroek, a very hand-
some woman, tres grande dame, and looking the part
to perfection. An amusing incident occurred one day
when my wife had to present to the Queen Regent
an American lady whose first visit to Europe it was.
Nothing could be kinder or more gracious than Queen
Emma at these audiences, and when on this occasion
everybody was seated, and the Queen had said a few
words to the lady in question, she naturally turned to,
and talked chiefly with my wife, whom she knew well.
During a short pause in the conversation the American
lady — who was immediately facing the Regent, and
probably felt rather out of it — suddenly pointed to the
wall over H.M.'s head and said, with a high-pitched
voice and an unmistakable accent : "I see you have a
very good picture of your little girl up there ! " much,
I need scarcely say, to the amusement and astonish-
ment of the Queen.

The most important of our diplomatic changes was
the departure of the German Envoy, Baron Saurma,
and the appointment, in his stead, of Count Rantzau,
the son-in-law of the ex-Chancellor Prince Bismarck.
I was from the first on the best of terms with my new
German colleague. He was full of humour, and of a
hearty, cordial disposition, a good sportsman and an
admirable host. At his table I remember sampling
wines from the cellars of his illustrious father-in-law of
a quality quite unknown to the wine-trade, these being
offerings sent to the Prince by patriotic owners of vine-
yards on the Rhine, or in the Palatinate, in token of
their admiration for the restorer of the Empire.
Count Rantzau came to The Hague from a very

244 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

desirable post at Munich, whence he had been ousted to
make room for his subordinate, Count Philip Eulen-
burg, whom I subsequently had for my colleague at
Vienna. Even a man of his genial temperament
could not but feel aggrieved by the circumstances of
his removal. He nevertheless held his post at The
Hague for nearly four years, during which time inte-
resting echoes from Friedrichsruh occasionally reached
me through him. The studied neglect with which the
" hermit of the Sachsenwald " was treated for so long
after his fall — mostly due to the hostile influence of
the permanent officials, the " vortragenden Rathe," at
Berlin, who had accumulated stores of ill-will and
resentment during the long years of the Chancellor's
stern, imperious sway ; the advances subsequently
made to him, and the reconciliation so skilfully put
on the stage on the memorable eightieth birthday,
when, with what might almost be called a cruel
irony, the ex - Chancellor was persistently referred
to as a distinguished warrior and general, and no
allusion whatever made to his wonderful work in
building up Imperial Germany — on all these and
other incidents of the great breach, side-lights
were now and then unconsciously thrown by my col-
league, who was devoted to his wife's father. When
Count Rantzau finally resigned, on the ostensible
motive that Prince Bismarck, since his bereavement,
could not do without his daughter, he was accorded
none of the distinctions usually conferred on retiring
Ministers. He was not given any of the customary
decorations, and the official notification of his retire-
ment was not even accompanied by the stereotyped
phrase about his meritorious services. He was re-
placed at The Hague by my fellow-labourer in the
Greek vineyard, Baron de Brincken.

DUTCH APPREHENSIONS OF JAPAN 245

In looking through old jottings of that period I
come across what, viewed in the light of actual events,
are not uninteresting references to Japan. Admiral
Casembroot — the last naval commander who had led
Dutch ships into action, and was popularly known
as the hero of Shimonoseki for the gallant manner
in which he had forced the passage of that name —
died in the spring of 1893 an d was buried with
great honours. His death, almost coinciding with
the conclusion of the war between China and Japan,
contributed to draw more particular attention in
Holland to the trend of events in the Far East
and to the complete change brought about there by
the triumph of Japan. It is curious to note the
apprehension with which, as far back as nine years
ago, some of the shrewdest observers in Holland
looked upon the growth of Japanese power. Spain,
it was pointed out in one of the ablest of the Dutch
papers, was taking measures for the protection of
the Philippines now that Formosa had fallen into
Japanese hands, and Formosa, which once upon a
time had been Dutch, was not so very much further
removed from the Moluccas and Borneo. It surely
behoved Holland to see to strengthening her forces
in those regions. Such being the views and fears
entertained at that time, how anxious may well appear
at the present day the future outlook for Holland,
as well as for all other countries that hold a stake
of any importance in Oceania. It might, it seems
to me, make us look twice before committing our-
selves to a renewal of the Treaty which binds us
to the Nippon Empire, and still more to an extension
of its scope.

Remarkable, too, were the evidences to be ob-
served, ten or fifteen years ago, of the keen interest

246 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

with which the course of affairs in South Africa
was watched in the Netherlands. The tone of the
Dutch press during our differences with Portugal at
the beginning of January 1890 was extremely anti-
English ; even such a sober, Conservative organ as
the Daghlad referring to the ultimatum presented
at Lisbon as " a sample of the bad manners which
the British are apt to indulge in towards weaker
Powers." The fact is, to speak frankly, that the
Dutch as a nation have good cause not to love us.
Not only have we supplanted them on the seas as
the chief carriers of the commerce of the world, and
deprived them of such splendid possessions as Ceylon
and Cape Colony, but we took a leading part in the
arrangements under which Belgium was severed from
Holland. These are bitter memories which, although
fortunately not influencing the general relations be-
tween the two countries, in some degree explain,
even if they do not justify, the passionate line after-
wards taken by the Dutch of all classes during the
great contest in South Africa. But quite apart from
this latent sense of, so to speak historical, wrongs
sustained at our hands, there were at work in Holland,
long before the complications that immediately led
to the war, active agencies whose aim and interest
it was to foster and support the Dutch South
African communities in their attempt to guard their
national existence from the encroachments of the
rising Anglo-Saxon tide. The task of helping to
stem the flood, besides being a congenial one to the
dyke-building Dutch, offered a tempting opening to
the youth of their upper middle-class, whose ener-
gies scarcely found sufficient scope within the narrow
borders of the Netherlands. For a good many years
past a certain proportion of the output of the Dutch

THE HOLLANDERS IN SOUTH AFRICA 247

universities and technical colleges — students of law
or divinity, teachers, engineers, electricians and others
— had found their way to the Orange Free State
or the Transvaal, where they in great degree sup-
plied the higher needs of the rougher and less
cultured denizens of those Republics. Although by
no means popular with the native Boer element,
these Hollanders had necessarily acquired the in-
fluence and authority due to men of superior
training. It of course became an object with them
to get fresh recruits from the mother country, and
before long they founded a Netherlands Association
(Nederlandsche Vereeniging) at Pretoria and Johan-
nesburg, the funds of which were devoted to the
encouragement of Dutch immigration and the ex-
tension of the commercial relations with Holland.
Another powerful agency was the Transvaal Railway,
the seat of which was at Amsterdam, while the line
itself was worked almost entirely by Dutchmen. The
presence of German men-of-war at the inauguration
of that line in 1894 was hailed with satisfaction by
an extreme section of the Dutch press as a demon-
stration intended to check possible British designs on
Lourenco Marquez. So charged indeed with danger
seemed the atmosphere fourteen years ago, that,
writing in June 1891, the Pretoria correspondent of a
leading Dutch paper described the situation as certain
before long to lead to an armed struggle between the
Dutch and British elements.

To return to my jottings, they show that, besides
watching and reporting upon these and other ques-
tions affecting our interests, I had to attend to the
settlement of Anglo-Dutch boundaries in Borneo and
New Guinea ; the conditions of the employment of

2 4 8 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

our East Indian coolies in Dutch Guiana ; Sugar
Bounties and Liquor Trade Conventions, and many
other questions arising out of the extensive com-
mercial relations of both countries. In dealing with
these affairs I invariably met with the most perfect
courtesy on the part of M. Hartsen and of his suc-
cessors at the Foreign Office, M. Tienhoven and
Jonkheer van Roell, as well as from their chefs du
cabinet, M. van der Staal and M. Ruyssenaers.

A troublesome question which arose during the
last years of my stay at The Hague deserves for cer-
tain reasons more particular mention. In November
1 89 1 the master of the whaling barque Costa Rica
Packet of Sydney, New South Wales, a man named
Carpenter, was arrested by the Dutch authorities
at Ternate, the principal Residency in the Molucca
Islands, on a charge of theft, which later on, it
was sought to magnify into piracy, and was thence
conveyed to a gaol at Macassar, in the great spider-
like island of Celebes, where he was treated with
much harshness and indignity, until finally released
on the interposition of our Consul at Batavia. The
act for which the man was arrested had taken
place on the 24th of January 1888, or nearly four
years before, and consisted in his having appro-
priated the cargo — composed of several cases of
mostly damaged spirits and a tin of petroleum, of
the total value of about £1% — of a derelict native
prauw, which he had met, waterlogged and aban-
doned by her crew, off the island of Boeroe, and, as
was afterwards conclusively established, quite outside
the Dutch territorial waters. Captain Carpenter had
transferred the paltry cargo to his vessel, but, finding
that some of his crew had got drunk on the contents

THE "COSTA RICA PACKET" CASE 249

of the cases, he ordered the whole of the spirits to
be thrown overboard. He then reported all the cir-
cumstances at the first Dutch port he stopped at.
A claimant to the cargo subsequently came forward,
and an official inquiry was held, the whole matter,
however, being soon allowed to drop. Nearly four
years later the affair was unexpectedly taken up
again by a newly-appointed and over-zealous Dutch
official, and a warrant was then issued against Car-
penter who, as I have said above, was arrested during
one of his cruises among the Dutch islands.

The case caused great excitement at Sydney, where
Carpenter was well known, and it was strongly com-
mented upon in the New South Wales Legislature.
A claim for damages and compensation, which I was
instructed to present at The Hague, was, after endless
correspondence, referred to arbitration. The Emperor
of llussia was requested to arbitrate, and finally an
award which was in complete accordance with the
British contention was given by that eminent interna-
tional jurist M. de Martens. I had taken great interest
in this affair, and, as far as I was personally concerned,
had permitted myself, while of course bound by my
instructions, to urge upon our Authorities at the
Foreign Office my view of its importance from an
Imperial standpoint, being convinced that any show
of indifference on our part about an incident which
had so thoroughly roused our Australian fellow-
subjects was much to be deprecated. There could
be no question as to the high-handed character of
the proceedings against the master of the Costa
Rica Packet, and. by a strange chance, the incident
resembled the Tacna affair, which had given me
so much to do in Chile ; * it being a cardinal feature

1 "Further Recollections of a Diplomatist," pp. 35-36, Co-71, 81.

250 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

in. both cases that the criminal acts imputed had
taken place on the high seas, and beyond the limits of
any local maritime jurisdiction. Before leaving this
matter I may mention that a little over two years ago
— when my name was brought somewhat prominently
before the public in connection with an article I
had contributed to the National Review 1 — I received
a letter from a well-known member of the New
South Wales Legislature, with whom I had no
acquaintance, thanking me in the kindest terms for
the line I had personally taken in the Costa Rica
Packet incident, and going even so far as to assert
that, in the writer's opinion, the efficient protection
afforded to the captain of a Colonial vessel had
contributed towards making Australia so essentially
staunch and loyal to us in the war in South Africa.
Nothing could be more gratifying than the generous
approval of my distinguished correspondent at the
Antipodes, but I must disclaim having done more
than my duty in a question where I had simply
followed the lead of such a man as Lord Jersey, at
that time Governor of New South Wales, who had
warmly taken up the Carpenter case on its own
merits as well as on Imperial grounds. It has, I
confess, been a satisfaction to me since then to
know that the finding of perhaps the greatest living
authority on international law was partly based upon
a memorandum I had drawn up on the case in French.

It was about this time that, feeling very depressed
over my diplomatic prospects, I was induced by des
Graz, the kindest-hearted of men, to try for distraction
the game of golf, which he had lately introduced at
The Hague, and which has proved a solace to men in

1 " An English Tribute to the Emperor Francis Joseph."

GOLF AT THE HAGUE 251

far greater trouble than mine. Although we never
became proficient at golf, both my wife and I took
to it very kindly, and drove most days to the nine-
hole links which Baron de Brienen had laid out round
his picturesque race-course at Clingendaal. Many an
exhilarating game did we play, losing innumerable
balls in a certain rough wood by the fifth hole, and
in the ditches that intersect the links. How well
I recollect it all, and how delightful was the fresh,
salt air blowing in from the downs close by !
Golf became quite the rage in Dutch society at this
time, and the fashion extended from The Hague to
provincial centres. A pretty club-house was put up
at Clingendaal, and we had interesting competitions
— in which Mile. Daisy de Brienen distinguished
herself, as did also my gunner - son — and cheery
club luncheons, where as Honorary President of the
Club I had sometimes to take the chair. Des Graz,
who had made himself an exceptional position among
the best people at The Hague, may well claim it as
a feather in his cap that he was the first to introduce
this fascinating pastime to their notice.

CHAPTER XV

THE HAGUE, 189 5- 1896— LAST DAYS IN HOLLAND

Meantime the years sped on and promotion came
neither from the East nor from the West. In the
space of less than four years no less than five
Embassies which became vacant were given to men
junior to me in the service, and I was left at the
head of the list of Envoys, and thus — so I put it to
one of our Foreign Secretaries — pilloried as it were
for incompetence.

It had now in fact become so evident that I was
being systematically passed over that I determined if
possible to discover the cause of my disfavour, and at
last, during a short visit to London in the early spring
of 1894, I learned from a foreign diplomatic friend
what was being said about me. The story went,
that I had been mixed up in a disgraceful "row"
at The Hague. I had endeavoured one day, it
was said, to force my way to the platform of the
railway station, on the occasion of some official
reception where everybody was in uniform — being
myself in plain clothes — and had insisted, on the
strength of my privileged character, on being allowed
to pass. Finally, the employe still refusing to admit
me, I had straightway knocked him down ! Such
was the strange tale related to me which, I was
further assured, had been talked about in London
for upwards of a year, and was credited even in
exalted circles.

Now it so happened that five years before, not

UNPLEASANT INCIDENT 253

long after my arrival at The Hague, when I was
constantly going to and from Amsterdam for Dr.
Metzger's treatment, I did have an unpleasant affair
at the railway station. I was coming back to The
Hague one afternoon with a return ticket which I
gave up at the wicket. My. brougham was waiting
for me outside in full view of the said wicket, and I
was about to jump in when the footman told me that
my wife and child had come to meet me, and had
gone up to the arrival platform where in the crowd
I had missed them. I turned back to find them,
and made for the wicket through which I had passed
only a few seconds before. When I reached it, the
ticket-collector said something in Dutch — a language
which at that time I only imperfectly understood. I
told him in German that I had just passed through,
that I was simply going back to fetch my wife,
and, as he still seemed to demur, explained who
I was. I then passed on, when the man seized me
from behind by the collar and pulled me back in the
roughest possible way. I of course turned round and
shook him off, and not understanding why he stopped
me so rudely, repeated that I was the " Englische
Gesandter," again trying to pass on, whereupon the
fellow barred the way, and hit out at me. I had little
difficulty in warding off his clumsy fists, and, in the
midst of this absurd encounter, my wife appeared
on the scene. I was naturally much incensed, and,
calling the policeman on duty outside, insisted on the
ticket-collector going with me to the station-master,
before whom I lodged a formal complaint, giving my
full name and description. Only then did I ascertain
that non-travellers unprovided with ordinary tickets (I
had just given up mine) were not admitted into the
station without a perronkaartje or platform ticket —

254 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

a regulation of which I was entirely unaware, having
been only a short time in Holland. I now drove
straight to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, M.
Hartsen, and recounted to him the whole occurrence.
He expressed the greatest regret, and promised to
attend to the affair at once. I ought, indeed, never
to have heard again of an incident which, as I said to
the Minister, was the result of a consigne Trial executee.
Nevertheless the story, grossly distorted, got about at
The Hague and was thence transmitted to London,
where it was further embellished. I of course took
immediate steps to let influential friends at home
know the rights of the matter, but was none the less
bitterly annoyed by the version which was current
of it.

Far worse, however, was yet to come. A year
later, in the spring of 1895, a Dutch lady of high
position with whom we were on intimate terms,
returned from a long official stay abroad. She had
seen a great deal of one of our Ambassadors, and, in
conversation with him, had kindly mentioned my wife
and myself as being popular and well thought of at
The Hague, observing at the same time that some
surprise was felt at my not being further promoted.
To this the Ambassador replied that, after a certain
unpleasant incident at the Dutch Court, it could not
well be otherwise. The lady then inquiring to what
the Ambassador alluded, he said it was well known
that I had had a violent altercation with one of the
officials at some Court function, and had very nearly
come to blows with him. The lady at once indig-
nantly denied the truth of the story, laying stress on
the fact that if such a thing had occurred, she must
have heard of it at the time. The Ambassador, never-
theless, shrugged his shoulders, and maintained the

ROYAL SYMPATHY 255

accuracy of his account. On hearing this extraordi-
nary statement from my friend, who added that she
thought it only right I should know what was being
reported about me, I mentioned it to one of my staff,
who said that, since I alluded to it, he must tell me
that in the south of France, the winter before, this
supposed incident at Court had been spoken of to a
mutual friend of ours (now dead) by a person of the
highest station, as being the legitimate cause of the
prejudice against me, and that when our friend utterly
denied that anything of the sort had taken place, the
personage in question had insisted that he knew it for
a fact.

In view of the character of these statements, I
felt bound to bring the matter to the knowledge of
the Queen Regent. A gentleman of her household
(now one of the great officers of State) and Baron
Clifford, the Marechal de la Cour, both great
friends of ours, very kindly undertook to inform
H.M. of what had occurred. Queen Emma at once
sent me the most gracious messages as to the
concern and annoyance with which she had heard
of these fabrications, together with assurances that
on her approaching visit to England she would
take good care to contradict and dispose of these
injurious assertions — a promise which H.M. kept to
the full. Indeed nothing could exceed the kindness
and sympathy she showed me on the occasion.

And now I have done with much the most pain-
ful occurrence of my long career, and will only add
that to this day I am unable to understand why, if
these stories of misconduct on my part were believed,
I should not at once, in common fairness, have been
charged point-blank with them, and thus given an
opportunity either of explaining them or proving

256 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

their falsehood. As to the growth of the myth, it
was evident that the railway ticket-collector had been
raised to the dignity of a Court Chamberlain, while
I am probably not far wrong in tracing its origin to
an apparently insignificant circumstance on which I
have touched lightly in the preceding pages.

The Royal visit to London took place in the spring
of 1 895. The meeting between her late Majesty and the
young Dutch Sovereign, then in her fifteenth year, was
in itself a highly interesting event, and though the two
Dutch Queens observed the strictest incognito, every-
thing was done to make their sojourn both agreeable
and instructive. As for the young Queen, she captivated
all who saw her by her charming countenance sparkling
with fun and intelligence, and by the child-like simplicity
with which she enjoyed everything. Her visits to the
Tower and the museums and picture galleries, the shop-
ping in Bond Street, and, above all, a drive through the
city in a hansom cab, which she insisted upon, afforded
infinite delight to the bright girl-Queen, who, so went the
gossip of the day, asked her late Majesty at Windsor
whether she, too, did not love going in a hansom.
We came in for our share of the Royal hospitalities,
dining at Marlborough House to meet the Queen
Regent, and also with the two Queens at Brown's
Hotel in Dover Street where they were staying, besides
later on receiving a command to dine and sleep at
Windsor Castle, when it became evident that Queen
Emma had more than fulfilled the promise she had
made to me. There still seemed every likelihood that
I might be left on at The Hague until the date of my
compulsory retirement, but I had ceased to feel that I
was living under a sinister and mysterious cloud, and I
no longer fought a disheartening fight with windmills.

A LEGATION BALL 257

With the winter of 1 895-96 there came a general
intimation that, in view of the approaching visit of
Queen Emma's youngest sister, Princess Elizabeth
of Waldeck Pyrmont (since married to the here-
ditary Count of Erbach - Schonberg), H.M. might
during the season be disposed to accept a few invi-
tations to private houses. We inquired whether it
would be agreeable to her to come to a ball at the
Legation, and, receiving a favourable reply, did our
best to make this a successful entertainment. In
graciously assenting to our proposal the Queen
Regent sent me word that she would be glad if
her acceptance of the hospitality of the Doyen and
Doyenne of the Diplomatic Corps were looked upon
as a general compliment to my colleagues as well as
to myself. For a number of years no diplomatic
house at The Hague had been thus honoured — neither
Queen Sophie nor the late King having ever attended
any diplomatic receptions — so that the exceptional
compliment paid us by the Queen Regent gave our
ball a special interest which was most unfortunately
heightened by the arrival of the news of the Jameson
raid in South Africa. The first telegram on the sub-
ject, giving only the baldest of outlines of the occur-
rence, reached The Hague from Berlin on the 31st
of December, and produced a sensation which at
once found expression in violent articles in the Dutch
papers, the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant taking
the lead in the attacks upon England. Our ball
was fixed for the 6th January, and there was much
speculation in society as to whether the Queen
Regent would, under the circumstances, come to it,
the betting, so to speak, being against her doing
so. H.M., nevertheless, not only came and was as
gracious as possible, but, in order not to disappoint

it

258 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

us, postponed the announcement of a slight Court
mourning until the following day, besides putting
off to a later date a ball which was to be given in
her honour by her Mistress of the Robes, Baronne
de Hardenbroek.

The crazy, bungled raid, followed by the Imperial
telegram of congratulation to President Kriiger and
the storm of resentment called forth in England by
that message, roused public opinion in sober Holland
to a pitch of unparalleled excitement. The interests
of the South African Republic in Europe were at
that period confided to the late M. Beelaerts van
Blokland, a deputy for Gelderland and owner of a
small estate near Arnhem, and a somewhat pro-
minent member of the so-called Anti-Revolutionary,
rigidly Calvinist, party. M. Beelaerts at one time
anomalously combined the dignity of President of
the Second Chamber of the States-General with the
appointment of Envoy of the Transvaal to Portugal,
France, and Germany. He was a man of some
ability, but with a decided bent for intrigue, and a
strong dislike for the Suzerain Power. At this con-
juncture he displayed more even than his habitual
activity, his journey ings to and from Paris and
Berlin being frequent and carefully chronicled in
the press. There is good reason to believe that
a hurried visit he made to Berlin, very shortly after
the Jameson raid, had for its object to persuade the
German Government to assume some sort of protec-
torate over the Transvaal. " The spontaneous chival-
rous outburst" of the Emperor William, as it was
characterised in the Dutch press, convinced the Boer
sympathisers in Holland that a bright future lay
before the Republic, inasmuch as it could now

BOER SYMPATHISERS 259

fully reckon on the firm support of Germany. The
Boer State, it was held, had ceased to be a quantite
negligeable, for Germany would, if it were need-
ful, . become for it what France had been for the
North American Republic in the days of its infancy.
Although these illusions were before long to be dis-
pelled by the prudent and statesmanlike attitude of
the German Government in the complications that
followed, it is interesting to note the hold they at
the beginning acquired in Holland, and how readily
public opinion there rose to the fly which had been
adroitly cast over it. From this period, too, dates the
first appearance on the scene of that stormy petrel,
Dr. Leyds, whose mischievous activity contributed
so largely to turn Continental opinion against us,
and who showed himself much the ablest of the
clique of Hollanders on whom rests so large a share
of responsibility for the subsequent disastrous conflict.

The year 1896 ran its course without any sign
of a change in our prospects, another Embassy be-
coming vacant and being filled up. We paid our
annual visit to Luxemburg in July, and went on
by Trier and Coblentz to Homburg, where, on our
advising Count SeckendorfT, of whom we had seen
a great deal the summer before at Scheveningen, of
our arrival, we were asked to luncheon the next day
at Kronberg, where the Empress Frederick was now
living in her beautiful Castle of Friedrichshof. The
weather being unfortunately very wet, after one of
the most terrific thunderstorms I can remember, we
were unable to see the lovely gardens on which so
much care had been lavished, but the Empress herself
showed us many of the treasures she had amassed
with so perfect an understanding of art, and which

260 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

made Friedrichshof as interesting as it was luxurious
and homelike. I have preserved a vivid recollection
of this afternoon spent in the society of the most
accomplished, and in some respects the most unfor-
tunate of Princesses, whom I never saw again after
this day. She had heard a good deal about my mis-
adventures from Count Seckendorff, who had taken a
very kind interest in my case, but she made me tell
her the whole tiresome story at length, listening
with wonderful patience, and evincing, I am bound
to add, some indignation, and then, when dismissing
us, said very pointedly : " I shall not forget."

We returned to The Hague on the ist of August,
and had barely been there a week when I received a
letter from Mr. (now Sir Eric) Barrington letting me
know privately that there was a very good chance of
the Embassy at Vienna being offered to me when the
move consequent on the approaching retirement of
Lord Dufferin took place. My appointment was finally
dated the 15th October following, and on that day we
took our final leave of The Hague, having had our
farewell audience of the Queen Regent at the Loo a
fortnight before. I left The Hague with very mixed
feelings, for, great though was the sense of relief that
I had at last, after no little tribulation, reached the
topmost rung of the diplomatic ladder, I could not
but feel that, at my age, the long desired promotion
came almost too late. We had, besides, both taken
deep root in Holland and had met there with in-
numerable kindnesses. It was with heavy hearts,
therefore, that we wended our way to the railway
station, where, to judge by the crowds of our
acquaintance who came to bid us Godspeed, we left
behind us not a few well-wishers.

CHAPTER XVI
VIENNA, 1896-1897— THE AUSTRIAN COURT

Our hands were more than full, when we got to
London, with the orders we had to give for State
carriages, harness and liveries, besides other expensive
paraphernalia indispensable at such a post as Vienna.
Time, too, was short, as we did not propose spend-
ing more than a few weeks in England, hoping to
settle down in our new home before the winter fully
set in.

A week-end visit we made to my old friend and
colleague, Lord Sackville, early in November, deserves
a passing mention. It was the first time I saw
Knole, where I have since been several times, and
the impression it then made upon me is still
present to my mind. Knole is, I imagine, almost
unique among our old historic homes for the care
bestowed on it by successive generations of its
Sackville owners, who, in a rare conservative spirit,
have not only left its contents untouched and
undisturbed, but seem to have applied themselves
to keeping the most interesting portions of the im-
mense rambling building exactly as they were when
lived in three centuries ago in early Stuart times. To
these laudable instincts of its former inmates must
now be added the happy circumstance that the splendid
place and the treasures that fill it are committed to
the care of Mrs. Sackville West, whose exceptional un-
derstanding of pictures, ancient furniture, and artistic

262 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

brie a brae of all kinds, united to perfect taste, is such
as to make her the most competent of custodians for
the stately possession that first came to the family
in Elizabethan days, though a great part of the vast
fabric a dates back to a much more remote period. So
interesting are the contents of Knole, with its in-
numerable portraits — now for the first time properly
catalogued — and its many curious historical memorials,
that they afford, to those who have the good fortune
and the leisure to study them, a perfect epitome of the
annals of England.

The pleasant party staying there with us com-
prised Lady Bantry (now Lady Trevor), Mr. and Mrs.
Edward Hope, my late Secretary at The Hague, des
Graz, and, with his popular wife, John Savile Lumley
— now Lord Savile and owner of splendid and ghostly
Rufford — whom I had first known years before as a
mere boy in his uncle's house at Berne.

It is an interesting fact that, among the many
valuable things at Knole, there are two complete
services of plate marked with the Royal arms, which
were brought there by two successive husbands of the
charming Duchess of Dorset whose curious fate it was
to be twice Ambassadress at Paris, the second time as
the wife of the Lord Whit worth so well known in con-
nection with the rupture of the peace of Amiens. In
the good old days which ended some time before I
entered the ranks of our diplomacy, a full service of
plate was always issued by the Crown to Ambassadors
and Envoys on their first appointment, which on retire-
ment, they were allowed to retain as their private pro-
perty. Nous avons change tout cela and many other

1 Knole was given by Queen Elizabeth to her cousin, Sir Thomas
Sackville. The house contains 365 rooms, 52 staircases, and 7 courts,
while, it is said, there are no less than seven acres of roofing — including
stables, &c.

KNOLE 263

things besides. By the same token this Duchess of
Dorset, whose lovely presentment by Hoppner is one
of the chief treasures of the house, was on terms
of great intimacy with Queen Marie Antoinette in the
early days of the Revolution, and her letters, and,
if I am not mistaken, her diary, preserved among
the family records, would, if they saw the light, be
most interesting reading. But I have lingered too
long over beautiful Knole which has a remote family
interest for me, inasmuch as Lady Anne Sackville, the
eldest daughter of the first Earl of Dorset — Queen
Bess's Treasurer — happens to be an ancestress of my
mother. 1

On the 19th of November we received a Royal
command to dine and sleep at Windsor, where, shortly
before dinner, Sir Edmund Monson and I each had
private audiences of the Queen to kiss hands on our
respective appointments to Paris and Vienna. Besides
the customary Royal remembrances with which she
was pleased to charge me for the Emperor Francis
Joseph, H.M. gave me particular messages for the
widowed Crown Princess Stephanie, in whom she took
a great interest, as she did at all times in her relatives
on the Coburg side. As usual on these occasions the
party at Windsor was quite a small one. The only
Royalties staying there were the Duchess of Coburg —
who inquired very kindly after my son George, whom

1 Lady Anne Sackville married Sir Henry Glemham, of Glemham,
Suffolk. Their daughter married Thomas Cressy (of Fulsby, Lincoln),
whose daughter and sole heir became the wife of Sir Thomas Parky ns,
Bart., of Bunnej , Notts.

Sir Thomas Glemham, son of Sir Henry and Lady Anne Glemham,
was one of King Charles' trustiest generals. He defended Carlisle with
great tenacity, and only surrendered it when on the verge of starvation.
•• He was the first man," sayB an old writer, "thai taught soldiers to eat
catfl and dogs." Glemham was afterwards Governor of Oxford. The
Glemham family has long been extinct.

264 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

she had known well at Malta when he was serving in
the Alexandra — and Princess Henry of Battenberg.
Lady Downe, who was in waiting, was an old friend
of ours, as were also Mrs. Bernard Mallet and Miss
Minnie Cochrane, and with them the next day we
spent a pleasant forenoon going over the beautiful
State rooms before returning to London.

I have never had occasion to see Windsor since its
complete renovation in the present reign, but in the
old days the simple dignity of the etiquette observed
there, the quiet dinner-parties of seldom more than
twelve or fourteen people, and the informal cercle held
afterwards in a certain corner of the great corridor
whither the Queen was wont to adjourn, and where she
sent for and conversed with the dinner guests in turn
— not to speak of the admirable arrangements made
for one's comfort — all bore a character of old-world
repose and refinement that were in perfect keeping
with the age of the venerable Sovereign and the life
of retirement she had led for so many years. My
periodical visits to this most splendid and picturesque
of Royal residences count among the noteworthy
memories of a long diplomatic career.

A week later, I returned to Windsor on an ex-
tremely cold day, to be sworn of the Privy Council.
The Council was held in a small sitting-room — which
in former days would have been termed a closet —
generally used by the Queen when giving private
audiences, and which contained a number of interest-
ing miniatures. When the oath had been administered
to me, and I had been congratulated by our Lord
President, the Duke of Devonshire, who, I may here
mention, has through life been the kindest of friends
to me ; we all stood — the other Privy Councillors and
the late Sir Charles Lennox Peel, Clerk to the Council

THE FIEND INFLUENZA 265

— in a sort of semicircle round the sofa where the
Queen was seated, and I have a strong recollection of
the strikingly clear, precise enunciation with which
she uttered the word " approved," after the Lord
President had read out to her the title or summary
of each of the documents respecting which her pleasure
had to be taken.

Before the Council I had had to wait for some
time in one of the large State rooms which, on this
bitterly cold afternoon, seemed to me very insufficiently
warmed — the Queen, as is well known, had a great dis-
like to hot rooms — and I had been thoroughly chilled.
Although already feeling far from well I went that
evening to the Royalty Theatre, but on my return
home after the performance had a sleepless night, and
by the morning was in a high fever. My friend and
neighbour the late Dr. Macla°;an — the loss of whom
his many patients to this day deplore — at once pro-
nounced it a case of influenza complicated by bronchial
pneumonia. For some days I was very ill indeed and
was kept to my bed for nearly a fortnight. All our
plans were upset, and it was only on the 23rd of
December that I was able to get as far as Dover,
where we stayed over Christmas day at the Lord
Warden Hotel. At last, after once more breaking
the journey at Brussels, we reached Vienna on the
afternoon of the 28th, and were met at the Westbahn
terminus in the Mariahilf by the entire staif of the
Embassy and taken to the Hotel Bristol on the
Karntnerring.

It is very difficult for me to summarise the
feelings I experienced in returning after an interval
of many years, and in a very different capacity, to
a place I had known and liked so well as I had

266 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

Vienna. The dominating note in one's thoughts
was, and of course in part remained, a sad one.
There was no blinking the fact of the change that
had taken place in one's self, while the ancient
Imperial city had undergone an almost complete
transformation. Of this, however, I had already had
an inkling during the hurried visit we had made to
Vienna in September on leaving Marienbad ; the
object of the journey being to assure ourselves of
the capabilities of the Embassy House, which, after
the departure of the Monsons for Paris, had been
entirely overhauled by the Office of Works and was
still, when we now came for good, in the hands of
the workmen putting in the electric light and a new
hot-air apparatus. But even with these great im-
provements the house could not be considered a
really good one for the purpose for which it had
been built some thirty years before when my old
St. Petersburg chief, Sir Andrew Buchanan, was
Ambassador. The estimates for it had been ruth-
lessly cut down by the Treasury, with the result
that the original plans had to be essentially reduced
and modified. For entertaining on a large scale it
was quite inadequate, and, what was almost a crime
in a dance-loving capital like Vienna, it had no
ball-room worthy of the name, and very insufficient
accommodation for the sitting-down supper which
is a feature of all big entertainments there. The
ground on which it stood had formed part of the
spacious gardens of the Villa Metternich in the
llennweg which I well remember in the days of
the old Chancellor. Only a small portion of those
gardens now remains attached to the Villa, the bulk
of them having been disposed of in building-lots
on which, besides our own Embassy, there stands

THE EMBASSY STAFF 267

the splendid house built by the German Govern-
ment for the use of their Ambassador — which was
immediately opposite to, and sadly overshadowed,
ours — and beyond it, the charming petit hotel that
had been purchased by the Russian Government
from the Duke of Nassau. Having, however, re-
counted the deficiencies of our new official resi-
dence, I am bound to add that we succeeded in
making it very habitable, and were able in it to do
our duty by the Vienna w T orld, and that it has left
in my mind none but the pleasantest associations.

I may as well say at once that I was highly
fortunate in the composition of my staff during the
whole of my tenure of the Embassy at Vienna. In
Ralph Milbanke, the First Secretary of the Embassy,
who died some two years ago to the sincere regret
of all who knew him, I had the best of friends and
most useful of collaborators. His knowledge and
experience of affairs in the Dual Monarchy, and of
the society of Vienna and of Pesth, were quite excep-
tional, the greater part of his career having been spent
there. He enjoyed deserved popularity in the most
exclusive Austrian and Hungarian sets, was a wel-
come guest in the best houses, got the best of shoot-
ing, and, while being accounted a Viennese of the
Viennese, remained a most efficient and zealous
diplomatic servant of the Crown. Our service suf-
fered a real loss by the untimely death of Milbanke.
Colonel Wardrop, who was the smartest of cavalry
officers and had made a name for himself in the
Soudan, was, as far as I could judge, an unusually
competent Military Attache in an Empire whose
mounted troops have at all times been renowned
for their quality. Wardrop did the Embassy essen-
tial service during the crisis of the South African

268 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

war, and was not only much liked in the leading
military circles at Vienna, but was fortunate in
being in great favour with the Emperor Francis
Joseph himself. It has always seemed to me un-
fortunate that the opinion of an officer with such
a special knowledge of horseflesh as his should not
have been turned to better account by our military
authorities at home, in the contracts they made for
horses in Hungary for the army in South Africa.

Findlay, one of the nicest fellows in the service,
who is now doing excellent work under Lord Cromer
in Egypt, was all through my time the very efficient
head of our Chancery, which also numbered "Freddy"
Clarke, Rennie — the latter still at Vienna — and was
later joined by young Lord Granville whom, as his
father's son, I was very glad to have on my staff, of
which he became one of the most popular members.
My eldest son, Horace, too, before long came to me
from Teheran as Second Secretary. 1

I had found on my arrival two promising juniors,
who, however, soon left : Mr. J. L. Baird for Cairo,
and eventually for Abyssinia, and Mr. Colville Barclay
who followed Sir Edmund Monson to Paris. Besides
these regular members of the service we had a suc-
cession of young Honorary Attaches. Lord Newport,
who is at present one of the Prime Minister's Private
Secretaries, Lord Langton (now Lord Temple), and
Lord Hyde, each in turn served with me for a time.
It would, I think, be a good thing if more of our
eldest sons went through a course of diplomatic
training abroad, and thereby acquired a special
knowledge and experience which could not but

1 He went up in February 1891 for the competitive Diplomatic
Examination, passing first of the three successful candidates, thirteen
haying competed.

MY FIRST AUDIENCE 269

be of advantage to them later on as hereditary-
legislators.

I was still far from restored to health on reaching
Vienna, and was not sorry that my audience of the
Emperor had to be deferred for a short time on
account of H.M.'s absence on a shooting expedition.
On the nth of January, however, I was received
with all the ceremony observed at this ancient Court.
Three dress carriages were sent to the Embassy
to fetch me and my staff, the latter preceding me
in the two first, while I followed in the last —
a very handsome glass coach — with one of the
Emperor's officiers d'ordomiance — a young Prince
Thurn and Taxis, seated opposite to me. I was
afterwards told that the Emperor had selected this
smart young officer to fetch me on hearing that I
had known his father, Prince Lamoral Taxis, well in
bygone days, when he was a brilliant Vortanzer at
the Vienna balls instead of a K.K. Feldmarschall
Lieutenant on the retired list.

The stable department of the Imperial Court,
which is presided over by the Master of the Horse,
Prince Rudolph Liechtenstein (who is at the same
time Premier Grand Maitre of the Household), is ad-
mirably managed under the direct supervision of the
First Equerry, Count Ferdinand Kinsky, a younger
brother of Count Charles — now Prince — Kinsky who
is so well known in English society. The State
carriages, drawn by splendid grey Lipizzaners from
the Imperial stud-farm near Trieste, were turned out
to perfection, and as we drove down the spacious
Iling at noon, the time when it is most crowded,
every one saluting as we passed, I could not help
remembering the far-away days when I had lived
here as a simple Attache.

