CHAPTER XVII

THE LAST YEAR'S WORK

(1886-1887)

The sudden and unexpected declaration in September of the Union of Bulgaria and Eastern Roumelia which caused so much perturbation in Europe, and resulted in a war between Servia and Bulgaria, left the French quite indifferent; but the imminence of hostilities between England and Burmah provoked French ill-humour, which was all the more inexcusable because no protest had ever been made against French proceedings in Tonquin and Madagascar. The truth was that the Burmese resistance to the Indian Government was largely due to French encouragement. As far back as 1883 a Burmese Mission had arrived in Paris, and kept studiously aloof from the British Embassy; and although every opportunity had been taken to impress upon the French Government the peculiar relations between Burmah and British India, there was not the least doubt that the object of the Burmese had been to obtain from the French Government such a Treaty as would enable them to appeal to France in the event of their being involved in difficulties with England. How much encouragement they actually received is not known, but it was probably sufficient to effect their undoing.

The papers are abusing us about Burmah, and being quite innocent of any aggression themselves in that part of the world, are horrified at our holding our own there. Nevertheless, I hope the Indian Government will finish the thing out of hand, for an ugly state of feeling about it is growing up here.

The rapidity with which the operations against Burmah were conducted left nothing to be desired. The campaign was over within a few weeks; on January 1, 1886, the annexation of Burmah was proclaimed, and the affairs of that country ceased to be of any further interest to the French Government.

Lord Salisbury's tenure of the Foreign Office, which had been marked by so successful a policy that even Mr. Gladstone had expressed satisfaction, came to an end early in 1886, and he was succeeded by Lord Rosebery. 'The irony of events,' wrote the latter to Lord Lyons, 'has sent me to the Foreign Office, and one of the incidents of this which is most agreeable to me, is that it brings me into close relations with yourself.'

Although the Paris press had circulated a ridiculous fiction that Lord Rosebery (presumably because he was personally acquainted with Bismarck) was anti-French by inclination, the change of Government in England was received in France with perfect equanimity, as had been the case in the previous autumn.

The new Foreign Secretary, however, could not fail to be painfully impressed by the unsatisfactory feeling which obviously existed in France towards England, and found it difficult of explanation.

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_Lord Rosebery to Lord Lyons._

March 3, 1886.

I am rather anxious about the attitude of the French. In my short tenure of office they have brought up three or four questions, all in the highest degree distasteful to us.

1. The Consul at Suakim: as to which they say, with accuracy which is disputed, that they had gone too far and could not withdraw the appointment.

2. Arbitration on the Somali coast troubles: as to which they declare that Salisbury promised it, which Salisbury, I understand, denies.

3. The revival of the Suez Canal Commission.

4. The announcement made to me by Waddington yesterday that they should be obliged shortly to send a cargo of recidivists to the Isle of Pines. I remonstrated strongly with him, and indeed I cannot foresee all the consequences, should they carry their intention into effect. One, however, I do clearly perceive, which is that we should have to denounce the Postal Convention of 1856, which gives the Messageries privileges in Australian ports, which could not be sustained, and which the colonists would not for a moment, under such circumstances, respect.

But these are details. What I want to point out is the apparent animus displayed in these different proceedings. I shall not mention them to my colleagues until I hear your view of them, and anything you may be able to collect on the subject.

What does it all mean? These things did not occur during the late Government? Are they directed against the new Administration? I cannot view them as a chapter of accidents.

As for myself, I have entered upon this office with the most sincere wish to be friendly with France. There can be no earthly reason why we should not be so. It is a pity, therefore, that our cordiality should be poisoned at its source.

I wish you would let me know what you think of all this. You can pick up much directly, and perhaps even more indirectly, on these points. Pray forgive the length of this letter.

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_Lord Lyons to Lord Rosebery._

Paris, March 5, 1886.

I have naturally been on the watch since you came into office for indications of the feelings of the French Government respecting the change. In answer to your letter of the day before yesterday, asking my opinion, I can only say that I think the French are quite as well disposed towards the new Government as they were to the late one--indeed, of the two, I should say better. We come so much into contact with the French all over the globe that questions more or less unpleasant are always arising in smaller or greater numbers, according to circumstances; and French feeling is in a chronic state of irritability about Egypt.

The four subjects you mention are certainly annoying, but I do not believe that the French proceedings respecting them have been actuated by any animus against the present English Ministry.

I shall be somewhat staggered in this opinion, however, if the French Government proposes to substitute arbitration by any third Power for the understanding that the Somali coast questions shall be treated by friendly negotiations between the two Governments, and that meanwhile the _status quo_ shall not be disturbed. With a view to proceeding with the negotiation, M. Waddington proposed to Lord Salisbury on Jan. 20th, and by a written note the next day, that an inquiry should be made on the spot by two Commissioners, one English and one French. Lord Salisbury received the verbal proposal favourably, but did not at the moment give a definitive answer.

The proposal to reassemble the Suez Canal Commission is simply the renewal of a proposal made by M. Waddington to Lord Salisbury at the beginning of January.

The most serious of the affairs you mention appears to me to be the imminent despatch of a cargo of _récidivistes_ to the Isle of Pines. I have seen from the beginning the importance of this _récidiviste_ question as regards public feeling in Australia, and there is hardly any question about which I have taken so much trouble. I have attacked successive French Ministers upon it in season and out of season, but I have never succeeded in obtaining any promise that _récidivistes_ should not be sent to the Pacific. As I reported to you, I remonstrated with Freycinet about the intention actually to send off a batch, as soon as I became aware of it. I did not perceive any difference in his manner or language from what they had been when some other Ministers had been in office in England, but my remonstrances were equally ineffectual. I am glad you had an opportunity of speaking strongly to Waddington. I see troubles ahead, for the Australians have before now threatened to pass Dominion laws against French ships found to have escaped convicts on board, which seem to go a good deal beyond international usage, not to say law.

It is time, however, for me to wind up this long story. My answer to your question is that I am far from thinking that there is any _malus animus_ against Her Majesty's present Government on the part of Freycinet and his Cabinet. Nor do I know that there is more than the usual irritability towards England among the French public; but still I feel strongly that it behoves us to tread cautiously as well as firmly, when we are coming upon French ground.

The spring of 1886 was noticeable for another Government onslaught upon such members of ex-reigning families as were then residing in France. Of these the most conspicuous were the Orleans Princes. There was nothing in their conduct to cause alarm to the Republic, as they confined themselves to taking part in social functions, at which they maintained a kind of semi-state, being always attended by ladies and gentlemen-in-waiting after the manner of recognized Royal personages. This innocent procedure was sufficient excuse to work up an agitation against them, and to introduce an Expulsion Bill.

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_Lord Lyons to Lord Rosebery._

Paris, May 25, 1886.

The question of the day is the expulsion of the Princes. The measure, if taken, will be quite unjustifiable, discreditable to the Government, and, I should say, not at all injurious to the cause of the victims. Considering the people and the institutions with which they had to deal, the partisans of the Orleans Princes have not been so prudent and correct as the Princes themselves. They have gone about twitting the Republicans with weakness for permitting the very mild demonstration made by the Royalists, and declaring that such want of vigour was simply a sign of the decay of the Republic.

* * * * *

The general opinion is that the Expulsion Bill will pass in its present, or even in an aggravated form, and that if it does, the Government will proceed to expel the Comte de Paris at least, if not the Duc de Chartres, and some others. On the other hand, it is not expected that the Bill confiscating the property, real and personal, of the Orleans and Bonapartes will be adopted.

Much anxiety is felt respecting Boulanger's goings on with respect to the army. He seems to think of nothing but currying favour with the lowest ranks in the service, and with the mob outside. It is believed by many people that he would not act vigorously, as Minister of War, against any disturbances, but would try to turn them to account and set up for himself as dictator or what not.

The financial situation is very bad, and if common scandal is to be listened to, the very short duration of French Ministries is having the effect of making most of the individual Ministers very unscrupulous and very impatient to make hay during the very short time that the sun shines.

The above letter contains one of the first allusions to the enterprising impostor Boulanger, who very nearly succeeded in making history, and of whom much was to be heard for some considerable space of time. His popularity was due in great measure to the vague discontent which was then prevalent in France. People thought that they saw the same inefficiency in the Government, the same relaxation of authority, the same financial difficulties, and the same venality which marked the last days of the Second Empire. There seemed to be no individual, in or out of the Royal or Imperial Dynasties, capable of exciting any enthusiasm or of inspiring any confidence, and public feeling was in that state of lassitude and dissatisfaction which might give a reasonable chance for a bold stroke for power.

The scandalous Expulsion Bill passed both Chambers, and the Princes took their departure.

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_Lord Lyons to Lord Rosebery._

Paris, June 25, 1886.

The departure of the Comte de Paris from Eu has been accompanied by many very sad circumstances, but I cannot help thinking that his political position is improved by his expulsion. His own partisans are much pleased at its having elicited from him a distinct assertion of a claim to the throne, and of a determination to work for the restoration of monarchy.

It is less easy to give an opinion on the position of the Princes who have remained in France. It seems to be hardly compatible with dignity and comfort, considering the unabated hostility to them of the Reds, who seem generally to end in overpowering all generous and conservative feelings in the Chambers and in the Government.

Prince Napoleon and his son Prince Victor went off in opposite directions, one to Geneva, the other to Brussels. The departure of neither seems to have made much apparent sensation in Paris when it took place, but I am far from certain that Prince Victor is not really a more formidable opponent to the Republic than is the Comte de Paris.

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_Lord Lyons to Lord Rosebery._

Paris, July 2, 1886.

* * * * *

The topic of the day here is the conduct of the Minister of War, General Boulanger. He was supposed to be an Orleanist. Then he went round to Clémençeau, and was put into Freycinet's Cabinet as a representative of the Clémençeau party, which though not the most Red in the Chamber, is more Red than the Freycinet section. Since he has been in office Boulanger has lost no opportunity of ingratiating himself with the Radicals, and he has been travelling about the country making speeches, the object of which has evidently been to gain personal popularity for himself without regard to his colleagues.

He has also by degrees put creatures of his own into the great military commands. A crisis was produced, during the last few days, by his quarrelling with General Saussier, the military Governor of Paris, and provoking him into resigning. He is also said to have used strange language in the Council of Ministers. At any rate, President Grévy and the Ministers seem to have thought they would be more comfortable at Paris without having a satellite of Boulanger as Governor, and they have insisted upon declining Saussier's resignation. From the way people talk, one would think that the questions were whether Boulanger is aiming at being a Cromwell or a Monk, and if a Monk, which dynasty he will take up.

There is a good deal of alarm here about foreign affairs. The reports of a large concentration of Russian troops in Bessarabia are supposed to confirm other indications that Russia is meditating a revenge for the check she has sustained with regard to Bulgaria. This, it is supposed, must bring Austria into the field. Moreover, Bismarck does not seem to be in an amiable mood towards France; and with or without instigation from him, Germans talk as if war was inevitable.

Then the Republic here has lasted sixteen years, and that is about the time which it takes to make the French tired of a form of Government. The Republic has not been successful financially, and trade and agriculture are not prosperous, nor is the reputation of the Republican administration high for purity or efficiency.

So there is plenty to croak about for those who are inclined to croak.

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_Lord Lyons to Lord Rosebery._

Paris, July 13, 1886.

The regular session of the French Chambers is to be closed the day after to-morrow, and the Chambers are to spend to-morrow at the Review at Longchamps, and I suppose to take part in the other nuisances which makes Paris insupportable on a National Fête day. I conclude the Chambers will come back in October for an extra session as usual. In fact, they have not yet voted the Budget; or, I had almost said, any useful measure. In Commercial matters and indeed in everything relating to intercourse with other countries, they have shown the narrowest and most exclusive spirit. Their great feat has been the law for the persecution of the Princes, which seems to be carried out as harshly as possible. I should not have said that the literal wording of the law necessitated or even justified the dismissal from the army of Princes who already belonged to it, but I suppose that was the intention of the legislators. The Duc d'Aumale's letter to the President is a powerful document, but was sure to lead to his expulsion, and was perhaps intended to have that effect.