270 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

As we passed under the archway of the Burgthor,
and thence across the wide esplanade, now decorated
by the fine equestrian statues of Prince Eugene
of Savoy and of the Archduke Charles, into the
Hofburg, the guard turned out and presented arms,
the drums beating aux champs. We got out at
the Botschafterstiege, and going upstairs, preceded
by Court officials, passed through an enfilade of
rooms, lined with detachments of the German and
Hungarian Body Guards, where I was at once met
by the Grand Master of the Ceremonies, Count
Kalman Hiinyadi, the most picturesque figure at
the Austrian Court, who was an old acquaintance
of mine and the brother of the beautiful Princess
Julie Obrenovitch, now the widow of Prince Charles
d'Arenberg. 1 In a further room I was greeted by
the Grand Chamberlain, Count Abensperg and Traun,
another old acquaintance and former colleague when
I was at the Paris Embassy. The First Aide-de-Camp,
General Count Paar, then went into the next room and
announced my arrival, when, the doors being thrown
open, I was ushered into the presence chamber and
left alone with the Emperor.

After I had duly made my obeisance and delivered
my credentials, the Emperor, whom I had not seen
for nearly forty years, addressed me with the utmost
graciousness — I might almost say cordiality — and,
kindly referring to my former service at the Em-
bassy here, said that he was glad to meet again in
me une tres ancienne connaissance. Those alone
who have the privilege of knowing the Emperor
can realise the winning charm of his manner, and
the alert look and benignant expression that light
up and transfigure a face whose somewhat rugged

1 " Recollections of a Diplomatist," vol. i. p. 235.

THE EMPEROR FRANCIS JOSEPH 271

features are all too careworn in repose. It is the
expression in fact which, as I have seen related
somewhere, made the painter Lenbach throw down
his brush in despair one day when the Emperor was
sitting to him, and reply, with the freedom of a
great artist, when H.M. asked what was the matter,
that he was thinking that the kindly face must have
become a mask, concealing the real countenance of
the most worried, sorely tried man in the whole
Empire.

After speaking at length and very warmly of

the value he attached to the immemorially friendly

relations subsisting between our two countries, the

Emperor emphasised their special importance at a

time when such serious questions were being treated

at Constantinople, and when the necessity was so

great for a complete accord on the part of the

Powers in dealing with them. My private audience

—which, my Austrian friends told me afterwards,

had been an unusually long one — now came to an

end, and, according to the prescribed etiquette, I

had, after backing as far as the door, to give a

knock on it as a signal for the admission of my

staff, whom I then presented to the Emperor, who

addressed a few words to each of them. I was

asked to dinner at Court a few days later, when I

was even more captivated by the Emperor's manner,

and struck by the great decision he showed in

referring to Eastern affairs which, at that moment,

and for some months afterwards, fully absorbed

the attention of the Great Powers. Most gratifying,

too, was the interest evinced by the Emperor in

our preparations for a final advance on Khartoum,

and the admiration he expressed of the manner in

which the Dongola campaign had been conducted.

272 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

Public opinion throughout the civilised world
was then still under the sinister impression of the
Armenian massacres, which, beginning in 1895 with
the atrocities committed in Armenia proper, had
spread westwards, and had culminated in the abomi-
nable scenes of bloodshed that took place in August
1896 in the very capital of the Empire. The indig-
nation aroused by these events had been reflected in
an unanimity of reprobation not always to be noticed
in the Powers interested in the affairs of the Levant,
and had led, in December 1896, to an Anglo-Russian
understanding as to assuring the execution of the
reforms deemed indispensable in the Armenian dis-
tricts of Turkey. This was one of the attempts to
improve the condition of the subject races of that
Empire, which, however honestly made at the outset,
have been in turn defeated by the jealousy and dis-
cord of those races themselves, or by the diverging
aims of the Powers — to say nothing of the skill with
which the least symptom of disaccord between them
has been at once exploited at Yildiz Kiosk. On
this occasion, however, a definite step had been taken
by the assembling in a conference ad hoc of the
Ambassadors to the Porte who, when I took up my
duties at Vienna, were, as I have said, busy working
out a general draft of the beneficial changes in view.

Although the ambassadorial conference was pur-
suing its labours harmoniously and without friction,
there was still discernible at Vienna much of the
old distrust of Russian designs in that quarter, and
a corresponding anxiety to learn how far it was
possible to rely on our Government not departing
from its traditional policy in regard to the cardinal
points — as they had been heretofore considered — of
maintaining the status quo at Constantinople and in

NEAR EASTERN PROBLEMS 273

the Straits, in accordance with the provisions of the
Treaty of Paris. The more immediate fear then enter-
tained in Austrian Government circles was that renewed
disturbances in the Turkish capital — whether these
were provoked by the Armenian Committees, or other
fanatical elements such as the Softas or the Young
Turks — might, by imperilling the safety of the
European communities, and even of the Embassies,
afford to Russia a welcome pretext for a coup de
main on that capital itself. On the other hand the
Sultan was credibly reported to be highly irritated
by the pressure put upon him by the Powers. On
one occasion he had indeed exclaimed that sooner
than be troubled again with these reforms he would
call in the Russians and place himself in their hands.

Coupled with these apprehensions was the uncer-
tainty generally expressed, and shared in by eminent
authorities like Count Kalnoky and M. de Kallay,
as to whether, in such a sudden emergency, the other
Powers could be counted upon to uphold the Treaties
and put an effectual check on Russia. The general
impression at Vienna was decidedly pessimistic ;
even a statesman so inclined to optimism as Count
Goluchowski — Count Kalnoky's successor at the
Imperial Foreign Office — sharing in the gloomy view
taken of the outlook in the East. It so chanced that,
very shortly after my arrival, Count Goluchowski had
been to Berlin, where he attended a Chapter of the
Order of the Black Eagle, and was treated with marked
distinction. He had returned thence to some extent
imbued with the theories current there as to a com-
plete change having taken place in our attitude in
England towards the Near Eastern problems. He
had heard it confidently asserted at Berlin that this
change had been partly brought about by the dominant

s

274 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

position we had recently acquired in Egypt having
lessened our interest in the question of the control
of the Straits, and in a still greater degree by the
revulsion in public feeling towards our ancient ally
and protege which, more or less dating from the
Bulgarian atrocities, had now been revived by the
persecution of the Armenians. In short, H.M.'s
Government were represented as being compelled by
the growing anti-Turkish sentiment essentially to
modify their attitude in Eastern affairs. The object
in view in propounding this theory was, of course,
to sap still further the waning British influence with
the Porte, and thereby to prepare the way for the
gradual building up of that German preponderance
at Yildiz Kiosk of which we are now witnessing the
remarkable political and economic fruits.

The scepticism which was at the same time openly
and contemptuously professed or affected at Berlin as
to Great Britain ever drawing the sword again, except
in those petty quarrels to which her overgrown empire
necessarily exposes her, had likewise not been without
its effect in Vienna, and it was not easy under these
circumstances to convince the Imperial Government
that the fundamental lines of our policy in Eastern
affairs remained unaltered and continued to rest on
the Treaty of Paris. To this period of doubt and
anxiety must in fact be assigned the new direction
taken at Vienna in dealing with those vital Balkanic
concerns on which Austria-Hungary, cast out as she
has been from Germany and despoiled of Italy, now
almost entirely concentrates her attention.

The Imperial Government, in the fear that had
been instilled into them of their possible isolation
in the event of a sudden acute crisis on the Bosphorus,
very naturally bethought themselves of the advantages

COUNT GOLUCHOWSKI 275

of a direct understanding with the Power of whose
designs they had been led to entertain somewhat
exaggerated apprehensions. It was during the visit
paid by the Emperor Francis Joseph to St. Petersburg,
at the end of April of this year (1897), that the bases
were laid for the general agreement with Russia on
Balkanic affairs which still subsists, and has done
much to further the cause of peace in Europe. In
my opinion great credit is due to Count Goluchowski
for his share in effecting this arrangement. It has
worked very well on the whole, and, now that Russia
is so hampered by the disastrous contest in the Far
East, has necessarily led to a legitimate increase of
the Austro-Hungarian influence in the Balkanic Penin-
sula. Indeed it may almost be counted as one of the
singular effects of that distant contest that henceforth
the Dual Monarchy will have seriously to reckon at
Constantinople, not so much with the weight of her
colossal northern neighbour, as with that of her for-
midable ally and predominant partner in the Triplice.
So strangely has the Russo-Japanese war transformed
for the time the elements of the nearer Eastern
problem. Here, however, I feel that I am travelling
somewhat out of the record and must put a check
upon myself.

As for my intercourse, both personal and official,
with Count Goluchowski, it was of the most agreeable
character throughout my four years' residence at
Vienna. I ever found him, as did my colleagues,
patient, obliging, and eminently conciliatory, while,
on occasion, fully capable of holding his own. It
would perhaps be out of place on my part to try
my hand at a portrait of the statesman who, after
upwards of ten years, still enjoys the unabated con-
fidence of his Sovereign, and has become an essential

276 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

factor in European politics, but on one marked charac-
teristic I would, however, venture to touch. " A
sanguine Sarmatian with the most perfect Parisian
gloss," as he was once described, Count Goluchowski
is essentially a statesman homme du monde, a type
that tends more and more to vanish from the Great
European Chancelleries. The fine reception-room at
the Ball-Platz, 1 in which he works seated at a bureau
that once was used by Prince Kaunitz, is replete
with historical recollections, having been succes-
sively tenanted by Metternich, Felix Schwarzenberg,
Rechberg, and, last not least, by Kalnoky. It was,
moreover, a pleasant resort for the diplomatist who,
coming thither to exchange views or to carry out
instructions, was grateful when arid political discus-
sions were occasionally relieved by an amusing sally,
or by some detail of social life at Vienna or elsewhere
which showed how carefully the Minister kept himself
informed of all that went on in the world around him.
From Paris, where he had served for several years,
and had enjoyed much popularity, Count Goluchowski
had brought back the most charming of wives in Prin-
cess Anna Murat, who did the honours of the Imperial
Foreign Office with infinite tact and grace.

In spite of the clouded political horizon, this first
winter season we went through in the Kaiserstadt was
very animated. There were the two customary Court
balls, the Ho/ball and the Ball bei Hof, the delicate
distinction implying that the first is a great official
function, in full uniform, to which every one entitled
to go to Court is bidden, while the second is much
smaller and more select. The Hof ball was a splendid

1 The name by which the Imperial Foreign Office — situated on the
Ballhausplatz, so called from an old tennis-court, now pulled down — is
known, as we say Downing Street of our Foreign Office.

"HOFBALL" AT THE BURG 277

fete and most interesting as a sight, though necessarily
ceremonious and fatiguing, especially the long diplo-
matic cercle that preceded it, our Corps Diplomatique
comprising an unusual number of persons — about
one hundred and forty, not counting the ladies — who
were nearly all in turn honoured with a word from the
Emperor and the Archduchess Marie Josepha (wife of
the Archduke Otto), who, in the absence of the Empress,
did the honours of the Imperial Court. The immense,
profusely-lighted ball-room into which we presently
followed the Royalties, offered a brilliant coup oVceil.
The family jewels of the great Austrian ladies are
justly noted for their splendour, and the mass of varied
uniforms, and, still more, the national Court dresses
of the Hungarian magnates, and of a few Polish
nobles, gave a striking touch of colour to the scene.
Although smart, the Austrian military uniforms of the
present day, however, are not to be compared with
those I remember in old times, while no doubt far better
adapted to active service. The Emperor went about
indefatigably between the dances. Singling out the
persons of mark with whom he wished to converse ;
causing the debutantes at Court to be presented to
him ; and now and again addressing a few words to
one or other of us foreign representatives, he practi-
cally got through as much business in the course of
the evening as one of his Ministers in an ordinary
day's work.

There is no regular supper at these large State
balls, the dancing coming to an end at midnight after
a long cotillon, during which the wearied Ambassador,
who has been on his legs since half-past seven, finds a
corner where he can listen comfortably to the enchant-
ing strains of the perfect band led by Eduard Strauss,
almost the last of that gifted dynasty of composers of

278 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

dance-music. As for the Ambassadresses, they are far
better off than their husbands at these Court enter-
tainments. Besides having a privileged bench of their
own, they are asked in turn to sit by the presiding
Archduchess on the dais occupied by the Imperial
family, and afterwards adjourn with her and the other
Archduchesses and a few Austrian Furstinnen of the
highest rank to a sort of tea-supper. In fact the great
distinction with which the wives of Ambassadors are
treated at the Imperial Court often reminded me of a
saying of the late Countess Apponyi, which I have, I
fancy, already quoted elsewhere, that the only really
enviable positions in diplomacy are those of an Attache
and of an Ambassadress. Much the pleasantest of the
Court entertainments was the Ball bei Hof which is
strictly confined to the creme de la creme of the Vienna
world, and, but for the stars and decorations of the
men (Grands Cordons being, oddly enough, not worn
on the occasion) is more like a magnificent private fete,
only officers appearing at it in uniform. It is not
preceded by a cercle, the Imperial family coming in —
a pretty procession as at our own Court balls —
when the guests have assembled. Before the cotillon
there is an excellent sitting-down supper at which the
Ambassadors are placed at the Archduchess Marie
Josepha's table and their wives at that of the
Emperor.

There were big balls, too, this winter at some of the
principal Vienna houses, among others at the splendid
Pallavicini Palais on the Josefs-platz which contains
a perfect ball-room, and a brilliant fete was given by
the Prime Minister, Count Badeni, at his official
residence in the Wipplingerstrasse, which the Emperor
honoured by his presence. This was a rare distinc-
tion, and th.e fete — which struck me chiefly at the time

THE IMPERIAL FAMILY 279

by the almost painfully excessive electric lighting of
the great suite of rooms — proved to be in some
respects memorable ; preceding, as it did by only a
few months, the sensational fall of the Premier
who stood in such high favour with his Sovereign.
Altogether, I think it may fairly be said that the fes-
tivities in the houses of the Austrian aristocracy — such
as the Liechtenstein, Harrach, and Auersperg Palaces
— have a certain ancien regime air and stamp of their
own which is probably only equalled by the hospi-
talities of the historical princely families of Rome.
So far as I know, this atmosphere is seldom met with
elsewhere, however more recherche, luxurious, and
lavish of display may be the dissipations of the Paris
or London gay world.

One of the duties we had to go through on our
arrival was to apply for audiences of the several mem-
bers of the Imperial family residing at Vienna, and
these were not few in number. The audiences were
generally appointed for the afternoon, and, in the case
of Archduchesses, my wife was expected to go to them
in full evening dress. But if the etiquette imposed was,
to English ideas, somewhat strict and irksome, nothing
could be more amiable and pleasing than the reception
one met with. The kindly, genial manner, which finds
its most perfect expression in the Emperor, is distinc-
tive of the entire Imperial family with scarcely an
exception. It is indeed traditional in the House of
Ilabsburg, and in great measure explains the popu-
larity the members of it have always enjoyed even at
times of the greatest stress and difficulty. It is in
accordance with the simple, cordial bearing, devoid
either of distrust or servility, which extends through all
classes down to the lowest, and, as the late Lord Lytton
used to say, makes Austria the pleasantest of countries

280 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

for a gentleman to live in. Even the proud, exclusive
aristocracy, so careful to preserve its blue blood in its
matrimonial alliances, and intolerant of attempts to
force a way into its inner circle, is by no means so
haughty and arrogant as it is sometimes represented
to be, though it still no doubt keeps very much to itself,
and is entirely free from certain traits too noticeable
in our own society. The highest classes in Austria
and Hungary have a well-bred dislike to anything like
affectation or pose, and except on special occasions are
averse to display. They lead simple lives in their
great homes, care little for the pleasures of the table,
and of more recent years show a decided preference
for the private unnumerirter Fiaker over the family
carriages, in which, in the old days I so well remember,
they were driven in state up and down the Prater
Allee.

But I have strayed away from our audiences of the
Imperial family. Perhaps the most interesting figures
among them were the three widowed Archduchesses :
Elizabeth, mother of the Queen of Spain and of the
Archdukes Frederick and Eugene — a wonderfully
handsome old lady, full of spirit and intelligence,
who had played no uninteresting part in the history of
the Imperial family — and the beautiful Marie Therese,
of the House of Braganza, the Emperor's sister-in-
law, who, since the death of her husband, the
Archduke Charles Louis, has led a retired life in
her palace in the Favoritenstrasse, but, as step-
mother of the heir to the throne (the Archduke
Francis Ferdinand), who is much attached to her,
is a factor not without importance in the future of
the Monarchy. I regret to have seen this gracious
and fascinating lady only on the occasion of our
audience of her, when she kept us for a long while

THE IMPERIAL FAMILY 281

and captivated us by her bright conversation and
the winning charm of her manner. The third figure
— historically the most interesting of all — was the
Crown Princess Stephanie, then residing with her
dear little daughter (the Archduchess Elizabeth, at
that time quite a young girl) in the Hofburg under
the wing of the old Emperor who was devoted to
his grandchild. A kind, gaiety-loving Princess, with
artistic tastes ; greatly to be pitied both as a wife
and daughter, but one of those on whom, fortunately
for themselves, the tragedies and mischances of life
seem to leave outwardly but little trace.

In somewhat dingy apartments at the old Palace of
the Augarten — since renovated and in part rebuilt —
dwelt the Archduke Otto, with his wife, the amiable
Archduchess Marie Josepha, on whom mainly devolved
the duties of representation at Court. In the equally
distant Wieden was the Palace of the most genial per-
haps of Imperial couples, the Archduke Rainer and his
wife, both well advanced in years. One of the most
accomplished of Austrian Princes, the kindly old
Archduke takes a deep and active interest in science
and art, is President of the Academy of Sciences and
of the Geographical Institute, while at the same time
doing essential service to the State by the efficiency
to which, as its Commander-in-chief, he has brought
the Landwehr, or Militia, a most valuable adjunct of
the Austrian land forces. The last to be mentioned
in this long list of Royal personages is the Emperor's
youngest and only surviving brother, the Archduke
Louis Victor, much the most rdpandu member of the
family, and himself entertaining very pleasantly in
his Palace on the Schwarzenberg Platz. The Arch-
duke had always been well affected to the British
Embassy, was a great friend of poor Milbanke's, and

282 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

told not a few good stories of the late Lady Buchanan
of whom the Vienna world had stood in some awe.
I had known him as quite a young man in ancient
Baden-Baden days, and was cordially greeted by him
as an old acquaintance.

It was only later on that we became acquainted
with the most touching figure of the much tried
Imperial house in the Archduchess Marie Valerie, the
Emperor's youngest daughter and his Antigone, who
came but seldom to Vienna from her lovely home
at the Castle of Wallsee on the Danube. From the
mother whose favourite companion she was the
Archduchess has inherited the beautiful eyes and
sweet low-pitched voice, with a play of counte-
nance full of character and intelligence, which quite
transforms somewhat irregular features, while her
gentle, winning grace makes one well understand
the comfort and peace which the much harassed
monarch finds in her society.

Before long we had a State function of our own
in the formal ricevimento which is held by every
Ambassador after his arrival at the Imperial Court,
but in our case was retarded until April by the
unfinished state of the Embassy House. These func-
tions are entirely taken charge of by the Court, who
issue an official notice that on two consecutive evenings
the Ambassador will receive from nine till eleven. A
piquet of cavalry is posted outside the Embassy door ;
the staircase is lined with soldiers ; minor officials are
sent by the Great Chamberlain's Department to an-
nounce the visitors ; and two dignitaries of the Court
— in our case Prince Clary and Aldringen and his
wife, ne'e Princess liadzivill — are told off to present
the company to the Ambassador and the Ambassadress
respectively. The men of course are in full uniform

OUR " RICEVIMENTO " 283

as at a Court reception, and all the sommites of the
Vienna world file past, some of the greatest ladies
sitting down for a minute by the Ambassadress before
passing on. It need scarcely be explained that the
ceremonial observed is based on the fiction that the
Ambassador is the direct representative of his Sove-
reign, and, as such, entitled to quasi-Royal honours.
At no Court is that fiction carried so far as at Vienna ;
foreign representatives of Ambassadorial rank being
placed in quite a separate category from the Envoys
and Ministers, and taking precedence, even at other
Embassies, of Austrians of the highest rank, an
arrangement which not a little distressed me at first,
and sometimes made difficult the placing of one's
guests at great dinner parties. But enough of these
official pomps and vanities. Ein Botschafter, a
Viennese would say, ist ein sehr grosses Thier! 1 and
so indeed he is occasionally !

1 An Ambassador is a very big animal (or beast).

CHAPTER XVII

VIENNA, 1897— AUSTRIAN SOCIETY— EASTERN
POLITICS AND TROUBLES

The taking stock, after an interval of many years,
of friends and acquaintances in a society that had
been so familiar to me as that of Vienna could not
but be a melancholy experience. At first indeed I
almost felt as though I belonged to an entirely
defunct generation, and was a very Rip van Winkle
among my colleagues, this dismal impression being
strengthened by the fact that several of those
whom I had most looked forward to meeting again
had left the scene a relatively short time before.
Foremost among these was Prince Richard Metter-
nich, a friend of forty years' standing, with whom
as a youth I had hunted in couples at Brighton —
at the period when the Chancellor, his father, had
taken refuge in England during the revolutionary
winter of 1 848-49 1 — and of whom I had seen a great
deal in after years at the Johannisberg and elsewhere.
The name of the capable, warm-hearted, cool-headed
Richard is bound up with the story of the Second
Empire. He it was who, together with Count Nigra
— whom I now met for the first time at Vienna —
had escorted the Empress safely out of the Tuileries,
on that memorable September day. He died eighteen
months before my arrival at Vienna of premature decay,
the very shadow, so I was told, of his former self.

" Kecollections of a Diplomatist," vol. i. p. 93.
284

OLD FRIENDS MISSING 285

Another associate of the same period, Prince Alex-
ander Schonburg-Hartenstein, had been carried off
very unexpectedly in the preceding autumn. I first
remember him as a playmate in Paris, where his
accomplished mother — the sister of the statesman,
Felix Schwarzenberg, and daughter of the unfortu-
nate Ambassadress who was burnt to death at the
fete given in 18 10 on the marriage of Marie Louise
— had resided for some years in the reign of Louis
Philippe. From his daughter, Comtesse Czernin,
one of the most charming women in Austrian society,
I learned that, just before his sudden end, he had
heard of my appointment and much rejoiced over it.
A man of much ability and of the highest character,
Prince Schonburg was President of the Herrenhaus, 1
or Upper Chamber, of the Reichsrath, and by his death,
and that of Prince Richard Metternich, the Moderate
Conservative Party in that House was deprived of two
enlightened and influential members.

A few months after my arrival I lost in Count
Kalnoky another highly valued friend, my first ac-
quaintance with whom dated back to the time when
he formed part of Count Rodolphe Apponyi's Embassy
in London in the sixties. Count Kalnoky had not
very long before retired from the Imperial Foreign
Department over which he had presided with great
ability, a victim in great measure to one of those
periodical waves of political passion in Hungary by
which too many Austro-Hungarian statesmen have
been swept from office. In tribute to his memory
I may mention here a circumstance, showing his
friendly remembrance of me, which came to my
knowledge from an unimpeachable source when I

1 Prince Schbnburg's third son is now Councillor to the Austro
Hungarian Embassy in London.

286 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

was still at The Hague. On our Embassy at Vienna
becoming vacant a few years before, Count Kalnoky
caused it to be privately hinted in Downing Street
that he would be very pleased if the choice were to
fall upon me to fill the post. In reply he was told
that he would find me anything but easy to get on
with {difficile a vivre). Notwithstanding the some-
what harsh judgment passed upon me, he kindly
returned to the charge, and said that he knew me
quite well enough to be willing to incur the risk.
Nevertheless, another Envoy, who was in every way
junior to me, was selected instead of me for promotion.

In spite of the many gaps, I soon felt at home again
among the kindly Austrians, and found the Vienna
world in most respects but little changed. The few
salons, however, where, in old days, one could drop
in of an evening in prima sera, as in Italy, had ceased
to exist. The only one of such a character left was
that of the Dowager Princess Dietrichstein, mother
of the present Austro-Hungarian Ambassador at our
Court. On most evenings the fine Palais on the
Minoritenplatz, overlooking that quiet old - world
square and the sombre church whence it takes its
name — one of the few characteristic corners still left
of fast vanishing Alt Wien — was open to a small
and very select coterie of relatives and intimates.
Here were generally to be found the old Princess's
two sisters, Princess Hatzfeld and Countess Clam
Gallas — the latter of whom to the end preserved much
of her great beauty and all her charm — a foreign
representative or two, or some members of the
Liechtenstein, Hoyos, Khevenhuller, or other well-
known families. Half-a-dozen or so in all — but the
very pick of Vienna — gathered round a big polished

COUNT ALBERT APPONYI 287

table which was the central point of the sanctum on
which a carping outside world had, in token of its
inaccessibility and the serenity of its atmosphere,
maliciously bestowed the appellation of L'Olympe.

An interesting event which took place at the Die-
trichstein Palais, not long after our arrival, was the
marriage, solemnised in the private chapel with much
state and eclat, of the daughter of the house, Comtesse
Clotilde Mensdorff, with Count Albert Apponyi. The
bridegroom, then already immersed in the politics of his
country, has since taken so prominent a part in them
that his figure is familiar to those who follow with any
attention the intricate, disheartening course of affairs
in the Dual Monarchy. I subsequently had oppor-
tunities of getting to know Count Apponyi better at
Pesth. To a strikingly handsome physique and bear-
ing, this aristocratic leader — I had almost written
tribune of the people — unites the rarest command
of language and of languages. By common consent
the most eloquent speaker in the Hungarian Parlia-
ment, be would be able to address with equal fluency
and effect a French, an English, or a German audi-
ence. Unfortunately the views and aims he now
professes may well, I permit myself to think, make
this wonderful gift of his an element of danger for
the country he worships, let alone for the Monarchy
to which it is united by already sadly loosened ties.
For, surely, the most recent events in Hungary show
only too clearly that the party to which Count Apponyi
now lends the prestige of his name and the magic of
his eloquence, is — one would fain believe, uncon-
sciously — impelling the Magyar State to the verge of
a slope — the pente savonneuse of French parlance — -
down which it can only glide to destruction, carrying
with it the great Central European Empire. But I

288 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

am touching here on questions which are somewhat
beyond the scope of these pages, and, respecting
which, any remarks I may have to offer will find a
more appropriate place further on.

To go back to my experiences of social Vienna on
my return to it after such a lapse of years, I found the
old Metternich house at the corner of the Rennweg,
only a few doors away from our Embassy, tenanted by
Prince Paul — the half-brother of the late Prince —
with whom I had renewed the friendliest acquaintance
some years before at Marienbad. The Metternich
salon, presided over by handsome Princess Melanie
and her thoroughly nice, unaffected daughter, was a
real resource, especially for those who were musically
inclined. Young Princess Pauline, or " Titi " — as she
was generally known in a society much addicted to
nicknames and diminutives — played the violin charm-
ingly, and with the tours de force of Alfred Griin-
feldt, a pianist of incomparable brio and agility, and
the lovely mezzo-soprano of a very good-looking
Baroness Bach — a niece by marriage of the Minister
who, in the fifties, ruled the Monarchy with an iron
hand — the musical evenings at the Palais Metternich
were quite delightful. The house contained, too,
some very interesting mementoes of the celebrated
Chancellor. Unique among them was the magnifi-
cent writing-table — a master-piece of ancient French
decorative furniture — which had belonged to Choiseul,
the Minister of Louis XV. and the ally of Madame de
Pompadour, and had been brought from Paris by the
Prince in Napoleonic days. There was a room, too,
entirely panelled with the finest old mahogany sawn
from a number of huge logs only recently discovered
in a loft where they had lain forgotten since they

HEBE 289

came, as an offering to the Chancellor, on the signature
of a treaty with some petty Transatlantic Republic.
The most interesting treasure was a portrait of a
daughter of the Prince by Sir Thomas Lawrence to
which there attached a pretty story. Lawrence came
to Vienna two or three years after the Congress, and,
as the most fashionable portrait-painter of the day,
was a welcome guest of the renowned statesman
whom he had painted before both in London and at
Aix la Chapelle. One day he came in some excite-
ment to the Imperial Chancellerie on the Ballplatz
where Metternich then resided. He had for some
time past, he told the Prince, had it in his head to
paint a picture of Hebe, but had sought in vain for
a suitable model. That very morning he had met in
the streets of the city a beautiful young girl, accom-
panied by a governess or duenna, and evidently be-
longing to the highest class, who was the perfect
personification of the young goddess as he conceived
her. He had followed her until she entered the
grounds of a villa in the distant suburb of the Land-
strasse beyond the glacis} Would it be possible,
he inquired of the Chancellor, to trace this exquisite
embodiment of his dream ? While he spoke, the
divinity he was in search of entered her father's
room ; the result being perhaps the loveliest portrait
ever painted by the man to whom the most famous
beauties of the age had all sat in turn. Poor Hebe
died quite young — almost a child — leaving her sweet
features and youthful grace to glow on the canvas in
memory of the short day of her triumph.

The most important member of the Metternich

1 "Recollections of a Diplomatist," vol. i. p. 258. The Villa Metter-
nich, or rather the park in whieh it afterwards stood, was at that time
entirely outside the town.

T

2 9 o RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

family was still Princess Pauline, the widow of the
late Prince Eichard, of whom I have fully spoken
before in the first part of these Recollections. 1 Time
had in no way diminished her social activity nor
impaired her originality and her brilliant imagination.
She had become, in the widest sense, the most popular
of grandcs dames with the Vienna public, as she had
been the most conspicuous of Ambassadresses in the
salons of Paris. Most of her time and attention was
devoted to the furthering of charitable and artistic
undertakings which she had a special knack of com-
bining with great skill and ingenuity ; doing an im-
mense deal of good, and at the same time keeping all
Vienna alive and amused by the prodigious charity
fStes, fancy fairs and flower Corsos, which she took
the lead in organising, and on which she lavished the
resources of a mind ever fertile in new, though occa-
sionally somewhat bizarre ideas. Assisted by dis-
tinguished philanthropists like Count Wilczek and
others, or the ever open-handed Rothschilds, together
with a posse 'of artists and clever pressmen, she dis-
pensed charity on a great scale and with such extra-
ordinary success that her name cannot but remain
enshrined as one of the great benefactresses of the
Imperial city. After her husband's death she had
built herself a charming petit hdtel on the Parisian
model exquisitely furnished and decorated, in one of
the new streets beyond the Botanical Garden, where,
with her unmarried daughter, graceful, gentle Princess
Clementine — the image of the calm, kindly Richard —
she entertained her friends en petit comite, with the
inexhaustible fund of humour, the same quaint, not
seldom paradoxical, way of looking at things, which
from her youth up had always made her the very best
of company.

1 " Recollections of a Diplomatist," vol. i. pp. 237-239.

"SOIREE A TftTES" 291

One of her most intimate friends, Princess Rosa
Croy, ne'e Comtesse Sternberg — an aunt of the writer
of certain letters on the South African war which
caused some stir at the time — was another of the
most hospitable and accueillantes Vienna hostesses
in her pretty house in the Schonburggasse. I re-
member a very amusing party she gave in carnival
time — a soiree a tStes, when all the guests, with the
exception of an ancient dignitary or two, appeared
either in fancy dress or with their heads and faces
so dressed or made up as to defy recognition.
The Archduke Louis Victor was thus disguised en
rastaquouere, while Count Henry Larisch, so well
known in the Shires, was admirably got up as
Svengali in " Trilby." The greatest hit of the
evening was a little old Bedouin chief, with tanned,
brown skin, scrubby moustache, and a dingy white
burnous and turban to match, whom nobody was at
first able to make out; the illusion being still more
complete when, at the end of the party, the man of
the desert was seen seated on the stairs, smoking, in
default of a tchibouk, a big cigar — a reprehensible habit
in which too many of the Vienna ladies indulge —
while calmly waiting for the carriage of Princess
Clary, nee Radziwill, one of the cleverest and most
agreeable women in Vienna.

Quite new to me were the splendid houses built
of recent years by Baron Albert and Baron Nathaniel
Rothschild in the Wieden, whither they had migrated
from the family home in the Renngasse, in the heart
of old Vienna, where I had often formerly been the
guest of their father Baron Anselm, but which is now
entirely given up to the offices of the great banking
establishment. Baron Albert's really beautiful abode
in the Heugasse, full, like all the Rothschild houses,

292 EECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

of magnificent objects, had seldom been opened since
the death of his wife, Baroness Bettina, one of the
Paris branch of the family, and by all accounts a
thoroughly charming woman who, during her short
married life, had found her way to the hearts of
the nicest of the Vienna ladies and was universally
popular and greatly regretted. A big dinner, how-
ever, given by him in a room the whole of the lovely
boiseries of which came out of some French eighteenth-
century palace, struck me as one of the most perfect
entertainments I was ever present at.

The beau ideal, too, of luxury and comfort, stored
with artistic treasures and standing in lovely grounds,
was the house of Nathaniel, or "Natty," Rothschild,
who had retired from the firm and devoted himself to
art and charity, the latter of which he practised on a
most munificent scale. The benefactions both public
and, still more, private of the Rothschild clan in the
several countries where they stand at the head of
the financial world, are known to be enormous ; but
few people are aware of the vast extent of their
unrecorded donations, and the sums expended by
" Natty " Rothschild on hospitals and other good
works in a centre where of late years there has
sprung up so malevolent a spirit towards his co-
religionists, show him to be imbued with the very
quintessence of charity. Here again, however, I
come upon a subject to which I may have to
return later on. Nothing could be more enjoyable
than the small gatherings in his house in the
Theresianumgasse, where — very different from the
old days I could call to mind — one met a select few
of the most distinguished and intelligent set of the
Vienna world, and, after dinner, listened to the
strains of a small private string band which was

A MILITARY PAGEANT 293

quite perfect of its kind. It is sad to think that
the dispenser of these refined hospitalities is now a
martyr to ill-health and is seldom to be seen in his
Vienna home. 1

One of the best shows in this essentially military
country is the spring Parade of the troops quartered
in and about Vienna, held every year by the Emperor
in person. It takes place on the vast parade-ground
known as the Schmelz quite close to the Palace of
Schonbrunn. The first we witnessed of these military
pageants was rendered more interesting even than
usual by the presence of the German Emperor
who was on a short visit to his Imperial neighbour
and ally. The twenty thousand men or so who
turn out on the occasion are drawn up in long dark
lines — gone alas ! are the spruce white tunics of old —
facing the saluting-base whence the Emperor will
presently witness the march past. On this fine
April morning no prettier sight could be imagined
than this martial display. We had to make an early
start from town to get to the ground in good time,
the Emperor, who is punctuality itself, being due
there before ten o'clock. The interminable road
through the streets of Margarethen and Mariahilf was
crowded with vehicles of all kinds, but at sight of
my Jiiger's white plumes z way was made for us at
once by the police all along the line, and we drew
up in the first row of the carriages that faced the
immense open space and the troops massed in the
distance beyond it some time before the first bars of

1 Since the above was writ ten Baron Nathaniel de Itothschild has
died, bequeathing munificent Bums for charitable purposes.

1 AmbaBsadora at Vienna all have a body-servant, known as the Jdgm
or Chasseur, wearing a green uniform with a cocked hat and feathers
which insures their cutting through any string of carriages.

294 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

Haydn's " Gott erhalte" told of the approach of the
Emperor from Schonbrunn ; H.M. with a small suite
joining the Archdukes and the numerous mounted
staff who were awaiting him. There then followed
an ever-lengthening pause, and people began to look
at their watches until, at least half-an-hour after the
time appointed for the review, Kaiser Wilhelm, belated
by some misunderstanding as to the hour, at last
arrived from the Vienna Hofburg.

The splendid many-hued body of horsemen now
moved on diagonally across the ground, the Emperor
Francis Joseph, with the figure of a man of thirty,
and a seat which the youngest and smartest officers
in his army might well envy, riding a few yards
ahead. On his right was his Imperial guest,
not looking to the best advantage in a hussar
uniform with a cumbersome white, embroidered
dolman which, for the fine horseman he is known
to be, gave him a bunchy, awkward look in the
saddle. There was certainly a marked contrast be-
tween the two Sovereigns. The glittering swarm
of riders — princes, generals and aides-de-camp by
the dozen, with numerous foreign military attache's
— among whom my friend Wardrop was conspicuous
by the British scarlet and smartness of his turn-out —
made a wonderfully bright picture as they cantered
leisurely across the field. As soon as the extreme
right of the line had been reached, the Emperor was
received with a royal salute, the bands struck up, one
after another, the national anthem, and a long and
minute inspection took place of the forces assembled.
When this was completed, the brilliant cortege returned
to the saluting-point and the march past commenced.
The easy elastic tread and excellent dressing of the
infantry could not but strike even a civilian, and

TYROLESE "JAGERS" 295

contrasted curiously with the peculiar, forced step —
a parade drill recently introduced from Berlin — which
they fell into when immediately passing the Emperor,
and over which some of my old Austrian military
friends shook their heads rather disparagingly. This
was particularly noticeable when the dapper little
Kaiser-jager — the flower of loyal Tyrol — came up,
with their free swinging stride, to the sound of the
Andreas Hofer march, and then suddenly, as they
got within a few yards of the Sovereign, took to
the cramped, artificial motion aforesaid. Very fine
were the Bosnian battalions wearing the red fez and
short Oriental jacket. Perhaps the most striking
figure of all, however, was that of the Archduke
Otto, heading his own regiment of Uhlans, a very
paladin in appearance, and the best-looking cavalry
officer in the Imperial forces. It was altogether a
very fine sight, and much interested me, for I
had not seen any large body of Austro-Hungarian
troops since the day when the last honours were
rendered to the victor of Custozza and Novara.
Many years lay between then and now, and with
them the mournful memories of Sadowa.