Among people who ought to have good information from abroad, the alarm as to a war this autumn seems stronger than among the French politicians who confine themselves more closely to considering French feeling at home. Certainly it comes round to one in various ways from Germany that war is very generally expected, or at all events talked of there. The accounts current in Germany of supposed French provocations look as if there was a party there trying to work up hostile feeling against France. An alliance between France and Russia seems to be the bugbear. I don't see symptoms at present of any war spirit in this country; but of course a quarrel between Russia and Germany would be a great temptation to French Chauvinism.

The abhorred annual fête of July 14, 1886, possessed an interest which had been wanting previously, and has never since been renewed. This was due to the presence of a number of troops at the Longchamps Review who had just returned from Tonquin, and to the excitement caused by the first appearance of Boulanger at a big military display in Paris. Notwithstanding the inflated rubbish which was published the next day in the French press, there could not be the least doubt that the Tonquin troops were received without the slightest enthusiasm. In Paris the very word 'Tonquin' was hated; the country was associated with loss of life, and with heavy taxation, and nothing could have expressed more eloquently the disenchantment produced by a Spirited Colonial Policy, than the chilling reception accorded to these returned soldiers. The enthusiasm which should have been bestowed upon these humble instruments was lavished upon the charlatan who at that moment was the most prominent and popular figure in the eye of the French public.

The military mountebank (aptly christened by Jules Ferry, 'a music hall St. Arnaud') had, with some foresight, provided himself with a high-actioned black circus horse, and those who were present on the occasion will never forget the moment when he advanced to salute the President, and other notabilities established in the official Tribune. Only a few days before, it was currently believed, he had terrified his ministerial colleagues by appearing at a Cabinet Council in uniform, and now as he pranced backwards or forwards on the circus horse and the public yelled their acclamations, President Grévy and the uninteresting crowd of bourgeois ministers and deputies who surrounded him, seemed visibly to quiver and flinch as shuddering memories of December 2 and other _coups d'état_ obtruded themselves upon their recollections.

From that day Boulanger became a dangerous man; the circus horse had done the trick; the general embodied in the public fancy the _clinquant_, for which the French had so long been sighing in secret; _l'homme qui monte à cheval_ in place of _l'homme qui monte à la tribune_, and for a long time he survived even that ridicule which in France is supposed to kill more effectively than elsewhere. Even when he engaged in a duel with an elderly and short-sighted civilian, M. Floquet, and was decisively worsted, he continued to remain a popular hero.

Lord Rosebery, upon whom the unreasonable ill-feeling then constantly shown by the French towards England had made a painful impression, had realized in May that the Gladstone Government was doomed, and had wisely decided in consequence that a process of marking time was preferable to embarking upon anything in the nature of a heroic policy. Upon his retirement and the formation of a new administration, Lord Lyons experienced what was probably the greatest surprise of his life in the shape of the following letter from Lord Salisbury. In order to reinforce its arguments the late Lord Currie, then Permanent Under-Secretary of State at the Foreign Office, was sent over with it to Paris.

* * * * *

Confidential. July 26, 1886.

I accepted yesterday the Queen's commission to form a Government. It is a task full of difficulties; and I would have gladly seen Lord Hartington undertake it. This, however, he could not be induced to do; and the duty falls upon me. One of my first thoughts is to provide a Foreign Secretary for the new Government: for I could not, with any hope of carrying it through successfully, repeat the experiment of last summer by uniting the Foreign Secretaryship with the Premiership.

There is no one possessing the experience and knowledge of Foreign Affairs which you have, and no one whose appointment would exercise so great a moral authority in Europe. And we certainly have not in our political ranks any one who could claim a tithe of the fitness for the office which every one would acknowledge in your case. I earnestly hope the proposal may be not unacceptable to you. If that should happily be the case, a great difficulty in our way will have been most successfully removed.

As there is much to be said on the matter which it would be too long to write, Currie has very kindly undertaken to take this letter over and discuss the matter with you. We have talked it over very fully.

If you should be in need of any interval of repose, I could easily take the seals for a few weeks.

* * * * *

_Lord Lyons to Lord Salisbury._

Paris. July 27, 1886.

Currie brought me your letter early this morning. In answer to it I sent you at 11.30 a.m. the following telegram:--

'I am very much gratified, and I am very grateful for the kind consideration with which your proposal is accompanied, but my age and the state of my health make it quite impossible for me to undertake the office.'

I hope I need not assure you that I am fully sensible of the kindness of your letter, and that if I cannot feel that I merit all you say of me, I am at least grateful for your good opinion.

The truth is, that I could not now undertake new and laborious duties with any confidence that I could discharge them efficiently. I feel the need of rest, and I am not equal to beginning a new life of hard work. I could not conscientiously assume the great responsibility which would be thrown upon me.

If the post of Foreign Secretary has ever been offered during the last hundred years to any other person outside the ranks of orthodox party politicians the secret has been well kept, and it might perhaps be suggested that few people would be found with sufficient strength of mind to decline so glittering a prize. Lord Lyons, however, as is sufficiently evident, found no difficulty in at once deciding upon the refusal of an offer which the ordinary mediocrity would have accepted with avidity. In the above letter he founded his refusal upon grounds of age and ill-health, and in private he used to express the opinion that after the age of forty a man's faculties began and continued to deteriorate. But it is not in the least likely that he would have accepted the honour which it was proposed to bestow upon him, at any period of his life. His extreme modesty and diffidence have already been dwelt upon, but a more valuable quality than these is a man's realization of his own limitations, and it is probable that Lord Lyons, by the exercise of his exceptionally impartial judgment, was able to form a more correct opinion as to his own potentialities than Lord Salisbury. A thorough and profound knowledge of foreign politics is not the sole necessary qualification of an English Foreign Secretary; had such been the case, Lord Lyons would have been an ideal occupant of the post; but in England, where the value of Ministers is gauged chiefly by the fallacious test of oratorical capacity, the Foreign Secretary is constantly obliged to make speeches in defence of or in explanation of his policy, and although the House of Lords is the most long-suffering and good-natured assembly in the world, it would have been no easy task for a man of sixty-nine, who had never put two sentences together in public, to suddenly appear in Parliament as the representative of one of the most important departments, to say nothing of public meetings, deputations, banquets, etc. It may also be doubted whether, in spite of his many admirable qualities, he was really adapted for the post. All his life, he had been merely an instrument--a highly efficient instrument--of the existing Government, and had received instructions, which had invariably been carried out with singular skill and intelligence. But the responsibility had not been his, and as Foreign Secretary the initiative as well as the responsibility which would have rested upon him might have imposed too formidable a strain upon one of so cautious a temperament. Taking into consideration these doubts, his advanced age, failing health, and the effect of depression caused by the recent death of his much loved sister, the Dowager Duchess of Norfolk, the refusal of the Foreign Office by Lord Lyons was only an additional instance of that robust common sense which was one of his most pronounced characteristics. Lord Rosebery, at all events, thought that he had decided wisely.

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_Lord Rosebery to Lord Lyons._

Dalmeny, Aug. 10, 1886.

As my Foreign Office episode is at an end, I write a line of good-bye, not as a Minister, but on the footing of what I hope I may call friendship.

My six months' experience has led me to the conviction that our relations with France are really more troublesome than with any other Power. She is always wanting something of us which it is impossible to give her, and she then says plaintively, 'You never do anything for me.' She is quite oblivious of the fact that she never loses the opportunity of playing us a trick. Witness the secret expedition to the New Hebrides. Nothing would have induced me to go on with any one of the negotiations with Waddington until they had removed their troops from those islands. Whenever he asked for an answer about anything, I always turned the conversation round to that interesting spot.

With this conviction, therefore, it has been a great comfort to feel that you were at Paris.

I am not surprised that you did not care about my succession! It is a weary post.

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_Lord Lyons to Lord Rosebery._

Heron's Ghyll, Uckfield, Aug. 17, 1886.

Your friendly letter has followed me here and has much gratified me.

I think you must look back with great satisfaction to your time at the Foreign Office. You have certainly won golden opinions from your subordinates and from the world at large, which is perhaps a less competent judge. My own official intercourse with you was certainly both very pleasant to me and very satisfactory.

I attribute the difficulties with France more to the inevitable consequences of our coming into contact with the French in all parts of the world, than to any ill-will on either side, although I do not pretend to say that the state of feeling is what I could wish it to be.

Independently of any other considerations, I felt altogether too old to undertake the Foreign Office. I was so convinced of this, that I regarded it as what the French call an objection _préjudicielle_ to entertaining the question at all.

The post which Lord Lyons had declined was accepted by Lord Iddesleigh, who had just been removed from the House of Commons, and, as was only natural, it is evident that he was in the habit of consulting Lord Salisbury before taking any step of importance. In October, 1886, with the concurrence of Lord Salisbury, Lord Lyons was instructed to approach the French Government on the question of Egypt, and to explain the conditions under which it would be possible to terminate the British military occupation. There seems to be absolutely no doubt that Her Majesty's Government were perfectly sincere and honestly desirous of carrying out the promises that had been made at various times, and as subsequent history showed, it was the misguided opposition of France and Russia which was as much responsible as anything else for the permanent British occupation of Egypt.

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_Lord Lyons to Lord Iddesleigh._

Paris, Oct. 22, 1886.

In my previous letter of to-day I have told you what M. de Freycinet said to me about the Suez Canal Convention. I had a long interview with him, but though I gave him plenty of opportunities, he did not say one other word about Egypt. This being the case, I thought it prudent to abstain, at all events at this first interview, from saying anything on my side. So far then I have not made known to him any part of the contents of your letter to Lord Salisbury of the 18th or of his telegraphic answer.

The fact is, that from what I have made out since I came back here, I am led to think that the French Government have now good reason to doubt whether they would get Bismarck's support if they raised the Egyptian question with a view to embarrass us. This being the case, they are very much hesitating to do so, and are on the look-out for signs of our impressions on the subject, and would interpret any appearance of unusual anxiety on our part, or any fresh offers of concessions from us, simply as indications that we still thought Germany might join against us. If the French Government are not pretty sure of help and sympathy from abroad, they will probably not stir in the matter.

In the meantime, however, the press has been strongly excited, probably by d'Aunay and Charmes. There is a very nasty article, principally about the financial part of the Egyptian question, in the _Débuts_ this morning.

I shall perhaps be able to see my way more clearly in a day or two. In the meantime I am disposed to think the most prudent plan will be to be reserved and firm about Egypt, but not to display anxiety on the subject.

The idea of Lord Salisbury, speaking generally, was that a somewhat distant date of evacuation should be foreshadowed; that if evacuation, as was fully intended, should be carried out, some return should be expected for the expenditure of British blood and treasure, and that the Suez Canal difficulty should be settled without further delay. He considered that the negotiations should be carried on with the Porte (Sir Henry Drummond Wolff had already been despatched on this mission), and that confidential communications should be made to France and Germany.

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_Lord Lyons to Lord Iddesleigh._

Paris, Oct. 26, 1886.

I shall be very anxious to know what line Waddington took on his return to his post, and particularly what, if anything, he said about Egypt.

Freycinet is the man chiefly responsible for the refusal of France to join in our expedition to Egypt, and this no doubt makes him very anxious to gain for himself the credit of some striking success in getting England out of that country. So far as I can make out here, the attempts that have been made to get the Powers to unite in calling for a general Conference upon Egyptian affairs have not met with much success. If Bismarck decidedly opposes attempts of this kind, they will no doubt be abandoned. The Press continue to urge strong measures against our continuing in Egypt, and is not measured in its language.

The autumn session is often fatal to French Ministers. I recollect Gambetta's saying to me not long before his own fall: '_En automne les feuilles tombent et les porte-feuilles aussi._'

It is more than likely that the instructions which M. Waddington received about this period were of a disagreeable nature. A well-known French Ambassador once remarked to me some years later, that the London Embassy was no very desirable post from the French diplomatist's point of view. 'We are sent there with the mission of getting the English out of Egypt, and the thing cannot be done!'