With the exception of the slight untoward incident
referred to above, the visit of the German Emperor
passed off most satisfactorily. It was significant, and
was no doubt intended to be so, as an affirmation
on the very eve of the Austrian Emperor's departure
for St. Petersburg, of the unimpaired vitality of the
alliance between the Dual Monarchy and Germany.
Certain Germanophile organs of the Vienna press
professed indeed to see more in it, asserting that a
renewal of the old Drei Kaiserbund was now close
at hand, and that the Western Powers would hence-
forth have to reckon, in all questions that depended

296 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

on the European concert and more particularly the un-
conditional recognition of the integrity of the Turkish
Empire, with the superior will of the three closely
leagued Imperial Powers. This foreshadowing of a
new Holy Alliance devoted to the bolstering up of
the Grand Turk was quite a curiosity in its way.

In sober earnest there was ample matter for
consultation between the allied Sovereigns at this
conjuncture. To the Armenian troubles had succeeded
the Cretan and Greek imbroglios. The condition of
Crete had for months past been a source of anxiety
to the Great Powers. Schemes for a reform of the
evils by which the island was afflicted had long
been debated at Constantinople between the Porte
and the Ambassadors, and, under great pressure, the
Sultan had been induced to consent to the appoint-
ment of a Christian Governor and to a renewal of
the old Halepa pact which had formerly afforded
certain guarantees to the Christian element of the
population. The promises extracted from the Sultan
were, however, very imperfectly carried out. A
chronic state of warfare continued between the
scattered Turkish garrisons and the insurgent bands,
the latter receiving arms and reinforcements from
Greece through the agency of the Cretan Committee
and the powerful secret organisation known as the
Ethnike Hetairia. The readiest means of pacifying
the Island would have been an effective blockade
of its coasts, and this measure — to which the Powers
were later on obliged to resort— had, to do him
justice, been strongly advocated by Count Golu-
chowski and somewhat contemptuously dismissed by
Lord Salisbury.

Before long, however, the imprudent action taken

THE CRETAN CRISIS 297

in February 1897 by the Greek Government in
despatching a torpedo flotilla under Prince George
and an expeditionary corps commanded by General
Vassos, precipitated matters and compelled the
Powers to intervene, in the interests of the general
peace of the Levant, and indeed of Europe. The
course pursued by the Greek Government was an
almost exact reproduction of that which I too well
remembered their following under the same Premier
some ten years before, with this difference that, by
the Vassos expedition, they made a futile attempt
to create a fait accompli. A marked division of
opinion soon manifested itself among the Powers as
to the mode of dealing with the recalcitrant Hellenes.
Should Greece be coerced again as she had been
before, under almost parallel circumstances, or should
she be left to take the consequences of the hazardous
enterprise on which she had embarked? The latter
view prevailed in the end. The project of a blockade
of the seaboard of the Kingdom, which was urged
by the Northern Powers — Germany taking the lead
in it — was abandoned in view of our opposition to
it, for without England there could be no blockade.
On the other hand the Cretan waters were strictly
guarded by an international squadron which landed
forces for the occupation of Canea, and, on our
initiative, the bases of Cretan autonomy were laid
down, and, after much discussion, it was finally
agreed to send military contingents of each of the
Powers to occupy the Island.

The Porte meanwhile had made formidable pre-
parations and assumed a threatening attitude, and
mediation was attempted at Athens with the object
of preventing the outbreak of war. To the indis-
pensable condition laid down, however, of the recall

298 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

of Vassos, the most stubborn resistance was offered
by the Greek Government, and it was only in May,
after the first crushing disasters of the war, and on
the intimation that nothing would be done to pre-
vent a Turkish advance upon Athens, that orders
were sent to the ill-starred expeditionary corps to
evacuate their untenable positions. On this occasion
President Faure is reported to have sent a message
to King George to the effect that H.M. ought to
find some consolation in the thought that he had
acquired " une hypotheque qui lui assurait Vavenir"
— a prognostication which thus far, and, in my humble
opinion, unfortunately, has not been realised.

For me, with my Greek experiences, the long
and difficult crisis that preceded the outbreak of
this regrettable war naturally had a more direct
personal interest than for my colleagues. I was all
through it in constant communication with the
Greek representative, M. Manos, for whom I ac-
quired a sincere regard, and with my old friend
and colleague Mr. Egerton 1 at Athens, respecting
the means of warding off a conflict which might
bring with it grave consequences for the King and
the dynasty. In the end it was mainly due to the
anxiety felt equally by all the Powers to shield King
George that the short struggle was fought out en
champ clos, the marshals of the lists calling a truce as
soon as the Greek champion seemed to be getting the
worst of it. It would, I believe, be difficult to over-
state the extent to which solicitude for the King
and his family has acted as an aegis for Greece at
the most critical periods of her recent history.

After the war came lengthy negotiations for the
settlement of Crete and the choice of its future

1 Now the Right Honble. Sir Edwin Egerton, G.C.M.G., K.C.B.

COUNT NIGRA 299

governor. It might not be unamusing to give a
list of the numerous candidates proposed for the
office, and eliminated in succession out of regard for
the susceptibilities of one or other of the Powers,
before Prince George of Greece received his mandate.
Respecting one of them, the late M. Droz, a dis-
tinguished Swiss Federal Councillor whom I had
known at Berne, but whose experience, as an able
administrator in the best ordered of communities,
scarcely seemed to fit him for dealing with a tur-
bulent and lawless population emerging from Turkish
slavery, I was tempted to commit in one of my
despatches a feeble pleasantry — a heinous offence at
all times in the eyes of the Foreign Office — by
writing that in the land of the legislator Minos,
M. Droz' chief qualification would perhaps be the
Christian name he bore of Numa.

Of the fellow-Ambassadors with whom I worked
during the crisis, I have already paid an affectionate
tribute to my friend the late Count Kapnist, whose
services to his Government at Vienna can scarcely
be over-estimated. I would nevertheless mention
here that in the very open talks we often had, he
frankly manifested his doubts of the wisdom of the
policy of expansion in the Far East upon which
Russia was then entering. He has been spared much
in not living to witness the fatal consequences which
he appeared almost instinctively to have foreseen.

The most interesting personality among my col-
leagues was Count Nigra, who besides being our doyen,
could claim to be senior to all the Ambassadors then
serving at the great Courts. A favoured disciple of
Cavour, he had for nearly half a century taken an
active part in all the political transactions that
affected the country which, in his time, had grown

3 oo RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

from small, sturdy Piedmont into united aspiring
Italy. To a diplomatic experience which was un-
rivalled, he united unusual tact and a rare under-
standing of those he had to deal with. From St.
Petersburg and London he had been transferred to
Vienna, where he had immensely improved relations ;
successfully smoothing down troublesome questions
too apt to arise out of the ambitions of the Irredenta
party, the divided ownership of the Adriatic, or spheres
of influence in the Balkanic peninsula. The Italian
Ambassador had now been at Vienna twelve years
and equally enjoyed the full confidence of his own
Sovereign and of the monarch to whom he was ac-
credited. The most brilliant epoch of his life had
of course been when, as still quite a young man,
he had been selected by Cavour for the delicate
functions of Sardinian Minister to the French Im-
perial Court. At the Tuileries he had been an especial
favourite, and even in his old age he retained great
traces of the good looks and gallant bearing that
had stood him in such good stead in Paris, and to
which a Subalpine accent and way of pronouncing
certain letters in French added a piquant trait. In
Count Nigra I found a kindly and trusty colleague
by whose sage counsel I often benefited. He has
now retired from the old Palffy Palais which he
rented in the Josephsplatz, to a sunny home over-
looking the Pincio, whither I send him a cordial
greeting on this page with the expression of the
hope that he is engaged on the memoirs he was
then preparing, and which will surely be a contribu-
tion of surpassing interest to the history of the last
century.

At the French Embassy in the stately Lobkowitz
Palais I found, on my arrival, M. Lozd, ex-Prefect of

KING MILAN 301

Police, a cordial, capable man, who soon left diplomacy
for a seat in the Senate. M. Loze is somehow associ-
ated in my memory with the late King Milan of Servia,
with whom he was on very friendly terms, having,
when he was responsible for the safety of the French
metropolis, done the ex-King a good turn in some
difficulty he had got into there. On his frequent
incognito visits to Vienna, King Milan never failed
to call at the French Embassy. I heard a good deal
about him and his views and schemes from my col-
league, who had a high opinion of his capacity. Milan
bitterly regretted his abdication, and fearing for his
weakly, inexperienced son, to whom he was much
attached, was prepared, had he lived longer, to resume
an active part in the affairs of Servia as the power
behind the throne. In this design he could have
counted on the army with which he was popular, and
but for his premature death, the world would probably
have been spared the most hideous massacre of modern
times, of which, it is satisfactory but sad to think, our
King and Government have alone manifested adequate
reprobation.

InM. Lozd's successor, the Marquis de Reverseaux,
who was a diplomatist of much experience, I had a
very pleasant and interesting colleague who soon
proved a valuable resource in our small diplomatic set.
His staff before long acquired a notable addition in the
Military Attached Marquis de Laguiche and his wife,
a daughter of Prince Auguste d'Arenberg — well known
in England as the Chairman of the Suez Canal Com-
pany — and niece of Louis d'Arenberg whose brutal
murder at St. Petersburg I have recounted elsewhere. 1
A most charming, spirituelle woman, she and her
husband imported as it were a fine fleur du Faubourg

1 " Recollections of a Diplomatist," vol. ii. pp. 275-278.

302 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

St. Germain element not often to be met with nowa-
days in French Embassies. Being also nearly related
to several of the great Austrian families, Mme. de
Laguiche had quite a special position in Vienna
society.

If the Italian Ambassador was the most interesting
of my colleagues, my opposite neighbour, Count Philip
Eulenburg, was certainly the most important. In him
the distinctive representative character of the Ambas-
sador as alter ego of his Sovereign was nowise a fiction,
for when he had occasion to speak at the Ballplatz on
any urgent matter, his voice was that of his Imperial
master — through the telephone. I saw a good deal
of Count Eulenburg, who at that time stood high in
favour at Berlin, and more than once, while sitting
talking to him, have known him to be " rung up "
from the highest quarters. He has great artistic
tastes and aptitudes, and has written a charming cycle
of songs entitled " Rosenlieder." He could be a very
pleasant companion, and both socially and, I believe,
politically, served his Government at a very difficult
post, with much tact and ability. Seconded by his
wife, an amiable Swedish lady, and their bright, cheery
daughters, he made his splendid Embassy house a great
centre of hospitality. I am inclined to think, how-
ever, that he rather unwisely overdid certain Biera-
bende at which he gathered once a week distinguished
artists, literary men, and members of the Reichsrath.
These decidedly interesting informal men's parties
afforded the ill-disposed a pretext for saying that the
Embassy was a rallying-point for disaffected deputies
with Pan-German proclivities. He was nevertheless
decorated with the Grand Cross of St. Stephen — a high
distinction which he owed, it was said, to the adroitness
he showed in effacing the painful impression caused

THE DIAMOND JUBILEE 303

at Vienna not long before by the revelation of Prince
Bismarck's Ruchversicherungs Vertrag with Russia.
Shortly afterwards his own Sovereign raised him to
the rank of Prince.

Among my many other colleagues I found in the
Bavarian Envoy, Baron de Podewils, a remarkably
shrewd and competent observer of the sadly compli-
cated affairs of the Empire, and a most agreeable man
to boot. He has since become Prime Minister in his
own country, and, judging by the extremely soignes
little dinners he and his clever, lively wife used to
give in a quaint miniature Palais in the Josefstadt,
the Diplomatic Corps at Munich may well be congratu-
lated on his appointment. I should be forgetful were
I to omit in this lengthy enumeration mention of the
Roumanian Envoy, M. Ghika, and his artistic wife, who
liberally contributed to Vienna social life by frequent
and interesting concerts and amateur theatricals. My
Roumanian colleague had a curious experience when
he was a student at Paris, having been enrolled in
one of the battalions of the Mobiles and fought during
the great siege against the German invaders. What
I could never quite understand was why, during the
Boer war, the otherwise friendly Ghikas should sud-
denly have developed violent Anglophobe sentiments.

While, all through the spring, war and the patching
up of peace engrossed the attention of European dip-
lomacy, happy England was wholly engaged in pre-
parations for commemorating the Queen's Diamond
Jubilee. I was placed in some difficulty in this matter,
as compared with many of H.M.'s representatives
abroad, by the peculiar character of the, by no means
numerous, British community whom I was of course
most anxious to associate with the celebration by the

304 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

Embassy of so eminently national an event. It was
almost entirely made up of governesses and teachers,
with a certain number of musical and other students
of both sexes, a few electrical engineers, some gasfitters,
and a trainer or two. The most praiseworthy loyalty was,
however, evinced by even the humblest of them. In
approved British fashion, they formed a Jubilee Com-
mittee presided over by our distinguished Consul-
General, Hitter von Schoeller, an Austrian industrial
magnate of the highest standing, and now a member
of the Upper Chamber of the Reichsrath. Besides
preparing a dutiful address to the Queen, which was
inclosed in a handsome casket of the best Vienna
workmanship, they raised a fund for the purchase of a
new organ (sorely needed) for the Embassy Chapel,
and for the placing there of a stained glass window
in commemoration of the Diamond Jubilee.

There was of course an official thanksgiving service
which we all attended in uniform, and the following
evening a charity fete,, in favour of the British relief
fund and the Governesses' Home, took place at Venedig
in Wien in the Prater — the Olympia of the Austrian
capital — in the course of which my wife was asked to
drive the last bolt into the Great Wheel just erected there
by an English Company. On the Jubilee day itself
the whole Jubilee Committee dined with us, our party
being reinforced by the Dowager Countess Liitzow, nee
Seymour, mother of the present Austrian Ambassador
in Italy, and — to give a thorough Anglo-Saxon finish
to the proceedings — by the United States Charge
d Affaires, Mr. Townsend, and his attractive wife, who
is well known in London society.

As for the difficult question of dealing with the
community at large, it had been triumphantly solved
by an announcement in the Vienna papers that " the

LOYAL BRITISHERS 305

Ambassador and Lady Rumbold " would be " at home
in the evening to all members of the British Colony,"
supplemented by the distribution through the Con-
sulate-General of cards of invitation for all whose
names and addresses could be ascertained. Of the
many functions with which I have been in any way
concerned, this turned out, I think, the most satis-
factory and at the same time the most uncommon

I can remember. The Embassy House was of course
en grand gala, brilliantly illuminated both inside and
out, with Drescher's excellent band playing in the ball-
room. I and my staff and that of the Consulate-
General were in full uniform, my wife and our dinner
guests being also en grande toilette. In curious con-
trast with these surroundings there began to pour in
at nine o'clock a stream of nice, somewhat shy ladies
in the simplest of evening attire, not a few in plain
morning gowns, with a sprinkling of men mostly in
every-day clothes, until the rooms were filled by a
crowd of people — containing, to use a slang adjective
of the day, one or two decidedly weird figures — few
of whom either my wife or I knew even by sight,
but whom, as they arrived, we cordially welcomed in
true White House fashion. The dining-room was then
thrown open and all our guests went in to supper,
in the course of which a well-timed telegram, for
which I had arranged with a friend at the Foreign
Office, was brought to me, and I was able to announce
the close of the Queen's triumphant progress through
London. Enthusiastic cheers followed the announce-
ment ; the Queen's health was drunk and the National
Anthem sung by the whole assembled company ; and by
the time I had shaken hands with, and toasted, Baron

II Natty's " veteran trainer, Mr. Butters, I felt that T
had done the best I could under the circumstances.

U

306 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

That morning I had received from Lord Salisbury
a telegram announcing that the Queen had been
pleased to confer upon me the Grand Cross of the
Bath, but the most gratifying event of a successful
day was the visit of the Emperor, who came, just
before luncheon, in the uniform of his regiment (the
King's Dragoon Guards), and wearing the ribbon
of the Garter, personally to congratulate me on this
auspicious occasion. H.I.M. stayed with us for some
time, speaking of the Queen, as he always did, with
great regard and admiration, and afterwards touching
on some of the current topics of the hour. I received
so short a notice of the Emperor's gracious intention,
that I barely had time to put on my uniform and collect
my staff for his reception.

It was no secret that the Emperor had been
anxious to attend the Jubilee in person, and it is
deeply to be regretted that he was prevented from
doing so by the doubts felt by the Queen's advisers as to
whether she would be equal to the strain of receiving
crowned heads, whose presence would necessarily in-
volve more ceremony and consequent fatigue. There
may have been other motives for the decision taken,
but it was unofficially made known to all the principal
Courts some time before the Jubilee. In Austria
it became a question of some importance which of
the Princes of the Imperial House should be deputed
to represent the Emperor. The Archduke Francis
Ferdinand, as the eldest son of the late Archduke
Charles Louis, and next in succession to the throne,
of course seemed the fittest representative of his
august uncle. For some time past, however, the
state of H.I.H.'s health had caused considerable
anxiety. He had wintered in the south, mostly at

IMPERIAL BROTHERS 307

Ajaccio in Corsica, and a notion, which happily soon
proved to be unfounded, prevailed that he was almost
to be looked upon as a confirmed invalid. During
his prolonged absence his younger brother the Arch-
duke Otto had been put forward a good deal on
official occasions, and had accompanied the Emperor
on his recent journey to St. Petersburg. He had thus
come to be so generally regarded as the eventual
heir that the return of his elder brother, in greatly
improved health, gave rise to much idle speculation
as to the outcome of what was assumed to be a
rather painful situation. So sincere, however, was
the mutual affection of the two brothers, that, as far
as they themselves were concerned, no difficulty was
to be apprehended. In fact I remember, when dining
at the Augarten, being impressed by the manner in
which the Archduke Otto referred to the excellent
news that reached him about his brother, and his
telling me how eagerly he looked forward to his
speedy return. Soon after his arrival the Archduke
Francis Ferdinand simply resumed the position to
which he was entitled, and early in June was selected
to represent the Emperor in London.

The choice made of him gave me the opportunity
of an audience of H.I. and R.H., who occupied a
small Palace in the Reisnerstrasse, whence he after-
wards removed to the much more dignified Belvedere.
He received me most courteously, and conversed with
me for a long time in German, evincing much intelli-
gence as well as a real interest in general affairs, to
a study of which he is known to have since applied
himself assiduously. The Archduke, although less
strikingly handsome than his younger brother, is a
very good-looking man, with a somewhat pensive cast
of countenance. His greatest passion is sport, and

308 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

he is accounted one of the finest shots in a country
remarkable for its sportsmen. Leading of late a
comparatively retired and happy domestic life, but
little is really known about him to the general
world, which does not prevent much being said of,
or attributed to him. He is, probably correctly, re-
puted to have decided opinions, and has certainly
given proof of a strong will and a tenacious dis-
position, and, whenever the mournful day comes of
a vacancy in the throne, he is certain to grasp the
reins of government with no feeble hand.

AmoDg the many things that were some years ago
currently reported of H.I. and R.H., it was said that
his sentiments towards the Hungarians as a nation
were not of the most cordial. This is a delicate point
to touch upon, but I think I may without indiscretion
relate what I gathered on the subject during my last
day at Pesth in May 1900. I had then some highly
interesting conversations with the Premier of that
day, M. de Szell, a statesman of much judgment and
perspicacity who may, it is to be hoped, again do
good service to his country and to the Crown. The
perennial question of the economic relations between
the two halves of the Monarchy had brought about
at the time a more than usually acute crisis. The
Archduke Francis Ferdinand had just passed through
Pesth, on his way to some shooting on the Lower
Danube, and had had a long interview with M. de
SzeTl, who of his own accord told me that he had
been greatly impressed by the quickness and intelli-
gence of the Archduke and by his charm of manner.
The very friendly tone in which the Premier spoke of
the Archduke quite excluded the idea of his looking
upon him as ill-disposed towards his future Hungarian
subjects.

THE HEIR-APPARENT 309

Still, I must again repeat, the heir to the throne
is relatively so little known that it would be as pre-
sumptuous to express any judgment of him, as it is
to attempt to forecast the future in which he is
destined to play so important a part. Whenever,
therefore, questions are put to me, as they frequently
are, about the Archduke, I can only say that he is
as yet almost an unknown quantity. And indeed
he must be so by force of circumstance. Having at
the age of twenty-six so unexpectedly become heir-
apparent by the tragical end of his brilliant and
accomplished cousin, he was in very small degree
prepared for the high destiny that awaits him, and
for which he has since been sedulously fitting him-
self. He has, therefore, as it were, to feel his way,
and above all to maintain a strict reserve. So pro-
found, too, is the deference for the Emperor felt by
all the members of his House, that it is hardly con-
ceivable that the Prince who stands nearest to the
throne should allow his personal views and opinions
to pass beyond the threshold of his private circle.
The Archduke, therefore, and, like him, the future of
a much distracted Monarchy, may be best described
in German parlance as " ein grosses Fragezeichen "
(a big sign of interrogation).

CHAPTER XVIII

VIENNA, 1898— PARLIAMENTARY TROUBLES-
BUDAPEST— THE EMPRESS ELIZABETH

Of our representatives abroad none can have a more
splendid or more varied playground than the fortu-
nate occupant for the time being of H.M. Embassy
at Vienna. Without leaving his post he may roam
at leisure over some of the fairest regions of Central
Europe, from the broad plains and sombre forests of
Bohemia in the north, to Styrian and Tyrolese moun-
tains, or far down south to Istria and the blue waters
of the Adriatic. Eastwards there comes within his
purview the whole of the great semi-oriental Magyar
realm ; or, pushing northward again, the bleak,
marshy Galician plateau where, under the easy Habs-
burg sway, some seven million Poles breathe freely
and contentedly, leaving it to their less fortunate
brethren across the border to indulge in sad and
hopeless dreams of national resurrection. And where-
soever he may direct his steps across the big, motley,
polyglot Empire, he is sure to find friendly, hospitable
races, which, whatever their mutual antagonism and
the diversity of their origin, have all in common a
trait of simple unaffected kindliness that can only
be accurately expressed by the untranslatable word
Gemuthlichkeit. Unfortunately for him the Ambas-
sador is usually too much tied down to his work
thoroughly to explore the manifold beauties of his
diplomatic domain, and such was certainly the case

THE KAHLENBERG 311

with me during my brief tenure of the Embassy House
in the Metternichgasse.

I was seldom able to leave Vienna before August,
by which time it had, more even than most capitals,
become a city of the dead ; even the small bourgeoisie
and shop-keeping class taking refuge from the heat
and dust in the countless villa residences and cottages
nestling close at hand on the nearer slopes of the
lovely Wienerwald, or in pleasant villages like Hiet-
zing, Dornbach, or New-Waldegg, with cheerful Garten-
wirthschaften where some Lanner or Strauss of the
future led a spirited band. The environs of the great
city are indeed gay and charming, though to reach
them otherwise than by suburban trains one has to
drive through long, ugly, straggling faubourgs, over
rough pavement intersected by tram-lines, a sore trial
to one's horses' feet and to the rubber tyres of one's
carriage. Nowhere better than from the heights of
the Kahlenberg does one realise the beauties of
Vienna's surroundings. The great town lies stretched
out before one, backed by the forest-clad range of
the Wienerwald and the distant Styrian Alps beyond
it, the majestic spire of St. Stephen's soaring high
above the countless roofs. But for the wide girdle
of suburbs round the now dismantled inner city,
and the many factories that deface its outskirts, the
prospect is much the same as that on which Sobieski
and his fellow-commanders gazed before their vic-
torious assault on the besieging Turkish host, when,
writing to his " Marysienka," the hen-pecked Polish
hero announced that he had that evening supped in
the tent of Kara Mustapha. My colleague Nigra
generally took up his summer quarters on this much-
frequented hill, and one day I was taken by the
Nestor of diplomatists to visit, in a secluded spot

3 i2 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

among some neglected shrubberies, the grave of the
celebrated Field Marshal Prince de Ligne who,
dying in 1 8 14, at the age of eighty, while the
Congress of Vienna was at its height, had expressed
the wish to be buried in full view of the city he
had loved so well. I remember my aunts mention-
ing him to me as one of the celebrities they had
known at that most historical of diplomatic gather-
ings — not an ordinary link with the past, considering
that the old Marshal was born upwards of a century
and three-quarters before the year in which these
lines are penned.

When at last we took our holiday, we began it
at Marienbad, whither we had for some years past
gone regularly from The Hague. Of the various
health resorts I am acquainted with it is the one I
decidedly prefer. English people flock to it now,
and, by yearly becoming more and more the fashion,
it is fast losing its pristine character. When I first
saw the place — in 1892 I think — its ways were still
quite simple and unconventional. In the crowds that
went patiently past the Kreuzbrunnen in single file,
and afterwards tramped virtuously up and down the
promenade, I scarcely recollect half-a-dozen persons
of British nationality. That first year the Dowager
Lady Radnor, with Mrs. Scott-Gatty, Lord and Lady
Romney, the Francis Newdegates, and dear old Sir
" Billy " Russell and his wife, were among the few
English of any note that I can call to mind. That
same year, too, it was that I renewed my acquaint-
ance of upwards of forty years' standing with Prince
Paul Metternich. The Metternich seat of Konigs-
wart, with its shady grounds and gardens — in which
an obelisk commemorating a visit made by the
Emperor Francis to his Chancellor is a conspicuous

MARIENBAD 3 1 3

feature — and its adjoining inclosed Thiergarten, or
deer park, now thrown open and partly turned into
building lots, has always been the most hospitable
of resorts for visitors to Marienbad.

At the popular Bohemian watering-place I again
came across the young Due d'Orldans, whom I had
not seen since he was staying at Government House
in Bombay in 1888, on his way to undergo a military
apprenticeship under our colours with a battalion of
the Rifle Brigade. This was of course long before
certain unfortunately indiscreet manifestations which
H.R.H. has no doubt since sincerely regretted. The
Prince can be, it is said, a grand charmeur, and
has certainly about him a knot of devoted adherents
who form part of what is best in French society. For
several years he was a regular habitue of Marienbad,
where he took tremendously long walks over the
hills, and thought nothing of a tramp of thirty odd
miles to Carlsbad between breakfast and dinner. A
still more indefatigable walker, by-the-by, was breezy
Sir John Fisher — now our eminent First Sea Lord at
the Admiralty — whose acquaintance I first made at
Marienbad. The presence of the exiled chef de la
maison de France no doubt contributed to attract
a good many French people, and amongst them
Comtesse Mdlanie Pourtales and Mrs. Standish, nee
des Cars, than whom French society never produced
two more charming ladies. Of this French coterie
not the least interesting figure was General de
Galliffet, the finest cavalry leader of Imperial France
and the hero of the desperate charge at S^dan.
He was to be seen here year after year, wearing
the roughest country clothes ; the broadest-brimmed
of sombreros shading the keen face with the fiery
eyes and eagle nose ; a large cape thrown carelessly

3U RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

over the shoulder of his spare gaunt figure, giving him
the air of one of the grand old fighters of the days
of the Ligue. The General is withal a most original
causeur, of a caustic wit, and, among his countrymen,
England has no better friend than the Marquis de
Galliffet.

We went on from Marienbad for a so-called
Nachkur to the baths of Gastein, to which, in spite
of the wild beauty of the scenery, I took a positive
dislike. The constant roar of the great waterfall
above Straubinger's Hotel, where we had unfortunately
pitched our quarters in almost sunless rooms, was,
I thought, most trying ; and the narrowness of the
valley, too, gives the whole place a gloomy, confined
aspect. I was glad to get away, after a short stay of a
fortnight, to beautiful Salzburg and the comforts of the
admirably managed Hotel de l'Europe. At Gastein
we had found a small set of very pleasant English
people, in Lady Lathom and one of her daughters,
Lord Northbrook and his son, Lord Baring, and my
old friend Lord James of Hereford and his niece.
Of this agreeable coterie two have now gone : Lady
Lathom being killed that same autumn in a most
distressing carriage accident, and Lord Northbrook
dying only the other day.

The Eastern troubles which had caused so much
anxiety at Vienna and elsewhere having now subsided,
it was not unreasonable to look forward to a quiet
autumn in the domain of public affairs. From this
period dates, nevertheless, the parliamentary break-
down in Austria, which has had such disastrous con-
sequences for the entire Monarchy. Its ultimate,
unavoidable, reaction on the relations between Cis-
Leithania and Hungary, clearly bringing out the

PARLIAMENTARY TROUBLES 315

defects and dangers of the dual system which, the
other day, was so truly and eloquently stigmatised
as " a vulture gnawing at the very vitals of
Empire."

Although it would be imposssible to set forth
with due brevity the genesis of the troubles by which
the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy is beset, some re-
capitulation seems indispensable. A general election
had taken place in Austria, in the spring, under a
new electoral law which had been successfully piloted
through the last Legislature by Count Casimir Badeni,
whose able administration of his native province of
Galicia had acquired for him the Emperor's con-
fidence. The Polish Premier was pledged to carry
through the Reichsrath the so-called Ausgleich, or
economic portion of the fundamental compact of 1867
with Hungary, which, under an ill-advised stipula-
tion of that arrangement, has to be renewed, and
if necessary revised, every ten years, the most vital
interests of both countries being thereby periodically
subjected to a perilous strain. For carrying through
the Ausgleich Count Badeni had counted on the
return to the Chamber of elements, partly Conser-
vative and partly Clerical, similar to those which
predominated in the former House, and had through
six years ensured the regular working of the par-
liamentary machine. The general election brought
about instead a complete change in the composition
of the Chamber. The Germans returned to it no
longer formed a fairly compact body of moderate
views, but were broken up into groups with separate,
more or less advanced, 'programmes. The character
of the Czech parliamentary contingent was likewise
essentially modified by the preponderance in it of
the Young Czech party with its extreme national

316 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

pretensions. Indeed the chances of the Government
being able to rely on a sufficiently large majority in
the all-important matter of the Ausgleich seemed so
doubtful, that the Premier tendered his resignation,
the Emperor, however, declining to dispense with
his services.

In the autumn that preceded the general election
the Premier, foreseeing the difficulties he would
have to contend with, had made a bold stroke to
secure the support of the discontented Czechs by
the promulgation of the Sprachenverordnungen of
disastrous memory. By these ordinances the know-
ledge of Czech as well as of German was required
of all Government functionaries in Bohemia and
Moravia, and both languages were placed on a footing
of equality in all judicial and administrative trans-
actions in those provinces. The elections had taken
place in the midst of the agitation produced among
the Bohemian and other Germans by a measure they
deeply resented. When the Chamber met in April
they at once resorted to obstructive tactics, and
brought in a motion for the impeachment of the
Ministers, on the ground that they had infringed
the Constitution by issuing the Language Ordinances
without first obtaining the sanction of Parliament.
Disorderly scenes ensued, and the session was abruptly
closed in June by Imperial decree.

In November the Keichsrath was called together
again, Count Badeni having all through the summer
and autumn endeavoured by private negotiation to
bring about some understanding between the con-
tending Czechs and Germans. The events that
followed are but too well known. Proceedings of
an unprecedentedly violent character disgraced the
Lower House of the Austrian Legislature, the lead

SCENES IN THE CHAMBER 317

in them being taken by a handful of Pan-German
deputies headed by the notorious Schoenerer and
Wolf. These deplorable episodes, which, for a time,
made the Austrian Chamber a by-word among Par-
liaments, have been graphically described by the
quaintest of American humourists, Mr. Clemens, 1
who was then on a prolonged visit to Vienna. I
was myself present at the memorable sitting when
the Falkenhayn motion, having for its object to
strengthen the hands of the President in checking-
members guilty of disorderly conduct, was brought
in, 2 and I shall never forget the extraordinary and
scandalous sight presented by the Chamber. The
resolution was at once passed by the majority of
the House, who rose en masse and held up their
hands in sign of approval ; the enraged deputies of
the Extreme Left meanwhile hurling the grossest
invectives and insults at the President to a deafening
accompaniment of penny trumpets, tramway whistles,
and hammering of desks, followed the next day by
the storming of the Presidential platform and a free
fight between Germans and Slavs. The Chamber in
fact had worked itself into a frenzy bordering on
lunacy.

The passions let loose soon spread to the street,
and for a few days Vienna was on the verge of a
popular rising. Matters looked so serious that the
Emperor, who, with characteristic loyalty, had stood
by his Minister to the last, finally consented to part

1 Mark Twain : " The Man that Corrupted Hadleyhurg ; and other
Stories and .Sketches."

2 Under the existing standing orders the President had no disciplinary
powers whatever. The Falkenhayn Law, although irregularly introduced
and forced through without debate, simply enabled the Chair to exclude
for three days disorderly members who had been twice called to order ;
the exclusion to be extended, if necessary, to thirty days by the Chamber,
at the instance of the President.

3 i8 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

with him. Much the most ominous and discreditable
feature of the movement, both in and outside Par-
liament, was its thoroughly disloyal, Pan-German,
character ; and it may truly be said that the fall of
Count Badeni — who honestly, though maladroitly,
aimed at restoring concord between the Bohemian
Germans and Czechs — took place to the treasonable
strains of the Wacht am Rhein and the Bismarchs
Lied. Nevertheless, the personal popularity of the
Emperor is happily so great that, almost immedi-
ately after this period of stress and storm, I re-
member his being more than usually well received
when he attended — at the beautiful Votivkircbe built
in memory of his escape from assassination in 1853
— the funeral of the Austrian naval hero Admiral
Sterneck.

This lengthy account of the origin of the diffi-
culties under which Austria proper has been labour-
ing ever since, could scarcely be avoided because of
their direct bearing on the much more important
relations with Hungary. Prince Bismarck is credited
with having said in 1866, in the excusable elation
of a signal triumph, that thenceforth the centre of
gravity of the Austro-Hungarian Empire must move
more and more towards Pesth. The crisis I have
related above gave a great impetus to the evolution
predicted by the Iron Chancellor. The grave embar-
rassment caused to Austria by internal dissensions, and
by her complete — though temporary — parliamentary
breakdown, unavoidably became Hungary's oppor-
tunity. At any rate Hungary had to be reckoned
with more and more at Vienna. With the keen
political instinct that distinguishes the race, the
Magyars at the same time sedulously courted their
Sovereign, and whenever he visited his Hungarian

HUNGARY'S OPPORTUNITY 319

dominions gave him a warmer welcome than he was
accustomed to from the less demonstrative Viennese.
The more ambitious Hungarian aspirations none the
less grew apace, although, under the prudent guid-
ance of statesmen like Banffy and Szell, they were
restrained within due bounds. At one period in fact
the wise counsels that obtained in the Government
at Pesth much contributed to assist the Austrian
Executive in their parliamentary difficulties, and,
when I left Vienna for good in the autumn of 1900,
the legitimate influence acquired by Hungary was
such as to make her not only the predominant
partner in the Union, but, as far as could be
judged, its sheet anchor. The regrettable turn
since taken in Hungarian affairs is outside the
limits of these pages, but, in considering the dangers
it portends to the great Monarchy which is the
central arch of the European fabric, it is only just
to bear in mind that they have grown up in great
measure out of the evil days first brought upon
Austria by a group of demagogues whose deliberate,
unconcealed aim it has all along been to procure
her disruption, and through it the accomplishment
of the Pan-German designs. Well might that dis-
tinguished leader of the Czechs in Parliament, M.
Kramartz, exclaim at that period : " Avant tout il faut
sauver VAutriche ! "

The eventful year 1897 had closed under the
painful impression of the parliamentary tornado, but
with the new year the light-hearted Viennese began
to look forward to the celebration of the Jubilee of
the Emperor's accession, for which extensive pre-
parations were being made throughout the Imperial
dominions. As regards Vienna society, the fact of

320 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

several young Archduchesses and a Princess of Cum-
berland having just "come out" gave a special
impetus to the gaieties of the season. The Duke
of Cumberland, whose eldest daughter, Princess
Marie Louise, was one of the debutantes, has, since
the death of the King his father, made Austria his
permanent home. In the winter he spends a few
months at his villa at Penzing, just outside Schon-
brunn, and the rest of the year is passed on his
estate at Gmunden overlooking the beautiful Traunsee.
H.R.H. is a special friend of the Emperor, and he
and his family are universally beloved in Austrian
society. No dispossessed Prince could show more
simple dignity in the difficult position in which he
is placed, or at the same time make a better use
of the large income saved out of the Hanoverian
wreck. In that respect — like the other chief suf-
ferer by the events of 1866, the Duke of Nassau
(now Grand Duke of Luxemburg) — the heir of the
last King of Hanover offers a bright example to all
dethroned Royalties. " Es sind so edle Menschen ! "
said to me one of the most intelligent women in
Vienna society who was a great intimate of the
Cumberlands. Of the kindly, gracious Duchess who,
in figure and carriage, bears so strong a likeness to
her sister, our Queen, it would be difficult to speak
too highly, and indeed we received so much kind-
ness from all the members of this most charming
family that we cannot but hold them in very grateful
remembrance.

In honour of the Cumberlands we gave our first
big dinner party, followed by a small ball which I
remember chiefly for the number of Royalties — no
less than eleven in all — for whom we had to arrange
places at supper with the very deficient accommoda-

THE ALBRECHT PALAIS 321

tion I have already referred to. Of dancing Royalties
there came, besides the Cumberland Princess, the
Archduke Frederick's lively little daughter, Arch-
duchess Christine, and the two half-sisters of the
heir to throne, the eldest of whom, the Archduchess
Marie Annunziata, is abbess of the Convent of noble
ladies of the Hradschin at Prague — a position of
great dignity always reserved for some Princess of
the Imperial House — which did not prevent the
present charming holder of it from dancing with
all the spirit of a true Viennese. There was no
lack of animation throughout this winter, and among
our visitors was Lady Adelaide Taylour who came
on her way from Fiirstenstein to enjoy some of the
gaieties of the Vienna Fasching. 1 The Archduke
Frederick gave a really splendid ball in the Palace
he inherited from his uncle the Archduke Albert,
the victor of Custozza, whose equestrian statue,
inaugurated while I was at Vienna, is finely placed
in front of the building which stands high on the
Augustiner Bastei, a remnant of the old fortified
enceinte of the city. Besides its priceless collection
of drawings by Raphael, Diirer, Rembrandt, &c,
known as the "Albertina," the Palace is full of
fine eighteenth century furniture, 2 curios and works
of art which have descended to its present owner
from that eminent collector and conoscente Duke
Albert of Saxe-Teschen. Many of these beautiful
things, as well as some interesting mementoes of
his other warrior ancestor, the victor of Aspern,
were shown me by the Archduke Frederick himself,

1 Carnival.

- Much of this valuable property had been treated as rubbish by an
earlier generation ami relegated to the garrets, when the Archduchess
Isabella discovered it and restored it to use.

X

322 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

who took me through the rooms and did cicerone
in the most amiable way.

An interesting function of the Vienna winter
season is the great ball given by the Municipality
in the magnificent Rathhaus, or Town Hall, which
the Emperor always honours with his presence, most
of the Diplomatic Corps beiug likewise present at
it. This year we were among the guests, and, after
a few greetings in the reception room, a procession
was formed to the ball-room, the Emperor giving
his arm to the senior Ambassadress, on this occasion
Countess Eulenburg, while the Duke of Cumberland
took in my wife, the other Princes and distin-
guished personages pairing off with the remaining
ladies. The chief civic dignitaries and their
wives were already assembled on a big estrade
erected against the side wall of the fine, lofty
Gothic Hall, and thither the Imperial party pro-
ceeded. Conspicuous on this estrade, with his
handsome wife, was Prince Alois Liechtenstein,
formerly so closely connected with Holland House
by his first marriage, and now a prominent leader
of the Anti-Semite party, of which the Burgomaster,
Doctor Lueger, is the mischievously active head. It
was on such occasions as these that one was able
to realise how closely the Emperor keeps in touch
with every class of his subjects. He patiently went
the round of the wives of the substantial burghers
of the Town Council, was seldom at a loss for their
names, and inquired after the condition and prospects
of their several trades and industries with a frank,
cheery bonhomie that could not but gratify and
win them. It was a perfect object lesson in the
easy paternal attitude towards all ranks of their
people which has always been characteristic of

A COURT BALL AT BUDAPEST 323

Austrian Sovereigns, and, under the old regime, did
so much to temper and render tolerable the rigours
of absolute rule. By eleven o'clock the whole
Court party had retired, possibly to the relief of the
recently installed Burgomaster, whose election the
Emperor had five times before refused to confirm.

Towards the end of February all the Chefs de
Mission received a private intimation that the Em-
peror was going to Budapest for the end of the
Carnival, and would be glad of their presence dur-
ing his stay there. We engaged rooms at the
Hotel Hungaria, and went down, in a train crammed
full of colleagues, the evening before the State Ball
given at the Palace of Ofen — a brilliant fete to
which the picturesque and becoming gala national
costumes of the Hungarian magnates, and the re-
markable beauty of many of their wives and
daughters, gave an extraordinary eclat. It was a
dazzling spectacle, the only drawback to it being, to
my mind, the monotonous and ungraceful czardas
that was danced constantly during the evening, and
the wild, semi-oriental music of which becomes very
wearisome to the foreign ear. This last week of
Carnival was a perfect whirl of dissipation. Count
Aladar Andrassy, a younger brother of the celebrated
statesman, and uncle of the deputy who is so much to
the fore in the present acute crisis in Hungary, gave a
big dinner party and reception, and there was a dinner
at Count " Pista " Karolyi's — a sumptuous entertain-
ment in a very beautiful house — followed by a ball at
the Kan'ttsonyis' in honour of the Emperor. At tXiisfete
I remember that gallant old blade General Fejervary,
Hungarian Minister of National Defence, showing
the younger generation how the czardas ought really

324 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

to be danced — a wild spirited performance, not unlike
a Highland reel, and very different from the tame
czardas des salons.

This was the first time I saw Budapest, which
its grand position, astride of the mighty river that
flows between the twin cities, certainly seems to
have marked out as a seat of empire. Seen from
the heights of Ofen, the expanse of the city of quite
recent growth, its long-stretching, much betrammed
boulevards, and the boundless plains beyond, appear
typical of the ambitions of a generous, imaginative
race. What I cannot quite forgive the Magyars is
that, in jealously safe - guarding their nationality,
they turn to such extreme account a language which,
with the exception of the Finnish and Basque still
lingering in remote European corners, is the only
tongue having no affinity with any of the forms of
speech that are current on our Continent. For
instance, the notices posted up exclusively in Hun-
garian in railway trains and stations, much to the
inconvenience of foreign travellers, seem an almost
childish way of asserting independent national exist-
ence. Their unique language is, of course, a for-
midable obstacle to the assimilation by the nine
millions or so of pure Magyars of the about equal
number of their fellow-citizens of Roumanian, German,
or Slav descent, but they relentlessly use a stern com-
pulsion in the matter. 1 Their aim, it would almost
seem, is to turn the realm of St. Stephen into a strict
preserve or a sort of island in the centre of Europe.
As this would not be girt by any sheltering sea, while

1 As an instance of the extent to which the Hungarian idiom is
fostered, and German discountenanced, it may be mentioned that the
distinguished editor of the Pester Lloyd, Doctor Falk, complained of the
increasing difficulty of finding sufficient German scholars for his editorial
staff.

NAGY APPONYI 325

it is actually surrounded on all sides by the rising Slav
and Teutonic floods, the bold, and to some extent
romantic, conception appears scarcely reconcilable with
the dictates of a sound, far-sighted policy.

On the whole we were so delighted with what we had
seen of Pesth, and with the civility and kindness shown
us, that we returned there in May for the races, when the
Hungarian beau tnonde come to town for a few weeks.
At this time of year, before the fierce heat of summer
has invaded it, the Danube city looks its very best and
brightest. We saw a good deal of Count and Countess
Tassilo Fdstetics (the only sister of the late Duke of
Hamilton), who, during the short Pesth season, live
and entertain most hospitably — very much a VAnglaise
— in their fine house in the town. We also made
great friends with the family of Count Louis Apponyi
— Marechcd de la Cour in Hungary — and went in
July to stay with them at Nagy Apponyi, their old
family place in the Comitat of Neutra. Here, in a
pretty broken country among the first spurs of the
Carpathians, and not far from the ruins of the ancient
stronghold from which he takes his name, the Count
owns a large deer forest containing, among other
game, a herd of that rare animal the moufflon, or
wild sheep, which in Europe is only indigenous in
Sardinia and Corsica. We led quiet, idyllic lives,
in most comfortable quarters, in the Apponyi family
circle — composed of two pretty daughters and some
promising sons — taking long drives or fishing for trout
in the cool of the evening, and spending the morning
in a large library which contains a remarkable collec-
tion of autographs and old family papers. Among
the latter was the entire correspondence of a Count
llodolphe Apponyi, whom, by the way, I remember
seeing at my Aunt Delmar's house in my boyhood.

326 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

These letters were addressed to his mother from the
Austrian Embassy in Paris, and gave a vivid account,
day by day, of the French Court and society before
and after the Revolution that drove Charles Dix from
the throne in July 1830. Countess Apponyi herself
kindly devoted some time to showing me these papers,
which have a real historical value and fully deserve
to be published.

Another delightful visit was that we had shortly
before made to Count and Countess Roman Pot6cki
at Lancut in Galicia, halfway between Cracow and
Lemberg. After our ten hours' journey from Vienna
we were met at the station by our host, and taken
in the smartest of country carriages to the chateau,
an ancient square fabric of imposing size and dignity,
partly surrounded by the original, now dry, grass-
grown moat, and by double lines of splendid trees.
Lancut, which is one of the most historical domains
in Poland, came to its present owners from the Lubo-
mirskis. It is full of memories of a celebrated Prin-
cess Lubomirska, an eccentric and very diminutive
lady, known as la petite Marechale, who wielded great
influence in Polish society at the end of the eighteenth
century, and whose rooms are still religiously kept
exactly as she lived in them. The contents of this vast,
rambling house and the traditions connected with it are
remarkably interesting, being so closely bound up with
the whole history of Poland. Its long vaulted passages,
low ceilings, and walls of almost mediaeval thickness,
would give it a sombre aspect, were it not for the
touch of modern luxury and comfort added to it by
its present owners. Besides the numerous state and
family living rooms, it contains a chapel, a theatre, and
no less than thirteen complete apartments for visitors,
each composed of a sitting-room and two bedrooms, with

LANQUT 327

separate dressing-room and bath-rooms attached. The
train de maison at Lancut is indeed on a princely
scale. The lofty stables with over sixty horses — some
of them hunters well known with the Quorn and the
Cottesmore — are worthy of a great English establish-
ment ; and the dairy with an equal number of prize
Dutch cows is just as luxurious. Yet, in spite of
its modern refinement, the whole place has a distinctly
feudal air that takes one back to the splendid, semi-
barbaric lives of those great Polish nobles whose social
and political extravagance did so much to bring to the
ground perhaps - the most interesting and picturesque
of ancient monarchies. The spirit of feudalism still
lingers in Galicia, and as one drove over his big
domain with Count Roman — a typical grand seigneur
of his country — it was interesting to see the lord of
the soil greeted with lowly, almost oriental, saluta-
tions which he acknowledged with a gracious wave
of the hand.

As is the case with many old residences abroad, the
roofs of the small town of Lancut cluster almost in the
shadow of the castle, so that, in close proximity with
its luxury and grandeur, could be seen all the squalor
and litter of Polish Jewry of the most debased order
— hook-nosed, be-ringleted men in greasy gabardines,
with their slovenly womankind, making up a large
proportion of the population — while about the rough
market place and its taverns there lounged the well-
set-up dragoons of a crack regiment quartered just
outside the town. The Russian frontier lies at no
great distance, and half the cavalry of the Imperial
army is quartered along it. I paid several visits to
Lancut. Its chdtelaine, a daughter of the late Prince
Anton Radziwill — an intimate friend of the old Em-
peror William — is the daintiest and smartest of Vienna

328 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

ladies, with all the indescribable Polish charm, and a
sunny French grace and brightness which come to her
from her Castellane mother.

Meanwhile the festivities in honour of the im-
pending Jubilee had begun to run their course, though
it was reported — with some truth, I believe — that the
Emperor personally shrank from them, and admitted
to his intimates that he wished the year were well
over. He, nevertheless, opened in state the Jubilee
Exhibition in the Prater, which, of world-fairs of its
kind, was a very attractive one. Of the many public
demonstrations of loyalty to the Sovereign none was so
characteristic and interesting as the gathering known
as the Waidmanns Huldigung} which took place at
Schonbrunn, on a glorious day in June, under the
auspices of all the larger landowners of the monarchy,
who brought up to Vienna for the occasion their
entire staffs of foresters and gamekeepers. The men
— some 5000 in number — were drawn up in military
array in the great central parterre of the Palace
gardens, which, with the colonnade of the Gloriette
on the hill in the background and the high stiff
hedges on either side, made a perfect open-air theatre.
The seigneurs all stood in front of their several con-
tingents : Prince Adolf Schwarzenberg, for instance,
whose estates are said to cover one-fifth of Bohemia,
being at the head of several hundred men. Both they
and their people wore the sober, becoming Austrian
shooting clothes of grey and green. They came from
every part of the Empire ; some particularly stalwart,
wild-looking fellows hailing from Transylvania and
the Bukovina. When they were duly marshalled, the
Emperor, accompanied by the Archdukes, all in the
same plain sporting attire, came down into the gardens,

1 The sportsmen's homage.

A MAKART PROCESSION 329

and passed through the lines with a kindly word or
a friendly nod, this pick of the sturdy manhood of
the Empire giving a most enthusiastic welcome to
the best sportsman of them all. It was really a
heart-stirring scene.

In connection with the Schiltzenfest that followed
this demonstration, there took place the next day
round the Ringstrasse a fine costumed procession,
such as the gifted Viennese painter Makart had
years before taught his countrymen to organise.
One of the cars, beautifully draped in the national
colours of black and gold, and drawn by black
horses, carried a strikingly handsome woman repre-
senting Austria, and was extremely effective. The
summer heat, however, soon put an end to these
fUes and rejoicings. As for ourselves, after a few
days passed with the friendly Kapnists in the lovely
valley of Gutenstein, where they rented a chateau
belonging to the head of the Hoyos family, we found
ourselves early in August in our old quarters at
Klinger's Hotel, Marienbad. Not counting old habi-
tues like Lady Radnor and Lord and Lady Romney
and the Campbell-Bannermans, more English than usual
came this year, among them the Duke and Duchess
of Newcastle, Lord and Lady Brougham, the Walter
Campbells, Sir Arthur Ellis, Sir Charles Euan Smith,
and of parliamentary and other notabilities Mr. T. P.
O'Connor, Mr. John Dillon, and Mr. Beerbohm Tree.

We left Marienbad at the end of August, choosing
a very circuitous route for our return home, and
were well repaid for doing so. Stopping on the way
at Munich and Innsbruck, we travelled by rail as far
as Toblach, and thence drove through the wonder-
ful Dolomite country to Cortina d'Ampezzo, and on
through Titian's birthplace, Pieve di Cadore, over the

330 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

Italian border to Belluno, ending our holiday with
a few perfect days at Venice, where we again met
Lady Radnor and Mrs. Hulse. By the 6th of Sep-
tember we were back at Vienna, which we found
still half empty and scarcely awakened from its
summer siesta.

On the afternoon of the ioth I had just returned
from a drive with my wife in the deserted Prater, and
was in the Chancery looking for some papers, when
Freddy Clarke unexpectedly came in, with consterna-
tion writ large on his countenance, to tell me of a
report he had just heard that the Empress Elizabeth
had been murdered at Geneva. I telephoned at
once to the Ballplatz, and receiving from Count Golu-
chowski a confirmation of the dreadful report, which
it seemed impossible at first to credit, immediately
cyphered it to the Queen and to Lord Salisbury. I
later on learned that a telegram from Countess Sztaray
(the Empress's lady-in-waiting) had reached Count
Paar, the Emperor's most trusted intimate and head
of his military household, at four o'clock ; Count Paar
had at once driven out to Schonbrunn to break the
terrible news to his Imperial master, who had only the
day before returned from the autumn manoeuvres near
Temesvar in Southern Hungary. The Emperor, while
quite overwhelmed, had shown the greatest fortitude,
bitterly observing, however, that he was spared no mis-
fortune (mir bleibt nichts ers'part auf dieser Welt).

Although the Empress had for reasons of health
resided but little in Austria of late years — leading a
restless life of travel, and having in fact never recovered
the shock caused by the tragical end of her son —
the impression produced by the atrocious crime to
which she had fallen a victim was almost indescrib-

THE EMPRESS ELIZABETH 331

able. She was now only thought of as the most
bounteous and charitable of beings, and certainly as
the loveliest that had ever graced the Imperial throne.
It was remembered, too, how great a support and solace
she had formerly been to her husband in the many
dark hours of his reign. That she, who had never in
any way sought to influence public affairs, and had
simply devoted herself to good works and to the en-
couragement of literature and art, should have been
struck down by the dagger of a brutal political fanatic
was felt to be the cruellest of fates.

Meanwhile arrangements had to be made for bring-
ing back the remains, and Countess Harrach, by birth
a Princess Thurn and Taxis, who had been Mistress
of the Robes to the Empress, left for Geneva with the
rest of the Imperial household. Late on the evening
of the 15th the funeral train reached the Westbahn
station in Mariahilf, and we went — taking with us the
Duchess of Leeds and her sister, Lady Robert Cecil,
who were staying at Vienna — to see the cortege pass
from a house in the Babenberger-strasse which was
on the line of route. The street lamps all along the
road from the station to the Burg had been turned
into flaming torches so that it was as light as day.
Mounted men from the Imperial stables, bearing lan-
terns, opened the march, followed by cavalry. Then
came the Grande Maitresse and the ladies-in-waiting
in great mourning coaches with six horses, the G 'rami
Mattre and other officers of the Empress's household
coming after them ; and then the simple open hearse
with black plumes at the corners and a plain black
pall. More guards and cavalry, and the procession —
beyond words impressive — passed on across the Ring
and into the Burg, where, at the foot of the great
stairs, the stricken Emperor was waiting to receive it.

332 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

My wife, who was on terms of much friendship
with Countess Harrach, went to see her the next
evening. She found her still dreadfully upset by her
painful journey, but heard from her very full details
of the tragedy as described by Countess Sztaray, who
had been its sole witness. The Empress had shortly
before taken up her residence at Caux, a favourite
resort of hers, on the heights above Territet at the
eastern end of the Lake of Geneva. Early on the
morning preceding the fatal day she had gone to
Geneva with a small suite, and, after visiting Baroness
Adolphe de Eothschild — an old friend of H.M. and an
intimate of her sister the Queen of Naples, at her
beautiful villa at Pregny — had stayed for the night at
the Hotel Beau Rivage. The following day she had
sent her chamberlain and other attendants back to
Territet by rail, arranging to return there by steamer
in the afternoon with her lady-in-waiting. Shortly
before one o'clock H.M. left the Hotel on foot to
embark, when, within a few yards of the landing-stage
on the Quai du Mont Blanc, a man, coming from the
opposite direction, ran up against her with such
violence, striking her at the same time in the chest,
that she lost her balance and fell backwards at full
length, touching the ground with her head, which was
only saved from injury by the splendid coils of her
hair. With the help of Countess Sztaray, she quickly
rose to her feet, and walked on to the steamer with her
usual elastic step, arranging her disturbed coiffure as
she went, though she seemed rather dazed, and said in
German to her companion : " Was is denn geschehen ? "
(What has happened?). Soon after getting on board,
however, she fainted, and, on her dress being opened,
a slight blood-stain was perceived. The steamer being
meanwhile well under way, Countess Sztaray, now

THE GENEVA TRAGEDY 333

thoroughly alarmed, begged the captain to put back,
which he at first refused to do until told who his pas-
senger was. A litter was then made, and the Em-
press, still unconscious, was carried back to the Hotel,
expiring quite painlessly at the moment, so Countess
Sztaray thought, when she was laid on the bed in her
room. The weapon — a shoemaker's awl with murder-
ously sharpened point — having perforated the heart,
the victim had succumbed to internal hemorrhage.
It is difficult to imagine a more painful position than
that of the unfortunate lady-in-waiting, left quite
alone with her dead mistress until the rest of the
suite joined her in the evening, and having mean-
while to telegraph to Vienna, interview officials, and
take upon herself all the indispensable arrangements.
When she reached the Burg late at night, the Emperor
was of course most impatient to hear her account of
the tragedy, but, seeing how weary and exhausted she
was, told her to come to him the next day, when he
showed such kindness and patience while she told her
terrible story that the poor girl, who had greatly
dreaded the interview, came away from it quite com-
forted and relieved. 1

At the funeral, which took place on the afternoon
of the 17th, the Queen was specially represented by
Prince Christian — who stayed with us at the Embassy
with Lord Denbigh and Major Evan Martin — and the
Prince of Wales by General Sir Arthur Ellis. The
Capuchin Church, where the obsequies were solem-
nised, is very small, and no places being assigned in
it to Ambassadors not actually representing their

1 On the day after the funeral the Emperor instituted the Order of
Elizabeth in memory of the Empress. The first Grand Cross of the < )rder,
which whs intended for women of all ranks who had devoted themselves
to religious or humanitarian objects, was bestowed on Countess Sztaray.

334 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

Sovereigns, we watched the splendid pageant of the
procession from the French Embassy on the Lobkowitz
Platz. When the great cortege had passed into the
church by the main portal on the Neue Markt, we
saw the Emperor drive up to a side entrance in the
narrow Gluckgasse, with the Emperor William, who
had arrived from Berlin only two hours before. Next
to the pathetic figure of the bereaved Sovereign, what
seemed most to have attracted the attention of those
who were present at the funeral service was the rigid
attitude of the German Emperor and the special
honours that were paid to him. He was placed quite
by himself in front of the other Sovereigns present,
such as the Kings of Saxony and Roumania, and stood
without stirring a muscle all through the long function.
The political exigencies of the moment no doubt amply
justified the marked distinction with which a powerful
ally was treated ; but to those few who were still im-
bued with the old Austrian traditions there could not
fail to be something saddening in the sight of the
illustrious head of the great Monarchy in his hour
of trial, side by side with the grandson of him who
dealt that Monarchy so deadly a blow, and this amidst
an immense concourse of Princes of German Houses
whom hereditary veneration for the descendant of
Holy Roman Emperors had moved to gather round
him in traditional fealty, by the grave of his Consort.
I never saw the Empress Elizabeth during my
second stay at Vienna. She came there for a short
time in the spring of 1898 — her last visit. I applied
of course in the usual form for audiences for myself
and my wife, and, knowing how unwilling H.M.
was as a rule to grant them, went to see the Premier
Grand Maitre, Prince R. Liechtenstein, privately
about it. Both he and the head of the Empress's

POSTHUMOUS PORTRAITS 335

household, Count Bellegarde, were of opinion that,
in view of II.M.'s well known English proclivities,
she would no doubt make an exception in our favour
and receive us. A few days later, to my great dis-
appointment, there came an official reply to my
application stating that the Empress's health and
her impending departure prevented H.M., to her
regret, from seeing us, but that she looked forward
to doing so on a future occasion. "It is perhaps
as well on the whole that you did not see her
again, " said one of her intimates to me afterwards,
remembering that some forty years before I had
beheld her in all her youth and loveliness. And
indeed, it is well that she should remain only a
memory for those to whom she had thus appeared
— a perfect dream of Imperial beauty — bearing now,
after her sad, strange, wayward life, a perfecting
crown of martyrdom. The Emperor caused portraits
of her to be painted by the best Vienna and Pestli
artists, Horowitz, Laszlo, Benziir and others, for the
several ladies who had been her most devoted friends
and attendants. He took a deep interest in the
production of these pictures, visiting the artists in
their studios, and himself guiding them in that almost
impossible task of making live again on the canvas
the features of those whom we have loved and lost.

CHAPTER XIX

VIENNA, 1899— OLD FRIENDS— COUNTRY VISITS—
THE BOER WAR

In December of this winter of deep mourning the
Jubilee so eagerly looked forward to, and for which
so many preparations had been made, came and
passed away almost unnoticed, except for official
thanksgiving services and a general illumination of
the capital. It was the fiftieth anniversary of that
day at Olmlitz when Franz Josef, then only a
stripling of eighteen, had been so suddenly and
unexpectedly called upon to relieve his lack-brained
uncle of the burden of a tottering Empire. The
now aged Sovereign's gloomy forebodings about his
Jubilee year had only been too cruelly realised, and
the 2nd of December found him in the strictest
retirement and wholly engaged in the daily patient
State drudgery which, as one of his intimates ex-
pressed it, had, throughout his long reign, made
him the hardest-working Beamte (official) in his
dominions. 1

In the domain of public affairs a lull in the
strife between Czechs and Germans had followed
upon the fall of the Badeni Cabinet. The obnoxious
Language Ordinances had remained practically a
dead letter. The unmanageable Reichsrath had been

1 The Emperor is the earliest of risers, being at work both winter and
summer long before 5 a.m. Under these circumstances, it is not to be
wondered at that, when possible, he retires very early to rest.

336

COUNT THUN 3 37

prorogued for several months, and government was
being carried on by means of an Article of the
Constitution which in certain circumstances reserved
power to the Crown temporarily to levy taxes and
provide for the more pressing administrative needs
of the country by Imperial decree. Without this
valuable Article XIV. — so much inveighed against
as a disguised instrument of despotism — the Govern-
ment machinery in Austria must have entirely col-
lapsed at several critical moments during this period.
Even we, with what we — I assume rightly — consider
our absolutely perfect institutions, are not unconscious
of the benefits of those intervals when the wheels
of administration run none the less smoothly for the
few months' silence pervading St. Stephen's.

A couple of ephemeral Ministries had succeeded
that of Count Badeni, 1 and had been replaced in
March 1898 by the Cabinet presided over by Count
Francis Thun, one of the principal landowners in
Bohemia, and for some years Governor of that
province which he had administered with much
success. Besides being a man of high courage and
undoubted ability, and the best possible type of
an Austrian territorial magnate, Count Thun was
thoroughly versed in all the intricacies of the racial
conflict in the Bohemian Crown-lands. A set of
remarkable, and extremely minute, ethnographical
charts drawn up by his direction, and which clearly
revealed an almost hopeless dovetailing of the rival
races only to be surpassed in Macedonia, went some
way to show that the Bohemian Premier would
probably have been more capable of solving the
problem of an equitable adjustment of the respective

1 Baron Gautsch vun Frankenthurm, who presided over one of these
Administrations, is now again Prime Minister of Austria.

Y

333 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

national claims than any other Austrian Minister.
In this respect his resignation, after holding office
barely eighteen months, was greatly to be regretted,
though the circumstances attending his retirement
were highly creditable to him as a patriotic Austrian
statesman. That retirement was in great measure
due to his manly, though ineffectual, protest against
the wholesale expulsion of Austrian agricultural
labourers from Silesia and other Prussian provinces,
under conditions resembling the arbitrary evictions
of Danish subjects from Schleswig. The Premier was
in fact a victim of the exigencies of the German
alliance.

I was on very cordial terms with Count Thun
and have preserved a sincere regard for him. While
I was at Vienna he had the misfortune to lose his
wife — a Princess Schwarzenberg — from a chronic
malady with which she had been afflicted for some
time, and which, at the end, made fatally rapid
progress. He had been talking over her condition
with an eminent specialist who was watching the
case, and had received from him the assurance that,
as long as the Countess's eyesight was not affected,
there was no cause for immediate alarm. He went
home somewhat comforted and relieved, and found
his wife whiling away the time with a game of
patience. " I am fairly well," she said cheerfully,
on his inquiring how she felt, "but it is odd that
my eyes seem blurred this afternoon and I can't
quite make out the cards." She died a few days
afterwards, showing to the end the greatest courage
and fortitude.

The rigid Court mourning had brought about,
among other results, the complete suspension of build-

HOUSE- WRECKING MUNICIPALITY 339

ing operations at the Imperial Burg, the splendid left
wing to which was being completed in anticipation
of the great Court festivities planned in honour of
the Jubilee. But elsewhere throughout the city the
Municipality were almost recklessly engaged in chang-
ing the face of things. The works for vaulting over
the Wien — a shabby little stream, something like
what the Fleet or the Tyburn may have been — and
the building all along its course through the town of
the suburban line, afforded employment to hundreds
of navvies, many of them Italians who, just then,
had a bad time of it, so bitter was the feeling
aroused against them as compatriots of the assassin
Luccheni. A gang of them, it was said, were
actually driven from their work one morning by a
mob of infuriated market-women. These gigantic
undertakings sadly disfigured for the time the outer
circle of the Ring and made Vienna — always the
windiest of places — insupportable from the clouds of
dust they caused ; the civic authorities — chiefly bent
on Jew-baiting — making little or no attempt to sweep
or water the streets. In this respect the Lueger regime
outvied even our own London County Council.

In the Innere Stadt, too, the house-wreckers
plied their trade with such vigour that the land-
marks which had been most familiar to me of old
were fast disappearing as the streets were widened
and their picturesque character ruthlessly destroyed.
In my wanderings through the town I one day tried
to find a house I well remembered — where, up ever
so many steps, on the topmost floor, on a level with
the fourteenth-century roof of Maria Stieg'n — had
lived Mathilde Wildauer, 1 a star of the Kdrnthner
Thor Opera, with the sweetest voice and a laugh

1 " Recollections of a Diplomatist," vol. i. p. 288.

34Q RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

that was irresistible. Poor Mathilde had long been
at rest in the Central Friedhof in the best of
company — for there lie Schubert, and Mozart, and
the mighty Beethoven. When I reached the well-
known corner of the queer old street — with the still
queerer name of Stoss im Himmel 1 — which led to
the house I was in search of, I found it barred ;
the demolishers had just begun their work on the
building and were making room for another of the
immense Zinspaldste with ornate frontages which
are a questionable glory of modern Vienna.

The theatres of my day had long since been
pulled down. The old Karnthner Tlior was replaced
by the splendid Opera House on the Ring, while the
somewhat dingy, but cosy little Burgtheater, which
could boast of the most perfect ensemble I have ever
seen on any stage — and where Maria Theresa, leaning
out of her box, herself announced to the audience, in
genuine Viennese fashion, the birth of one of her
grandsons 2 — had vanished to make way for the fine
entrance in the Michaeler Platz to the Imperial Palace.
Its sumptuous successor, facing the Rathhaus, is if
anything of too vast proportions, and scarcely lends
itself to the delicate shading of light comedy or even of
drama, though the acting there is still of a high order.
Baumeister, as the ironmaster in Das JErbe — really a
very fine study of Bismarck — and Fraulein Hohenfels,
in such different parts as Georg in Gotz von Berlich-
ingen, or Puck in the Midsummer Night's Dream, were
both admirable in their way. As for the orchestra led
by Richter at the Opera House, nothing finer is to be
heard anywhere, and, without speaking of Wagner

1 Literally : "A knock in Heaven."

2 " Der Poldi (Leopold) hat a Bub gekriegt." This eldest son of Leopold
II. afterwards became Francis II., the last of the Holy Roman Emperors.

MY OLD QUARTERS 341

cycles, the careful performance of works like Hansel
und Gretel, Das Heimchen am Herde, or Tchaikow-
sky's Eugen Onegin, was above all praise.

And talking of music reminds me that Vienna
lost, during my stay there, two composers, each, in his
own style, among the greatest of his time : Brahms,
who died in 1897, after leading for years the life of a
recluse, and the Walzerkoiiig, Johann Strauss, who
followed him in June 1899. I had heard him a few
months before at his brother Eduard's benefit concert,
when he played in public for the last time. The old
man stepped up to the conductor's desk very stiffly and
with some difficulty, amidst a storm of applause. But
once there, he led a new waltz of his own composition
with all the inimitable fire and entrain of his youth.
With Strauss it almost seemed as if her light, joyous
spirit of old had deserted Vienna. He was buried
with great popular honours, the Ringstrasse being
blocked by the crowds that followed him to the grave.

In my sentimental searches after the old land-
marks, I soon ascertained that the house overlooking
the Lowel Bastei, on the third floor of which I myself
had lived, had become the residence of Prince and
Princess Montenuovo, who kindly asked me to come
and have a look at my old quarters. I found them
occupied by their only son, who was profitably engaged
in his studies with his abbe' tutor in the rooms where,
in the attache days I have spoken of elsewhere, I
had idled away many a careless, pleasant hour. My
hostess — one of the late Prince Kinsky's four fair
daughters, than whom Vienna society contains no
prettier or more amiable quartette — showed me some
interesting family relics, coming from the Empress
Marie Louise, of the captive of St. Helena and of his
son — that most mournful of figures in the great

342 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

Napoleonic epic — whose faint, shadowy silhouette has
been revived for the world with some degree of poetic
licence by the gifted author of LAiglon. I remember
both M. Sardou and his " golden-voiced " interpreter
coming to Vienna and being accorded special facilities
for studying on the spot at Schonbrunn the mise en
scene of that fine but highly imaginative drama.

Another of my ancient haunts I revisited with much
interest was the Palais Clary, in the Herrngasse, which
of old had been the home of the British Legation l
for a good many years. Princess Clary kindly took
us all over the house, built, with many complicated
staircases and passages, round two long narrow court-
yards. I had first known it in the sunshine of young,
insouciant days, but although it contains some fine
rooms and has the dignified air common to old Austrian
family homes, it cannot even on the showing of its
owners — who now, I believe, live almost entirely at
Venice — be accounted a cheerful habitation. The
Princess told me a curious story about it of which I
recollect the general outline. She and her husband
had been away from Vienna for some time and the
house had been shut up. Before returning she had
sent her housekeeper — a thoroughly trustworthy, intel-
ligent person, who had been long in her service — to
prepare for her arrival. The woman affirmed that,
happening casually to look out across the courtyard,
she had distinctly seen, in the broad daylight, a group
of persons, in strange old-fashioned clothes, seated
round a table near a window exactly facing her at the
further end of the yard. Knowing the house to be
entirely uninhabited, she at once hurried round along
the passages to see who these people could possibly

1 The Legation was subsequently raised to the rank of an Embassy on
the appointment of Lord Bloomfield in i860.

THE PALAIS CLARY 343

be. When she reached the door, and, unlocking it,
entered the room, she found it quite empty and no
sign whatever of occupation. It could scarcely be
denied, said the Princess, that odd figures had been
occasionally seen flitting about the old building with-
out its being possible to account satisfactorily for their
presence.

There is still less doubt that, during its tenancy by
our Legation, the Palais Clary more completely estab-
lished its character for uncanniness. The wife and
daughter of one of my predecessors at Vienna went
through the following strange experience. One bright,
sunny morning they were sitting in a long narrow
drawing-room, or gallery, which they habitually used.

Miss was reading a French book to her mother,

when the latter, surprised at seeing — as she supposed —
her husband's chasseur standing waiting at the end of
the room, said to her — " Go and tell Fritz (the chasseur)
to go down to your father who is sure to want him."

Miss went towards the man, but when she got

near he was no longer there, and she returned to her
mother, when they again saw him, and she was once
more sent with the message. This happened three
times, with the same result ; both mother and daughter
distinctly seeing the figure en profile, dressed in the
unmistakable dark green uniform, with his cocked hat
and feathers on (Fritz would of course never have worn
this indoors), the silver of his epaulettes and sword-
belt glistening in the strong light from the window.
On inquiry they found that Fritz had not been near
the gallery, where he would indeed have had no business
unless sent with a message, and they were later on
told by the then Prince Clary that, many years before,
a chasseur serving in his family had been murdered in
that very room, which he was still reputed to haunt.

344 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

I should perhaps emphasise the fact that these ladies,
whom I knew intimately, were assuredly not unduly
imaginative or impressionable, and at first were not in
the least frightened, but only surprised at seeing the
man. It is certain, too, that subsequent occupants
of the house seriously complained of the annoyance
caused them by the same strange apparition.

A pleasing and almost distinctive trait of Austrians
of the uppermost class is their faithful remembrance of
old friends and acquaintances. It was very gratifying,
for instance, to be warmly welcomed by ladies whom
I had first met in their Comtessen 1 stage. Of those
I had known best and had danced with most in those
light-hearted days, were Countess Mariette Hoyos,
now the widow of Count Denesch Szechenyi, and
Princess Ludwiga Lobkowitz, who had likewise lost
her husband, a Count Stadion. I have already spoken
of these ladies elsewhere. 2 Time had dealt tenderly
with them. Countess Mariette no longer hummed
Strauss' s waltzes as she danced, but still sang
charmingly and did a good deal of music with my
wife, while my dear little friend, the dainty Dresden
shepherdess, was as trim and bright as ever, and
plied a fairy needle on the most lovely ecclesiastical
embroideries. I am tempted here to relate a very
trifling circumstance in connection with her which
illustrates in some degree the simple, artless Vienna
ways. During one of the last cotillons I danced
with her just before leaving Vienna for China, I
made a sort of bet with fair-haired little Princess
Ludwiga that I would send her some slight souvenir

1 The so to speak generic name by which the unmarried young ladies
are known in Vienna society.

2 " Eecollections of a Diplomatist," vol. i. p. 270.

M. DE K ALL AY 345

from the, at that time, almost fabulous Flowery Land.
Accordingly one of the first things I did on reaching
Hong Kong was to get a small lacquer-ware fan,
which I sent through the Foreign Office to my Vienna
partner. I confess that I had entirely forgotten the
circumstance until I was now rallied about it by a
personage of very high rank who happened to be
one of Countess Stadion's great friends. When next
I found her busy at her embroidery frame, she
triumphantly produced the trumpery bit of Chinoi-
serie, and explained with some contrition that when
it first reached her she had not been allowed by her
Liechtenstein mamma to write and thank me for it !

An old acquaintance of quite a different order,
who greeted me most cordially, was Benjamin von
Kallay, whom I had first met at Belgrade in 1870 at
the outset of his distinguished career, and now found
Imperial Finance Minister. M. de Kdllay rendered
great service to the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.
His profound knowledge of the Balkanic races and
of their history and aspirations, was strikingly exem-
plified in his administration of Bosnia and the
Herzegovina which was a model of enlightened
statecraft. More valuable still was his influence as
a link between the too often conflicting halves of
the monarchy, for, although an essentially patriotic
Hungarian, he was imbued with Imperial convictions,
and strongly opposed to any loosening of the Austro-
Hungarian ties, which would certainly be fatal to
the prestige and Machtstellung of the Empire as a
Great Power.

Next to his Imperial master, England had no
better friend on the Continent than Kallay. In the
many interesting conversations I had with him at
different times, I was greatly impressed by his faith

346 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

in the beneficent authority of England in international
affairs, though that faith was sometimes, he admitted,
put to a severe trial by what he believed to be signs
of a deterioration in the old combative spirit of the
nation. He lived, nevertheless, to witness and re-
joice over our South African effort. The advance
of Russia in the Far East was watched by him with
the deepest interest, and I clearly remember a talk
I had with him on the subject seven years ago.
Ever since the first great raid of Yermak Timofejeff
and his Cossacks into Siberia, he said, the Russian
Drang nach Osten, though at first little noticed, had
been continuous. The stream of emigration to
America showed that all European races moved
westwards. The Russians alone were attracted by
the East. He believed their advance to be practi-
cally irresistible, little foreseeing the rude check
which Russian ambition was to meet with, and the
overthrow of the great Asiatic dominion the vision
of which seemed to dazzle him while filling him
with apprehension. In M. de Kallay the Dual
Monarchy lost perhaps its ablest and most valuable
servant.

Late in April I left Vienna for a fortnight to join my
wife who was looking after our Eton boy in England,
and went round by Nice, where I stayed a few days
with my sister — my last visit to her as it happened.
The Queen was at Cimiez, which she was never to
see again. I received a command for dinner, and
was surprised, I remember, to find the aged Sovereign
in such good spirits and so full of vitality. But the
shadow of the dreary war had not yet darkened her
remaining days. She was still able to go for long
drives all over the beautiful neighbourhood, where,

KESZTH^LY 347

my old friend Sir James Harris 1 told me, she had
acquired extraordinary popularity by the kindness
she showed to all the country people and the
interest she took in their concerns. The Queen,
during her almost annual visits to France, certainly
did a good deal towards preparing the way for the
admirable work which has since been achieved by
her son and successor. I was back at Vienna in
time for the celebration of her eightieth birthday,
when the Emperor again came to the Embassy with
his personal congratulations. There existed a strong
bond of sympathy between the two illustrious Sove-
reigns who had both known such severe domestic
affliction.