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_Lord Lyons to Lord Iddesleigh._

Paris, Nov. 23, 1886.

Freycinet's aim seems to be to improve his own position in the Chambers and in the country by obtaining our withdrawal from Egypt, and of course the object cannot be attained unless he can make it appear that the withdrawal is his doing. Hence his strong desire that we should negotiate with him and his dislike to our negotiating with Turkey or any other Power.

The crushing defeat of the Right in the elections in the Department of the Nord is another proof of their blindness in misusing the chance they had after the general election. They might possibly have led gradually up to a restoration by giving strength to Conservative principles and measures. They could only discredit themselves by joining the extreme Radicals and attempting to produce mischief and confusion.

The Germans are either very dilatory, or they have some _arrière pensée_ about the Zanzibar affair. Yesterday afternoon Münster was still without any instructions to make the joint invitation to the French.

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_Lord Lyons to Lord Iddesleigh._

Paris, Dec. 3, 1886.

You will see by my despatch that Freycinet has again attacked me about Egypt. He wants the negotiation to go through him, and if possible to be made with him, independently of the Turks, or at least virtually in conjunction with us. I have not yet seen any symptoms of his being anxious really to help us in Egyptian matters; and I am not generally favourable to carrying on parallel negotiations, or the same negotiation in different places. The danger of informal conversations between Freycinet and me is that, however cautious I may be, he may somehow or other find occasion to quote me, as being more _coulant_ than you. At any rate, if I had to talk to him it would be very necessary for you to tell me very exactly how far I could go: and above all, that I should be guarded from holding any language which might by any possibility be embarrassing to the line circumstances might make it advisable for Her Majesty's Government to take in Parliament afterwards.

I was long enough at Constantinople to see that no dependence whatever was to be placed upon what the Porte told an Ambassador about his colleagues. Still I cannot say that the Turkish revelation about the communications the Porte affects to receive from the French and Russian Ambassadors about Egypt and about us, are, in the face of them, improbable. At any rate, our views must be much nearer than those we now have to the French ideas, before we shall get any real help from France at the Porte.

I write, as you know, in ignorance of Wolff's opinion, as he did not stop here on his way home.

Freycinet's defeat in the Chamber this afternoon is serious because it followed a strong speech from himself against the _Sous-Préfet_ abolition, but he has wonderful skill in patching things up.

Freycinet in December was defeated by one of those combinations of Royalist and Radicals which were not uncommon in French politics, and although the absurdity of the situation was obvious to every one, insisted on placing his resignation and that of the Cabinet in President Grévy's hands. A change of Government was so useless that even those who had combined to overthrow Freycinet endeavoured to persuade him to reconsider his determination. He remained obdurate, however, and the President, casting about for a successor, pitched at first upon M. Floquet, a strong Radical who was particularly obnoxious to the Russian Government.

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_Lord Lyons to Lord Iddesleigh._

Paris, Dec. 7, 1886.

The chances seem to be in favour of Floquet being Prime Minister. He is of the section of the Chamber called 'Gauche radical,' that is to say, he falls just short of the most extreme Left. Who would be his Minister for Foreign Affairs and what would be his foreign policy I do not pretend to say. The incident in his life most talked about is his having cried out, '_Vive la Pologne!_' and used some expressions taken as disrespectful to the late Emperor of Russia, when His Majesty was at the Palais de Justice, on his visit to Paris during the Exhibition of 1867. The Russian Ambassadors have, I believe, declined or avoided exchanging courtesies with him when he has since been in situations, such as that of _Préfet de la Seine_, and President of the Chamber of Deputies, which have brought him into communication with the rest of the diplomatic body. Russia at this moment is paying so much court to France that she might perhaps get over this.

The Left of the Chamber have hitherto been opposed to the Tonquin and Madagascar Expeditions and to an adventurous and Chauvin policy altogether; but if in power they would probably go in for pleasing the Chamber and the bulk of the people out of doors even more unreservedly than Freycinet did.

I should have regretted Freycinet's fall more, if he had not taken up the Egyptian question in the way he did. Our communications with him on that subject were becoming very uncomfortable. I am not very sanguine, however, about their being more satisfactory with his successor.

The notion, however, of having M. Floquet as Prime Minister frightened every one except the extreme Radicals so much that that gentleman was unable to form an administration, and the choice of the President ultimately fell upon a M. Goblet, who was Radical enough for most people and not much hampered by pledges and declarations. The office of Foreign Minister remained vacant, but, much to the relief of Lord Lyons, it was definitely refused by M. Duclerc. Lord Lyons had, by this time, had no less than twenty-one different French Foreign Ministers to deal with, and of these Duclerc was the one he liked least. No suitable person seemed to be available, and it was in vain that, one after the other French diplomatists were solicited to accept the office. At length a Foreign Minister was found in M. Flourens, a brother of the well-known Communist who was killed in 1871. M. Flourens was completely ignorant of everything concerning foreign affairs, and his appointment was perhaps an unconscious tribute to the English practice of putting civilians at the head of our naval and military administrations.

* * * * *

_Lord Lyons to Lord Iddesleigh._

Paris, Dec. 21, 1886.

I have not yet had the means of improving my acquaintance with Flourens, but I expect to have some conversation with him to-morrow. He had not a word to say about Bulgaria when I saw him on Friday. He did not seem to have known anything about foreign affairs before he took office, nor to expect to stay long enough in office to become acquainted with them. Some people suppose that he is to make way for the return of Freycinet as soon as the Budget is passed. Anyway, the Goblet Ministry is only the Freycinet Ministry over again without the strongest man, who was undoubtedly Freycinet himself. When Parliament meets, things will be just as they were. There will still be in the Chamber 180 Deputies on the Right, ready to vote any way in order to make mischief and discredit the Republic; about 100 Deputies on the extreme Left, intimidating the Government and forcing it into extreme Radical measures, they being able to count in all emergencies upon getting the vote of the Right to turn out a Ministry; and lastly there will be 300 remaining deputies, who cannot agree enough amongst themselves to form a majority that can be relied upon, who do not at all like violent radical measures, but who are too nervously afraid of unpopularity to show resolution in opposing the extreme Left.

So far the Comte de Paris's declaration seems simply to have made the ultra-Monarchists furiously angry, and not to have induced any great part of the Right to think of taking the wise course it recommends.

I do not see any outward signs here of the strained relations between France and Germany and the imminent war between the two countries which the _Standard_ announces. But it is true that among the French themselves some suspicion and distrust of Boulanger's aims are becoming more apparent.

The hackneyed saying: _Plus cela change, plus c'est la même chose_, was never more appropriate than in the case of the change from a Freycinet to a Goblet Government; one section of uninspiring ministers had merely given place to another, and no one in France seemed in any way the better for it.

On New Year's Dav, 1887, President Grévy broke out into Latin in congratulating the Diplomatic Corps on the already long continuance of peace, but a more accurate view of the situation was expressed by a French newspaper in the sentence: 'Jamais année nouvelle ne s'est ouverte au milieu d'autant de promesses de paix et de préparatifs de guerre que l'année 1887.' 'I do not know,' wrote Lord Lyons, 'which is the nation which wishes for war. France certainly does not, she is, on the contrary, very much afraid of it. But one would feel more confidence in peace if there appeared less necessity in all countries to be perpetually giving pacific assurances. There are rumours of a defensive alliance between Russia and France. The bond of union between the two countries, if it exists, must be simply a common hatred of Germany.'

At the beginning of the year 1887, the Germans professed to be in dread of an attack from France, while the French complained that they were threatened by Germany. In France it was believed that in August, 1886, preparations had been actually made to mobilize the German army, and the language held by Boulanger was to the effect that the military power of France would be found to be very different to what it was in 1870. Meanwhile an unsuccessful attempt had been made by those two old Parliamentary hands, Freycinet and Ferry, to get rid of Boulanger, who was now becoming to be considered as equally dangerous both in France and Germany.

It was probably the apprehension caused by the presence of this adventurer, whose incapacity was as yet imperfectly realized, that was responsible for the state of tension and alarm which prevailed in France during January and February, 1887.

* * * * *

_Lord Lyons to Lord Salisbury._[44]

Paris, Jan. 18, 1887.

I saw M. Grévy this morning, and found him, as it seemed to me, really alarmed at the possibility of France being attacked by Germany. The only overt act he spoke of, on the part of Germany, was the increase of the strength of the German garrisons in the neighbourhood of the French frontier. Grévy himself is most peaceful, and quite sincerely so. His natural character and temperament, and his interest too, tend that way. He would hardly be able to hold his own as President in case of war, and there is very little chance of France going to war as long as he is the head of the State. Flourens also spoke to me of danger to France and Germany when I saw him this afternoon.

I think the alarm of Grévy and Flourens was sincere, though I do not share it myself at this moment.

In France there is no desire to go to war, and I doubt whether she is able, or at all events fancies herself able, to cope with Germany.

It is perhaps more difficult to keep her on good terms with us. Egypt is a sore which will not heal. There was a nasty discussion about Newfoundland Fisheries in the Senate yesterday. I send you a full report officially. Happily, so far, it has not had much echo in the public.

Alarm with respect to Germany continued to grow, and was fed by private communications from Bismarck, who sent by unofficial agents messages to the effect that 'he was all for peace, but that it was impossible for him to stand the way that France was going on.' These messages came through Bleichröder and members of the _haute finance_ in Paris, who expressed the opinion that if Boulanger remained in office, war with Germany was certain. The _haute finance_ is by no means invariably correct in its political judgment, but it seems highly probable that the war scares prevalent in 1887 were promulgated with the object of getting rid of the troublesome firebrand upon whom so much public attention was concentrated. The position of Boulanger, however, was a strong one, and to dislodge him was a work of no slight difficulty. Ever since the day when he had been taken into Freycinet's Cabinet he had contrived by adroit advertising to keep himself before the public, and to distinguish himself from his colleagues as exercising a separate and commanding influence in the Chambers and with the public. In the army he had managed to make himself feared by the higher officers and assiduously courted popularity with the rank and file. In the political world he had at first been regarded as being ultra democratic, but now excited suspicion by paying court to the Conservatives, and by endeavouring, not entirely without success, to obtain their good will.

On the whole, there was a very general impression that he was ambitious, self-seeking, and thoroughly unscrupulous; but there were few means of forming an opinion as to what his special plans really were, if indeed he had formed any. Still he successfully flattered the belief of the French that they were fast emerging from the eclipse in which their military power and reputation were involved in 1870, and there were not wanting those who asserted that he was inclined to seek a war, in the hope of conducting it with success, and so establishing himself as a military dictator. Others, influenced by their wishes, indulged in the hope that he might be meditating a Monarchist restoration under an Orleanist or Bonapartist Dynasty. Unsubstantial and improbable as these suppositions may have been, it was plain that in the army and among the public at large there prevailed a vague notion that he might be the man of the future, a notion fostered by the absence of any one recognized in France as possessing conspicuous and commanding abilities, and by the craving for a real personality after a long succession of second-class politicians.

The embarrassment with regard to Germany created by the presence of so disturbing an element in the Government as Boulanger did not, contrary to what might have been expected, tend to improve Anglo-French relations, and a letter from Lord Salisbury expresses in forcible terms his dissatisfaction at difficulties which seemed to have been gratuitously created.

* * * * *

_Lord Salisbury to Lord Lyons._

Feb. 5, 1887.

The French are inexplicable. One would have thought that under existing circumstances it was not necessary to _make_ enemies--that there were enough provided for France by nature just now. But she seems bent upon aggravating the patient beast of burden that lives here by every insult and worry her ingenuity can devise. In Newfoundland she has issued orders which, if faithfully executed, must bring the French and English fleets into collision. At the New Hebrides, in spite of repeated promises, she will not stir. In Egypt she baulks a philanthropic change out of pure 'cussedness.' In Morocco she is engaged in appropriating the territory by instalments, threatening to reach Tangier at no distant date. And now, just as we are entering on pacific negotiations, the French Government sent orders to do precisely that which, a month ago, Waddington promised they should not do, namely run up the French flag at Dongorita.[45] It is very difficult to prevent oneself from wishing for another Franco-German war to put a stop to this incessant vexation.