This summer — a remarkably fine one — we made
a few pleasant and interesting visits to friends in
Hungary and elsewhere, besides again going to the
Potockis in Galicia. Keszthely, on Lake Balaton,
where we stayed with Count and Countess Tassilo
Ee^stetics, is a very fine possession in every way,
where the whole establishment is on a princely and
most luxurious scale, and included among other
things a chef whose superior it would be difficult to
find in the Imperial dominions. From the junction
at Balaton St. Gyorgy the Count's private train
brought us nearly to the gates of the chdteau, an
immense pile with a facade which, by its length,
almost recalls Versailles. In fact, from our apart-
ment in one of the wings it took us three minutes,
watch in hand, to reach the drawing-room on the
same floor at the other end of the house. In lovely
weather we were taken some distance to see the
stud-farm and brood mares and the racing stable of

1 For many years II. M. Consul at Nice, where lie died in November
1904.

348 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

our host, whose colours are often to the fore at
Pesth as well as on the Freudenau at Vienna. This,
and sailing in his yacht on the great lake, drives
to the rich vineyards that line its shores, and
through the immense woods beyond, filled up the
days, while an excellent Zigeuner band played after
dinner, cleverly accompanied by one of the Fe'stetics
young ladies — then quite a child — on that curious
national instrument called the cymbalon. It was
quite a family party, including Count Paul Festetics
and his very agreeable wife, nee Palffy. My two sons,
Horace and Willie, the latter on leave from his
battery at Halifax, N.S., were with us, and, with the
charming little daughters of the house, made up the
cheeriest of parties.

Another hospitable Hungarian home we stayed
at was that of Count Bela Szecheriyi at Zinkendorf,
or Nagy Czenk — to give it its Hungarian name — a
delightful old house surrounded by very fine trees
and beautifully kept gardens and grounds. A noble
grass avenue of lime trees, some two miles long,
leads to a monument erected in memory of Count
Beta's wife, nee Comtesse Erdody, a sister of the
Countess Karolyi who was for many years Ambas-
sadress in London. The two sisters were both so
beautiful that when they made their debut in society
they were known as the Gotter kinder. Count Bela's
attractive sprightly daughter, Countess Hanna, since
married to her Karolyi cousin, did the honours of
her father's house admirably, and, besides being a
perfect and most entertaining hostess, was an excel-
lent whip. She took special charge of me and
drove me about the pretty broken country round
Oedenburg and the Neusiedlersee, a shallow salt
lake which is being drained out of existence. We

ESTERHAZA 349

were taken to Esterhaza, the now almost deserted
Stammchloss of the great family of that name — an
immense, empty palace with memories of Haydn,
who was Kapellmeister to the Prince Esterhazy of
the day, and wrote most of his compositions there.
Among the many stately and finely decorated rooms,
we were shown those where poor Princess Sarah
dwelt, in almost solitary grandeur, during the short
spell of her married life ; society, in those benighted
days, deeming the quartering^ of this daughter of
Lord Jersey and his proud, imperious wife, not suffi-
ciently impeccable, and giving her the cold shoulder
in consequence.

On the very borders of Austria and Hungary, near
Bruck an der Leitha, stands the fine old castle and
domain of Prugg, belonging to Count Harrach, whose
wife had been Mistress of the Robes to the Empress.
The Leitha, which flows through the park, marks the
division between Austria and Magyarland. The house
is a very ancient one, originally built on to a genuine
Roman tower, and has an old-world air in curious
contrast with its beautiful but more modern gardens
and glass-houses. When we went there, the neigh-
bourhood was full of military, and our hosts had only
a few days before been honoured with a visit from the
Emperor, who had come from Vienna on his annual
inspection of the troops at the camp of exercise at
Bruck. Our next visit was to the late Count George
lloyos and his wife, at Soos near St. Polten — a typical
Austrian chdteau in lovely country, with a ruined tower
which, together with the house, was being restored and
made thoroughly comfortable by the Countess. Findlay
and his very charming wife — a great ornament to our
Embassy — were there, so that we made up almost an
English party, not the least interesting member of

350 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

which was Countess Hoyos's father, old Mr. Whitehead
of torpedo fame.

The Hoyos family are remarkably gifted and almost
cosmopolitan. One of the daughters was married to the
German Minister at Athens, Count Plessen, while an-
other was the wife of the late Prince Herbert Bismarck.
And this reminds me that Count Bismarck (as he then
was) came to Vienna the year before and called one
morning at the Embassy. As we happened to have a
biggish dinner that evening, I asked him to excuse short
notice and join our party. A good many of our guests,
including, I remember, the Archduke Louis Victor,
formed part of a section of society that still holds
in honour the old Austrian traditions, and by whom
certain painful events in the national history are not
forgotten and still less forgiven. When, therefore,
Count and Countess Bismarck were announced, a
sudden chill seemed to come over the company. It
did not last long, however, and the entertainment
went off quite satisfactorily, Count Herbert making
himself very agreeable. For a short time, nevertheless,
the son of the Iron Chancellor lost some of his assurance
and looked so ill at ease that I almost repented having
inconsiderately exposed him to an unpleasant ordeal.
Like his formidable father he could be charming when
he chose, and his vigorous vitality was such that it is
sad to think of his death when barely past middle age.
During our stay at Soos we went over the magni-
ficent Benedictine Abbey of Melk, a huge, palatial
structure, raised high above the Danube, in the finest
imaginable position, with a splendid church and library
and innumerable historical associations.

Late in August we went as usual to Marienbad,
which the Prince of Wales honoured this year for

THE WOLFGANG SEE 351

the first time as Kurgast. A certain number of
well-known London people were here, no doubt in
part attracted by the presence of the most popular
of Princes. The chief excitement of this early
autumn was of course the serious turn which affairs
were taking in South Africa. A rupture with the
Boer Government seemed almost unavoidable, and
the chances and results of war were freely discussed
in the Prince's entourage ; M. de Soveral among others,
I remember, being of opinion that if we were forced
into hostilities the struggle could only be short and
must end in our favour. These views of one of the
shrewdest and most successful of diplomatists, who
was likely to have good information from Lourenco
Marquez as to the situation, struck me very much
at the time, but proved unfortunately erroneous ;
the fact being that, like most of the people he lived
amongst, the Portuguese Envoy evidently underrated
the Boer preparations and resources.

There was a great battue in the Konigswart Thier-
garten in honour of the Prince, with the picturesque
accompaniment of the crowd of green-coated foresters
and beaters customary in Austria on these occasions,
and, two days before his departure, H.R.H. dined
with us at the Hotel New York with a small
party composed of the Metternichs, Lady " Algy "
Lennox, Mrs. Chetwynd, Sir Arthur Ellis and his
daughter and daughter-in-law, and Lord Ilchester.
From Marienbad we went for our Nachkur to that
most delightful of playgrounds the Salzkammergut,
and — partly enticed thither by the fact that our Hague
friends the "Reggie" de Tuylls had a chalet there —
settled down for a week at St. Wolfgang on the lovely
lake of that name.

We found small but comfortable rooms at the

352 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

typical country inn " Zum weissen Rossi" — shortly
before immortalised in a clever farce bearing that
title, and admirably given at the Deutsche Volkstheater
at Vienna — which lay low down at the water's edge.
The weather was as glorious as it usually is in these
mountains in September, and everything seemed to
point to our holiday tour having a perfect close.
Very shortly after our arrival, however, there came
a sudden change. It rained in buckets for three
days and nights ; the steamers, by which means alone
our village — pent up between the steep hillside and
the lake — communicated with Salzburg at the one
end and Ischl at the other, ceased to run, and the
water, lashed by the violent wind and rain, rapidly
inundated the landing-stage on the ground floor and
soon rose nearly to the level of the first floor of our
hostelry, of which we remained almost the sole occu-
pants. It was really a curious, though unpleasant,
experience to be absolutely cut ofT, as we were for
the inside of a week, from the outer world ; even
the telegraph failing us entirely for two days. As
for public events — the scandals of the Dreyfus case,
or the wiles of Oom Paul — we might have been in
mid-Atlantic the whole of that week for all we learned
of them. We could have got out uphill at the back
of the house from a door on the first floor, had not
the deluge of rain entirely prevented our stirring from
our rooms, and our fellow-prisoner, Lady Adelaide
Taylour, who had joined us from the Tyrol bent on
sketching excursions round the lovely lake, forewent
all hope of putting pencil to paper, and, like Heine's
"Frau Sorge," took to knitting. The damage done
throughout the country was almost incalculable. Ischl
and Gmunden were entirely under water ; bridges
were carried away in all directions ; houses fell in

MOUNTAIN FLOODS 353

everywhere — no less than twenty-eight being de-
stroyed at Ebensee alone. It was only later on that
the full extent became apparent of a catastrophe which
embraced the whole upper course of the Danube and
of its tributaries, from Suabia into mid Hungary.
When at last it became possible to travel along the
sadly damaged railway lines, we moved on to beautiful
Salzburg — that favourite retreat of Imperial dignitaries
in retirement — where we saw a good deal of our former
Stockholm and Hague colleagues the Pfusterschmids
and Walterskirchens. A drive to Berchtesgaden and
to that wonderful emerald in the grim mountain-
setting, the Konigs-See, was our last crowning im-
pression this year of some of the most perfect scenery
in the world.

October came, and with it tidings of the outbreak
of the long-impending war and the invasion of Natal
by the Boer levies, the first telegrams indeed indicating
a retreat of our forces and unpreparedness on our part
to meet so bold an advance. In the midst of the ex-
citement caused by the war news I received an un-
expected visit from Sir llobert Collins, Comptroller of
the Household of the Duchess of Albany, who came
to advise me of the arrival at the Hotel Imperial of
H.R.H., with the young Duke and Princess Alice.
The Duchess had just come from Dresden, he said,
in the strictest incognito as Lady Arklow, and had
not even brought a maid with her. It was, in fact,
a complete escapade which afforded infinite amuse-
ment to the Royal tourists. Their incognito, al-
though carefully respected, nevertheless soon became
more than transparent when the Duchess went to
Baden to see her aunt, the Archduchess ltainer, and
assisted at a performance of haute e'cole riding, ex-
pressly arranged for her at the Spanische Reitschule

z

354 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

in the Hofburg. The Royal party dined with us
quietly at the Embassy, Lord St. Levan and his niece,
Lady Agnes Townshend, being the only other guests.
I remember this well, for it was the day on which the
news came of our first success at Glencoe, dearly bought
by the death of General Penn Symons, followed by the
victory of Elandslaagte ; the little Duke of Albany—
now Duke of Saxe-Coburg — who was fresh from Eton,
displaying a genuine British schoolboy's enthusiasm
over our alas ! transient triumphs. Scarcely ten days
after this I was told one morning that Mr. Lavino, the
very able correspondent of The Times (now transferred
to Paris), had a message he wished to telephone to me
in person. It was the full account he had just received
from Printing House Square of the disaster at Nichol-
son's Nek. The effect upon me of the distant muffled
voice conveying this intelligence, word by word, was
more sinister than I can express, and the worst of it
was that I had afterwards to transmit it myself to
Penzing in the same way, for the Duchess of Cumber-
land, who took the deepest interest in the war and
had asked me to keep her well informed about it.

Amidst these preoccupations, the visit to Vienna of
King George of Greece and of his son Prince Nicholas
came as a real relief. The King gave me a very long
audience, at which he showed all his old cordiality and
kindness, and was good enough to come to luncheon
with us. I had scarcely seen H.M. since I left his
Court in 1888. A curious circumstance of the King's
stay at Vienna was its coinciding with that of the
young King Alexander of Servia. The two Sovereigns
occupied contiguous apartments at the Hotel Imperial,
and it afterwards transpired that the impression pro-
duced on so shrewd an observer as King George by the
ill-starred Alexander was that he was in a strangely

THE QUEEN AND THE WAR 355

overwrought condition and showed but little reserve
or reticence. He had come to Vienna hoping to see
the Emperor, which he failed to do, and must con-
sequently have been considerably vexed and humi-
liated when H.I.M visited King George at the Hotel,
passing along a corridor which was full of the
Servian King's retinue.

At the beginning of December we made one of our
short flights to London, and received a Royal command
to dine and sleep at Windsor. It was very generally
reported abroad at this time, especially in those quar-
ters which were not all too well disposed towards us,
that the Queen had personally been very averse to
the war, and had even been with difficulty induced
to sanction the measures forced upon her advisers
by the uncompromising hostility of the Boer Govern-
ment. While not presuming to offer an opinion
on so delicate a subject as the private sentiments of
our late revered Sovereign, I may say with perfect
truth that on the occasion of this visit to Windsor,
and again during a later one in the following March,
one could not but be impressed by the high spirit
shown by the aged Queen at this most trying moment
of her reign. Far from evincing the discouragement,
the desire for peace almost at any price attributed
to her, the feelings dominant in her at that period
seemed to be those of deep resentment at the insolent
challenge of the Boer President, and of disappoint-
ment at the unfortunate turn taken by our military
operations. The Queen in short was in no meek,
desponding mood ; she was very keen, very angry,
and very determined. That the weary length and the
losses of the war clouded, and may perhaps even
have shortened, her last days, it were idle to deny,
but she lived to see it brought to a triumphant

356 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

issue, and, more fortunate than poor, patriotic, much-
abused Mary, the name found written on her heart
would not have been one of humiliation like Calais,
but of victory like Paardeberg. The only guests
bidden to Windsor besides ourselves on this occa-
sion were Mr. George Wyndham and Lady Grosvenor,
and it was truly good to hear the Secretary for War
explain to us, in the smoking-room, the order and
number of the reinforcements that were being made
ready for despatch to the seat of war, and to feel at the
same time how thorough was his grasp of the subject.
With this comfort, as it were, we again left England ;
crossing Germany deeply buried in snow, and reaching,
late in the evening of December the 14th, Dresden,
where we had to wait some time for the night express
to Vienna. I had scarcely seen a paper since leaving
London, and, after ordering supper, eagerly turned to
the columns of the first I could lay my hand on, read-
ing there, in the short, crushing telegraphic style, the
story of Magersfontein and the death of Lord Win-
chester. Only two days before leaving London, I had
been with his aunt, Mrs. Wellesley, and from her had
heard that he had been on the point of sending in his
papers, but, when the war broke out, had of course
abstained from doing so, and accompanied the Cold-
streamers to whom he was devoted. Poor " Wilty,"
whom I well remember as a youth in his grand-
father, Lord Rokeby's house, was as gallant a gentle-
man and soldier as ever lived, and met a soldier's
death, as he stood facing the murderous volleys,
while directing and controlling his men's fire as they
lay. But there was yet more and worse to come.

CHAPTER XX

VIENNA, 1900— THE BOER WAR— COURT CEREMONIES
—PARTING VISITS— THE END OF A CAREER

The opening months of the winter of 1 899-1 900 —
the last I was to spend in the Austrian capital —
were darkened for us all at the Embassy by the
adverse course taken at first by the South African
war. Irrespective of the galling sense of national
discomfiture with which all right-thinking English-
men entered on the new century, it was especially
trying for those who represented England abroad
to watch these untoward events too often amidst
unfriendly surroundings. At Vienna the pro-Boer
movement was mostly artificial, but the close in-
vestment of Ladysmith, Sir Red vers Buller's failure
at Colenso, the reverses at the Modder River and
Stormberg, followed by the Spion Kop disaster,
nevertheless successively called forth in the leading
organs of the Vienna press manifestations of an
uncordial spirit. And these, although only echoes of
openly hostile influences at that time rampant at
Berlin and throughout Germany, effectually dis-
turbed one's equanimity. Even papers which were
known to be in touch with the Ballplatz, such as
the Wiener Zeitung and Fremdenblatt, revealed pro-
Boer tendencies ; their comments on our military
operations being often both unfair and misleading.
These sentiments, however, were chiefly confined to
the upper middle-class of Austro-Germans who were
more or less subject to Pan-German inspiration.

358 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

Slatin Pasha, who happened to be then on a
visit to his relatives, was extremely indignant at
this attitude of his countrymen. He had been
amazed, he told me, when meeting some of the
leading journalists and literary men at the house
of a Vienna industrial magnate, to find them so
inimical to us, and at the same time so essentially
ignorant of the rights of the affair. They persisted
in looking on it as a quarrel we had deliberately
fastened on the Transvaal in order to obtain absolute
control of its immense mineral wealth ; — as in fact
a repetition of the Jameson raid on a gigantic
scale.

We saw a good deal of the loyal Sir Rudolph Slatin
during his annual visits to Vienna, and I was present
that winter at a special meeting of the Imperial
Geographical Institute, with the Archduke Rainer in
the chair, followed by a banquet, both in honour
of the gallant Anglo- Austrian soldier and explorer.
In spite of his terrible experiences, he remained a
thorough Wienerkind, and had preserved his simple,
cheery, native ways, albeit there could be read — inde-
libly stamped on his features and reflected in his tired
eyes, seared by the fierce glare and the sand of the
Soudan — the record of twelve years of cruel, debasing
captivity, during which, as he told us, one of the
greatest physical trials he endured was having to
run with naked feet in the burning sand at the bridle-
rein of the brutal Mahdi.

But, to return to the distasteful subject of the
war, I hasten to bear grateful testimony to the faithful
adherence of the Imperial Government throughout
it to their traditional policy of friendship for Great
Britain. While an ill-informed and, in some cases,
possibly corrupt, Press — Dr. Leyds having of course

A DIPLOMATIC "CERCLE" 359

been at work at Vienna as elsewhere — was fol-
lowing the lead of our enemies in Germany and
France, and seeking to malign and turn opinion
against us in our contest in South Africa, the
sympathies of the Austro-Hungarian Government
were never once led astray. And in this respect they
simply followed the example and inspiration of the
Sovereign. On the occasion of a State Ball at the
Hofburg on the 9th of January — the first entertain-
ment that took place at Court after the death of
the Empress — unequivocal proof was given by the
Emperor of his personal sentiments. At the custo-
mary diplomatic cercle which preceded the ball, the
Ambassadors and Envoys were placed as usual
according to the order of the presentation of their
credentials. Mgr. Taliani, the Nuncio, who at this
Roman Catholic Court was given special precedence,
had the Italian Ambassador, Count Nigra, next to
him ; then came the German Ambassador, Prince
Eulenburg, and, after him, in due sequence, the
Russian Ambassador, Count Kapnist, the Turkish
Ambassador, Mahmoud Nedim, and myself. The
French Ambassador, Marquis de Reverseaux, and the
Spanish, M. Agiiera, came next after me, followed
by a long line of Envoys from the other Powers.

The Emperor began the cercle by addressing a
few words to the Nuncio and to the senior of my
colleagues in turn. I had not seen H.M. for some
months ; in fact not since the outbreak of the war.
When he came to where I stood between the Turkish
and the French representatives, he greeted me with
more even than his habitual graciousness, and, after
inquiring about the Queen and just touching upon
the difficulties of our campaign in South Africa,
H.M. said to me in French in the most marked

360 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

manner that he was " entirely on the side of England
in the war." So clearly and emphatically did he
utter these words that the other Ambassadors stand-
ing near me, and their staffs behind them, could
not have failed to hear them. 1 In fact, when he
had passed on, after speaking to my French and
Spanish colleagues, M. de Reverseaux at once turned
to me and said : " Permettez moi de vous feliciter
sur la chaleur que VEmpereur a raise a vous dire
cela" There can indeed be no doubt that the
Emperor fully intended to take this opportunity of
making known his sentiments, and it is certain
that within a few hours the expression of his views
was telegraphed to the Governments of all the
principal European Powers.

I have been particular in recounting the circum-
stances of this incident, because I was charged, when
I referred to it some time ago in a contribution to one
of our leading Reviews, with the grossest dereliction
of duty in revealing and publishing matter derived
from strictly confidential correspondence. As a matter
of fact, the Emperor Francis Joseph never made any
concealment whatever of his sentiments in our favour.
On receiving about this time his Minister to the Court
of Dresden, and hearing from him that the sympathies
of the late King Albert of Saxony — the Emperor's
life-long friend — were also on our side, H.M. said
that he rejoiced to hear it, adding, " Ich filrchte
wir sind beinahe die Einzigen ! " x In the same
connection I was enabled by the Emperor's direct
countenance and assistance to deal effectually — which

1 A member of my staff at Vienna afterwards told me that not only
had he himself heard the words of the Emperor quite distinctly, but that
some fifty persons near him must have done so too.

2 " I am afraid we are almost the only ones ! "

AUSTRIAN SYMPATHY 361

was not the case with my colleagues at other Courts
— with the scandalous caricatures of the Queen
which for a short time flooded the Continent and
found their way into some of the Vienna comic
papers. These disgraceful productions, together with
a number of objectionable postal cards, were almost
all introduced from, and designed in, Germany, where
no attempt whatever was made to suppress them,
as I repeatedly, but in vain, pointed out to my col-
league Prince Eulenburg. It will ever be a source
of gratification to me to remember that of her late
Majesty's diplomatic servants I was probably the only
one who had the satisfaction of contributing to the
stamping out of this intolerable nuisance in the
country where I resided.

But we were fortunately soon to be relieved from
the painful strain of these first winter months by
Lord Roberts's triumphant advance. And when the
news reached Vienna of the relief of Kimberley and
finally of Cronje's surrender, it was received by our
friends with genuine pleasure, for, with very few ex-
ceptions, society had been throughout on our side.
Although there is no denying that our organisation
and our strategy were freely criticised by military
men in this essentially military Empire, the national
spirit evoked by the contest, and the sacrifices made
by all classes, found nowhere a more generous appre-
ciation than among our old Austrian allies and the
chivalrous Hungarians.

In March we were in England once more for
a short time, and were commanded to Windsor to
dine and sleep — a memorable visit to me, inas-
much as it was the last occasion on which I saw
the Queen. The circumstances were happily very
different from those attending our last visit in

362 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

December, and it was interesting to meet there
the wives of the two generals who had borne the
brunt of the fighting in Natal, Lady Audrey Buller
and Lady White. A pleasant innovation, too, had
taken place in the Court arrangements. The Queen,
instead of sitting after dinner as of old in the long
corridor, adjourned to the white drawing-room, where
the household were assembled, the dinner guests
being called up to her one at a time. H.M. seemed
to me still full of vitality and keen as ever about the
war, talking indeed of little else. I have never again
beheld Windsor since that day. A few days earlier
we had witnessed in the Park and at various points
in the streets the extraordinary enthusiasm with
which the aged Sovereign was greeted, as she drove
on her way to Buckingham Palace, on what was, if
I am not mistaken, her last visit to London. No
monarch was ever the object of a more imposing
and spontaneous outburst of loyalty.

Among the hospitalities of the Court at Vienna
are the invitations received by the Ambassadors to the
great chasses held in the Imperial domains. My first
experience of these was a battue on a very great scale
near Goding in Moravia. It involved a start at six
o'clock in the morning in a special train from the
Nordbahnhof with a run of sixty-five miles, our
party including, besides several colleagues, Prince
Alfred Windischgratz, General Baron Beck — the
chief of the Staff and Moltke of the Austrian Army
— Prince Montenuovo and others. From Goding
we were driven in open breaks and fiakers to the
Imperial preserves, where, at the outskirts of the
great woods, we did justice to a rough substantial
breakfast of sausages and beer or spirits, and were

SPORT ON HISTORIC GROUND 363

then placed in line — some twelve or fourteen guns
— each attended by his own Jager and by game-
bearers, while a perfect army of foresters and beaters
moved on in front. It was really an imposing sight,
and to me a complete novelty. Over 3600 head of
game were killed — mostly pheasants and hares, with
a few partridges — and, horresco ref evens, a fox or two.
An excellent luncheon or mid-day dinner, presided
over by the Gvand Veneuv, Baron Gudenus, was
served in the head forester's cottage, after which we
shot again till dark, and did not get back to Vienna
much before nine o'clock. At another, much smaller,
chasse, near Laxenburg, about 1600 head, almost
all hares, were shot. The prettiest shooting I saw,
however, was in the Island of Lobau in the Danube.
The road thither from Vienna passes through the
big village of Aspern, out of which the French were
driven back into that island by the Archduke Charles,
after a bloody two days' battle. A clumsy stone
monument in the village marks the site of the
transient Austrian victory. Crossing the bridge
which replaces that which was burnt by the Imperial
troops during the fierce struggle, one reaches the
woods and glades — now thickly stocked with phea-
sants — where the French army was encamped all
through June 1 809 ; the baffled conqueror having
his headquarters here for some time before issuing
forth again to take his revenge on the field of
Wagrara. The trees under which his tents were
pitched and the remains of the earthworks he con-
structed are still visible. No more interesting and
ideal shooting-ground can be imagined.

I was but a poor shot myself compared to my
German colleague Prince Eulenburg or the Russian
Ambassador, but the most envage, though not alto-

364 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

gether the safest, sportsman of our corps was our
Turkish colleague, Mahmoud Nedim — a gloomy, soli-
tary, discontented man, whose sole passion was shoot-
ing. As often happens with Ottomans of the best class,
he had but one wife, to whom he was much attached,
but could not of course take abroad with him. He
constantly applied for leave to go home and see her,
but, like other Turkish officials, he suffered from
his Sovereign's caprices and was never allowed to
absent himself from his post. His case, however,
was not to be compared to that of his predecessor
who, in spite of repeated entreaties, was peremptorily
denied leave to go to his wife when she was dan-
gerously ill, in fact, dying, at Constantinople. He con-
sequently committed suicide in a fit of despair — clearly
a victim of the arbitrary methods of Yildiz Kiosk.

Lent passed away, with its usual accompaniment
of evening parties and receptions, at one of which,
given by Prince Fiirstenberg and his handsome wife,
ne'e Schonborn, the engagement was announced of
the Duke of Cumberland's eldest daughter to Prince
Max of Baden — a great event in the Vienna world
where the Cumberland family enjoyed unbounded
popularity. At musical parties given in honour of
this engagement by Princess Metternich-Sandor and
Comtesse Eric Kielmansegg, wife of the Statthalter,
Fratilein Kurz and Kreisler the violinist — both now
so admired in London — made almost their first ap-
pearance, and we were much struck with their fine
performance.

A fortnight later we were shocked and startled
by the news of the dastardly attempt on the life of
the Prince of Wales at Brussels, when on his way to
Copenhagen. Much sympathy was shown on this
occasion at Vienna, and the Emperor made a sur-

THE WASHING OF FEET 365

prise visit of congratulation to the Embassy on
H.R.H.'s escape. It seems scarcely credible —
though it is, I happen to know, the fact — that
Dr. Leyds thought fit to send the Prince a congra-
tulatory telegram on his preservation. An act of
singular effrontery on his part, considering that Brus-
sels was the centre whence he directed the Anglo-
phobe campaign against us in the foreign press, and
that his calumnious denunciations of England may
fairly be held to have inspired the insane attempt
of the young Belgian anarchist.

At the Imperial Court, Passion Week is still
marked by the ancient ceremony of the Washing of
Feet (Fusswaschung), which takes place on Maundy
Thursday in the great marble Rittersaal of the Hofburg.
For the privileged spectators of the function tribunes
are erected round the walls of the Hall ; one of them,
which is reserved for the Corps Diplomatique, being
placed immediately above the bench where twelve very
ancient paupers — dressed for the occasion in sixteenth-
century garb (Alt Deutsche Tracht), with ruffs — are
seated in a row on a slightly raised dais behind a long
table covered with a white tablecloth. The other
tribunes are filled with Austrian great ladies, and in
the body of the Hall stands a crowd of Court digni-
taries, high officials, Privy Councillors and others
entitled to be present. The Emperor enters with
the great Officers of State, followed by all the Arch-
dukes with their households. Some short prayers
are now intoned by the Court clergy ; the Emperor
takes up his position, standing at the head of the
long table, while the Archdukes place themselves in
line, according to their precedence, along the side of
it facing the aged recipients of the Imperial bounty.

366 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

Conspicuous among the Princes is the tall, knightly
figure of the Archduke Eugene — a younger brother
of the Archduke Frederick and of the Queen of
Spain — wearing over his general's uniform the
picturesque, flowing white mantle, with the large
black cross on it, of Grand Master of the Teutonic
Order.

Then comes the rhythmic tramp of infantry, as,
preceded by minor Court officials, twelve of the Palace
Guard file into the Hall — each man bearing a large
wooden tray with several dishes. They come to atten-
tion in line conveniently near the Emperor and the
respective Archdukes, who take the dishes from the
trays and arrange them with great dexterity on the
table in front of each old man, the Emperor setting
the example. After a brief pause the dishes, none
of which have been touched, are replaced on the trays
by the same hands and carried away by the guards-
men. Another pause, and a second course is brought
in and dealt with in the same manner, followed by a
third and fourth course, after which the tables are
removed. During the intervals, the Emperor stoops
across and says a few words to the aged waifs who are
nearest to him: "How old are you?" "Ninety odd,
Majestat," comes the answer in wavering tones, fol-
lowed by the Emperor's hearty : " Sie sehen ja ganz
frisch aus!" Behind the old gaffers stand a row of
their proud relatives — mostly women in stuff gowns
and shawls — and these humble folk the kindly Em-
peror includes in his gracious smile and nod as he
speaks, for he does not go through the solemnity in
the least perfunctorily but in right good earnest. The
tables being cleared away, Court attendants remove the
stocking from the right foot of each veteran, and the
Emperor, closely followed by chamberlains bearing a

CORPUS DOMINI 367

gold basin and ewer and fine linen, then goes down
on one knee and shuffles, so to speak, in this lowly
attitude, along the line of the twelve, pouring a little
water over, and drying their feet in turn. On reaching
the end of the row, he stands up, and coming down the
line again, hangs a chain to which is attached a purse
round the neck of each. It is impossible to bring
home to those who have not witnessed it the earnest-
ness, combined with a charming bonhomie, displayed
by H.M. through the whole of this curious and elabo-
rate function. An interesting feature of it too is that
the old people are fetched from, and taken back to,
their homes with their relatives in Court carriages, to
which, after the ceremony, one sees them tottering,
each on the arm of a stalwart guardsman, while the
dishes, of what to them has so far been a Barmecide
feast, are carried behind them in immense wooden
boxes, which also contain the green earthenware
jug and pewter mug, both handsomely decorated
with the Imperial arms, with which they are pre-
sented, and for which later they readily find eager
purchasers.

There are two other great religious functions de-
serving of notice in which the Emperor personally
takes part. On Easter eve he attends service in state
at a small chapel in the south-west corner of the Burg,
and thence follows the Host on foot round the inner
quadrangle of that Palace to the Burgkapelle at the
opposite end, attended by the whole of his Court. The
procession is a very fine one seen from the windows of
the Palace where places are always reserved for the
foreign diplomatists. Still more striking is the great
procession of Corpus Domini that winds its way
through the main streets of the Innere Stadt from and
back to the porch of St. Stephen's, halting at several

368 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

points by the way, where chapels are erected, and a few
prayers are said. A magnificent and endless cortege ;
the banners and vestments of the clergy, the uniforms
and accoutrements of the troops of all arms, and, above
all, the gorgeous Hungarian guard, mounted on grey
Arabs with leopard-skin saddle-cloths — making a per-
fect feast of colour ; the Emperor going on foot the
whole way, immediately after the baldachin held over
the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna who carries the
Host. A special interest attaches to these impressive,
old-world ceremonies, religiously handed down as they
have been from the days of the Holy Roman Empire,
much of the etiquette observed at them having been
imported by the Habsburgs from Spain. There is a
certain pathos, too, about them at present which can-
not but appeal to the thoughtful. For many years, in
the brighter period of the now so heavily clouded
reign, these functions were doubly magnificent, for
the beautiful Empress and all the Archduchesses took
part in them in the full splendour of State robes and
Crown jewels l — a sight unparalleled at that time else-
where in Europe. The pomp remains, though shorn
of half its attraction, and still the aged Emperor, wife-
less and son-less, treads the old paths and goes through
the time-honoured duties alone, bravely, patiently, and
in all things conscientiously as becomes a true Apos-
tolic King.

These high festivals and pageants of the great
Church which, despite the contemptible "Los von
Rom" propaganda attempted by Schoenerer and con-
sorts, holds unquestioned sway throughout the Empire,
bring to my mind the acute stage that was reached by
the Anti-Semitic movement towards the close of my

1 The Empress, assisted by the Archduchesses, used to perform the
ceremony of the Fusswaschung on twelve old women.

A RITUAL MURDER TRIAL 369

tenure of the Embassy at Vienna. The more im-
mediate cause of this recrudescence of Judseophoby
was a sensational ritual murder case tried in the
autumn of 1899 before the Criminal Court at Pisek
in Bohemia. The accused — a Moravian Jew of Polna,
of the name of Hilsner — was charged with having,
at the approach of the Jewish Passover, enticed a
Christian servant girl, with whom he was acquainted,
into the woods near Polna, and after murdering her,
having extracted the blood from her body and taken
it to the local Rabbi. The corpse, it appeared, had
actually been found in a strangely bloodless condition,
and the trial, which was conducted in a very unfair,
vindictive spirit, ended in Hilsner being found guilty
and sentenced to death. 1 An immense sensation was
produced by this affair. Professor Masaryk, a dis-
tinguished lawyer who had defended Hilsner, was
prevented from delivering his course of lectures at
the Prague University, and the old Anti- Jewish spirit
in Bohemia and Moravia being roused to a dangerous
pitch, Jewish houses were pillaged and set fire to at
Holleschau and other places.

This revival of the cruel accusation of murder for
ritual purposes, first brought against the Jews in dark,
mediaeval times, caused great concern to the heads of
the Hebrew communities in Western Europe, who
feared that it might spread to France — where the
affaire Dreyfus had already caused much ill-blood
— and even to England. When in London in the
autumn, I was approached on the subject by the
Messrs. Rothschild, who are old friends of mine. It
appeared from what they told me that some of the
most prominent English Catholics, shocked by the

1 The case was subsequently tried again on appeal and the sentence
commuted to imprisonment.

2 A

370 KEC0LLECTI0NS OF A DIPLOMATIST

abominable ritual murder charges, intended, with the
approval of the late Cardinal Vaughan, to memorialise
the Holy See, with the view of obtaining an authori-
tative pronouncement from Rome of the same character
as those formerly issued by several Popes, from Innocent
IV. to Clement XIV., stigmatising these accusations
as utterly wicked and calumnious. I had several
interviews about this question with Mr. Leopold de
Rothschild and the distinguished Chief Rabbi, Dr.
Adler, and gladly undertook to try and obtain the
support of my colleague the Nuncio at Vienna in the
move that was contemplated at Rome. Mgr. Taliani,
since raised to the Cardinalate, was a friendly, liberal-
minded prelate. The Holy See, he said, had, for
centuries past, endeavoured to shield the Jews from
misrepresentation and persecution, but, as regarded
the acerbity of the feelings towards them in Austria,
I knew, as well as he did, that the hostile movement
against them had for the most part political and party
motives at the bottom of it. He assured me, neverthe-
less, that he preserved a perfectly open mind on these
questions, and promised to make known at the Vatican
what I told him of the sentiments of our English
Catholics regarding them. Some hint no doubt reached
the Austrian clergy from Rome, for the violent cam-
paign which had originated in the Polna murder
promptly came to an end.

The Anti-Semitic movement is one of the most
serious evils with which public life in Austria is
afflicted, and there is no more pernicious influ-
ence in Vienna than that of its bigoted, overbearing
leader, the Burgomaster Dr. Lueger, who is unfor-
tunately gifted with the fluent oratorical powers
of a born demagogue. The folly of his passionate
crusade against the Jews was soon made patent

ANTI-SEMITISM 371

by the disastrous economic results to which it
led. 1

The Austrian Government wisely do their best
to check Anti-Semitism, to which the Emperor him-
self is strongly opposed, rightly considering it both
unprincipled and dangerous. " I will tolerate no Jew-
baiting (Judenhetze) in my dominions," he said to the
Chief Rabbi of Prague after the excesses mentioned
above. Among other ill-effects, the Anti-Semitic
craze has unfortunately contributed to the growing
estrangement between Vienna and Buda-Pest ; the
dislike felt in the old Imperial city for the Jewish
influences which are no doubt very powerful in
the capital of Hungary, being expressed by the
term of Judo- Magyar en applied to Hungarians in
general.

To the city of the Judo-Magyars we went in
May, and on our farewell visit alas ! It was the
race- week, and Pesth was full of our friends, but
the weather was so exceptionally damp and cold that
it might have been a wet Ascot, and the racecourse
offered few attractions. But there were a good
many dinners and parties, at the Fe'stetics, Andrassy,
Apponyi and other houses, where we had our last
look at the brilliant Hungarian society, in which I
may again say that the beauty of some of the
ladies is remarkable, and among them two Esterhazy
sisters, married, the one to her kinsman Count
Michael Esterhdzy, and the other to Count Sandor
Andrassy, being indeed fair to behold. But the

1 Dr. Lueger and his followers were also amongst our greatest
detractors during the South African war, and he was on one occasion
severely taken to ta^k by the Emperor for an offensive Anglophobe speech
he made at a public meeting.

172 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

great centre of amusement for the gay world of
Pesth in summer-time is the Park Club, situated in
the Stadtwdldchen, which in the Hungarian capital
answers to the Prater at Vienna. The perfect equality
in it of its members of both sexes, and the lavish
style in which it is decorated and furnished, make it
quite a curiosity among clubs, while, as regards its
luxurious appointments, they are characteristic of a
society in which a certain partiality for display and
splendour might perhaps be traced to far distant
Asiatic descent. In no capital, however, can there
be a more perfect lounge than the hospitable Park
Club, where we spent many pleasant evenings, the
honours of the Club being admirably done by its
President, Count Paul Szapary, and his Polish
wife.

When I left Pesth the political situation bore a
promising complexion. The Minister President, M.
de Szell, was then backed by an immense majority
in Parliament, which certainly held firmly to the
maintenance and the integrity of the Union, and the
leaders in Hungarian political life — with the exception
of M. Kossuth and the then comparatively unim-
portant party of Independence— were generally sound
in their views respecting the fundamental, pragmatic
conditions of that Union, namely, a common Sovereign,
a common Army, and the conduct in common of the
foreign relations of the Empire. A great change
has in the last few years taken place in the aspect
of affairs, and the present outlook cannot but cause
the deepest concern to all well-wishers of the Austro-
Hungarian Monarchy. Unfortunately, in those ques-
tions which tend to gratify the national aspirations
and amour-propre the Hungarian race knows no differ-
ences of opinion, and has of late been disposed

THE FREUDENAU 373

to act on the maxim that Austria's tribulations are
Hungary's opportunity.