We have protested earnestly about Dongorita, which has more the air of a studied insult than any of the others. As to the Newfoundland Fisheries, if they execute their threats, they render the passage of a Bait Bill next year a matter of certainty. We have strained the good will of the colonists very far in refusing to allow it this year. The other matters will, I suppose, be the subject of slow negotiations.

D'Herbette has made at Berlin more practical suggestions as to naming a date for the annexation of Egypt than we have yet had from the French Government. I hope the large majorities will persuade the French that the national feeling is in this instance not in favour of scuttle.

All that Lord Lyons, who was always most anxious to make the best case he could for the French, was able to say in their defence, was that he hoped that it was an exceptionally dark moment, and that there must be a change shortly for the better.

* * * * *

_Lord Lyons to Lord Salisbury._

Paris, Feb. 18, 1887.

The French seem to be more confident of peace and altogether in better spirits than they were a few days ago, but I do not know that they have any positive facts or distinct information to go upon. The hopes of a certain number of them rest upon the belief that the Goblet Ministry is likely to be upset as soon as the Budget is finally disposed of, and that thus Boulanger will be got rid of.

The newspaper accounts of Wolff's mission to Constantinople have brought Egypt on the tapis again, and as anxiety about Germany falls into the background, irritation against England comes prominently forward. There are, however, some symptoms of a return among wiser men to more prudent and reasonable views respecting the relations of France towards England. These men are alarmed especially respecting the hostility towards France which is apparent in Italy, and they see the folly of making enemies on all sides. If there should be a new Ministry it might possibly pursue a policy more friendly towards England with regard to Egypt and other matters. The Egyptian question would no doubt become less difficult if a change should remove M. Charmes from the Foreign Office and put into his place, as Political Director there, a man less prejudiced about Egypt.

In the meantime much amusement has been caused by an escapade of Madame Flourens. On Saturday last she called upon Countess Marie Münster, and found with her Count Hoyos, the Austrian Ambassador. Madame Flourens announced loudly that her husband had resigned the Foreign Office, because Boulanger had attempted, without his knowledge, to send a letter direct to the Emperor of Russia by the French Military Attaché, who was to start for St. Petersburg. Hoyos fetched Münster himself out of an adjoining room, to hear the story. Madame Flourens, it appeared, supposed that Flourens was on the point of announcing his resignation to the Chamber of Deputies. It turned out, however, that Flourens had made a scene with Boulanger at the Council of Ministers, had gone away in a huff, but had been subsequently calmed by M. Grévy and M. Goblet; no letter to the Emperor had been sent, and the resignation had been withdrawn. The story had of course spread all over the town. In defiance of truth, a _communiqué_ contradicting it was inserted in the _Agence Havas_, with no other effect than that of discrediting the _communiqués_ which the Government is apt to put into the Havas.

There is so little mention of women in Lord Lyons's correspondence that Madame Flourens's indiscretion comes as a welcome relief, although in all probability it got the unfortunate Count Münster into trouble with Bismarck, and afforded an excuse for fresh bullying. Count Münster, who had been for many years Ambassador in London, where he had been extremely popular, found the transfer to Paris singularly unpleasant, more especially as in order to make things thoroughly uncomfortable for him, Bismarck had provided an entirely new Embassy Staff.

* * * * *

_Lord Salisbury to Lord Lyons._

Feb. 19, 1887.

* * * * *

We are thinking of renewing our negotiations with respect to the Suez Canal in a serious spirit. But before we sign anything we shall want some satisfaction about Dongorita and the New Hebrides, and possibly about the Corvée.

I think it was very shabby of the French to open the Dongorita affair upon us, just after we had made so material a concession upon the subject of the bait in Newfoundland.

Waddington is gloomy and rather ill-tempered--either from the fogs or the crisis. I have not had any further talk with him about Egypt lately. I think he avoids the subject. Wolff tells me that the French Chargé d'Affaires at Constantinople is a mere creature of Nelidoff's. Our negotiations are dragging on with little prospect of success. We are willing to fix a distant date for our leaving, if we receive a treaty power to go back whenever internal or external security are threatened. The tone in which both France and Turkey have received this proposal may be best expressed by the colloquial phrase 'Damn their impudence!' I do not expect to carry what I want at present, but before modifying these terms, I should like to know what is going to happen in Europe.

Sir Henry Drummond Wolff was at this time at Constantinople endeavouring to negotiate the Convention with regard to the evacuation of Egypt, and the French and Russian Embassies were actively engaged in the senseless opposition which eventually prevented the ratification of the Convention. The above letter from Lord Salisbury is an additional proof of the honest desire of the British Government to carry out the rash undertakings which had been given in the past.

* * * * *

_Lord Lyons to Lord Salisbury._

Paris, Feb. 25, 1887.

The general feeling here seems to be that war has been escaped, but still there is a good deal of discontent against the foreign policy of the Goblet Cabinet. It seems to be considered that the understanding between Italy, Austria, and Germany is as good as made, and that the result of it will be to put an end to any fear of war between Russia and Austria. On the other hand, it is thought that Russia will feel it too necessary to watch Germany for it to be prudent of her to make an alliance with France, while without the alliance of Russia, France of course cannot face Germany, particularly as she has almost hostility to expect from Italy and no great sympathy to look for from England. The policy which has thus isolated France from the other Powers is seen to have been a mistake, and there seems to be a disposition to throw the blame on the Goblet Ministry. If the Goblet Ministry should fall, it is not improbable that the new Government might take the line of being conciliatory to the neighbouring countries and to Italy and England in particular. I am not very sanguine about this, but if in the meantime no irritating questions come to excite public opinion against us, there may possibly be a chance that a change of Ministry here would make our relations with France smoother.

My hopes that a change towards England may be in contemplation have perhaps been strengthened by a visit which I have just had from a person wholly unconnected with the French Ministry who evidently came to ascertain what were the particular points with regard to which the relations between France and England might be improved. I said that instead of thwarting us in our endeavours to improve the condition of Egypt and put it in a state to stand alone, the French might help us; and they could not expect comfortable relations with us if they endeavoured to stir up other Powers to make difficulties with us about Egypt. I mentioned also the New Hebrides question, which most certainly ought and might be settled at once. I alluded also to those various matters all over the world which might be treated in a cordial and not in an antagonistic spirit.

P.S.--I have strong reasons for thinking it very important that Waddington should not have the least inkling of my having had the above interview, or any communication of the kind.

* * * * *

_Lord Salisbury to Lord Lyons._

Feb. 26, 1887.

I will not mention to Waddington the interview which you have had as to English grounds of complaint. I have not seen him for ten days: he must have taken huff at something.

I think, as the French are coming to their senses, it might be well to mention unofficially to Flourens that I am quite ready to resume the negotiations about the Suez Canal; and that I have good hope of bringing it to a successful issue, but that I am hindered by the flag that is floating at Dongorita, and by the delay of the French in performing their promises as regards the New Hebrides. We are being a good deal reproached here, on account of our apparent submission to this breach of faith. If these two matters are corrected, I shall find it possible, and shall be very glad to renew the Suez Canal discussion either at Paris or here.

I have seen Karolyi to-day--an unusual occurrence--and for the first time have had the admission from him that a war with Russia was not an impossible contingency.

The Russians are very quiet; and the negotiations about Bulgaria do not really advance a bit.

M. Flourens, in spite of his complete inexperience, seems to have realized the simple fact that it was not advisable to quarrel with England just at the moment when relations with Germany were in a critical condition; but unhappily the public did not appear to be in an accommodating mood. The statements published in the English press respecting the Drummond Wolff mission had caused great irritation, and what was perhaps more serious, had alarmed the French again about the security of the coupons. As long as they felt sure that the coupons would be paid regularly, and that there was no fear of future reduction, they were reasonably patient, unless some specially severe blow, such as a reduction of the numbers and salaries of French officials, as compared with English, was struck at their _amour propre_. Now, however, they were beset with the fear that, under what they considered to be English mismanagement, they were about to lose their money as well as their influence.

In March the Goblet Ministry was already in difficulties, and it was believed that Freycinet was likely to return to power, although what the precise advantages were of these continual changes, no one was capable of explaining.

* * * * *

_Lord Lyons to Lord Salisbury._

March 8, 1887.

By taking credit to himself at the expense of his predecessors, in the interpellation yesterday, Goblet has stirred up the bile of a large party in the Chamber, and the determination to turn his Cabinet out, if possible, has revived with fresh vigour. It is supposed that the attempts will be made as soon as the Corn Duties Bill is disposed of. It seems to be thought that, if it succeeds, Freycinet must be Prime Minister; but there appears to be a strong feeling against his having the Foreign Office again. He is thought to have got France into uncomfortable relations with many of his neighbours. In the treatment of the Egyptian question he is believed to have sacrificed cordiality with England to a desire to regain the popularity he had lost by the policy which led to England's occupying her present position in Egypt; while his attempt to get up an opposition to England on the part of the European Powers and his worrying way of dealing himself with the British Government about Egypt, are thought simply to have excited public opinion on both sides of the Channel and to have provoked ill will, without in the least improving the position of France. There can be no doubt that Freycinet looked upon a success with regard to Egypt as a personal necessity for himself, and was much influenced in his policy towards England by this feeling.

It is apprehended that unless the _prestige_ of Boulanger is put on high again by strong language from Germany, there will be no difficulty in obtaining, as a matter of course, his fall, with the rest of the Cabinet of which he is a part. M. Grévy is believed to be very anxious to be rid of him.

I hear on good authority that the Russians have been trying again, though without success, to come to a special understanding with the French Government.

To say that M. Grévy was very anxious to be rid of Boulanger was probably an understatement, for he could not conceivably have desired anything so ardently. But the 'Music Hall St. Arnaud' was by no means at the end of his tether, and had contrived to advertise himself by egregious conduct with regard to the Army Committee of the Chamber of Deputies. That Committee had drawn up a military Bill, based upon three years' service, and Boulanger, on the pretext that it was 'not sufficiently faithful to democratic principles,' had, without consulting any of his colleagues, written a letter condemning the provisions of the bill and proposing something quite different. This letter was thoughtfully communicated to the press before it reached the Committee, and the outraged members of the Committee as well as his colleagues were at last goaded into resistance. The Chamber condemned the attitude of the General towards the sacrosanct representatives of the nation; the General himself beat a hasty and prudent retreat under cover of an apology; the Moderate Republicans denounced him as a would-be dictator, and the Ultra-Radicals accused him of cowardice in consequence of his apology. Most men under the circumstances would have felt disposed to resign office, but in the case of Boulanger it was probably immaterial to him whether he was blamed or praised, so long as he could keep his name before the public.

It was, and probably is still, a regulation in the British Diplomatic Service, that its members should retire at the age of seventy, and, as a rule, an Ambassador who had attained that age, usually considered himself fit to discharge his duties for a further period. Lord Lyons, however, was an exception. His seventieth birthday fell due in April, and a month beforehand he wrote to announce that he wished to resign.

* * * * *

_Lord Lyons to Lord Salisbury._

Paris, March 22, 1887.

Towards the end of the next month, the time will come when I shall be superannuated, and I feel very strongly that it will not come too soon. It will not be without a pang that I shall find myself no longer a diplomatic servant of the Queen, who has ever received my endeavours to obtain her approval with the most generous indulgence. But the labour and responsibility of this post are becoming too much for me, and I shall be anxious to be relieved from them when the time fixed by the regulations arrives.

I need not assure you that I shall much regret the termination of the official connexion with you from which I have derived so much satisfaction.

It may not unfairly be presumed that resignations of important official posts are habitually welcomed by Governments, as they not only remedy stagnation in the public service, but frequently provide opportunities for political patronage. It is plain, however, that the prospect of losing Lord Lyons was looked upon by Lord Salisbury as a genuine misfortune, and he did his best to induce him to reconsider his decision.

* * * * *

_Lord Salisbury to Lord Lyons._

March 26, 1887.

I have considered your letter of the 22nd, stating that you felt very strongly that the time of your superannuation would not come too soon; and though it was a matter of very deep regret to me to receive such an announcement from you, it was not altogether a matter of surprise; for I remembered the language you had used to me when I tried to induce you to join us as Foreign Secretary last July.

The loss which the Diplomatic Service will suffer by your retirement will be profound, and, for the time, hardly possible to repair. Your presence at Paris gave to the public mind a sense of security which was the result of a long experience of your powers, and which no one else is in a position to inspire.

In face of the expressions in your letter I feel as if I were almost presuming in suggesting any alternative course of action. But it struck me that possibly you might be willing to make your official career terminate with the end of your current appointment, rather than with the precise date of superannuation. The effect of this would be to prolong your stay at Paris till next December.

My reasons from a public point of view will, I hope, strike you at once. We are passing through a very anxious European crisis. If any fateful decisions are taken this year, it will be within the next three or four months. It will add very much to our anxiety to know that the reins at Paris are in new hands, which have never held them before. This mere fact may even be an element of danger. The avalanche hangs so loosely, that any additional sensation or uneasiness may displace it. If we could avoid a change till the winter it would be a great public advantage, even if the change should be inevitable.

I hope you will forgive me for having pressed this on you in the interests of the public service. Whatever your decision may be, I give you the warmest thanks for the kind and loyal support which you have always given to the policy which it has been my duty to carry out.

An appeal of this kind from an official chief could not well be disregarded, setting aside the fact that but few officials can have experienced the compliment of being assured that their continued service was essential to the peace of Europe. With well justified misgivings, Lord Lyons therefore consented to remain on until the end of the year, knowing perfectly well that his physical energies were on the point of exhaustion.

* * * * *

_Lord Lyons to Lord Salisbury._

Paris, March 29, 1887.

I am deeply touched by your letter of the 26th, and I feel that, after what you say in it, I should be extremely ungrateful if I were not ready to sacrifice a great deal to meet your views.

For my own part I feel that the work and responsibility here are an increasing strain both upon my mind and upon my bodily health, and I am beset with misgivings lest, even in ordinary times, I may be unable to discharge my duties with energy and efficiency, and lest, in an emergency calling for much labour, I may break down altogether. This being the case, it would undoubtedly be a great relief and comfort to me to retire on becoming superannuated towards the end of next month.

Begging you to take the misgivings into full consideration, and to be sure that they have not been conceived without good reason, and that they are strongly and very seriously felt by me, I place myself in your hands. If after giving full weight to them, you still think that it would be a satisfaction to you that I should continue to hold this post till the winter, and that it would be a great public advantage to avoid a change till that time, I am ready to stay on, and trusting to your indulgence to do my best.

I should, of course, look upon it as quite settled that in any case I should retire at latest when my current appointment comes to an end at the close of the present year.

If you wish me to hold on, I must ask you what, if any, announcement respecting my retirement should be made. Up to this time I have simply stated to people who have questioned me, that nothing was definitely settled. I did not mention to any one my intention to write my letter of the 22nd expressing to you my wish to retire, nor have I made any one acquainted with my having written it, except of course Sheffield, who, as my private secretary, made a copy of it for me to keep. The question, therefore, as to announcing my retirement remains intact.

I cannot conclude without once more saying how much I am gratified by the appreciation of my services expressed in your letter, and how truly I feel the kindness shown by it.

The offer was accepted by Lord Salisbury in singularly flattering terms, Queen Victoria also expressing much satisfaction at the consent of the Ambassador to remain at his post. From Lord Salisbury's language, it might be inferred that he was in some doubt as to whether his own tenure of office was likely to be prolonged.

I have had no hesitation in availing myself of your kind consent--though you seemed to doubt whether on reflection I should do so. Of course I fully understand that you do not feel equal to the amount of exertion which you would take in a more favourable condition of health. But this circumstance will not detract from the great value of your counsel and judgment, nor from the authority which by so many years of experience you have acquired.

I quite understand that towards the close of the session of Parliament you will require the holiday you have been accustomed to take in recent years. I hope also to get to a bath at that time--whether I am in office or not.

Why Lord Salisbury should have spoken so doubtfully is not clear, unless instinct warned him of Miss Cass, who was the first to strike a blow at the Unionist administration. At the end of March there reappeared the mysterious emissary who has been already mentioned. There are no means of actually establishing his identity, but there can be little doubt that it was M. de Chaudordy, who represented the French Foreign Office at Tours and Bordeaux during the war. M. de Chaudordy had made friends with Lord Salisbury at the time of the Constantinople Conference in 1876, and he was, therefore, a suitable person to utilize for the purpose of making advances towards a better understanding between the two Governments.

* * * * *

_Lord Lyons to Lord Salisbury._

Paris, March 29, 1887.

In a private letter which I wrote to you on the 25th of last month, I mentioned that I had received a visit from a person wholly unconnected officially with the French Government, who appeared to have come to ascertain what were the particular points with regard to which the relations between the English and French Governments might be improved. The same person has been to me again to-day, and has only just left me. This time he did not conceal that it was after being in communication with Flourens that he came. He enlarged on the embarrassing and indeed dangerous position in which France was placed by the adherence of Italy to the Austro-German Alliance, and said that M. Flourens was ready to make almost any sacrifice to secure the good will of England. I said that there could be no great difficulty in this, if only France would abstain from irritating opposition to us, and would settle promptly and satisfactorily outstanding questions. My visitor answered that Flourens conceived that he had sent conciliatory instructions to Waddington which would settle these questions, and that both Waddington and Florian[46] (who had come on leave) reported that there was decidedly a _détente_ in the strain which had existed in the Anglo-French relations. I said that I was delighted to hear it, and that it showed how ready you were to welcome all conciliatory overtures. My friend seemed on this occasion, as on the last, to wish me to tell him some special thing which Flourens might do to please you. I said that I should at any rate mention a thing which he might do to avoid displeasing you. He might prevent the French setting up an opposition to financial proposals in Egypt in cases in which all the other Powers were ready to agree. My friend spoke of Flourens's readiness to give to Russia on the Bulgarian question advice which you might suggest, and he mentioned various things which he thought M. Flourens might be ready to do to please England. These things appeared to me to be rather too grand and too vague in character to be very practical. I said, however, that I would always bear in mind what he had told me of M. Flourens's good dispositions, and would speak frankly and unreservedly to the Minister whenever I could make a suggestion as to the means of acting upon those dispositions in a manner to be satisfactory to England.

The conclusions I drew from the conversation of Flourens's friend were that the French are horribly afraid of our being led to join the Italo-Austro-German Alliance, and that they have been urged by Russia to exert themselves to prevent this. I do not conceive that the French expect to induce us to join them against the Germans and the German Alliance. What they want is to feel sure that we shall not join the others against France and Russia.

It is somewhat curious that M. Flourens, who was evidently desirous of establishing better relations with England, should have selected an unofficial person for communication, rather than approach the Ambassador himself; but perhaps, being quite ignorant of diplomatic usage, he considered it necessary to shroud his action in mystery. The Triple Alliance dated in reality from 1882, Italy having joined the Austro-German Alliance in that year; but a new Treaty had been signed in the month of February, 1887, and caused the French to feel a well-justified alarm. In fact, their position was anything but a happy one, for it was generally believed that the Emperor Alexander III. had resolved, since the abortive attempt on his life, that he would never ally himself with Revolutionists, and that he considered the French to be arch-Revolutionists. Perhaps this belief may have accounted in some measure for Flourens's amiable professions towards England.

In the month of April there occurred one of those incidents which are the despair of peaceably minded politicians and the delight of sensational journalism and of adventurers of the Boulanger type. A certain M. Schnaebelé, a French Commissaire de Police, was induced to cross the German frontier, and thereupon was arrested and imprisoned. The act had the appearance of provocation and naturally caused a prodigious uproar in France; Flourens endeavouring to settle the matter diplomatically and Boulanger seizing the opportunity to display patriotic truculence.

* * * * *

_Lord Lyons to Lord Salisbury._

Paris, April 26, 1887.

So far as one can judge at present the French are irritated beyond measure by the arrest at Pagny, but generally they still shrink from war. It will not, I conceive, be difficult for Bismarck to keep at peace with them, if he really wishes to do so. The danger is that they are persuaded that he is only looking out for a pretext, and that however much they may now give way, he will be bent upon humiliating them till they _must_ resent and resist. I don't see that so far the German Government have treated the Pagny affair as if they wished to make a quarrel of it. The German _Chargé d'Affaires_ has taken many messages from Berlin to Flourens in the sense that if Schnaebelé shall prove to have been arrested on German soil, all satisfaction shall be given. But, then, in the Press of the two countries a controversy is raging as to which side of the frontier he was arrested on, and as to whether or no he was inveigled over the frontier.

The French undoubtedly shrink from war, but they do not shrink from it as much as they did ten years ago; and if the press should get up a loud popular cry, there is no Government strength to resist it. I conceive that at this moment the Government is pacific, and that it does not believe the army to be yet ready. But if, as is no doubt the case, the Germans also believe that the French army is not as ready now as it will be two or three years hence, they may be impatient to begin. In the mean time, so far as I can make out, the Pagny affair is being treated by the two Governments with each other, in correct form diplomatically, and without any apparent willingness to embitter matters. I cannot say as much for the press on either side, though there are symptoms of prudence and caution in the moderate French papers.

The Schnaebelé incident was disposed of by his release from prison and transfer to another post at Lyons; but the agitation did not subside readily, and a bill brought in by Boulanger to mobilize an army corps caused much disquietude at the German Embassy. It was now generally known that Bismarck considered Boulanger a danger and desired his removal from the War Office; but the very knowledge of this feeling and the support accorded to him by the League of Patriots and other noisy organizations rendered this step all the more difficult.

* * * * *

_Lord Lyons to Lord Salisbury._

Paris, May 13, 1887.

I have not heard of any new incident between France and Germany, but the suspicion and susceptibility with which the two nations, and indeed the two Governments, regard each other, are certainly not diminishing.

In France home politics are in so peculiar a state as to be positively disquieting. The Budget Committee and the Ministry have come to an open breach, and the Committee intend to propose to the Chamber a resolution which apparently must, if carried, turn out the Goblet Cabinet. This the Chamber would be willing enough to do, if it could see its way to forming another Government. The plan would be to form a Ministry with Freycinet as Prime Minister, but not as Minister for Foreign Affairs, and without Boulanger. But then they are afraid to try and upset Boulanger, while they feel that to form a new Government and put Boulanger in it would be, or might be, taken in Germany as a plain indication that they are warlike at heart. It is an emergency in which the Chief of the State should exert himself; but Grévy's caution has become something very like lethargy. In the mean time they are letting Boulanger grow up into a personage whose position may be a danger to the Republic at home, even if it does not embroil the country in a foreign war. The redeeming point in all this is that the Government does seem to feel that it would not do to be upon bad terms with England, and that it would be wise to be conciliatory toward us.

The Goblet Ministry soon found itself in hopeless difficulty over the Budget, and it was plain that another aimless change of men was inevitable. Goblet's Government had lasted for five months (inclusive of a prolonged recess), and the real question of interest was whether Boulanger was to be a member of the new Government or not. If he was included in it, it was apprehended that the suspicions of Germany would be aggravated; and on the other hand, it was doubtful whether any Government could be formed without him. An ultra-patriotic demonstration in Paris against German music, in the shape of Wagner's operas, was eloquent of the state of feeling between the two nations at the time, and the Government found that the only course open to them was to close the theatre where the obnoxious productions were to have appeared.

* * * * *

_Lord Lyons to Lord Salisbury._

Paris, May 20, 1887.