We returned to Vienna in time for the end of the
racing-season, and for its principal event, the Austrian
Derby, which this year was run on the 4th of June
in lovely weather. Some of the best horses in the
Empire and in Germany compete for the blue ribbon
of the Austrian turf, and, next to the Grand Prix
at Paris, there is no greater racing holiday and no
gayer spectacle of its kind out of England than this
gathering on the Vienna Freudenau. The Vienna
ladies certainly look their best and smartest on the
occasion and do credit to the world-renowned dress-
makers of that capital. The Hauptallee of the
Prater, lined with a four-fold row of splendid chestnut-
trees, is crowded from end to end with carriages,
mostly the light Vienna fiakers, their drivers racing
the wiry, fast-trotting juckers at the top of their
speed, to and from the course. The stream of
carriages in rapid motion, up and down the three-
mile-long avenue, is indeed prodigious, but these
fiaker folk, who form a curious and popular guild
of their own, and are the incarnation of the Vienna
local fun and humour, are fortunately very expert
whips. One of them, a man called Bratfisch (since
dead), a great character, well known as a singer of
Schnaderhupferl, or popular songs in the Vienna
dialect, was at Mayerling on the night of the terrible
tragedy enacted there, and was probably one of the few
persons cognisant of its real facts. The way in which
those facts have been scrupulously kept from the public
knowledge is indeed surprising, and reflects the greatest
credit on the persons concerned. One of the guests of
the Crown Prince at Mayerling on that fatal night was

374 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

the late Count " Joserl " Hoyos, whom I had known
well of old. Of him it is related that immediately
after the catastrophe he hurried to Vienna and sought
an audience of the Emperor, at which he volunteered
to take upon himself the death of the Crown Prince.
He was willing, he said, to declare that he had shot
him by accident in a battue that had taken place that
day, and was ready to leave the country at once for
good, and bear in exile the odium of having caused
the death of the heir to the throne. The Emperor,
it need scarcely be said, would not listen to Count
Hoyos' chivalrous offer.

For us the brilliant gathering on the Freudenau
was a day of leave-taking from many of the kind
friends we had made during our too brief stay of
barely four years at Vienna. The Vienna world
disperses immediately after the Derby day, and,
having myself already run my diplomatic course to
the end, I was prepared to make immediate room
for my successor, much though I had hoped to
spend one more summer in the most perfect of
countries for summer-holiday making. It so happened
that a few days later the Emperor laid, in great
state, the foundation-stone of a church to be erected
in memory of his Jubilee, most of the Ambassadors
being present at the ceremony. At the close of it,
H.M. addressed a few words to each of us, and,
after greeting my wife and me most graciously,
observed somewhat pointedly that he was about to
leave for his habitual stay at Ischl and, being
unable to grant any audiences before then, hoped
to find me at Vienna on his return in the early
autumn. On my then inquiring whether I had
his Majesty's leave to let Lord Salisbury know
this, he replied that he certainly wished me to do

THE SIEGE OF THE LEGATIONS 375

so. To the Emperor's kind initiative, therefore, I
owe the few months' very welcome respite allowed
me before my final retirement. Previous to the
departure of the Court a loyal demonstration on a
great scale, got up by the Vienna choral societies
and by numerous bodies of veterans, fire brigades,
workmen's and other associations of the capital and
its neighbourhood, took place at Schonbrunn in antici-
pation of the Sovereign's seventieth birthday, which
fell on the 18th of August. A serenade was given
in front of the Schonbrunn Palace by an admirable
choir of 4600 voices, and this was followed by a
monster Fackelzug, or march past, of 26,000 men,
all bearing torches or coloured lanterns ; each society
of a different colour. It was a remarkable sight,
and, as far as we were concerned, made a memorable
conclusion to the series of pageants we had assisted
at during our sojourn at the Imperial Court.

Public attention at this period was entirely en-
grossed by the grave crisis in China and the fate
of the European residents besieged in the Legation
quarter at Peking. We were ourselves greatly con-
cerned about one of them, Mr. Bryan Clarke-Thorn-
hill, of Rushton, Northamptonshire, who had served
with me at The Hague for two years. There was some-
thing almost tragical in the fact of his being at Peking
at this conjuncture. From The Hague he had been
transferred to the Embassy at Paris, and was then
promoted to be First Secretary to the Legation in
China, an appointment he held for a considerable time,
without, however — owing to the precarious state of his
father's health — proceeding to his post. lie retired
from the service in March 1900, on succeeding to the
property at his father's death, and almost immediately

376 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

afterwards started on a journey to the Far East which,
by what seemed a strange fatality, brought him on a
visit to Sir Claude Macdonald just before Peking was
cut off from the outer world. For a short time he was
of course given up for lost with all the rest of the
besieged residents. He did excellent service during
the siege, and his gifts of observation and sense of
humour are such that his recollections of it, if he could
be induced to give them to the world, would be the
best of reading. Keenly watching as I did this truly
agonising crisis, I could not but chafe at the manner
in which the offer of the Japanese to despatch a
considerable force — which they had quite ready — to
the rescue of the victims, was foiled by the selfish
fears, not to say the intrigues, of some of the Powers.
My personal opinion at the time was that we
ought to have taken upon ourselves to urge Japan
to send off her relieving expedition at once, assuring
her at the same time that we would " see her safely
through " the business. What Power would have
risked incurring the odium of preventing such a work
of salvage ? Instead of this, the irresolution and lack
of real accord of the Powers, the want of decision of
some, and the jealous fears and suspicions of others,
almost brought about what would have been the most
hideous massacre of modern times. 1

Amidst the obsession of this nightmare of the Far
East, it was a pleasing contrast to have to represent
the Queen at the marriage of Princess Marie Louise
of Cumberland, which took place at Gmunden at the
beginning of July, but was unfortunately marred by
atrocious weather. I was charged with the Royal pre-

1 I remember being much gratified by a letter from my old friend Sir
Nicholas O'Conor thanking me for some plain language I had permitted
myself to use in despatches at this crisis.

A ROYAL WEDDING AT GMUNDEN Z77

sent for the bride, and, after delivering it at a special
andience, was kept to lnnch at a Familientafel at which,
inclusive of the family of the Duke of Cumberland, the
Princes and Princesses who had come for the wedding
numbered no less than thirty-two. Besides the King
of Denmark, whom I saw here for the first and only
time, and the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Baden,
whom I had not met since the christening at Stock-
holm of their grandchild — now by the way engaged to
Princess Margaret of Connaught — the most interesting
and picturesque figure at the wedding ceremony was
the venerable, widowed Queen of Hanover — then
already in her eighty-third year — who put off her
mourning for the occasion, and was dressed entirely
in white, wishing, she said in jest to her ladies, " to
appear as Pio Nono." She was seated in the chancel,
next to the Emperor, who had come over from Ischl
for the ceremony ; his grand-daughter, the Arch-
duchess Elizabeth, and two daughters of the Arch-
duke Frederick being the bridesmaids. The numerous
and valuable presents that came from Hanover and
Brunswick were a striking and significant feature of
these festivities. The Hanoverian Ritterschaft sent
a deputation including Schulenburgs, Grotes, Bern-
storffs, and other great Hanoverian names, with a
handsome silver surtout de table, of which the centre-
piece was the horse of Hanover rampant, and there
was also a set of water-colours — views in and about
Hanover — for which a subscription had been made
by all classes, notwithstanding the attempts of the
German authorities to prevent its collection. Cer-
tainly signs were not wanting that a strong Guelph
feeling still subsisted in the Duke's ancient hereditary
dominions.

378 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

The few weeks still left to us in Austria were taken
up by some farewell visits in the country and by our
annual cure at Marienbad. On our way to that old
haunt of ours, we stayed at Frischau in Moravia, a
charming place belonging to my old friend, Countess
Stadion-Lobkowitz, where we spent a couple of
very happy days, and much admired the splendid
woods, containing many really giant oaks, that
form a girdle round the property. Our time was
short, however, and we reluctantly took leave of
our hostess ; on my part, I confess, not without what
the French call un serrement de coeur. At Marienbad
we found Lady Radnor and her charming daughter,
Lady Lathom, the Due de Luynes, General de
Galliffet, the Standishes, Countess Tassilo Fe'stetics,
Sir Arthur Ellis, and a few other friends, and while
there, were successively shocked by the news of the
assassination of the King of Italy and by the very
unexpected death of the Duke of Saxe Coburg. On
leaving Marienbad we stayed a day or two with Princess
Lobkowitz, nee Sternberg, and her family, whom we
had met at Frischau, and had promised to visit at her
chdteau near Pilsen. My two younger sons — George,
who had been invalided from the Cape after a short
campaign with Roberts's Horse, and Hugo, who had
not long before left Eton — accompanied us, and with
the young people of the house made up a very merry
party, contributing not a little to the general amuse-
ment by their musical performances. A curious old
house is Krimitz, with old-fashioned gardens and views
over the broad dusty plain that surrounds the Austrian
beeropolis Pilsen. We were most hospitably enter-
tained by the Princess and her sons, who quite sur-
prised me by their undisguised Czech sentiments and
their distaste for everything that was German. It

BISCHOFTEINITZ 379

is indeed remarkable how strongly the heads of even
great families of German origin, such as the Harrachs,
Schonborns, and even one branch of the Schwarzen-
bergs, have committed themselves to the national
Bohemian idea.

From Krimitz we went on to Prince Trautt-
mannsdorrTs fine castle of Bischofteinitz, a former
episcopal abode — half palace and half monastery —
which came into the family during the great commo-
tions of the Thirty Years' War. The Prince is one of
the best shots in Austria, and the walls of a long
gallery in the house bristle with stags' heads and
antlers, while large stuffed eagles and other birds of
prey hang down from the vaulted roof with out-
stretched wings — an appropriate decoration for a real
home of sport. Magnificent woods full of game cover
the estate, and through these I was taken long drives
by my host and had the chance of an occasional shot
at a stag or a roebuck. There is no more amiable
family in Vienna society than the Trauttmannsdorffs,
and we were indeed loth to part from them on start-
ing for a twelve hours' journey to our next visit at
Aschach, on the Danube, above Linz.

We had to drive as far as Pilsen, across the great
monotonous plains, passing through straggling Bohe-
mian villages with huge barns and untidy farm-build-
ings, along ragged, dusty roads where regiments of
geese filed past in charge of some small maiden like
those I had read of in childhood in Grimm's unforget-
table tales. A few delightful days with Count and
Countess Alfred Harrach in their sunny arcaded
chdteau at Aschach by the blue river, and we went
on again to a farewell visit to the Duke and Duchess
of Cumberland at beautiful Gmunden. Here we stayed
only two nights as Their lloyal Highnesses were about

3 So RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

to start for Copenhagen, but when we departed, on our
way to Ischl, I felt more than ever assured that we
were leaving behind us in this Royal home very true
and kind friends.

The Emperor was still at Ischl with his two daugh-
ters, the Archduchesses Gisela and Marie Valerie, and
on H.M. hearing of our arrival, an invitation to the
Imperial table was brought us by Prince R. Liechten-
stein. After dinner H.M. touched upon a variety of
subjects — the appointment of Count Waldersee to the
command of the combined European forces in China
among others — and then referred to the demonstrations
of loyalty and attachment which had just marked the
celebration of his birthday ; dwelling more particularly
on the gratification he had derived from the friendly
tone of the English press on that occasion. He rejoiced
to find that his sincere regard for England was so well
understood by English public opinion. We left Ischl
the next day for St. Wolfgang and Salzburg, and were
back at Vienna on the 3rd of September.

On the 8th I had my farewell audience and
delivered my letters of recall, being received by the
Emperor with even more than his habitual conde-
scension and cordiality. H.M. was pleased to express
his satisfaction at the way in which I had acquitted
myself of my duties, and added, with much warmth
of manner, that he wished me to remember that I
left in him a very sincere friend. In the afternoon
he came to the Embassy to say good-bye to my
wife and sat with us for some time. My wife asked
him to sign a photograph of himself — one of the
many done of him by Pietzner — which she had pre-
pared for the occasion. This he did at once in his
usual kindly way, and then noticing another one —
a small group representing him surrounded by his

THE END OF A CAREER 381

grandchildren, one of whom is seated on his knee
— he asked her whether she would like that signed
too, and forthwith wrote his name on it.

My mission to the Emperor Francis Joseph
was in every sense the culminating honour of a
long and much chequered career. No Ambassador
accredited to him can preserve more grateful re-
collections than mine of the invariable kindness
and thoughtfulness of the most high-minded and
beneficent of Sovereigns. An admirable portrait of
him by Pochwalski 1 presented to me by H.M. hangs
on the wall of my London home, and when I look
up at the shrewd, kindly eyes, and see the smile
lighting the rugged, careworn features, I seem to
hear once more the majestic and thrilling strains
of the " Gott erhalte," and feel — because I know —
how urgent is the need the prayer it breathes,
and how precious the life on which it calls down
blessings.

I left Vienna on the 16th of September 1900 —
fifty-one years and a few days after entering the
diplomatic service.

1 The Order of St. Stephen is generally conferred on Ambassadors
retiring from Vienna, but a.s a regulation existed prohibiting the accept-
ance of foreign decorations by the diplomatic servants of the British
Crown — a rule no longer, I believe, strictly enforced in quite recent
years — this was replaced, in the case of my predecessors and myself,
by the much more valuable and interesting gift of a portrait which
the Emperor caused to be painted for the occasion.

CHAPTER XXI

VALEDICTORY

Half a century spent abroad in the service of the
Crown more than unfits the retired diplomatist for
the short span that may be left to him at home in
England. In my case not only was a lifetime's
occupation gone, but it was far too late to think of
replacing it by any serious or profitable employment.
Much the same has of course been the fate of the
majority of my colleagues, with the exception of
those fortunate few who have come back to old
family homes and to the duties which these en-
tail. All public careers, it will be rightly said,
must end in comparative nothingness and obscurity,
but the oblivion into which those who have
attained the highest rank in diplomacy lapse on
their retirement seems to me almost distinctive of
that profession.

There is in fact little of the proverbial otiurn
cum dignitate in the lot of the retired diplomatist ;
or — to dot the i's — more than enough of the first,
and but little of the second. To the British public
at large, whose conception of the service is some-
what hazy, and which scarcely distinguishes between
a Consul and an Ambassador, the man on the shelf
is naturally unknown. But, curiously enough it
appears to me, he counts almost as little with the
great department under which he has served so long

and with the Court which it has been his duty to

382

CONTRASTS 383

represent, often at no small personal sacrifice. From
the day of his retirement he practically loses all
touch with those who have been wont to look for,
and trust to, his counsel or opinion in unques-
tionably important affairs. His experience, which
might be of value to his former chiefs, is treated
by them, so to speak, as of no account ; while, if
he should venture to raise an independent voice
on matters which have been the study of his
life, he is liable to be rebuked for culpable in-
discretion, and even threatened with severe pains
and penalties.

Certain special circumstances possibly brought
this sudden and complete breach with the past
more strongly home to me than to others. The
eminent statesman under whom I had served for a
number of years had just resigned and withdrawn
to his splendid home at Hatfield ; the seals of the
Foreign Office passing into the able hands of its
present occupant. I had thus no farewell interview
with the Foreign Secretary, and disappeared quite
unnoticed from the service as might any of our
numerous Vice-Consuls. As for the Queen, she was
still at Balmoral and in rapidly failing health. Mr.
"Alec" Yorke, whom I chanced to meet in October,
shortly after my return to England, told me, I re-
member, of the great change he had noticed in her
Majesty when he was in waiting just before in
Scotland. Although the Queen resided for six weeks
at Windsor on her return South, it was gener-
ally understood that she was living there in com-
plete retirement and received only those persons
it was indispensable she should see. We, there-
fore, did not have the audience to take leave
of the Sovereign which is invariably accorded to

384 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

retiring Ambassadors and their wives. By some
unfortunate mischance, too, an official invitation
to the Royal obsequies at Windsor did not reach
me in time, having been sent to a wrong address.
In fact it was only at the eleventh hour that
I succeeded in obtaining cards of admission to
the balcony overlooking the Friary Court at St.
James's Palace, and thence saw the memorable
funeral procession of the great Queen whose phe-
nomenal reign synchronised with more than sixty
years of my life, and whom I had served longer,
I believe, than any of my fellow -workers in
diplomacy.

But enough of this. The contrast between the
complete effacement into which the ex-diplomatist
subsides, and a life in which outward show — or
what the French well describe as representation —
necessarily has so large a part ; the being suddenly
cut off from those exclusive channels of infor-
mation which give to a diplomatic career an
interest and fascination of its own, not to be
met with, I think, in any other branch of the
public service ; chiefly, perhaps, the sense of having
become half a foreigner, and feeling scarcely at
home in his own country — all these have the
effect of diverting his thoughts from the fast
fleeting present to the long dead past. In the
waning days that can hold but few interests or
attractions — none of them of an absorbing character
— the mind almost mechanically clings to, and seeks
refuge in, that very different past, and existence
becomes, as it were, a silent retrospect. The long
vista of years gone by fills in the now empty canvas ;
and the de'scsuvre ex-diplomatist, living in some quiet
corner, on too often straitened means, calls up the

A RETROSPECT 385

countless pictures stored away in his memory, and
takes count of the events and changes he has witnessed
and was wont to chronicle day by day.

And, within my own personal experience, wonder-
ful indeed have been some of those changes. The
Piedmont which, at the very outset of my career,
I found still reeling under the crushing blow of
Novara, figures now as a mere province of the fair
Kingdom whose sterling nucleus it became, and
which it raised by its exertions to the rank of a
first-class European Power. From the ruins of the
splendid but flashy Empire which I heard proclaimed
on the Place de l'Hotel de Ville, and saw cruelly
shattered eighteen years later, France has issued
forth in entirely novel guise. Strong, but collected
and confident in her might ; as prudent and practical
as she is prosperous ; no longer an uncertain, dis-
turbing element, but a great conservative force of
infinite value to the stability of European peace ;
and, for this country, the best of friends and asso-
ciates, and, I would fain hope, of potential allies.
Yet more complete has been the transformation —
whether for the good of the world the future alone
can tell — of the Germany of my youth. The colossus
who welded its loose, disjointed parts together with
the hammer of a Wotan, but whom I first recollect
as barely holding his own against Austria in the
Frankfort Bundestag, has long since gone to his
rest in the cold shade of his oaks at Schbnhausen,
and a gifted and brilliant potentate now wields the
power created by him, spasmodically arousing the
wonder or the apprehensions of mankind. The feeble,
easy-going, friendly Germany of old has indeed
vanished ; its grand national spirit and genius freely
emerging from the complicated trammels — amazing

2 B

386 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

when one thinks of them — by which they were
confined so long. Of the future destinies by sea
and land of the restored Empire who can venture
to prophesy?

But far more pregnant and astonishing than all
these changes is the revolution — for no less word
can express it — which is running its course in the
Far Eastern world. The marvellous achievements on
which our press, and notably The Times, intone their
paeans to us every morning, do not properly come
within the bounds of my official Recollections, but
there are few men now alive to whom they can
appeal with greater force than to myself. For I
well remember witnessing the meeting, just forty-
six years ago, in the harbour of Point de Galle, of
two brothers: 1 the one bound to, and the other
returning from, the Far East — the latter taking home
with him the treaty by which, under great pressure,
he had obtained a right of entry into Japan, until
then hermetically closed to the outer world. To
me, therefore, the complete transformation of that
country since those days, and since its internal re-
volution in 1868, may well appear a greater marvel
even than to others. But, though yielding to no
one in my admiration of the valour, the intelligence,
and the absolutely perfect organisation evinced by a
wonderful people, I cannot but view with profound
misgiving the mastery they are acquiring in those
distant regions, and which they could scarcely have
attained without our countenance. While I frankly
own that race prejudice in part biases me on this
point, I am none the less convinced that ere long
the Powers in any degree interested in the Pacific
will have to count with a formidable, aggressively

1 The Earl of Elgin and the Honble. Sir Frederick Bruce.

DIPLOMACY AS A CAREER 387

spreading Empire, which must seek to enlarge its
boundaries for its active, teeming population, and can
only do so at their cost. Well may statesmen at The
Hague and in Paris already ponder over these possi-
bilities, which already give rise to anxious speculation
at Sydney and Melbourne, while here in London we
are being eloquently lectured on the sublime virtues
of bushido. For myself I am glad that I shall be
spared seeing the growth of that yellow-race dominion
over one-third of the globe whose portentous dawn
we are now beholding. Liberavi animam meam,
though I am fully aware that the sentiments I have
disclosed will find but scant favour with those who
may chance to read these concluding pages.

To sum up my experiences, a diplomatic life, in
spite of its many drawbacks and inconveniences, is
certainly one of the most interesting and instructive in
which a young Englishman can engage. Such at least
would be my answer to any father asking my advice
on the point, and I remember saying this to the late

Lord when I met him many years ago at Battle

Abbey. The son about whom he then consulted me
has since made a brilliant and unusually rapid career,
and has recently displayed great qualities in the
conduct of affairs, under exceptionally difficult cir-
cumstances, at one of our chief Embassies. Ability
alone, however, will not suffice to ensure success in
the service. In no profession, perhaps, is the man
whom his duties keep constantly abroad more de-
pendent on the solicitude and backing of friends
and connections at home. Given equal abilities and
qualifications, the race will be with the competitor
whose interests are carefully looked after at head-
quarters. Real merit makes its way in diplomacy

388 RECOLLECTIONS OF A DIPLOMATIST

as elsewhere, but it must be of the highest
order to hold its own against inferior capacity sub-
served by political or family influence. The era of
competitive examinations — of which the late Lord
Bloomfleld used to say that they would at any rate
keep out the half-witted — has of course profoundly
modified the service I entered, thank Heaven ! in its
more easy, ignorant, benighted days. The diplomatic
coverts are no longer so strictly preserved as of old,
but some care is still taken — and it is right that it
should be taken — in the allotment of places at the
greater Lattices.

Yet one word more and I have done. The well-
known pleasantry of the German humourist that "a
man cannot be too careful in the choice of his
parents " * might, it seems to me, be applied in a
more special sense to the service I have loved and
left. But, taking my cue seriously from so light a
jest, I would say that, in my opinion, the aspiring
diplomatist cannot be too careful in the choice of his
wife. As I write these words — a parting tribute to
our fair sisters — I am thinking of the inestimable
worth, to the ablest even of our representatives, of a
pleasing, tactful woman — a real helpmate — in the all-
important social branch of his duties. I go so far
even as to ask myself whether, at one or other of our
Embassies and Legations, the more valuable element,
from what I would call a strictly professional point of
view, may not be the lady who presides over it with
a grace and a cachet all her own — gaining for it the
popularity which tells so greatly in public affairs —
rather than her husband delving diligently in his study
below, to the despair of a long-suffering " Chancery."

1 Man kann nicht vorsichtig genug sein in der Wahl seiner Eltern.

CONCLUSION 389

Conversely, too, I cannot but think with regret of men
I have known and greatly liked, whose fair diplomatic
prospects have been checked, if not damaged, by an
injudicious, or ill-assorted union. For in diplomacy
marriage may either make or mar.

And now I have really had my last say, and it
is more than time to ring down the curtain on these
diffuse reminiscences. With the well-known and dis-
tinguished diarist, in his graphic account of King
Edward's first Council — though he be perhaps the
last man I would care to plagiarise — I feel that
the world to which I belonged has well-nigh passed
awav.

INDEX

Abdul Hamid II. , Sultan of Turkey,

273. 2 9 6 > 3 6 4

Abercorn, Duke and Duchess of, 240

Abercromby, Sir Ralph, 204

About, Edmond, cited, passim

Aero Corinth, view from, 22, 119

Adam, Sir Frederick, 13

, Villiers de l'lsle, and his suc-
cessors, 101, 102

Adler, Rev. Dr., Chief Rabbi, 370

Aegion, 119

Afzur Jung, 147

Aguera, M., 359

Ahmedabad, 139; Durbar at, 141

Ai'de\ Mr. Hamilton, 153

Albany, Duchess of, 353

, Duke of (Duke of Saxe-Coburg

Gotha), 353, 354

, Princess Alice of, 353

Albemarle, Earls of. 178 note

Albert, Archduke, 321

, King of Saxony, 334, 360

Alexander of Battenberg, see Bul-
garia

II., Emperor of Russia, 4, 87

, King of Servia, 354-5 ; murder

of, 301

Alexandra, Queen (see also Wales,
Princess of), 320

Alexis, Grand Duke, 211

Alva, Duke of, 165, 202

Amelie, Queen of Greece, 106

Amiens, Peace of, 262

Amstel Hotel, the, 159

Amsterdam, 158, 161-3, 220

, visit of the German Emperor

to, 222 et seq.

Anderson, Miss Mary (Mme. Na-
varro), 113

, Miss Florence, 240

Andrassy family, the, 371

, Count, 17*7

, Count Aladar, 323

, Countess Sandor (»(e Ester-
hazy), 371
Anethan, Baron d', 176, 207; and
his son, 230

Anglo-Dutch boundaries in Borneo
and New Guinea, settlement of,
247-8
Anglo-Japanese Alliance, the, 245
Anglo- Russian understanding as to

Armenian reforms, 272
Anna Paulovna, Queen of the Nether-
lands, 192 note
Apeldoorn, 207
Apor, Baronne, 219
Apponyi family, 371

, Count Albert, 287

, Count Louis and family, 325

, Count Rodolphe, 285, 325

, Countess (the late), 278

Arenberg, Prince Auguste d', 301

, Prince Charles d\ and his

widow, 270

, Prince Louis d', 301 note

Argyropoulos family, the, 60
Arkwright, Mrs., 183
Armenian massacres, 272
Armstrong, Mrs. (Mme. Melba), 183
Arnhem, charms of the district, 238
Arran, Earl of (the late), and his son,

240
Aschach, 379
Ashley, Right Hon. Evelyn, and

Mrs., 240
Asman Jab, Sir, 147
Aspern, Battle of, 321, 363
Assendelft family, the, 165, 166-9
Athens —
Appointment 1o, and arrival at,
10-16 ; departure from after Ulti-
matum, 93 et seq. • return, 106 ;
final departure from, 153
Carnival in, 1886, 81
Cold winter of 1886-7 at, 127
Dulness of, 58-9
Environs of, 22 et seq.
Good Friday procession in, 85
Improvements in, 1S64-85, 17 et

seq.
Independence Day in, S3
Jubilee celebrations at, 129 et srq.
Legation House at, 19

392

INDEX

Athens — continued

Social resources of (1885), 58 et seq.
Warlike movement at, 1885,45
Athens-Kalamaki railroad, 118
Auckland, Lord, Governor- General

of India, 144
Auersperg family, 279
Augarten Palace, Vienna, 281
Ausgleich, the, 315
Austria, Crown Prince Rudolph of,
132 ; tragic death of, 177, 309,
33o, 373-4
, Crown Princess of, see Ste-
phanie

, Emperor of, see Francis Joseph

II.
Anstria-Hungary —
Anti-Semitism in (see Lueger),

369-71
And Balkanic affairs, 52 et seq.
Official attitude in, during the

Boer War, 358-9
Parliament and politics in, 314 et
seq. ; 336 et seq. ; 372
Austrian Imperial family, 280 et seq.

Bach, Baroness, 288

Baden-Baden, 192

Baden, Grand Duke and Duchess

of. 377
, Hereditary Grand Duchess

of, 217, 227
, Hereditary Grand Duke

of, 217

, Prince Max of, 364

Badeni, Count Casimir, 278,315, 316,

3i8, 336, 337
Baird, Mr. J. L., 268
Bakhmetiew, M., and his wife, 53,

81
Balaton, Lake. 347
Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J., 26S
Balkan politics (see also Eastern

Roumelia), 26 et seq., 48 et seq.,

62 et seq., 107-8, 114
Baltazzi, Mme. Zoe, 123
BanfTy, Baron, 319
Bannerman, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

Campbell-, M.P., and Lady, 329
Bantry, Countess of (now Lady

Trevor), 262
Barclay, Mr. Colville, 268
Baring, Lord, 314
, Sir Evelyn (see also Earl of

Cromer), 138
Barnevehi, Olden, 202
Barrington, Sir Eric, 260
Battenberg, Prince Alexander of, sec

Bulgaria

Battenberg, Prince Louis of, 136

, Princess Henry of, 264

Battle Abbey, 387
Baumeister, Herr, actor, 340
Bazaine, M., and daughter, 118
Beck, General Baron, 362
Beelaertsvan Blokland, M., 258
Beets, Nicholas, poet, 231
Belgians, Queen of (the late), 132
Belgium, 246
Belgrade, 21, 345
Belgrami, Syed Hussein, 149
Bellegarde, Count, 335
Belluno, 330

Bentinck, Lord William, Governor-
General of India, 142 note, 144
Benzur, Heir, painter, 335
Berchtesgaden, 353
Beresford, Lady Charles, 134
Berlin, 4, 258

, Treaty of, 40, 43, 62

Berne, 262

Bernhardt, Mme. Sarah, 342

Bernstoi ft* family, the, 377

Biarritz, 155

Bihourd, M., 242

Binnenhof, the, The Hague, 211

Bisaccia, Due de (Due de Doudeau-

ville), 186
Bischofteinitz, Castle of, 379
Bismarck, Count Herbert, 19, 79,

222, and his wife (nee Hoyos),

35o
, Prince, 4, 36, 48, 79, 243, 244.

303, 318, 340, 350, 385
Blake, Prof. Jex, his wife and

daughter, 144
Bloemendal, and its flower farms,

236
Bloomfield, Lord, 342, 388
Blowitz Memoirs, 4

, M., cited, 69 note

Blumenthal, M. and Madame, 9,

•8 3
Blunt, Consul (Sir J. E. Blunt), 54

and note
Boer feeling towards Hollanders in

S. Africa, 247

War, the, 303, 351 et seq.

Boeroe, Island of, 248

Bohemia {see Elizabeth, Queen of,

and John, King of), Anti-Semi-
tism in, 369
Bolarum, India, 148
Bombay, 139, 151
Bonaparte, Lucien, Prince of Canino

118
Bonhain, Sir George, and Lady, 11,

231, 242
Boreel, Mine., 17 1-2

INDEX

393

Borneo, 245 ; boundary question in,

247-8
Borthwick, Sir Algernon, and Lady

(Lord and Lady Glenesk), 131
Bosboom, Dutcb painter, 199
Bosnia, 345

Boudouris, M. and Mme., 123-4
Bowen, Lord, 179
Boyd, Miss, 14
Bradley, Miss, 144
Brab ins, composer, 341
Brandenburg, the great Elector of,

224
Brantsen, Baron de (the late), and

family (Brantsen van der Zyp),

238
Bredius, Dr., 240
Brincken, Baron de, 49, 52, 71, 72, 79

and note, 135, 244
Brienen, Baron Arnaud de, and

family, 170, 178, 229, 251
, Baroness de (needeTuyll), 170,

193

, Mile. Daisy de, 251

Brine, Rev. E., chaplain at the

Hague, 232
Brougham, Lord and Lady, 329
Bruce, Hon. Sir Frederick, 386 and

note
Brussels, attack on the Prince of

Wales at, 364

Slave Trade Conference at, 206

Bruyne, Vice-Consul de, 182
Buchanan, Lady (the late), 282

, Sir Andrew, 266

Bucharest, Peace of, 1886, 65
Budapest (ice also Pesth), 371

, Carnival at, 323-4

, Kace season at, 325, 371

Bulgaria, Prince Alexander of, 42,

62 ; proclamation of, as ruler, 40 ;

abduction and abdication of, 114

, Prince Ferdinand of, 53

Bulgarian politics, 50 note, 65 note
Buller, General Sir Kcdvers, 357,

362

, Lady Audrey, 362

Bunsen, Mr. Maurice de, 133
Burgundy, Charles the Bold, Duke

of, 156
Burns, Mr. John, 98
Bury, Lord (late Earl of Albemarle),

178 and note
Bute, Karl of, 8
Biitzow, M. de, 53, 87
Hvlandt, Count, 160

CADOOAK, Hon. Miss Ethel, 183
< !airo, 138

Cal craft, Mr. Henry, 134
Cambridge, Duchess of, 131

, the first Duke of, 208

, the (late) Duke of, 179

Camden, Marquess, 82

Campbell, Capt. and Mrs. W., 329

Canaris family, the, 60

Canea, 297

Cape Colony, 246

Caprivi, Count, 5

Carew, Mr. Francis, 124 and note.

136
Carlisle, defence of by Sir T. Glem-

ham, 263 note
Carlsbad, 157
Carnot, M. Sadi, French President,

186, 225
Carpenter, Captain, master of the

Costa Rica Packet, case of, 248

et seq.
Casembroot, Admiral, 224 ; hero of

Shimonoseki, funeral of, 245
Castel, final tomb of King John of

Bohemia at, 217 note
Caulfeild, Mr. Alfred, and his wife,

156
, Mr. Algernon St. George, 82,

130
Caux, on the Lake of Geneva. 332
Cavendish, Lady Edward, 227
Cavour, Count, 107
Cecil, Lady Kobert, 331
Celebes, Islaud of, 248
Central Asian troubles, 3
Ceylon, 246
Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. Joseph,

1 15-16
Chambord, Conite de, 121
Charlemagne, ruins of his fortress at

Nimwegen, 174-5
Charles, Archduke, statue of, 270 ;

victory of, 321, 363

Louis, Archduke, 280, 306

, King of Roumania, 334

I., King of England, 203

II., King of England, 203 note,

213 ; at The Hague, 201-2

IV., Emperor, 217 note

V., Emperor, 166-7, 176

X., Kin<; of France, 326

Char Minar, the, Hyderabad, 150
Cliasse, General, 171
Chesney, Captain, 99
Chessoir, Catherine de, 166-9
Chetwyml, Mrs., 351
China, troubles in, 375
Chino-Japauese War, Dutch views

on its results, 245
Choiseul, Due de, 288
Christian IX., King of Denmark, 377

394

INDEX

Christina, Queen-Mother of Spain,

221, 280, 366

Christine, Archduchess, 321

Chudderghaut, 141, 148, 150

Churchill, Lord Randolph, 113, 126

Cimiez, 346

Citta Vecchia, Malta, 105 and note

Clancarty, Earl of, 171

Clarence, Duke of, see Wales, Prince

Albert Victor of
Clarke, Mr. F. T., 268, 330
Clary and Aldringen, Prince, 282
Clary, Palais, odd stories anent,

342-4

, Prince, 282

, Princess (n6e Radziwill), 291,

342

Clemens, Mr. (Mark Twain), 317
and note

Clermont-Ferrand, 158

Cleves, Anne of, 174

Clifford, Baron, 255

Clingendaal and its owners, 169-70

, races and cricket at, 178 ; skat-
ing at, 229 ; golf at, 251

Cliveden, 240-1

Cochrane, Hon. Minnie, 264

Coke, Lord and Lady, 134

Colenso, 357

Collings, Mr. Jesse, M.P., 77, 115

Collins, Sir Robert, 353

Colocotroni family, the, 60

Colonus, 128

Congo Free State, the, 206

Connaught, Duke and Duchess of,
151-2

, Princess Margaret of (Princess

Gustav Adolf of Sweden), 377

Constable, Mr. Strickland, 97

Constantine, Grand Duchess, 27

, Constantinovich, Grand Duke,

13

, the Great, 114

Constantinople, 116, 272, 296

, Conference of, on the Turko-

Bulgarian question, 83

, Declaration of the Ambassa-
dors at, on Greco-Turkish
affairs, 50

Cookson, Sir Charles (Consul-
General), 138

Copenhagen, 37, 364

Corhett, Sir Vincent, 169

Cordery, Mr., President at Hyderabad,
137, 141-2, 144, 148

Corfu, visit to, 13

Corinth, Canal of, 47, 1 18-19

Cork, Countess of, 134

Corpus Domini festival, Vienna,
367-8

Cortina d'Ampezzo, 329

Corunna, wreck of the Sidon near, 20

Costa Rica Packet, the, whaling

barque, question concerning,

248-9
Coumoundouros, M., 14
Crampton, Mr., 156
Cressy, Thomas, and his wife, 263

note
Cretan affairs, 54, 296 et seq.

Committee, the, 296

Criesis family, the, 60

, M., 122

Cromer, Earl of [see also Baring,

SirE.), 268
Cromwell, Oliver, the "Protector,"

203
Cronje, General, 361
Croy, Princess Rosa {ne'e Sternberg),

291
Cumberland, Duchess of, 320, 354,

379
, Duke of, and his family, 320,

322, 377, 379
, Princess Marie Louise of

(Princess Max of Baden), 320,

321,364,376
Curtopassi, Marquis, 52
Custozza, 295, 321
Cusumano, the Villino, 233
Czardas, dance, 323
Czernin, Comtesse, 285

Dagsblad, Dutch newspaper, 246
Dampierre, domain of the Dues de

Luynes, 184
Danube valley, floods in, 352-3
Davidson, Mr., 133
Dekeleia, royal chateau of, Greece,

28
Delft, funeral of the King of the

Netherlands at, 211
Delyannis, M., 15, 32-5, 36, 38-9,

42-4, 48-9, 50, 54-6, 60, 63-5,

66, 67-9 and note, 70 and note,

71-3, 76, 80, 87-94, 98, 104, 117 ;

murder of, 74
Denbigh, Earl of, 333
Denmark, see Christian IX. and

Copenhagen
Derby, Earl of, 132, 133
Devonshire, Duke of, 264
Dickson, Mr., and family, 124-5

, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur, 125

Diekirch, 218

Dietrichstein, Dowager Princess,

286
Dillon, Mr. John, M.P., 329
Dino, Due de, 233

INDEX

395

Diplomacy as a training, 268 ; as a

career, 387
Disbrowe, Miss, 171, 192 note

, Sir Edward, 171 and note

Dolgorouki, Princess Mary, 175
Dolomite country, 329
Donougbmore, Countess of, 100
Doorwerth Castle, 238
Dordrecht, skating at, 229
Dorislaus, Cromwell's envoy, murder

of, 203
Dorset, Duchess of, 262-3

, Earl of (the first), 263

Doit, Synod of, 230
Doudeauville, Duchesse de, 160

, Due de, 186

Downe, Viscountess, 264

Downing Street, derivation of its

name, 203 note
Dragoumis, M. Etienne, and family,

in
Dreyfus, l' affaire, 369
Droz, M., 299
Duff', Mr. and Mrs. Evelyn Grant,

242
Dufferin and Ava, Marquis of, 186,

234, 260
Dunlop, Mr. A. J., 149
Dunmore, Earl and Countess of, 138
Dupuis, Captain, R.N., 96
Durazzo-Seres boundary, the sug-
gested, 109
Dutch attitude towards England,

246-7
Guiana, Coolie question in,

248
possessions in Oceania, 245

Easter Imperial religious function,

Vienna, 367
Eastern Iloumelia, 40, 62
Edinburgh, Duke of (later, Duke of

Saxe-Coburg-Gotha), 79, 87, 96,

97, 1 14-15, 129, 130; death of, 378
Edward VII., King of England, see

Wales, Prince of
Egerton, Sir Edwin, and Lady, 27,

136 and iidIv, 157, 298 and note
Egina, 154

Egmont, Lam oral, Count of, 202
Elandslaagte, Battle of, 354
Elgin, Eaxl of, 386 and note
Elizabeth, Archduchess, daughter of

the late Crown l'rince Rudolph,

281, 377
, Mother of Queen Christina of

Spain, 280
, Empress of Austria, 160, 277,

36S ; murder of, 330 ct seq.

Elizabeth, Princess, daughter of
George III. (Landgravine of
Homburg), 181

, Queen of Bohemia. 201, 202-3,

and note

, Queen of England, 262

Ellis, General Sir Arthur, 329, 333,

35i. 378
, Airs. Leo (now Harriet, Vis-
countess Clifden), 113
Elphiustone, Sir Howard and Lady,

144
Ely, Bishop of, and Lady Alwyne

Compton, 240
Emma, Queen of the Netherlands,

188, 190-1, 195, 208
, as Regent, 210 et seq., 220 et

seq., 226, 230, 239, 243, 255, 256,

257, 260
Erasmus, on houses in Holland, 162
Erbach-Schonberg, Hereditary Count

of, and his wife, 257
Esterhazy, Countess Michael, 371

, Prince, 349

, Princess Sarah (n(e Villiers), 349

Ethnike Hetairia, the, 296
Eugene, Archduke, 280, 366
Eugene, Prince, of Savoy, statue of,

270
Eugenie, ex-Empress of the French,

160, 284
Eulenburg, Count Philip, 244, 302,

359, 361, 364

, Countess, 322

Europe, changes in during 51 years,

385
Evans, Miss, 20 note
Eyschen, M., 21S

Falbe, M. Christian de, and Mine.

de Falbe (formerly Mrs. Gerard

Leigh), 7, 99, 1 12-13, 134
Falkenhayn Law, the, 317
Fane, Hon. Julian, 1
Fame, M. Felix, French President,

298
Fearn, Miss Mary, 125

, Mr., 90, and his family, 125-6

Fejervary, General Baron, 323

Fenton, Mr., 169, 205

Ferdinand, Prince of Bulgaria, see

Bulgaria
Feridoun Bey, 106
Fermor, Countess Stenbock, 175
F6stetics, Count Paul and his wife

(nie PaWy), 348
, Count and Countess Tassilo,

325» 347. 371. 378
Ffrcnch, Mr. Percy, of Monivea, 8, 1 1 2

396

INDEX

Find), Major Seymour Wynne, 8,
ioo

Findlay, Mr., 268, 349-50

Finlay, Mrs. George, 8

Fisher, Admiral Sir John, 313

Flandre, Comte de, 211

Florence, death at, of W. Rumhold,
232-4

Formosa, 245

Fort St. Angelo, Malta, 103

Fortescue, Earl, 113

France, and the joint Naval Demon-
stration, 1 386, 88 et seq.

and the new " entente" 235, 347

as Republic, 385

Francis Ferdinand, Archduke, heir
to the throne, 280, 306-9

Francis II., Emperor, 340 and note

Francis Joseph II., Emperor of
Austria, 263, 277-83, 293-5, 3 o6 >
312, 316-18, 322, 323, 336, 349,

355- 365-8, 374-5. 377
Frankenthurm, Baron Gautsch von,

337 note
Frederick, Archduke, 280, 321, 366,

377
Frederick Henry, Prince of Orange,

194, 202, 224
Frederick, the Empress, 36, 37, 181,

182

, visit to, at Fredrichshof, 259-60

Frederick William IV., King of

Prussia, and the coffin of King

John of Bohemia, 217 note
Freycinet, M. de, 79, 88, 90
Friedrich, Prof., 144
Friedrichshof, Castle of, at Kronberg,

183, 259
Frischau, 378
Fiirstenberg, Prince, and his wife

(nee Schonborn), 364

Gallas, Countess Clam, 286
Galliffet, General, Marquis de, 313,

378
Galloway, Countess of (the late), 133
Gastein, Bad, 314
Gatty, Mrs. Scott, 312
Gelderland, 175, 178, 238
Geneva, murder of the Empress

Elizabeth at, 330, 332
Gennadius, M., 35
Ceorgc III., King of England, 181
George, King of Greece, 13-16, 26-

30, 37-9, 41-2, 50, 52, 61-2, 72,

93-4, 97-9. "7, 120, 129-30, 136,

153-4, 298, 354
German Emperors, see William I.,

Frederick, and William II.

German Empresses, see Empresses

Frederick and Victoria Augusta
Germany, changes in, 385-6

and South African affairs, 258-9

Gevangenpoort jail, the Hague, 167
Ghika, M., and his wife, 303
Gibbons, Grinling, carving by, at

Petworth, 135
Giers, M. de, 3
Gilchrist, Major, 141
Gisela, Archduchess, 380
Gladstone, Rt. Hon. W. E., 77-8,

in, 127 note
Glamis Castle, 20 ; legends of, 29
Glemham, Sir Henry, 263 and note
, Sir Thomas, Cavalier general,

263
Glencoe, Battle of, South Africa,

354
Gloucester, Duke of (brother of

Charles II.), 201, 203 note
Gmunden, 37, 320, 352, 376, 379
Goa, Portugese Governor-General of,

152
Goding, Imperial " chasse " at, 362
Golconda, 144, 148
Goltstein, Baron de, 160
Goltz, Count C. von der, 238
Goluchowski, Count, 273, 275-6, 296,

330
Gontaut, M. de, 1 1
Gonzenb:ich, M. de, 192 note
Gordon, Ladv Duff, 8

, the Misses Duff, 8

, Sir Maurice Duff, 8

Gorst, Sir John, 158
Gortchacow, Prince, 106
Graham, Miss, 240
Granville, Earl (the late), 3, 6, 179,

180, 182, 183

, Earl (the present), 268

Graz, Mr. Charles des, 242, 250-1 ;

and his wife, 262
Greco-Turkish relations, 54 et seq.
Greece (see also Athens, Corfu, and

Crete)
Blockade of, 75 et seq.
Constitution of, 39 and note
Earthquake in, 114
National bearing in, during 1886,

94-5
Naval preparations in, 1886, 67-8,

80
Royal family of, 14, 42, 61, 119,
125
Crown Prince of (Constantine,
Duke of Sparta), 29, 120-2,
130
King of, see George, King of
Greece, see also Otho

INDEX

397

Greece — continued

Royal Family of — continued
Prince George of, and Crete, 297,

299
Prince Nicholas of, 29, 130, 354
Queen of, see Amelie, Queen,

and Olga, Queen
Princess Alexandra of (Grand-
Duchess Paul Alexandro-
vitch), 29, 62, 130
Sir H. Rumbold's appointment to,
10 ; life in and affairs during, 16-

153
Spring in, 128
Ultimatum of the Powers to, 1886,

9i
Greene, Lady Lily, 206
, Mr. Conyngham (Sir W.

Conyngham Greene, K.C.B. ),

205 and note, 212
Grenfell, General (Lord Grenfell),

138
Grey, Earl and Countess, 112
Grijjolaui, earthquake at, 114
Groben, Count von der, 159
Groningen, painters, 200
Grosveuor, Countess, 356
Grote family, 377
Griinfeldt, Alfred, pianist, 288
Gudenus, Baron, 363
Giinther, Duke Ernest, see Sehleswig-

Holstein-Augustenburg
Gutenstein, 329

H.\ agsche Bosch, the, 193-6
Haarlem, Flower culture at, 236

, Franz Hals' paintings at, 178-9

Hahsburg family, 279, 368
Hadjipetros, Colonel, 37-8

, his son, 123

Haeften, M. van, 230

Haggard, Mr. and Mrs. W. D., 136

Hague, The —

British Legation at, 155 ; its
story, 164-9

English Church at, 231

Famous flood at, 1609, 228

Historical sites in, 201 et scq.

Iutluenza at, 1890, public incon-
venience caused by, 205

Music at, 196-9

( >pera at, 198-9

Political importance of, 163-4

Sir H. Rumbold's appointment to,
and first impressions of, 153, 155
ft eeq.; guests at the Legation,
240; leave-taking on appoint-
ment to Vienna, 260

Social life at, 173, 178 et sr^.

Halepa pact, the, 296

Hals, Franz, paintings by, at Haar-
lem, 178-9

Hamilton, Captain Bruce (Major-
General Sir Bruce M.), 151 and
note

Hamilton, late Duke of, 325

, father of the above, 193 and

note

Hanover, last King of, 320

, Queen of, 377

Hansen, M., architect, 18

Harcourt, d', family, the, 185

Hardenbroek, Baronne de, 243, 258

Harper, Dr., 184

Harrach family, the, 279, 379

, Count and Countess {nee

Thurn and Taxis), 331, 332, 349

, Count and Countess Alfred, 379

Harris, Sir James (the late), 347 and
note

Hartenstein, Prince Alexander
Schonburg (the late), 285

Hartsen, Jonkheervan, 188, 192, 248,
254

Hastings, Marquess of, Governor-
General of India, 142

Hatzfeld, Princess, 286

Hay, Admiral Lord John, 79

, Sir John Drummond (ex-

Minister to Morocco), 112

Haydn, Josef, 349

Hayter, Lady, 179

Headfort, Marchioness of, 227

Helena, Empress, 1 14

Henri IV., King of France, 213

Henry VII., Emperor, 217 note

VIIL, King of England, 174

Herbert, " Mungo " (late lit. Hon.
Sir Michael Herbert), 11 ; and
his wife, 242

Herschell, Lord and Lady, 115

Herzegovina, 345

Higgins, Miss Mary, 126

, Mr. ("Jacob Omnium "), 170

, Mr. H. V., 170

Hilsner, the Jew, case of, 369

Hinal, Mile , 14

Hiuton, Miss, 240

Hochschild family, the, 161

Hohenfels, Fraiilein, actress, 340

Ilohen wart, Countess Mary (Count ess
Seilern), 177

Holland (see Amsterdam, Haarlem,
Hague, etc.)
Building methods in, 162-3
Climate of, 169, 236
In relation to Far Eastern poll

tics, 245
Golf introduced into, 250-1

393

INDEX

Holland — continued

Increasing interest in athletics in,

178
King of Netherlands, see William

III., of Nassau
Mourning etiquette in, 219
Painters and painting in, 199 et

seq.
Political importance of, 163-4
Queen of, see Emma, and Wilhel-

mina
Sentiment in, towards Germany,

222
Simplicity of good society in,

172
Skating in, 228 et seq.
Holland House, 113, 322
Hollman, M., 197
Homann, Herr Fritz, 82, 130
Homburg, 179, 259
Schloss, the Empress Frederick

and her predecessor, at, 181
Hompesch, last Grand Master of the

Knights of St. John, 101
Hope & Co., Messrs., bankers,

161
Hope, Mr. and Mrs. Edward, 262
Hoppner, painter, 263
Hora, newspaper, 50
Horowitz, Herr, painter, 335
Hortense Beauharnais, Queen of

Holland, 171
Hospodars, 59 and note
House in the Wood, the, and its asso-
ciations, 193-5
Howard, Sir Henry, 73, 81, 97
Hoyos family, 286, 329, 350
, Count George and Countess

{ne'e Whitehead), 349-50
, Count " Joserl," devotion shown

by, 374
, Countess Mariette, see Szech-

^nyi
Hozier, Lady Blanche, 178
Hradschin, Convent of, Prague,

321
Hubner, Count, 113
Hulse, Mrs., 330
Hungary, Queen of, Regent of the

Netherlands, 167
Hunyadi, Count Kalman, 270
Hutchinson, Hon. Sir W. Hely (now

Governor of Cape Colony), 100

and note
Hyde, Lord, 268
Hyderabad, visit to, 141 et seq.

, Grandees of, 145-8

, Nizam of (the present), 113,

141, 145-6
Hymettus, 21, 126

IANTHE (Lady Ellenborough), 25
Iddesleigh, Earl of, in note ; death

of, 126-7 and note
Ignatiew, General, 108 note
Ilchester, Earl of, 351
Inwgene, H.M.S., 97-8, 99 note
Inchiquin, Lord and Lady, 135
India, visit to, 137 et seq.
Innsbruck, 329
Ionian Islands, 13, 16
Isabella, Archduchess, 321 note
Ischl, 352, 374, 377, 380
Israels, Josef, Dutch painter, 199-

200
Isthmia, 120

Italy, discomforts of travel in, 12
, King of, see Victor Emmanuel

II.
, Kingdom of, 385

Jackson, Annie (nurse), 20, 21 note

"Jacob Omnium," 170

Jah, Sir Asman, 147

James II., King of England, see York,

Duke of
James, Miss, 158, 314
James, Sir Henry (Lord James of

Hereford), 158 and note, 314
Jameson Raid, the, 358 ; effect of, in

Holland, 257-9
Japan-
Changes in, in 51 years, 386-7
Dutch views on the growth of her

power, 245
Offer of forces during the siege of

the Pekin Legations, 376
Jaucourt family, the, 187

, Marquis de, 100

Jekyll, Miss, 9
Jermyne, Mr., 203 note
Jersey, Countess of, 133

, Earl of, 250

, Earl and Countess of, 349

, Julia, Countess of, 227

Johannisberg, the, 284

John, King of Bohemia, tombs of,

217 and note
Johnston, Hon. Alan, 169
Jolliffe, Hon. George (now Lord

Hylton), 212
Jubilee of the Emperor Francis

Joseph II., 319, 328-9, 336-7
Jubilee of Queen Victoria —

The first: celebrations of at Athens,

129; and in England, 129-34;

the Naval Review, 133
The second : (Diamond Jubilee)

celebrations of in Vienna, 303-6,

347

INDEX

399

Jubilee of William III. of the Nether-
lands, 195-6
Jung, Ghalib, 147
, Sir Salar, and his son, 146

K^sariani, Monastery, near Hy-

mettus, 126, 153
Kalamaki, 118
Kallay, M. Benjamin de, 273,

345-6
Kalliphronas, M., 31
Kalnoky, Count, 49, 273, 276, 285-6
Kapnist, Count and Countess Pierre

(nie Stenbock Fermor), 175 and

note, 220, 299, 359, 364
Kapnist family, the, 329
Kara Mustapha, 311
Karadja family, the, 60
Karatsony family, the, 323
Kdrolyi, Count " Pista," 323

, Countess, 132, 348

, Countess Hanna (ne'e Szech-

^nyi), 348
Kars, 179

Kass, M., famous band of, 198
Katkoff, M., and Mme. (nee Loba-

now Rostowski, now Lady Eger-

ton), 136
Kaunitz, Prince, 276
Kephisia, 24 and note
Keppel, Hon. Arnold and Mrs.

(present Earl and Countess of

Albemarle), 178
Keszthedy, 347

Khartoum, final advance on, 271
Klievenhiiller family, 286
Kielmansegg, Comtesse Eric, 364
Kimberley, South Africa, 361
Kinsky, Count Charles (now Prince),

269

, Count Ferdinand, 269

, Prince (the late), 341

Kitzos, brigand chief, 32

Knebworth, 113

Knole, treasures at, 261-3, and note

262
Ktfniga-See, the, 353
Kbnigswart, 312

Korsakow, Prince Dondoukow, Gov-
ernor-General of the Caucasus,

3-4
Kosjek, Baron, 135
Kossuth, M., 372
Kramartz, M., 319
Kreislcr, Herr, violinist, 364
Kreatovitch, Pasha, 40
Ki iniitz, 378
Kronberg, 183
, visit to the Empress Frederick

at, 259-60

Krtiger, President, 209, 258, 352, 355
Kurz, Fraulein, singer, 364

LABOUCHEKE, Mr. and Mrs. C. (nte

Munro of Lindertis), 161, 223
Ladmirault, General de, 1 1
Ladysmith, siege of, 357
La Foret, country house, 239
Laguiche, Marquis de, and his wife

(nee Arenberg), 301-2
Lambermont, Baron <le, 206
Lamoureux, M., conductor, 198
Lan§ut, 326-7
Lane, G., extracts from his letter on

the Stuarts at The Hague, 203

note
Langton, Lord (now Earl Temple),

268
Lansdowne, Marquis of, 383
Larisch, Count Henry, 291
La Rochefoucauld family, the, 185,

234

, Comtesse de, 155, 346

, Duchesse de, 155

Lascelles, Lady (Countess of Hare-
wood), 178

La Tremoi'lle, family, 185

Lathom, Countess of (the late), 378

Laszlo, Herr, painter, 335

Lathom, Countess of (the late), 314,
378

Lauderdale, 7th Earl of, 102 and
note

Laurie, Dr. and Mrs., 148

Lavino, Mr., Times correspondent,

354
Lavriano, General Count Morra «h,

226
Lawrence, Sir Thomas, painter, 289
Laxenburg, 363

Lehrun, Due de Plaisance, 25 note
Lecontield, Lord, 135
Leeds, Duchess of, 331
Legh, Hon. Mr. and Mrs. (Lord and

Lady Newton), u
Legrand, M. and Mme. Louis, 177,

242
Lehmann, Mme. Liza, composer, 136

, Mr. Ernest, 136

Leigh, Mr. Gerard, and his wife

(afterwards Mine, de Falbe), 7

, Mr. Gerard, junior, 8

Leinster, Duke and Duchess of,

241-2
Leipziger, Baron von, 144
Leitha river, 349
Le Maistre, M., 135
Lenbach, Herr, portrait-painter, 271
Lennox, Lady Algernon, 351
Lenotrc, landscape gardener, 184

400

INDEX

Leopold, Archduke, 340

Leo XIII., Pope, 370

Lever, Charles, Lis daughter, 49

Leveson Gower, Hon. Frederick, 126

Levinge, Sir William (the late), 240

and note
Leyden, the road to, 237
— — , University, 203 ; quinquennial

celebrations at, 176
Leyds, Dr., 259, 358, 365
Liechtenstein family, the, 279, 286

, Prince Alois, 322

, Prince Rudolph, 269, 334, 380

Liege, 218

Ligne, Dowager Princesse de (ne'e

Lubomirska, 206-7

, Field- Marshal Prince de, 312

, Princesse Edouard de, 160

Liquor Trade Convention, the, 248

Livadia, 87

Lobanow, Princess Nadine, wife of

W. Rumbold, 136, 233
, Princess Olga (Mme. Okolic-

sanyi), 177
Lobau Island, 363
Lobkowitz, Princess (nee Sternberg),

and family, 378
Lobkowitz-Stadion, Countess, 344-5,

378
Lohengrin's tower, at Cleves, 174
Lombardos, M., 51
London, last visit of Queen Victoria

to, 362

, Treaty of, 1867, 215

Lonsdale, Countess Dowager of, 240
Loo, the, 188, 190-2, 207, 209, 260
Loon, Mme. van, 239
, Mme. William van (ne'e Egi-

dius), 239

, M. and Mme. (Adele) van, 239

Lorenzelli, Monsignor, 197

Lorrain, M. le, 162

Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland,

and Queen Hortense, 171

XIII., King of Fiance, 184

XV., King of France, 288

Philippe, King of the French,

285

Victor, Archduke, 281, 291, 350

Lourenco Marquez, 247

Loze\ M., 300-1

Lubbock, Sir John (Lord Avebury),

and Lady, 115
Lubomirska, Princess, 326
Luccheni, assassin of the Empress

Elizabeth, 332, 339
Lueger, Dr., Burgomaster of Vienna,

3 22 i 339> 37°> 37 1 endnote
Lumley, John Savile (now Lord

Savile), 262

Luton, 113

Luton Hoo, 7, 8, 112, 134
Liitzow, Dowager Countess (ne'e Sey-
mour), 304
Luxemburg, 259
, Grand Duchy of, on the death

of William III. of Holland, 214
, Grand Duke (formerly Duke

of Nassau) and Duchess of, 214,

217, 219, 320; their Court, 218-19
, Hereditary Grand Duke and

Duchess of, 217, 218
Luynes, Conn^table de, 184
, Honore\ Ducde, 378 ; marriage

of, 184 et seq.

, notable ancestors of, 184-5

, Mile. Lili de (now Duchesse de

Noailles), 185
Lynden family, the, 237
Lyon, Hon. Ernest and his wife,

20-2, 73, 124

, Hubert, 20, 21 note

Lyons, Sir Edmund, 19
Lyra, Don Emanuel de, 165
Lyttleton, Col. (Lt.-Gen. the Hon.

Sir Neville) and Mrs. Lyttleton,

1 5 1 and note
Lytton, Earl and Countess of, 113,

186-7, 2 79

Maartens, M. Maarten, novelist,

158
Macassar, 248
Macdonald, Admiral Sir Reginald,

240

, Sir Claude, 376

Mac^doine, or mayonnaise, story

about, 180
Macedonia, 108, 116
Mackay, Baron Aeneas, 190 and note,

237
Maclagan, Dr., 265
Macleod, Sir John Macpherson,

143-4
Maffei, Marquis, 112 and note
Magersfontein, Battle of, 356
Magyars and their language, 324
Mahdi, the, 358
Maitland, Hon. Sir Thomas ("King

Tom " of Malta), 102 and note
Makart, Viennese painter, 176, 329
Malabar Point, Government House

of Bombay at, 151
Malaspina, Marquis and Marchesa

(ne'e de Zuylen), 234
Malet, Sir Alexander, 216
Mallet, Mrs. Bernard, 264
Mallet, Sir Louis, 144
Malta, 85, 96-8, 264

INDEX

401

Malta, stay at, and impressions of,

99-105
Manos, M., 298
Mansard, architect, 184
Marathon, massacre of, 107
Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria,

340
Marie - Annunziata, Archduchess,

Abhess of Hradschin, 321
Marie Antoinette, Queen of France,

263
Marie Henriette, Queen of the

Belgians (the late), 132
Marie Josepha, Archduchess, 277-8,

281
Marie Louise of Austria, wife of

Napoleon I., 285, 341
Maria Ther^se, Archduchess, 218,

380
Marie Valerie, Archduchess, 282,

380
Marienbad, 312, 329, 350, 378
Maris brothers, the, Dutch painters,

199
Marlborough, Frances, Duchess of,

112
Marshall, Colonel, and his wife, 148
Martelaos, M., chancellery 115
Martens, M. de, 249
Martin, Major Evan, 333
Mary, Princess of Orange, 201

I., Queen of England, 356

II., Queen of England, 238

" Marysienka," wife of Sobieski, 311
Masarvk, Professor, 369
Maskaki, M., 124
Maurice, Prince of Orange, 202
Mauritslmis, 203 ; picture gallery at

The Hague, treasures of, 201, 240
Mauve, Anton, Dutch painter, 199
Mavrocordato family, the, 60
Mavromichalis, M., 55
Maxwell, Captain (Col. Sir J. G.

Maxwell), 138 and note
May, Captain (now Rear-Admiral),

129 and note
Mayerling, death of Crown Prince

Rudolf at, 177, 373
Mayo, Countess of, ami son, 100
Mecklenburg, Grand Duchess John

Albert of, 209
Mehdi Ali, Finance Minister, Hy-
derabad, ami liis will', 149
Melba, Mine. (Mrs. Armstrong),

ringer, 183
Melk, abbey, 350

Mendeli, monastery, Pentelicus, 24
MensdoriV, Comtesse Clotilde, 287
Mensdorff-Pouilly, ('mint, Albert,

286

Menzel, Adolf, German painter,

200
Merlin, Consul, 16, 124

, Consul, junior, 124

Mesdag, Hendrik, and his wife,

Dutch painters, 199-200
Messala, Count D., and family, 61
, Mile. Edith (Mme. L. de

Veiics), 123

, M. (fils), 123

Metcalfe, Sir Charles, 142-4
Metternich, Count Wolff-, 218

, Prince, the Chancellor, 276

, Prince Paul, and his family,

288, 312, 351
, Prince Richard (the late), and

his wife, 176, 266, 284, 285, 288,

289
, Princess, painted as Hebe by

Lawrence, 289
— -, Princess Clementine, 290

, Princess Melanie, 28S

, Princess Pauline, 288

, Princess Pauline, widow of

Prince Richard, 176, 289-91
Metzger, "Professor," 158-61, 253
Metzu, truth of his paintings, 161
Middachten, 238
Miiwal, Sheik, of Damascus, 25
Milan, ex-King of Servia, 301
Milbanke, Mr. Ralph, 267, 282
Mitritza, skirmish near, 87
Modder River, 357
Molucca Islands, 245, 248
Monrepos, villa, Corfu, 13
Monson, Sir Edmund, 154, 263, 266,

268
Montagliari, Marchesa {ne'e Fuller),

179
Montagu, Admiral Sir Edward (Earl

of Sandwich), 202
, Colonel Hon. Oliver, 134 and

note

, Lady Agneta, 153

, Rear-Admiral Hon. Victor, 153

Montenuovo, Prince and Princess

(nte Kinsky), 341, 362
Montevideo, 96 note
Montgomery, Mr. Alfred, 134
Montholon, Comte de, 135
Montreux, 183
Mooneer ool Moolk, Nawab, 143 and

note
Mooneer-ool-moolk (the late), eon

of Sir Salar Jung, 146
Moravia, Anti-Semitism in, 369
Mores, Marquis and Marquise de,

146-7
Morocco, 1 12
Morris, Lord, 179

2 C

402

INDEX

Motley, John Lothrop, historian,

194, 205
Mourousi, Mile., 123
Moiiy, M. de, 53, 89-91, 135
Mundella, Mr., M.P., 77
Munich, 244, 329
Miinster, abbey of, 217 note

, Count, 48, 133

, Countess Marie, 133

, the Peace of, 165

Murat, Princess Anna (Countess

Goluchowski), 276
Murusis family, the, 60
Mysore, the Maharajah of, 152

Nagy Apponyi, 325

Czenk, 348

Naples, Prince of (Victor Emanuel
III., King of Italy), visit of, to
The Hague, 225

, Queen of, 332

Napoleon I., Emperor, 25 note, 101
note, 341, 363

Nassau, Duke of, see Luxemburg

Nea Ephemeris, newspaper, 71, 72

Nedim, Mahmoud, Turkish Am-
bassador, 359

Neerijnen, Baronne de Pallandt van,
172

, Baron " Dop " Pallandt van,

174
Nepveu, Mile., Kiline, 173
Netherlands, see Emma, Sophie,

and Wilhelmina, Queens, and

William III., King of
Nevill, Colonel, and Mrs. (nee Lever),

149

, Lady Dorothy, 179

New Guinea and Anglo-Dutch

boundary question, 247-8
New South Wales and the Carpenter

case, 248-50
Newcastle, Duke and Duchess of,

329
Newdigate, Mr. and Mrs. Francis,

312
Newport, Lord, 268
Nice, 234, 346 .

Nicholas I., Emperor of Russia, 27
Nicholson's Nek, 354
Nieuive Botterdamsche Courant,

paper, attacks of, on England,

257
Nigra, Count, 284, 299-300, 311, 359
Nimwegen, ruins of Charlemagne's

fortress at, 175
Noailles, Due de, and his wife (ne'e

de Luynes, 185
Northbrook, Earl of, 314

Norwich, Earl of, 203 note
Novara, 295, 385
Nubar Pasha, 138

Obrenovitch, Princess Julie, her
husband and brother, 270

O'Connor, Mr. T. P., M.P., 329

O'Conor, Sir Nicholas, 376 note

Of en, palace of, 323

Okolicsanyi, M., and his wife (Prin-
cess Olga Lobanow), 177

Olga, Queen of Greece, 13, 27, 30,
42, 61-2, 66-7, 93, 120, 121, 129,

153
Olmtttz, 336

Oosterbeck, 170; skating at, 229
Orange Free State, Hollanders in

Transvaal and, 247
Orange, Prince of (Prince " Citron "),

192-3
Orleans, Due d', 152, 313

, Prince Henri d', 135

Oropos, massacre of, 25

Orsay, Count d', 22

, Countess d' (Princess Francis

Thurn and Taxis), 22
Osborne, Mr. Bernal, 134
Otho, King of Greece, 39, 61
Otto, Archduke, 277, 281, 295, 307
(Judo Doelen Inn, The Hague, 156
Socie'te' du Casino, balls at,

173
Oude Weg, the, Scheveningen, 227
Oudermeulen family, the, 170, 237

their seat, 171

Oxford, 263

Paar, Count, 330

Paardeberg, 356

Palais Clary, formerly British Lega-
tion, and its mysteries, 342-4

Pallandt, Mile. Sarah de, 173

Pallavicini Palais, Vienna, 278

Palmer & Co., of Hyderabad, ruin
of, 143-4

Palmieri, Italian architect, 102

Papadiamantopoulos family, the, 60

Paparigopoulos, M. Demetrius, the
historian, and his wife, 60

Paris, in Lord Dufferin's day, 234

, visits to, 10, 11, and passim

, Treaty of, 5, 273-4

Parkyns, Sir Thomas, and Lady,
263 note

Parseval, Colonel de, 152

Patras, 119

Paul, Emperor of Russia, 101 and
note, 192 and note

INDEX

403

Paul Alexandrovitch, Grand Duke,

and his wife, 62
Pauncefote, Sir Julian, 11, 133
Pavilion La Rochefoucauld, 155
Peel, Sir Charles Lennox, 264
Peking, siege of, 375
Pender, Sir John, 133
Penrose, Miss (Mrs. Arthur Dick-
son), 125
, Mr., Director of the British

School at Athens, and his

family, 124-5
Pentelicus, 23, 24, 153
Pesth (sec also Budapest), 318-19

, social life in, 371-2

Petworth, 135

Pfusterschmidt family, the, 353

Phalerum, 21, 24, 31, 92

, theatre at, 58

Phanariote "Princes," 59-61
Philiatra, earthquake at, 1 14
Philippine Islands, 245
Philippopolis, revolution at, 40, 50,

56, 64, 67
Piedmont, 385
Pieve di Cadore, 329
Pilsen, 378, 379
Pio Nono (Pope Pius IX.), 377
Piper, Count (Swedish Minister), 8
Pirams, 16, 48, 80, 85

, naval demonstration oft", 87

Pirenian Bpring, the, 23

Pisek, ritual murder case at, 369

Plaisance, Duchesse de, 25 and

note
Plessen, Count, and his wife (nee"

Hoyos), 350
Plimsoll, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel,

126
Pochwalski, Herr, painter, 381
Podewils, Baron de, and his wife,

3°3
Point de Galle, 141* 386
Polignac family, the, 185
Polignac, Prince Alphonse de, 11

, Prince < ami lie de, 11

, Prince Edmoml de, 233

, Prince Ludovic de, 1 1

Poll, Mile, van de, 221

Polna, 369

Pompadour, Mine, de, 288

Pontalis, M. Lefevre, on Jean de

Will, 204 »"!>
PoortvliH, M.T.ik van, 237-8
Potter, Mrs. Brown, actress, 112
, Paul, the"Bull" painting by,

201
, Paul, painting by, lent to the

Mauritshuis by the late Duke

of Westminster, 240

Pot6cki, Count Roman, and Countess
Potocki (nee Radziwill), 326-7,

347

Pourtales, Comtesse Melanie, 313

Prague, 202, 321, 371

, Anti-Semitism in, 369

Preen, Baronne de, 219

Pregny, 332

Pro'ia, newspaper, 72, 90

Prugg, 349

Prussia, Crown Prince and Princess
of (Emperor and Empress Frede-
rick), 36

, Prince Henry of, 209

Pulchri Studio Society, 200

QuiN, Mr., 134

Radetzky, funeral of, 212
Radnor, Dowager Countess of, 312,

3 2 9, 33°. 378
Radziwill, Prince Anton, 327
Rainer, Archduke, and his wife, 281,

353, 358
Ralli, General, 123
Rantzau, Count, and his wife, 243-4
Ratford, Rev. H., 232
Reay, Lord, Governor of Bombay,

and Lady Reay, 139-41, 151,

153, 190 note

, his Dutch relations, 237

Rechberg, Count, 276

Rembrandt, house of, in Amsterdam,

162
, "School of Anatomy" by, at

the Hague, 201
Reverseaux, Marquis de, 301, 359-60
Rhaugabc, the Misses, 37, 81
, M. Alexander-Rizos, 36 and

note, 37, 48, 60
, M., son of the above, 37 note,

48
Rhine, the, salmon fisheries on,

222
Rhodes, siege of, 102
Richter, Herr, conductor, 340
Riemsdijk, M. de, and his wife (ne'e

Loudon), 166
Rijksrnuseum, the, Amsterdam, 161,

162, 164
Rinaldini, Consignor, 197, 216, 225
Robert^, Field-Marshal Earl, 361
Roberts' College, Constantinople,

116
Roell, Jonkhcer van, 248
Rokeby, Lord, 356
Roma family, the, 6i
, M. (Greek Minister of Marine),

45

404

INDEX

Rome, 91

Romney, Earl and Countess of, 312,

329
Ronalds, Mrs., 9
Roosevelt, Mr., U.S., 242
Rosebery, Earl of, 78, 79, 80, in,

132
Rostowski, Princess Lobanow (Mme.

Katkoff, afterwards Lady Eger-

ton), 136
Rotbschild, Baron Albert, 291

, Baron Anselm, 291

, Baron Nathaniel, 291-3 and

note, 305

, Baroness Adolphe de, 332

, Baroness Bettina, 292

, Mr. Leopold de, 370

family, the, in Vienna, 290

Rotterdam, 220

Roumania, see Charles, King of

Royal Charles, relic of, at the Rijks-

museum, 164
Royat, 157, 179
Rozan, Comtesse, 11
Rozendaal, 182
Rudolph, Crown Prince, see Austria,

Crown Prince of
Rufford, 262
Rumbold, George, 112, 113, 130, 137,

263-4, 378
, Horace, 82, 130, 185, 205, 26S

and note, 348

, Hugo, 346, 378

, Lady, 28, 205, 216, 251, 253,

305, 322, 346
, Sir Horace, 1 ; in Greece, 9 et

seq. ; at the Hague, 153, 155 et

seq. ; in Vienna, 200 et seq. ; close

of his diplomatic career, 380 et

seq. ; his journey to India, 141 ;

made K.C.M.G., ui; receives

the Grand Cross of the Bath, 306
, Sir William and Lady, parents

of Sir H. Rumbold, 142, 263
, William, brother of Sir Horace,

and his wife(Nadine Lobanow),

I3 6 . 2 33
, William, junior, 112, 130, 155,

251. 348
Rupert, Prince, 203
Russell, Sir William H, and his

wife, 312
Russia, Emperors of, see Alexander

II., Nicholas I., and Paul
Russian action in Central Asia,

3-4
advance in the Far East, views

of M. de Kallay on, 346, 386
Russo-German relations, 4-6
Ruyssenaers, M., 248

Ruyter, Admiral De, tribute paid to,
by William II. of Germany, 224
Ryswyk, 203 note

Saburmuttee River, Ahmedabad,

140
Sackville, Lady Anne, 263 and note

, Lord, 261

Sadowa, 295

Sahini, Admiral, 13

St. Albans, Duke and Duchess of,

126
St. John at Malta, Cathedral of, and

Knights of, 101
St. Levan, Lord, 354
St. Paul at Malta, 103, 105
St. Petersburg, 101, 175, 242,275, 295,

301
St. Polten, 349

St. Stephen, Order of, 381 note
St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna, 311
St. Theodore, Church of, Athens,

114
St. Wolfgang, town and lake of, 351,

380
Salamis, 75, 80
Salisbury, Marchioness of (the late),

158
Salisbury, Marquis of (the late), 40,

42,49,66,68-73,76,111, 127, 137,

144, 157, 296, 306, 330, 374, 385
Salonica, 54

Salzburg, 314, 352, 353, 380
Salzkammergut, 351
San Antonio, Malta, 103, 104
Sandor, Princess Metternich-, 364
Sardou, M., 342
Sassoon, Mr. Reuben, 179
Saurma, Baron, 173, 243
Sawas Pasha, 54
Saxe-Cobur^ Gotha, see Edinburgh

and Albany, Dukes of

, Duchess of, 263

Saxe-Teschen, Duke Albert of, 321
Saxe- Weimar, Grand Duke of (the

late), 209, 227

, Grand-Duchess of, 213

, Prince Edward of, 211

Saxony, see Albert, King of
Scarlett family, the, 19
Scheveningen, 200, 209, 226 et seq.
Schimmelpenninck van der Oye,

Mile. Cony, wedding of, 204
Schleswig-Holstein, Prince Christian

of, 333
Schleswig - Holstein Augustenburg,

Duke Ernest Gunther of, 144 et

seq.
Schliemann, Dr. and Mme., 18, 122

INDEX

405

Schoeller, Ritter von, Consul-General

in Vienna, 304
Schoenerer, Heir, 317, and the Los

von Rom movement, 368 et seq.
Schonborn famil}', the, 379
Schbnbrunn, 293, 330, 375
Schonhausen, 385
Schulenburg family, the, 377
Schwarzenberg family, the, 379

Palace, Vienna, 281

, Prince Adolf, 328

, Prince Felix, 276 ; his mother

and sister, 285
Seckendorf, Count, 259, 260
Secunderabad, 146, 148
Sedan, 313

Segur, Comte and Comtesse de, 242
Seilern, Count and Countess (nte

Hohenwart), 177
Selmoon, tower of, Malta, 103
Servia (see Alexander, and Milan,

Kings of), politics in, 41
Seymour, Sir Hamilton, 181
Shimonoseki, battle of, 245
Siberia, 346

Sidney family, the, 159
Sidon, s.s., wreck of, 20 and note
Siegfried, traditional birthplace of,

o. I73

Simmons, General (afterwards Field-
Marshal), Sir J. L. A., 98, 99 and
note, 102

Skiernievice compact, the, 4, 5

Slanev, Colonel and Lady Mabel,
178

Slatin Pasha (Sir Rudolph Slatin),
358

Slav versus Hellene, 107-8

Slave Trade Conference at Brussels,
206

Smith, Sir Charles Euan, 329

Sobieski, John, 311

Soesdyck, Castle of, 239

Solms, Amalia von, "wifeof Frederick
Henry, Prince of Orange, 194, 203

Soltikow, Princess, 175

Soos, 349

Sophie, Queen of the Netherlands,
257; lier learning and her troubles,
192-4, and note 192

South Africa (sec Boer War, Jameson
Raid, and Kruger), Dutch in-
terest in, 246-7

Soutzo, Mine. Nathalie, 60

, Prince Jean, and family, 60

Soveral, M. de, 351

Spain, see Christina, Queen-Mother
of

Sparta, Duke of, see Greece, Crown
Prince of

Spinola, Marquis and Marquise, 12,

173, 216
Spion Kop, 357
Sponneck. Count, 107
Sprachenverordnunc/en, the, 316
Staal, M. van der, 248
Stadion, Countess (ne'e Lobkowitz),

344-5, 378
Standish, Mr. and Mrs. Henry,

37 8
Standish, Mrs. (ne'e des Cars), 313

Steen, Jan, truth of his paintings, 161

Stephanie, Crown Princess of Austria

(Countess Lonyay), 263, 281
Stephenson, Capt. (Adm. Sir H. F.),

1 36 and note

, General Sir F., 138

Sterneck, Admiral, 318

Stillman, Mr., Times correspondent,

80
Stirum family, the, 237
, Countess Limburg, and her

daughters, 173
Stockholm, 1, 116
Stormberg, 357
Strauss, Eduard, composer, 277, 341

, Johann, 341

Struve, M. de, and his daughter,

230
Stuart, Sir William, 137
Suda Bay, Naval Demonstration at,

79, 81, 87, 98
Suez, 138
Sugar Bounties Convention, the,

248
Sultan of Turkev, see Abdul Hamid

II.
Sutton, Sir Richard, 240
Sweden, Prince Gustav Adolf of,

377
Sydney, New South Wales, 248-9
Sykes, Mr. Christopher, 178
Syinons, General Penn, 354
Syngros, M., 18, 122
Szapdry, Count Paul, and ihis wife,

372
Szechenyi, Count Bela, and wife (n(c

Erdody), 348
, Countess Denesch (nte Hoyos),

344

, Countess Hanna (now Countess

Karolyi), 348

Szell, M. de, 308, 319, 372
Sztaiay, Countess, 330-3

TACNA affair, the, 249-50

Talbot, < Jolonel the Hon. (now Major-
General the linn, sir Reginald),
and his wife, 1S6 and note, 187

4<o6

INDEX

Taliani, Monsignor (now Cardinal),

359. 37°
Talleyrand, Baron and Baronne

Charles de, 233 and note
Tato'i, 27
Taxis, Prince Francis Tlmrn and, and

his wife (n£e d'Orsay), 22, 36
, Prince Lamoral Thurn and, and

his son, 269
Taylour, Lady Adelaide, 240, 321,

35 2

Teck, Duke of (the present), 112

, Duke of (the late), 112, 231

, Princess Mary Adelaide, Duch-
ess of, 1 12-13

, Princess May (now Princess of

Wales), 113

Teesdale, Colonel, 179

Teheran, 268

Temesvar, 330

Ternate, 248

Teunissen, M., antiquary, 211

Thames, approach to London by, 1, 2

Thayer, Mr. Samuel R. , 242

Theocaris, Mme., 28

Theotokis family, the, 61

, M. , 70 note, in

Thessaly, 16, 79

Thomas, Arthur Goring, composer,
197

Thornhill, Mr. Bryan Clarke, 242,

375
Throgmorton, Miss, 113
Thun, Count Francis, and his wife,

(ne'e Schwarzenberg), 337-8
Thurn and Taxis, see Taxis
Tienhoven, M., 248
Tinne, Miss, explorer, 231 note

, Mr., ib.