Freycinet appears to have agreed with Grévy to try and form a Cabinet and to be hard at work at the task. Of course the question is whether Boulanger is or is not to be in the new Cabinet? It was believed this morning that Grévy and Freycinet had decided upon offering to keep him as Minister of War. As the day has gone on, however, the belief has gained ground that Freycinet has not found colleagues willing to run the risk of war which the maintenance of Boulanger would produce, and that he is to propose to Grévy a Cabinet from which Boulanger is to be excluded. He is, however, to make it an essential condition with Grévy that he is to have the power to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies in his hands, as without this power he does not feel able to form a Cabinet without Boulanger, or indeed any Cabinet at all. In the mean time the Reds are getting up in all directions addresses and petitions in favour of Boulanger, with a view to forcing Grévy's and Freycinet's hands and working on their fears. If Boulanger is got rid of, the immediate danger of war will probably be escaped for the moment. Boulanger's own character, and the position in which he has placed himself, make him threatening to peace; and the opinion held of him in Germany and the irritation felt against him there make him still more dangerous.

* * * * *

_Lord Lyons to Lord Salisbury._

Paris, May 24, 1887.

The last news is supposed to be that Floquet, the President of the Chamber, has undertaken the task of forming a Ministry, and that he will keep many of the outgoing Ministers, Boulanger included. The goings and comings at the Elysée; the singular selections of men to be Prime Ministers, or quasi Prime Ministers, and the apparent want of firmness and inability to exercise any influence on the part of the President of the Republic, have certainly not increased the reputation of M. Grévy. Floquet will, I suppose, be unacceptable to Russia, for the Russians have always ostentatiously kept up the show of resentment against him for the cry, offensive to the Emperor Alexander II., which he raised when that monarch visited the Palais de Justice during the Exhibition of 1867. Boulanger has lately declared that he does not want to continue to be Minister, but that if he is Minister, he will, whatever Germany may say, continue his mobilization scheme, and not relax in his preparations to resist an attack from Germany, and to avert the necessity of submitting to humiliation.

I think, in fact, that things look very bad for France both at home and abroad. I can only hope that as the phases of the Ministerial crisis change from hour to hour, you may receive by telegraph some more satisfactory news before you get this letter.

In course of time a new Ministry was formed under M. Rouvier, and the important fact attaching to it was that Boulanger had been got rid of. Otherwise there was nothing much to distinguish the new Ministers from the old, and they seemed disposed to angle for popularity in the country much in the same way as Freycinet and Goblet.

The object of removing Boulanger had been to reassure and placate Germany, but no sooner had this been done, than the Government appeared to feel alarmed at the danger of incurring unpopularity in the country, and hastily announced that the new Minister of War would continue to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor.

Again, it had been understood that one of the objects of the new Government would be to put an end to the isolation of France by placing itself on more cordial terms with the neighbouring nations and especially with England; but what it appeared anxious to profess, was the intention of stoutly refusing to accept or even acquiesce in the Anglo-Turkish Convention respecting Egypt. All this, as Lord Lyons observed, might proceed in great measure from ignorance and inexperience, and might be mitigated by the knowledge of affairs and sense of responsibility which accompany office, but still it was disquieting: all the more disquieting, because the French Foreign Minister never failed to intimate that France would never be a party to an arrangement which would confer upon England an international right to re-occupy Egypt under certain circumstances after evacuation, whilst France was to be formally excluded from enjoying an equal right.

* * * * *

_Lord Lyons to Lord Salisbury._

Paris, July 12, 1887.

Baron Alphonse de Rothschild came to see me this afternoon, and told me that the last accounts he had received from Berlin caused him to feel more than usual alarm as to the feelings of Prince Bismarck and of the Germans in general towards France. They did not indeed imply that Germany was actually contemplating any immediate declaration of war, but they did show that in Germany war with France was regarded as a contingency that could not be long postponed, and of which the postponement was not desirable for German interests. The Germans did not seem to be prepared to incur the opprobrium of Europe by attacking France without having the appearance of a good reason for doing so, but they did seem to be looking out impatiently for a plausible pretext for a rupture; far from being sorry, they would be very glad if France would furnish them with such a pretext. Prince Bismarck was evidently not disposed to facilitate the task of M. Rouvier's Government, notwithstanding the pledges it had given of its desire for peace abroad, and the efforts it was making to promote moderation at home.

Baron de Rothschild had, he told me, seen M. Rouvier to-day and made all this known to him. He had pointed out to him the danger which arose from the sort of coalition against France of the Powers of Europe, had dwelt on the importance of making almost any sacrifice to break up this coalition, and had especially urged the imprudence of allowing coldness, if not ill-will, to subsist between France and England.

M. Rouvier had expressed an anxious desire to establish cordial relations with England.

Baron de Rothschild had answered that the time had come to show this by acts, and had strongly pressed M. Rouvier to settle without any delay the outstanding questions which produced irritation between the two countries. M. Rouvier had expressed his intention to do so, and Baron de Rothschild had reason to believe that this was also the desire and intention of M. Flourens.

I said that I heard this with great pleasure, and that I had received with much satisfaction assurances to the same effect respecting M. Flourens's sentiments, which had come to me indirectly through various channels. I must, however, confess that I had not found in M. Flourens himself any disposition to push assurance to this effect beyond generalities. I had not seen any strong practical instances of a desire on his part to give a speedy and satisfactory solution to outstanding questions.

Baron de Rothschild observed that what he had said on this point to M. Rouvier had appeared to make a considerable impression on him.

I said that it so happened that I should in all probability have the means of testing this almost immediately. I had in fact only yesterday strongly urged M. Flourens to close a question, that of the New Hebrides, which was creating suspicion and annoyance to England and causing great inconvenience in consequence of the very strong feeling about it which prevailed in the colonies. The two Governments were entirely in accord in principle upon it, and in fact it was only kept open by the pertinacity with which the French Government delayed to take the formal step necessary for closing it.

Baron de Rothschild went on to tell me that in speaking of the relations with England, M. Rouvier alluded to the convention negotiated by Sir Drummond Wolff at Constantinople, and said that he did not see why it should produce any lasting disagreement between France and England. Whether it was ratified or not, France might be as conciliatory as possible towards England in dealing with the matter in future. In answer I suppose to a remark from Baron de Rothschild, M. Rouvier would seem to have said that the Comte de Montebello[47] appeared to have gone far beyond his instructions in the language he had used to the Porte.

I asked Baron de Rothschild whether M. Rouvier had also said that the Comte de Montebello had received any check or discouragement from the Government at Paris.

Passing on from this, Baron de Rothschild told me that before concluding the conversation, he had pointed out to M. Rouvier that the great addition of strength which the Ministry had received from the vote of the Chamber yesterday, would enable them to act with more independence and vigour, and that they might now settle questions with England, and establish good relations with her without being under the constant fear of a check in the Chamber of Deputies.

There can be no doubt that, in fact, the position of the Rouvier Ministry has been immensely strengthened by the large vote they obtained yesterday on the interpellation put forward against them on the subject of Monarchical and Clerical intrigues. It is earnestly to be hoped, for their own sakes, and for the sake of France, that they will turn it to account in order to pursue a more reasonable and conciliatory policy towards England, and to take stronger and more effectual means of preserving order in Paris. The riot at the Lyons railway station seems to have done Boulangism harm even among the ultra-Radicals, and to have been the main cause of Boulanger's having been thrown over by Radical speakers in the Chamber yesterday. But it is a very dangerous thing to give the Paris mob its head.

M. Rouvier's friendly assurances with regard to England had, of course, been imparted to the Baron in order that they might be communicated to the British Embassy, but the action of the French Government appeared to have very little in common with them; nor was there any reason to assume that Montebello was exceeding his instructions in opposing at Constantinople the ratification of the Anglo-Turkish Convention with regard to Egypt. The egregious action which forced the Sultan to withhold his consent to the Convention, and thereby perpetuated the British occupation of Egypt, was not the result of the unauthorized proceedings of the French Ambassador, but the consequence of the deliberately considered joint policy of the French and Russian Governments. Incidentally, it may be pointed out that the fruitless attempt to negotiate the Convention was yet another convincing proof of the absolute honesty of British policy with regard to Egypt, and the following letter from Lord Salisbury shows no satisfaction at the frustration of Sir H. Drummond Wolff's mission.

* * * * *

_Lord Salisbury to Lord Lyons._

July 20, 1887.

I am afraid the temper of the French will not make the settlement of the Egyptian question more easy. I do not now see how we are to devise any middle terms that will satisfy them. We cannot leave the Khedive to take his chance of foreign attack, or native riot. The French refuse to let us exercise the necessary powers of defence unless we do it by continuing our military occupation. I see nothing for it but to sit still and drift awhile: a little further on in the history of Europe the conditions may be changed, and we may be able to get some agreement arrived at which will justify evacuation. Till then we must simply refuse to evacuate. Our relations with France are not pleasant at present. There are five or six different places where we are at odds:--

1. She has destroyed the Convention at Constantinople.

2. She will allow no Press Law to pass.

3. She is trying to back out of the arrangement on the Somali coast.

4. She still occupies the New Hebrides.

5. She destroys our fishing tackle, etc.

6. She is trying to elbow us out of at least two unpronounceable places on the West Coast of Africa.

Can you wonder that there is, to my eyes, a silver lining even to the great black cloud of a Franco-German War?

On account of the tension existing between France and Germany, and of the agitation produced by the transfer of Boulanger to a command at Clermont-Ferrand, it was feared that the National Fête of July 14 would be marked by serious disturbances; these fears were happily not realized, although Boulanger's departure from Paris a few days earlier had formed the pretext for a display of embarrassing Jingoism. The French Government were so apprehensive of an anti-German demonstration, that, although Count Münster received the usual invitation to attend the Longchamps Review, M. Flourens privately begged him to absent himself, and the two German military attachés, instead of joining the War Minister's Staff in uniform, went to the Diplomatic Tribune in plain clothes.

* * * * *

_Lord Lyons to Lord Salisbury._

Paris, July 15, 1887.

The National Fête of yesterday passed off quietly enough. There are said to have been cries in various places of 'Vive Boulanger,' and 'À bas Grévy,' but nowhere was there anything which assumed anything like the proportions of a demonstration. There do not appear to have been any cries at all in the army.

The low French papers keep up a constant fire of scurrilous language against the Germans and even against the Germany Embassy. This sort of thing seems to be taken more seriously and to cause more irritation in Germany than it would in most countries. Count Münster naturally enough did not come to the President's stand, to which he and the other Ambassadors were as usual invited to see the Review. The German military attachés did not go in uniform with the staff of the Minister of War, but saw the Review from the Diplomatic Tribune in plain clothes. In fact, ill will between France and Germany seems to be on the increase. It looks as if the Germans would really be glad to find a fair pretext for going to war with France. On the other hand, Boulangism, which is now the French term for Jingoism, spreads, especially amongst the reckless Radicals and enemies of the present Ministry. And even among the better classes, warlike language and, to some degree, a warlike spirit grows up with a new generation, which has had no practical acquaintance with war. Abject fear of the German armies is being succeeded by overweening confidence in themselves.

The present Ministry seem to have been afraid of unpopularity if they abandoned altogether Boulanger's absurd mobilization scheme. The Germans seem to be taking this quietly. Perhaps they look on with satisfaction at the French incurring an immense expenditure for an experiment apparently without any practical use from a military point of view. Perhaps they believe, as many people do here, that the Chambers will never really vote the money.

It is supposed that the session will be over next week, and I trust that then you will be disposed to receive an application from me for leave. I am getting quite knocked up by the Paris summer, and am in urgent need of rest and country air.

The foregoing letter was one of the last communications received from Lord Lyons at Paris, and his official career practically terminated a few days later, when he left on leave, destined never to return to the post which he had so long occupied, for the unfavourable view which he held with regard to his physical condition was only too completely justified.