Titian, birthplace of, 329
Toblach, 329

Townsend, Mr., and his wife, 304
Townshend, Lady Agnes, 354
Transvaal, the, numbers of Hol-
landers in, 247

, Railway, the, 247

Traunsee, the, 320

Trauttenberg, Baron de, 52, 53, 135

TrauttmannsdorfT, Prince, and

family, 379
Treaty of Berlin, 40, 43, 62

of London, 1867, 215

of Paris, 5, 273-4

Tree, Mr. Beerbohm, 329

Tricoupis, Mile., no

, M. Charilaos, 13, 15, 32, 34, 38,

47, 49-50, 56, 77, 84, 105, 106-10

note, in, 1 16-17 and note, 153;

character of, 109-10 ; death of,

1 10 ; his sister, ib.

Trier, 218

Trieste, Imperial stud-farm near, 269

Triple Alliance, the, 5 note

Tunisia, 147

Turin, n

Turkey, and Armenian affairs, 272

, the Sultan of, see Abdul

Hamid II.

Tiirr, General, 47, 118-20

, Mme. (nie Bonaparte Wyse),

118-20

Tuyll, Baron Reginald de, 170, 229,
351

, Baron and Baronne Vincent

de, and their daughter, 170, 193

Tweeddale, Marquess and Mar-
chioness of, 133

Typaldos, M., 60, 71-2

Utrecht, University tournament
got up by students of, 239

Uze"s, Duchesse d', marriage of her
daughter, 183 et seq.

Valetta, 102

, impressions of, 105

Vallombrosa, Duke of, and Duchess

(nie des Cars), 146
Valloire, abbey of, 217 note
Van Bossi, 204
Van der Heist, portrait by, of Paul

Potter, 201
Van der Staal, Mme., 234
Van Goyen, skating scenes by, 229
Vassos, General, 297, and his

daughter, 123
Vaughan, Cardinal, 370
Verdala, Malta, 103
Vermeer, Jan, painting by, at The

Hague, 201
Verschuer, Baron and Baroness, 171
Vianden, 218
Victor Emmanuel II., King of Italy,

assassination of, 37S
Victoria, Queen of England (the

late), 105, in, 156,208,211,220,

263-5, 33°. 333- 339- 376, 383
, attitude of, as to the Boer

War, 355, 361-2

, Jubilees of, 129-34, 303-6, 347

, last visit of, to Cimiez, 346-7

, visit to, of Queen Wilhelraina,

256

, funeral of, 384

, on her Ambassadors to France,

186
Victoria Augusta, German Empress,

144, 222

INDEX

407

Vienna, 37, 41, 132, 212

Anti-Semitism in, see Lueger, Dr.
British Embassy at, 266, and its

personnel, 267
Celebration of Queen Victoria's

Diamond Jubilee in, 303-6
Congress of, 1814, 312
Court and Society in, 276 et seq.
Environs of , 3 1 1

Famous musicians buried in, 340
Fine statues in, 270
Haussmanising of, 338 et seq.
Imperial foot - washing at, in
Passion Week, 365 ; and other
Imperial religious functions,
367-8
Jubilee celebrations in, 319 et seq.,

328-9, 336
Music and musicians in, 340-1
Old and recent friendships in,

284 et seq.
Official and public attitude in,

dining the Boer War, 357, 358
Racing at, 373-4
Rathhaus, Ball in, 322
Sir H. Rumbold accredited to,
life there and farewell to, 260 et
seq., 374-5
Spring Parade in, 293
Theatres, &c, in, 340
Viennese partiality for Scheveniugen,

227
Vijverberg, the, The Hague, 210-11
Vikar-ul-Umra, of Hyderabad, 147
Villa Urrutia, M. de, 216
Vincent, Sir Edgar, 125, 138
Vitalis, M., sculptor, 77-8
Vivian, " Crcppy " (the late Lord

Vivian), 206 and note
Vlaanderen, Dr., 195
Vliet, F. T., Dutch artist, 201
Vosseur, General, 47, 138
Votivkirche, the, Vienna, 183

Waddington, M., 49

Wagram, 363

Wmdmanns Huldigung, the, 328

Waldeck Pyrmont, Princess Eliza-
beth of (now Hereditary Coun-
ts uf Krhach Schonberg), 257

Waldersee, Count, 380

Wales, Prince of (King Edward
VII.), 9, 134, 179, 182, 333, 350-1 ;
attempt on the life of, 364-5

, Prince Albert Victor of (late

Duke of Clarence), 9; death of,
230, 231 et seq.

, Prince George of (now Prince

of Wales), 9, 99 note, 115, 136-7

Wales, Princess of (Queen Alex-
andra), 9, 61, 134
, Princess of, see Teck (Princess

May)
W alferdange, 218

Wallsee, Castle, on the Danube, 282
Walterskirchen, Baron de, and his

wife (nee Hunyadi), 176, 177,

216, 353
Ward, Admiral, the Hon., 102 and

note
Wardrop, Colonel, 267-8, 294
Warner, Sir William Lee-, 151
Washburne, Mr., 116
Wassenaer gardens, the, 237
Wellesley, Hon. Mrs. Gerald, 261
Wesel, 173

West, Mrs. Lionel Sackville, 261
Westlake, Professor, and Mrs., 126
Westminster Abbey, Jubilee of 1887

at, 131
Westminster, Duke and Duchess of

(the late), 240-1
White Lodge, Richmond, 113
White, General, Sir George, 362, and

Lady, 362

, Sir William, 107

Whitehead, Mr., 350
Whitworth, Lord, 262
Wied, Prince of, 237

, Princess of, 227

Wieden, Palace in, Vienna, 281

, Rothschild house in, 291

Wilczek, Count, 290
Wildauer, Mathilde, singer, 339
Wilhelmina, Queen of Holland, 195,

213. 239

, as a child, 208-9

, life during minority, 220 et seq.

, visit of, to England, 256

William I., German Emperor, 4, 11,

36, 327, 334
William II.. German Emperor, 224,

293-5, 302, 334, 385

, telegram from, to President

Kriiger, 258

, visit of, to Holland, 222, and

attitude to the Queen, 225
William the Silent, Prince of

Orange, 211
William III. of Nassau, King of
the Netherlands, 182, 227, 257

, family troubles of, 192-3

, serious illness of, and conse-
quences, 188 et seq. ; recovery
and Jubilee of, 195 ; banquet on
his seventy-third birthday, 207 ;

his last public appearance, 209;
death of, 210; obsequies, 210
et seq.

40 8

INDEX

Wilmot, Captain Eardley, K.N., 88
Wilson, Lady Sarah {ntc Churchill),

112

Winchester, Marquis of (the late),

35 6
Windischgratz, Prince Alfred, 362
Windsor, 156, 220, 256, 263, 264, 355,

362, 382-4
Witt, Cornelius de, 204

, John de, murder of, 204-5

Witte Zivaan hostelry, 203

Wolf, Heir, 317

Wolff, M. Johannes, violinist, 197

, Sir Henry Druramond, 126

Wolseley, Viscount, 133

Wortley, Miss Stuart (Mrs. Fire-

brace), 151
Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George, 356

Xanten, birthplace of Wagner's
Siegfried, 173

Y, the, 225

Yermak, Timofejeff, 346

Ymuiden, 222

York, Duke of (afterwards James II.),

201, 203 note
Yorke, Hon. Alexander, 383
Young Czech party, 315

Zoelen, Baronne de Groeninx van,

172
Zwyndrecht, M. van, 204-5
Zvgomalas, M., 54
Zyp, The, the Brantsen mansion, 238

THE END

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
Edinburgh 6* London

Telegrams : 4 1 and 43 Maddox Street,

1 Scholarly, London.' Bond Street, London, W.,

October, 1905.

Mr. Edward Arnold's

List of New Books

ESSAYS AND ADDRESSES ON
ECONOMIC QUESTIONS (i 865-1 893).

WITH INTRODUCTORY NOTES (1905).

By the RIGHT HON. VISCOUNT GOSCHEN.

Demy Svo. 15s. net.

This collection of essays and addresses forms an intensely interest-
ing survey of all the most important economic aspects of our history
during the last forty years. Lord Goschen's qualifications for such
a survey need not be enlarged upon. His treatment of the most
intricate questions of finance and currency never fails to bring them
into concrete and vital connection with our national life ; and in this
volume he deals with these questions rather from the standpoint of
a practical man of business or of a public servant anxious to inquire
into financial, economic, and social facts than as the adherent of
any special school of political economy.

Completeness and finality has been given to the record here
presented by Introductory Notes and additions, which represent
a further expenditure of work and thought out of all proportion to
their amount, while all the freshness and vividness of contemporary
expressions of opinion has been preserved.

LONDON : EDWARD ARNOLD, 41 & 43 MADDOX STREET, W.

2 Mr. Edward Arnold's List of New Books

THE GREAT PLATEAU.

Being an account of Bjploration in Central {Tibet, 1903, ano of tbe

(Barton jEjpeoitton, 1904*1905.

By CAPTAIN C. G. RAWLING,

Somersetshire Light Infantry.

Demy Svo. With Illustrations and Maps. 15s. net.

Captain C. G. Rawling, with one English companion, accom-
plished in 1903 a remarkable journey through North-West Tibet,
penetrating far into the interior and surveying over 38,000 square
miles of hitherto unknown country. Great hardships were en-
countered and difficulties overcome. When the explorers attempted
to enter the sacred town of Rudok they were captured by the
Tibetans, and forced to make a long detour in order to reach British
territory.

On his return to India, Captain Rawling joined the Tibet Expedi-
tion, and immediately after the signing of the Lhasa treaty was
despatched by Sir F. Younghusband to Gartok. The account of his
journey through an absolutely unknown country is full of interest.
At Shigatse, the largest town in Tibet, the highest officials and
ecclesiastics were visited and the monasteries and forts explored.
The Brahmapootra was traced to its source, and both the holy
Manasarowar Lake and the Kailas Peak were visited. The party
returned to Simla through Gartok and the Indus and Sutlej valleys.

The photographs with which the book is illustrated are of quite
exceptional beauty.

IN THE DESERT.

By L. MARCH PHILLIPPS.

Author of ' With Rimington.'

Demy Svo. With Illustrations. 12s. 6d. net.

The author, whose book ' With Rimington ' will be remembered
as taking high rank among the literature of the South African War,
sets himself in this work to trace the effect upon Arab architecture,
religion, poetry, and philosophy of the Desert of which the Arab is
the child. He believes that, in order properly to appreciate these
things, it is necessary first to realize the scenery in which they de-
veloped. The result is an extraordinarily vivid picture of life in the
Great Sahara, in which notes of travel are combined with descriptions
of scenery and people, and the history and methods of the French
administration are handled with great skill.

Mr. Edward Arnold's List of New Books 3

FLOOD, FELL, AND FOREST.

By SIR HENRY POTTINGER, Bart.
Two volumes. Demy &vo. With Illustrations. 25s. net.

Few men probably know their Norway better than Sir Henry
Pottinger, and fewer still have described it, from the point of view of
sport, better than he has done in this book, in which the experience
of a lifelong sportsman and the graceful literary touch of a skilled
writer are combined with the happiest effect. Whether the subject
be elk-shooting, salmon-fishing, or camping, Sir Henry abounds in
interesting anecdotes and valuable information, and his book cannot
fail to give pleasure to all lovers of the rod and gun.

The illustrations are from the author's own sketches, or drawn
under his immediate supervision.

TWO YEARS IN THE ANTARCTIC.

JBeiW a IWarrattpe of tbe JBrttisb Rational antarctic Ejpeoition.
By LIEUTENANT ALBERT B. ARMITAGE, R.N.R.,

Second in Command of the 'Discovery,' igoi-1904 ; and of the Jackson-Harmsworth
Polar Expedition, 1894-1897.

Demy Svo. With Illustrations and Map, 15s. net.

The objects of the recent National Antarctic Expedition were, of
course, scientific, but to the general reader there is much more
interest to be found in a simple account of where the explorers went,
and what they did when they got there. In this book, therefore,
Lieutenant Armitage avoids scientific details as far as possible, and
aims rather at telling a straightforward story of the daily life, with
all its hardships and perils on the one hand, and its boyish amuse-
ments and cheery good comradeship on the other, of the little body
of picked men who went out in the Discovery. His racy narrative,
assisted by the beautiful illustrations by Dr. E. A. Wilson, artist to
the expedition, and others, and an excellent map, conveys a vivid
impression of the Antarctic regions, and the unattractive conditions
of existence in them.

4 Mr. Edward Arnold's List of New Books

THE LIFE OF JOHANNES BRAHMS

By FLORENCE MAY.

Two volumes. Demy Svo. With Illustrations. 21s. net.

The author is exceptionally qualified for the task of writing thes
volumes by her own acquaintance with Brahms, begun when sh
was a young student of the pianoforte, and her personal recollection
of his teaching are among the most interesting parts of the bool
Her aim, in giving some account of Brahms' compositions, has nc
been a technical one ; so far as she has exceeded purely biographic;
limits she has endeavoured to assist the general music-lover in hi
enjoyment of the noble achievements of a beautiful life. Th
materials have been gathered almost entirely at first hand in th
course of several continental journeys. Dates of concerts througl
out the work have been verified by reference to original programme
or contemporary journals.

FINAL RECOLLECTIONS OF A
DIPLOMATIST.

By the RIGHT HON. SIR HORACE RUMBOLD, Bart.,

G.C.B., G.C.M.G.,

Author of 'Recollections of a Diplomatist,' and 'Further Recollections
of a Diplomatist.'

Demy 8vo. 15s. net.

Sir Horace Rumbold begins the third and concluding series of hi
' Recollections' in the year 1885, at the point to which he brought hi
readers in the volumes already published. He describes his life a
Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to Greece fror
1885-1888, and to the Netherlands from 1888-1896. In the lattt
year he was appointed Ambassador to the Emperor of Austria — a
exalted position which he retained until his retirement from th
Diplomatic Service in 1900.

The conclusion of these ' Recollections ' presents a set of Dipl<
matic memoirs as comprehensive as they are interesting. Sir Horac
Rumbold has known nearly all the famous personages of his timi
and the personal touches and pleasant anecdotes with which h
illuminates their characters render the volumes excellent reading.

Mr. Edward Arnold's List of New Books 5

A FORGOTTEN JOHN RUSSELL.

ffielng Xetters to a rtlban of ^Business, 1724*1751.

Arranged by MARY EYRE MATCHAM.

Demy Svo. With Portrait. 12s. 6d. net.

The letters written to an active man of business (those written by
John Russell are few and unimportant) during a long period of time
must necessarily be something of a medley. But if they lack the
kind of interest which centres in the life-story of an individual, they
offer far more varied and ample material to those who care, with
Thackeray, ' to people the old world with its everyday figures and
inhabitants.' To the majority of readers probably the most inter-
esting correspondents will be the numerous sea captains — fathers
and grandfathers of those who fought under Hawke and Nelson.
But all sorts and conditions of men made calls on John Russell's
capacity for business or for friendship, writing for the most part in
home and intimate fashion of private and domestic matters, illus-
trating in innumerable ways the ordinary life of the time, and
incidentally throwing many interesting sidelights on England's
position in the world as a State whose future lay upon the ocean.

ACTS OF THE HOLY GHOST.

B, "KecorD of personal Experience of IRcltGfous "Revivals ano /HMssions.
By FRANCIS PIGOU, D.D.,

Dean of Bristol.
Author of ' Phases of My Life,' ' Odds and Ends," etc.

Demy Svo. 16s.

Dean Pigou has had twenty-five years' special experience of
Parochial Missions, and is generally regarded as an authority on
the subject. He has conducted missions in London, Edinburgh,
Dublin, Liverpool, Huddersfield, Northampton, Tiverton, Bangor,
and many other places. In this volume he has arranged the records
of these religious revivals according to the localities at which they
occurred. The author's characteristic style and treatment render
the whole a most interesting study, whichf will be welcomed by
readers of his previous works.

6 Mr. Edward Arnold's List of New Books

THEODORE OF STUDIUM :

HIS LIFE AND TIMES.

By ALICE GARDNER,

Associate and Lecturer of Nevvnham College, Cambridge.
Author of 'Julian the Philosopher,' 'Studies in John the Scot,' 'Rome the Middle

of the World,' etc.

Demy Svo. With Illustrations, ios. 6d. net.

Theodore of Studium (born 759, died 826), though little known in
Western Europe, was a man of remarkable abilities and character
who left a deep impression on Byzantine monasticism, and on the
thought and life of the Eastern Empire. This biography, foundec
on Theodore's own writings and those of his contemporaries, en-
deavours to set forth the various sides of his activity. These are prin-
cipally (1) his very prominent part in the Iconoclastic Controversy
with his staunch opposition to Caesaropapism ; (2) his monastic
reforms ; (3) his great services as calligraphist, and as promoter oi
the preservation and multiplication of manuscripts ; (4) his wide-
correspondence, which throws much light on the morals and manners
of his time, as well as on some important historical events ; and
(5) his poetical activity, shown in works written both in the old
classical and the new ecclesiastical metres. The events and conflicts
of his life elucidate the tendencies which led to the separation of the
Churches and Empires of the East and West.

THE QUEEN'S POOR.

%iic as tbeg fin& ft in XLown an& Country.
By M. LOANE.
Crown Svo. 6s.
Of those who work professionally among the poor, and have 1
firsthand knowledge of their lives and thoughts, most, if not all
have had experiences worthy of record. But, owing either to th(
absorbing nature of their duties or to the want of a literary gift
very few of them have put on paper the curious things which thej
have heard and seen from day to day. Miss Loane has not onl}
contrived to find time, in the midst of a busy life of district nursing
to keep notes of her experiences, but has written them in a singularly
attractive style, revealing a keen sense of humour, as well as i
plentiful supply of common-sense. Her stories are grouped undei
such suggestive headings as ' Husband and Wife among the Poor,
' The Religion of the Respectable Poor,' ' The Art of Polite Con
versation,' and so forth.

Mr. Edward Arnold's List of New Books 7

A MEMOIR

OF THE RIGHT HON.

ARTHUR BARON HOBHOUSE,

P.C., K.C.S.I., CLE.
By L. T. HOBHOUSE, and J. L. HAMMOND,

Author of ' Mind in Evolution.' Author of ' C. J. Fox: A Study.'

Demy Svo. With Portraits. 14s. net.

Lord Hobhouse, who died in December, 1904, abandoned in
middle life a brilliant career at the Chancery Bar for the service of
the State, in which he had a long and varied experience. His official
career began with his appointment as a Charity Commissioner in
1866, and ended with his retirement from the Judicial Committee of
the Privy Council in 1901. Most of his work was of a kind of which
the general public knows little. He was Legal Member of the
Viceroy's Council in India for five years, and he was a member of
the Judicial Committee for twenty years. But at one time he
found himself the centre of a vehement controversy, and the part he
played as a member of the Endowed Schools Commission marks a
turning-point in the history of English education. He had an
active share in the movement which won for London its rights of
self-government, and he gave many legal judgments which have an
historical significance.

SHORT LIVES OF GREAT MEN.

By W. F. BURNSIDE and A. S. OWEN,

Assistant Masters at Cheltenham College.

Crown 8vo. With Illustrations. $s. 6d.

The Cheltenham College memorial of Old Cheltonians who fell
in the South African War takes the form of a reredos in the school
chapel, filled with forty-four figures illustrating certain aspects of
English history and representative men in different callings of life.
It has been felt that an account of these great men would be service-
able, not only to those who see these carved figures every day, but
to a larger number of readers, who would be glad to have in a com-
pendious form biographies of many of the leading men in English
history and literature. The list extends from St. Alban to Gordon,
and for the sake of convenience chronological order has been
adopted. Illustrations are given of eight typical personages.

8 Mr. Edward Arnold's List of New Books

SOME DOGMAS OF RELIGION.

By JOHN ELLIS McTAGGART, Litt.D.,

Lecturer in Moral Sciences, Trinity College, Cambridge.

Demy 8vo. ios. 6d. net.

This book attempts to prove, in the first place, that beliefs as to
certain matters of fact beyond our empirical experience are essen-
tial for religion, and of fundamental importance for human life.
Secondly, it is maintained that such beliefs cannot legitimately rest
on faith, but only on argument. It is suggested that the most
reasonable form for the doctrine of immortality to take is one which
makes each person to have existed for many years before the exist-
ence of his present body, and perhaps for all past time.

THE iENEID OF VIRGIL.

With a Translation by CHARLES J. BILLSON, M.A.,

Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

2 vols. Crown \to. 30s. net.

These handsome volumes contain on the left-hand page a text
based on Conington's, and on the right a line-for-line translation in
blank verse.

A FISHING CATECHISM

AND

A SHOOTING CATECHISM.

By COLONEL R. F. MEYSEY-THOMPSON,

Author of ' Reminiscences ok the Course, the Camp, and the Chase.'

Two volumes. Foolscap 8vo. 3s. 6d. each.

Lovers of rod and gun will welcome these valuable handbooks
from the pen of an admitted expert. The information given is abso-
lutely practical, and is conveyed, for the most part, in the form of
Question and Answer. As the result of some fifty years' experience,
the author seems to have anticipated every possible emergency, and
the arrangement is especially calculated to facilitate easy reference.
There are special chapters on fishing and shooting etiquette, and at
the end of each book is a chapter dealing with the legal side of the
subject.

Mr. Edward Arnold's List of New Books

THE WALLET SERIES OF HANDBOOKS.

The following five volumes are the new additions to this useful
series of handbooks, which range, as will be seen, over a wide field,
and are intended to be practical guides to beginners in the subjects
with which they deal.

Foolscap 8vo., is. net per volume, paper ; 2S. net cloth.

THE MANAGEMENT OF BABIES. By Mrs. Leonard

Hill.

The author is an expert in this all-important subject, and her book is con-
fidently recommended to mothers as thoroughly sound, sensible, and free from
fads. The medical information may be relied upon absolutely, and the book
abounds in practical and most valuable advice. A whole chapter is devoted to
the development of intelligence and the importance of early training — a matter
too often ignored by mothers and nurses.

ON COLLECTING MINIATURES, ENAMELS, AND
JEWELLERY. By Robert Elward, Author of ' On Collect-
ing Engravings, Pottery, Porcelain, Glass, and Silver.'

In this volume the author pursues the same thorough method as in his former
work. After several hints to collectors, he gives a careful historical and de-
scriptive summary of each subject, with a short bibliography.

MOTORING FOR MODERATE INCOMES. By

Henry Revell Reynolds.

The demand for motor-cars at reasonable prices is rapidly increasing. Mr.
Reynolds has taken /500 as the largest sum which his readers are likely to pay
for a car, with a proportionate amount in addition for up-keep. He lays down
the general principles which should guide the would-be purchaser, and gives
sufficient information to enable him to examine any car with understanding.
The respective capacities, prices, etc., of a number of cars are given in tabular
form. Motor bicycles and other small vehicles receive a considerable share of
attention, and there are chapters on driving and the amenities of the road.

ON TAKING A HOUSE. By W. Beach Thomas.

A thoroughly practical guide to the science and art of house-taking is urgently
required by most people sooner or later in their lives. Most people, too, are
obliged to pay dearly for the kind of experience which is to be found condensed
into this little book. Mr. Thomas has accumulated an enormous amount of
information on the subject, and his words of warning are calculated to save
intending purchasers or lessees from innumerable pitfalls.

io Mr. Edward Arnold's List of New Books

THE WALLET SERIES {continued).
Foolscap Svo., is. net per volume, paper ; is. net cloth.

COMMON AILMENTS AND ACCIDENTS AND

THEIR TREATMENT. By M. H. Naylor, M.B., B.S.

This is a lucidly written handbook, covering rather different ground from that
usually coming under the description of ' First Aid.' It is intended to meet all
ordinary emergencies, and to indicate such treatment as may safely be tried
before the arrival of a doctor.

The following volumes have been already published :

ON COLLECTING ENGRAVINGS, POTTERY, PORCE-
LAIN, GLASS, AND SILVER. By Robert Elward.

ELECTRIC LIGHTING FOR THE INEXPERIENCED.
By Hubert Walter.

HOCKEY AS A GAME FOR WOMEN. With the New Rules.
By Edith Thompson.

WATER-COLOUR PAINTING. By Mary L. Breakell
(' Penumbra ').

DRESS OUTFITS FOR ABROAD. By Ardern Holt.

NEW AND CHEAPER EDITION.

THE REMINISCENCES OF SIR
HENRY HAWKINS

(JBaron JBrampton).
Edited by RICHARD HARRIS, K.C.,

Author of 'Illustrations of Advocacy,' ' Auld Acquaintance,' etc.

Crown Svo. With Portrait. 6s.

In this edition a few of the more technically legal passages have
been omitted, but all the dramatic episodes and characteristic anec-
dotes remain untouched.

Mr. Edward Arnold's List of New Books n

NEW FICTION.

Crown Svo. 6s. each.

THE PROFESSOR'S LEGACY.

By MRS. ALFRED SIDGWICK,

Author of ' Cynthia's Way,' ' The Beryl Stones,' etc.

A FLOOD TIDE.

By MARY A. DEBENHAM.

THE BROWN HOUSE and CORDELIA.

By MARGARET BOOTH.

A TROMBONE AND A STAR.

By C. T. PODMORE,

Author of 'A Cynic's Conscience.'

NEW AND CHEAPER EDITION.

Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d.

RED POTTAGE.

By MARY CHOLMONDELEY.

POLITICAL CARICATURES, 1905.

By F. CARRUTHERS GOULD.

Super royal \to. 6s. net.

A large-paper edition will also be prepared if a sufficient number of sub-
scribers enter their names before October 3 1 . Prospectus on application.

12 Mr. Edward Arnold's List of New Books

THE ROMANCE OF EMPIRE.

By PHILIP GIBBS,

Author of 'Facts and Ideas,' 'Knowledge is Power,' etc.

Crown Svo.

In this volume Mr. Gibbs tells, in his characteristically interesting
style, the story of the expansion of Britain, beginning shortly before
the time of Elizabeth, and bringing the account down almost to the
present day. Each great division of our Empire beyond the seas is
dealt with in turn, and without any sacrifice of historical accuracy
or proportion the author gives to his narrative the attractiveness of a
well-told romance.

CHEAPER EDITION.

PEN AND PENCIL SKETCHES OF SHIPPING AND
CRAFT ALL ROUND THE WORLD.

By R. T. PRITCHETT.

Demy Svo. With 50 full-page Illustrations. $s. 6d.

ILLUSTRATED EDITION.^

HISTORICAL TALES FROM
SHAKESPEARE.

By A.VT. QUILLER-COUCH (< Q.'),

Author of ' The Ship op Stars,' etc.

Crown Svo. With Illustrations from the Boydell Gallery. 6s.

The value of this much-appreciated work will, it is believed, be
enhanced by the addition of sixteen selected illustrations from the
well-known Boydell collection.

Mr. Edward Arnold's List of New Books 13

RACES OF DOMESTIC POULTRY.

By EDWARD BROWN, F.L.S.,

Secretary of the National Poultry Organization Society.

Author of 'Poultry Keeping: An Industry for Farmers and Cottagers,' 'Industrial

Poultry Keeping,' ' Pleasurable Poultry Keeping,' etc.

Crown Afto. With Illustrations. 6s. net.

This important and comprehensive work, by an admitted master
of his subject, will be welcomed by all who are interested in poultry-
keeping. Chapters I. and II. deal with the origin, history, and
distribution of domestic poultry, and with the evolution and classi-
fication of breeds ; the next ten chapters are devoted to the various
races of fowls ; Chapters XIII. to XV. treat of ducks, geese, and
turkeys. The remaining chapters are on external characters and
breeding. There are also Appendices.

THREE LITTLE COOKS.

By LUCY CRUMP.

Square crown Svo. With Illustrations by Gertrude M. Bradley. 3s. 6d.

This is a charming little story for children, describing how
Ophelia, Thomas, and Heidi learnt cookery with a toy stove.

NEW EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED.

COMMON-SENSE COOKERY.

jfoc Etuilisb Ibousebolos, witb {Twenty dlbenus worked out in Detail.
By COLONEL A. KENNEY-HERBERT,

Author of 'Fifty Brkakfasts,' 'Fifty Lunches,' 'Fifty Dinners,' etc.

Large crown Svo. With Illustrations. 6s. net.

The author has so largely rewritten this edition that it is prac-
tically a new book. Besides being brought up to date with the
very latest ideas on the subject, it is much enlarged, and now
contains a number of attractive full-page illustrations.

14 Mr. Edward Arnold's List of New Books

RECENT ADVANCES IN PHYSIOLOGY
AND CHEMICAL PATHOLOGY

By A. P. BEDDARD, M.A., M.D.,

Assistant Physician, late Demonstrator of Physiology, Guy's Hospital ;

LEONARD HILL, M.B., F.R.S.,

Lecturer on Physiology, the London Hospital;

J. J. R. MACLEOD, M.B.,

Professor of Physiology, Western Reserve University, Cleveland, U.S.A. ;
late Demonstrator of Physiology, the London Hospital ;

BENJAMIN MOORE, M.A., D.Sc,

Johnston Professor of Bio-Chemistry in the University of Liverpool;

And M. S. PEMBREY, M.A., M.D.,

Lecturer on Physiology, Guy's Hospital.

Demy Svo. 16s. net.

This book, which is edited by Mr. Leonard Hill, consists of Lec-
tures on Physiological Subjects selected for their direct clinical
interest, and designed to meet the requirements of advanced students
of Physiology. Dr. Beddard deals with Digestion, Absorption,
Lymph, Urea, and Secretion of Urine ; Mr. Hill himself with the
Atmosphere in its Relation to Life, Metabolism of Water and
Inorganic Salts, and Metabolism of Fat ; Professor Macleod with
the Metabolism of the Carbohydrates, Haemolysis, Uric Acid, and
the Purin Bodies ; Professor Moore with Vital Energy, Ferments,
and Glandular Mechanisms ; and Dr. Pembrey with the Exchange
of Respiratory Gases, Influence of Temperature, Sources of Mus-
cular Energy and Fatigue, and Internal Secretion.

A MANUAL OF PHARMACOLOGY.

By WALTER E. DIXON, M.A., M.D., B.Sc. Lond.,
D.P.H. Camb.,

Assistant to the Downing Professor of Medicine in the University of Cambridge,
Examiner in Pharmacology in the Universities of Cambridge, Glasgow, and Dundee.

Demy 8vo. 15s. net.

This text-book, which is prepared especially for the use of students,
gives a concise account of the physiological action of Pharmacopceial
drugs. The subject is treated from the experimental standpoint,
and the drugs are classified into pharmacological groups. The text
is fully illustrated by original tracings of actual experiments and by
diagrams.

Mr. Edward Arnold's List of New Books 15

NEW EDITION.

PRACTICAL PHYSIOLOGY.

By A. P. BEDDARD, M.A., M.D., J. S. EDKINS, M.A., M.B.,

L. HILL, M.B., F.R.S., J. J. R. MACLEOD, M.B., and M. S.

PEMBREY, M.A., M.D.

Demy Svo. Copiously illustrated with figures of physiological apparatus,
diagrams, and a large number of interesting tracings. 12s. 6d. net.

VALVES AND VALVE GEAR
MECHANISMS.

By W. E. DALBY, M.A., B.Sc, M.Inst.C.E., M.I.M.E.,

Profkssor of Engineering, City and Guilds of London Central Technical College.

Royal Svo. With numerous Illustrations. 21s. net.

Vaive gears are considered in this book from two points of ? view,
namely, the analysis of what a given gear can do, and the design of
a gear to effect a stated distribution of steam. The gears analyzed
are for the most part those belonging to existing and well-known
types of engines, and include, amongst others, a link motion of the
Great Eastern Railway, the straight link motion of the London and
North-Western Railway, the Walschaert gear of the Northern of
France Railway, the Joy gear of the Lancashire and Yorkshire
Railway, the Sulzer gear, the Meyer gear, etc. A chapter is added
on the inertia stresses in the links of a valve gear, and an actual
example of the inertia loading of a Joy gear is fully discussed.

NEW AND REVISED EDITION.

FOOD AND THE PRINCIPLES OF
DIETETICS.

By ROBERT HUTCHISON, M.D. Edin., F.R.C.P.,

Assistant Physician to the London Hospital and to the Hospital for Sick Children,
Great Okmond Street.

Demy Svo. With 3 Plates in colour and numerous Illustrations in
the text. 1 6s. net.

This important work, the first edition of which was described by
the Guardian as ' one of the most enthralling books ever published
on the subject,' has been thoroughly revised by the author in the
light of the experience of recent years, and is now absolutely up to
date.

1 6 Mr. Edward Arnold's List of New Books

SURGICAL NURSING

Sno tbe principles of Surgery for IFlurses.
By RUSSELL HOWARD, M.B., M.S., F.R.C.S.,

Lecturer on Surgical Nursing to the Probationers of the London Hospital ; Surgeon

to Out-patients, Royal Waterloo Hospital for Children and Women ;

Surgical Registrar, London Hospital.

Crown 8vo. With Illustrations. 6s.

This is an exceedingly lucid and comprehensive handbook on the
subject, and contains all the most approved methods very clearly
arranged.

THE LAWS OF HEALTH.

By D. NABARRO, M.D., B.Sc, D.P.H.,

Assistant Professor of Pathology and Bacteriology, University College, London.

Crown 8vo. With Illustrations . is. 6d.

This volume takes the form of a very simply-written primer of
health, in which the direct application of the science of physiology
to every-day life is shown, while care is taken to avoid technical
terms whenever possible. The author's chief aim is to give such
explicit directions as will, if acted upon, help the reader to develop
a sound mind in a sound body, and, at the same time, to demonstrate
in a simple manner why each rule or warning is given. He also
shows in almost every chapter the effect on the tissues and nervous
system of a misuse of alcoholic drink and tobacco. ,

LINGUA MATERNA.

By R. WILSON, B.A.,

Author of ' A First Course in English Analysis and Grammar,' etc.

Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d.

This book is intended for teachers who wish to keep themselves
abreast of what has been aptly called ' The New English Move-
ment.' The author discusses in turn each of the branches of school-
work in English, describes methods adopted in some of the best of
our schools, and suggests schemes of work to meet the Government
requirements in the native language and literature. The volume
aims at being practical and suggestive, a guide to practical work
rather than a contribution to airy speculation.

LONDON : EDWARD ARNOLD, 41 & 43 MADDOX STREET, W,

05

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