He appears to have passed the months of August and September quietly with his near relatives in Sussex. Towards the end of October he must have learnt with some surprise that, whereas in March he had been most urgently begged by Lord Salisbury to remain at his post until the end of the year, a successor to him, in the person of Lord Lytton, had been appointed, and that there was no necessity for him to return to Paris. If he, as would have been the case with most people, really felt aggrieved at this change of circumstances, there is no trace of resentment shown in his correspondence. On the contrary, he warmly welcomed the new appointment, and at once set about making arrangements for his successor's convenience. On November 1, he made a formal application to be permitted to resign his appointment, was created an Earl, and the few remaining letters (the latest bearing the date of November 20) deal with business details, and unostentatious acts of kindness to various persons who had been in his service or otherwise connected with him. The very last of all was a characteristic communication to Sir Edwin Egerton, the Chargé d'Affaires at Paris, respecting the payment of the fire insurance premium on the Embassy.

The close of his life was destined to coincide dramatically with the close of his official career. Intellectually there were no signs of decay; but physically he was even more worn out than he realized himself. On November 28, whilst staying at Norfolk House, he was stricken with paralysis, and a week later he was dead, without having in the meanwhile recovered consciousness. Thus the end came at a moment singularly appropriate to his well ordered existence, and to no one could the time-honoured Latin epitaph have been applied with greater accuracy.

In an earlier portion of this work some attempt has been made to portray Lord Lyons's personality and to explain the causes of his success as a diplomatist, but the best criterion of the man is to be found in his letters, which have been reproduced verbatim, and may be said to constitute a condensed record of the most interesting episodes in English diplomatic history during a space of nearly thirty years. Throughout this long series there is hardly to be found an unnecessary sentence or even a redundant epithet; there is a total absence of any straining after effect, of exaggeration, of personal animosity or predilection, or of any desire to gain his ends by intrigue or trickery. On the other hand, they are marked by profound mastery of detail, sound judgment, inexhaustible patience, an almost inhuman impartiality, and an obviously single-minded desire to do his best for his country as one of its most responsible representatives. Such, then, was the character of the man, and the general public is probably quite unconscious of the inestimable value to the country of officials of this particular type.

It was Lord Lyons's fate twice to represent this country at most critical periods during wars, in the course of which, England, while desiring to observe the strictest neutrality, aroused the bitterest hostility on the part of the belligerents. In spite of untiring efforts he had the mortification of seeing the relations of England, first with the United States and then with France, gradually deteriorate, and never experienced the satisfaction, which no one would have appreciated more highly than himself, of seeing those unfriendly relations converted into the condition which now happily prevails; but it may be fairly said of him that no one ever laboured more assiduously and efficiently to promote peace and good will between England and her neighbours; that he never made either an enemy or apparently a mistake, and that no other diplomatist of his day enjoyed to an equal degree the confidence of his chiefs, and the regard of his subordinates. Overshadowed by more brilliant and interesting personalities, the unobtrusive services of Lord Lyons are unknown to the rising generation, and probably forgotten by many of those who have reached middle age; but in the opinion of the statesman who amongst living Englishmen is the most competent to judge, he was the greatest Ambassador who has represented this country in modern times, and by those whose privilege it was to serve under him, his memory will ever be held in affectionate remembrance.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 44: Lord Salisbury had taken over the Foreign Office upon the death of Lord Iddesleigh on January 12, 1887.]

[Footnote 45: Dongorita. A town on the Somali coast.]

[Footnote 46: Secretary of French Embassy at London.]

[Footnote 47: French Ambassador at Constantinople.]

APPENDIX

LORD LYONS IN PRIVATE LIFE.

BY MRS. WILFRID WARD.

It is not uncommon to find a seeming contradiction between the official and the private characters of the same individual. Extreme reserve, for instance, even an astonishing power of silence in conducting official work, may not indicate the same power of silence in private life, or the same reserve in the life of the affections. In Lord Lyons there was no such contrast, and no attempt to depict him could pretend to penetrate his extreme reserve as to his deeper feelings. This reticence on his part must severely limit any account of his _vie intime_. Moreover, curiously enough there is another difficulty in describing him which lies in quite an opposite direction. Lord Lyons had a keen sense of the ridiculous, and he loved the absolute relaxation of talking pure nonsense which, however amusing at the moment, would hardly bear the strain of repetition. Indeed, very little can be added to the history of the public life of a man so absolutely reticent as to his feelings, his thoughts, and his opinions, which he further concealed rather than revealed by an almost burlesque habit of talking nonsense among his intimates.

It would be easy to give many instances of his gift for silence when he did not wish to be 'drawn' by his interlocutor. A little story told to me by the late Sir Edward Blount is a case in point.

Sir Edward, waiting to see Lord Lyons at the Embassy, heard talking in the next room which lasted some time, and soon distinguished the voice of M. Blowitz. As soon as he was alone with Lord Lyons he said that he felt obliged to warn him that, if he had liked, he could have overheard his conversation with the journalist.

'You might,' was the answer, 'have overheard what was said by M. Blowitz, but you could not have heard anything said by me for the good reason that I said nothing at all!'

It was never known to anybody, as far as it is possible to ascertain, whether Lord Lyons had ever even contemplated marriage, though he certainly did not recommend celibacy. 'Matrimony,' he constantly used to repeat--slightly varying the phrase in his favourite _Rasselas_--'may have thorns, but celibacy has no roses.'

There was at one moment, while he was attached to the Embassy at Rome, a rumour that he was engaged to be married. Hearing something of it he inquired of a lady friend whether she could tell him to whom he was supposed to be attached, and later on he discovered that she was herself the person in question!

His nature was certainly lonely, and I believe from quite early in life he was conscious of suffering from loneliness. I have been told of a letter of his written from school in which this was quite clearly set forth. In later life he would never have expressed so much. What he felt and thought on any intimate question can, I think, only be inferred by his comments on life in general, or on the sorrows and joys of others. Once only I believe did he take any part in directly influencing the lives of young people in the critical question of marriage. The daughter of an old friend, with a courage in her confidence which seems to me almost phenomenal, told him the story of a mutual affection existing between her and a young man who did not seem to her parents to be a sufficiently good match. Lord Lyons listened with the utmost attention, and eventually interceded with his old friend, speaking of the terrible danger of causing irremediable pain to two young hearts, and was the means of making these young people happy. Was there, perhaps, in this action some reminiscence of a possible past happiness lost by himself? No one can even make the faintest surmise as to whether this was the case. He made no allusion to his own past when telling the story.

Of his childhood I know little, but there is a toy preserved in the family that gives a curious and characteristic foretaste of what he was to become. It is a miniature escritoire fitted with pen and paper and seals, and also soap and towels, etc. All this was supposed to belong to the children's dog, who was promoted in their games to the position of an Ambassador, and described as 'His Excellency.' There are still existing despatches written to and by 'His Excellency' in the handwriting of the four children.

I think he must have been too old to have joined in his sister Minna's bit of naughtiness when at Malta she put snuff in the guitar of a young exquisite who had provoked their mirth, and whose name was Benjamin Disraeli.

He used to say that among his most vivid recollections of his boyhood while at Malta, was the unexpected return of his father and the fleet. The children had been deeply engaged in preparing theatricals which were postponed on account of their father's arrival. He remembered his guilty feeling that he ought to be glad, and that he was not glad at all!

It was not at first intended that Bickerton Lyons should enter the diplomatic service; he began life in the navy. But Bickerton, unlike his brother Edmund, had no vocation for the sea. The sorrow of Edmund's loss, who died at Therapia, from a wound received when commanding his ship in the Sea of Azoph during the Crimean war, was a shadow that never passed from the lives of the other three. Bickerton was deeply attached to both his sisters and their families. Annie married Baron Wurtzburg, and Minna married Lord Fitzalan, afterwards Duke of Norfolk. Other relations with whom he was in close intimacy all his life were his aunt, Mrs. Pearson and her children, especially her daughters, Mrs. Lister Venables and Mrs. Little, who both survived him.

All his life Lord Lyons was devoted to children, and especially so to the large family of the Duchess of Norfolk, with whom he was able to indulge his domestic tastes and his love of fun. He spent with them the greater part of every holiday, and in the last twenty-five years of his life they were frequently with him in Paris. My mother, Lady Victoria, the eldest of the family, married very young, and my aunt Minna, the second daughter, became a Carmelite nun. Mary, the eldest of the sisters who remained at home, was Lord Lyons's constant companion and secretary. I think she was the only person who did not experience the strong sense of his reserve which so impressed those who had to do with him even in everyday intercourse. In a very serious state of health which followed his work at Washington he depended greatly on the companionship of his nieces. I have been told that for months he could not raise his head, and the only thing he could do by himself was to play with glass balls on a solitaire board. During this interval in his career, before he accepted the Embassy at Constantinople, he had more leisure than usual for the society of his sister's family, but he had always been devoted to them when they were quite little children, and was once described as 'an excellent nursery governess.' He said to his sister: 'I could never have married; it would not have been right, as I could never have loved my own children as much as I love yours.'

Into this near association with him my sisters and I were more closely drawn after the death of our parents. We had lost our mother in the winter of 1870, and my father, James Hope-Scott, died in the spring of 1873. It was then that my grandmother took us to live with her at Arundel, and we were added to the large family party who had often stayed with him in Paris. My own earliest recollections of my great-uncle are tinged with an awe which no amount of time spent with him ever quite overcame; but it did not prevent great enjoyment of all the fun we had with him. He was certainly very indulgent to the younger members of the family circle, particularly my brother, who was some years younger than the rest of us, and this was especially the case when we were his guests.

I think that what inspired awe was the immense strength of character, the reserved force, the severely controlled natural irritability. He had, too, a humorous vehemence of expression which seemed at times to be a safety valve to the forces he had under control, and was a reminder of their existence.

I suppose that nothing could be imagined more stately and more regular than life at the Embassy in those days. The Ambassador himself lived in a routine of absolute regularity and extremely hard work. He got up at seven, had breakfast at eight, and was, I think, at work by nine o'clock. His very small leisure, when he was alone, was mostly spent in reading. And this was carefully classified in three divisions. In the morning he read history or science, in the evening, between tea and dinner, biography; while, for an hour before he went to bed he read novels. While in France he never left the Embassy. Once a year he did leave it for his annual holiday--generally spent in England. He used to boast how many nights in succession--I think in one year it amounted to over 300--he had slept in the same bed. Every afternoon when we were with him, he drove with my grandmother, generally in the Bois de Boulogne, and in the warm weather we always stopped at some _café_ for us children to have ices. He also took us to the circus once during each visit until, in later life, he became afraid of catching cold. He still occasionally went to the theatre, to which he had been much devoted as a younger man. We all dined downstairs, and he used to like my youngest sister and my brother to sit at a little table near the big one and have dessert. He insisted on this, and was rather pleased than otherwise at the scolding he received from an English friend for keeping them up so late. In later life he used to speak of the pretty picture the two children had made.

I recollect the extraordinary general sense of importance as to his movements in those days, partly on account of their phenomenal regularity. I could not imagine him ever acting on impulse, even in the matter of going up or downstairs. I cannot picture him strolling into his own garden except at the fixed hour. This without intention added to the dignity of his life which seemed to move like a rather dreary state procession.

I wonder if the servants who never saw him break through his routine, or lose one jot of his dignity, ever guessed at how shy he was of them, or suspected the rather wistful curiosity he felt about their lives. I think it was Pierre, the butler, who lived with his family in the _entresol_ between the two floors of reception rooms in the Embassy. Lord Lyons was much interested in their family life, and liked to speculate as to what went on there. One inconvenient result of his extreme shyness was that when he really wished to alter any detail as to the daily routine, he could not bring himself to impart his wishes to any of the servants. I have often heard him say how tired he was of the same breakfast which never varied in the least, and he would add that his Italian valet Giuseppe was so convinced that it was the only breakfast he liked that when he travelled, the man took incredible pains that the coffee, the eggs, the rolls, the marmalade, the two tangerine oranges in winter and the tiny basket of strawberries in summer, should not differ an iota from those served up every morning at the Embassy. But Lord Lyons could never summon up courage to speak to him on the subject. On certain days Pierre undertook Giuseppe's duties, and for many years Lord Lyons wished that Pierre would arrange his things as they were arranged by Giuseppe, but he never told him so. While he grumbled, he was amused at the situation and at himself. Indeed, his keen sense of the ridiculous and his endless enjoyment of nonsense explain a good deal of his life. He used to say that as he was too shy to look at the servants' faces, he had learnt to know them by their silk stockinged calves. When he dined alone he made an amusement of identifying the six or seven pairs of calves, and was proud of his success in this odd game of skill.

I recall one ludicrous instance of his shyness with servants. It was his custom annually when he came to stay with us to shake hands with the old family nurse, and on one occasion, meeting her on the stairs, he leant across the banisters to perform the ceremony with such _empressement_ and effort that he broke one of the supports. He always afterwards alluded to the extraordinary emotion he had shown in this greeting. Nothing is so unaccountable as shyness, but it was curious that a man who had seen so much of public life and of society should have so much of it as he had. I remember once helping him to escape with, for him, astonishing speed across the garden of a country house, when a very agreeable woman, whom I believe he really liked, had come to call; he was as full of glee as if he were a boy running away from a school-master.

I don't think that in Paris he ever gave way to such impulses; they were the relaxation of a shy nature in the holidays.

To return for one moment to Paris. He occasionally gave a big official dinner which I don't think he at all enjoyed, and of which we knew nothing. But he certainly enjoyed small gatherings, especially if they included old friends who were passing through Paris, although not one word of ordinary sentiment would probably pass his lips, nor would one of the day's arrangements be changed. He certainly enjoyed the society of his women friends, and I liked to watch him talking to Mrs. Augustus Craven, the author of the _Récit d'une Soeur_. Two characteristic sayings of his about the Cravens I remember. He was always pleased at showing his knowledge of the most orthodox and strict views of Roman affairs. He used to say that Mrs. Craven could never make amends for her conduct at the time of the Vatican Council--when her _salon_ was a centre for 'inopportunist' Bishops--unless she went back to Rome and gave 'Infallibilist tea-parties.'

Mr. Augustus Craven, her husband, was intensely mysterious in manner, and Lord Lyons used to call him 'the General of the Jesuits.' Once, on meeting him in London, he asked him if his wife were with him. Mrs. Craven was staying with Lady Cowper, and Mr. Craven answered with solemn, slow and mysterious tones: 'She is at Wrest,' and my uncle said 'Requiescat in Pace,' with equal solemnity.

I think that with all his natural British prejudices he liked French people and their ways. He used to maintain that Frenchwomen were more domestic and kept earlier hours than Englishwomen. He certainly liked French cooking. He spoke once in tones of horror of an Englishman who had committed the monstrosity of putting pepper on young green peas--a crime of which a Frenchman was incapable.

Many of his opinions, however, like Dr. Johnson's, were evoked by the spirit of contradiction, and it was chiefly with English people that I heard him talk about the French.

In the holidays in England reading aloud was one of his chief pleasures. He read much poetry to us at one time, but later I think he had to give this up as it tired him. At Arundel he wrote his letters in the dressing-room opening out of his bedroom. We used to sit there waiting for him before the appointed time, making drawings in red ink, of which there was always a large supply, when he would make a mock solemn entrance, as of a stiff professor. We were allowed to scribble during the reading, but, woe betide us! if we showed any inattention. He read 'Marmion,' Southey's 'Thalaba,' and, I think, 'The Curse of Kehama,' also much of Byron, the 'Siege of Corinth,' with especial enjoyment. He knew many pages of Byron by heart, and we used to get him to repeat any amount while out walking. 'Rejected Addresses,' 'Bombastes Furioso,' 'The Rape of the Lock' were also among the many things he liked to recite. I wish I could remember half the things he read or repeated to us. I am sure there was no Tennyson, and certainly no Browning. He used to jeer at the obscurity of both the Brownings, and to mutter such phrases as the 'thundering white silence' of Mrs. Browning with intense scorn. I think he may have met the Brownings when he was in Rome. He saw a good deal of Fanny and Adelaide Kemble at that time. He liked Adelaide much the best of the two, and used to quote with delight a saying of hers as to the Brownings. When she was told of the birth of their son she exclaimed: 'There are now then not one incomprehensible, or two incomprehensibles, but three incomprehensibles!'

He was always amused at the Kemble grand manner. He used to imitate the dramatic utterance with which Fanny Kemble frightened a young waiter who had brought her some beer. 'I asked for _water_, boy; you bring me _beer_!'

At that same time he knew Sir Frederick Leighton, and they once had a pillow fight! Who could imagine that pillow fight who only knew him as Ambassador in Paris? He always spoke as if he had enjoyed life in Rome; he was devoted to the theatre, and he had much congenial society. He used to say, too, that Pius IX. was the most agreeable sovereign with whom he ever had diplomatic relations.

Lord Lyons's literary tastes were not those of the present generation. He declared that he only liked verse that rhymed and music with a tune. He loved the sonorous sound of Byron as he loved the solemn cadence of Latin verse. All the time the love of absurdity was never far off. He would suddenly imitate the action of a schoolboy repeating Latin verse, first with his arms and then with his feet! A stout, very dignified elderly man, in some path in the garden, punctuating the verse with the action of his feet, is sufficiently surprising. Occasionally he would have the oddest freaks of this kind, and I remember an afternoon when he took a whim of pretending to be imbecile; he made the most extraordinary faces, and not a word of sense could be got from him.

Once in a steamer on the lake of Lucerne he insisted on his nieces joining him in impersonating a typical family of English tourists out for their holiday. He was the _paterfamilias_, one niece was his wife, another the German governess, a third his child. In the middle of the performance he found that he was being regarded with surprise and curiosity by some English society friends whose acquaintance with him had hitherto been exclusively in the character of a very dignified ambassador.

My aunt, Mary Howard, used to read aloud to him by the hour, and we all enjoyed these times immensely. It would be difficult to say how often we had 'Pickwick,' 'Cranford,' 'Rasselas,' 'The Rose and the Ring,' and 'Mrs. Boss's Niece.' I have never met anybody outside that circle who ever even heard of 'Mrs. Boss's Niece;' it is a serious loss. To quote at all appropriately from any of his favourites was to be exceedingly in his good books for the rest of the day. Like the late Lord Salisbury he delighted in Miss Yonge; he could not have too many pairs of twins, or too large a family circle to read about. He loved the analysis of domestic life, and would have been ready to canonise any really and genuinely unselfish character. Detective stories were a great joy. 'The House on the Marsh,' and 'Called Back,' were among the most successful. He used to prolong discussion as to the solution of the mystery, and would even knock at our doors very late at night if he thought he had identified the murderer, and mutter in dramatic undertones, 'So-an-so was the man who did it.' But the detective story was never read before dinner, and to look into the book meanwhile was a crime. Anybody who peeped to see the end of a novel 'deserved to be dragged to death by wild horses.' And there must be no skipping. Only descriptions of scenery--to which he had the strongest objection--might be left out.

The annual holiday was, for the most part, spent with the Duchess of Norfolk at Arundel, and later at Heron's Ghyll. Sometimes he went to Germany to take the waters, in company with his eldest sister, Baroness Wurtzburg. When in England he always paid a certain number of country house visits. These generally included Knowsley and Woburn. The visits that were paid every year, I think without exception, were those to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, and to an old schoolfellow--Major Trower, who had been with him at Winchester. Major Trower was one of four old Wykehamists who remained close friends. The other two had died some time before. I think the visit to Raby was annual. He specially enjoyed the society of the Duchess of Cleveland and of Lady Mary Hope. He was at Raby in the September before he died, and I believe that was the last visit he ever paid. The famous visitors' book there always amused him, and he was fond of quoting from it. One of his own contributions I remember was written with mock modesty. He took from Lockhart's Spanish ballads the lines:--

''Twere better to be silent before such a crowd of folk, Than utter words as meaningless as he did when he spoke.'

His recollections of the society of his youth in these houses had some amusing details. I think it was at the Duchess of Bedford's that there was a Christmas tree, off which each young man visitor was given a piece of flowered silk for a waistcoat. Early next morning, at Mr. Lyons's suggestion, one of the young men, provided with a list of the names and addresses of the tailors employed by the others, went up to London and brought back all the waistcoats made up in time to be worn at dinner that evening. He used to speak with some amusement of the ungraciousness of Rogers, the poet, whom he met at the Derbys'. On one occasion Rogers had lost his spectacles, and Mr. Lyons went a long way in the big house to find them. Rogers who was drinking tea took the spectacles, but did not thank him, and, a moment later, when he heard Mr. Lyons refusing sugar, he observed to the company: 'That young man, having nothing else to be proud of, is proud of not having sugar with his tea!'

I don't suppose that he talked much as a young man, and probably he followed the rule he always preached, that young men should speak 'little but often.'

Among the few serious sayings to be quoted from him was that the great axiom in diplomacy was 'Never do anything to-day that can be put off till to-morrow.'

In speaking of Leo XIII. and his successful policy with Bismarck, he said: 'Those very clever men succeed by doing what no one expects. My success has been made by always doing what was expected of me. I always did the safe thing.'

In conversation he enjoyed a Johnsonian style of repartee. One retort of his had an excellent practical result. He acted as a special constable in London during the Chartist Riots. Hearing a woman in the dense crowd cry out, 'Let me faint, let me faint,' he turned to her at once, and said: 'Pray do, madam,' whereupon she recovered immediately.

Soon after the Berlin Conference when the Disraeli party were making the most of the accession of Crete, a visitor at the Embassy, gushing over its charms concluded with the assertion that Crete was the loveliest island in the world. Whereupon Mr. William Barrington (now Sir William Barrington) said drily: 'Have you seen all the others?' This amused Lord Lyons immensely, and some years afterwards when a young lady who was and is still famous for her powers of conversation had talked at him for some time, he adopted the same method. After a good many other sweeping assertions she said of some work that had just come out: 'It is the best written book that has appeared this century.' 'Ah,' he said, 'have you read all the others?' Being alone with her soon afterwards I was not surprised at her inquiring of me dubiously whether I liked my great-uncle.

* * * * *

It need hardly be said that, in the matter of his personal religion, Lord Lyons was very reticent. He was absolutely regular in his attendance at the Sunday service in Paris and in England. He was very fond of the singing of English hymns.

He never had any sympathy with the ritualist party in the Church of England, and was inclined to be sarcastic as to those whom he designated 'Puseyites,' as was then the custom.

One who knew him very well told me that for a time he was somewhat unsettled in the matter of definite religious belief. There is also evidence that in middle life the idea of joining the Catholic Church had been present to him as a possibility. As far as can be known it was during the last summer of his life that he began to consider the question practically. It is not surprising that Lord Lyons, when he took the matter up, showed the same characteristics in its regard that he had shown in any serious question throughout his life, namely, the greatest thoroughness and care in studying the Catholic religion and in carrying out its practical side, reserve as to deep sentiment, not without humorous touches which were intensely characteristic. Newman's works formed the chief part of his study during those summer months. A letter written in that August says of him, 'He is always reading Newman.' It was not until shortly before his death that he spoke on the matter to any of the family. A note in the writing of his secretary and intimate friend--Mr. George Sheffield--says that he spoke of it six weeks before his death. Lord Lyons had known Bishop Butt for many years when he was parish priest at Arundel, and it was to him that he applied for advice. He studied the Penny Catechism most carefully, learning the answers by heart, like a child. He began to fulfil the practices of a Catholic with great regularity. He went to Mass daily at ten o'clock, and adopted little habits of self-denial and showed greater liberality in almsgiving. The last honour he ever received was the offer of an earldom on his retiring from the Paris Embassy. He suggested to Dr. Butt that it would be a good act of mortification to refuse this honour, but the Bishop would not advise him to do so. He began, against his usual custom, to give money to crossing-sweepers or beggars in the streets, and I am told by my aunt, Lady Phillippa Stewart, that, after returning from my wedding, he said to her: 'Is it not customary after an event of this kind to give money in alms?' He then suggested that he should make some offering to the hospitals and asked her to write out the names of those she thought would be the most suitable. It was about ten days before my marriage in November, 1887, that I first heard of his intentions. I learnt it in a fashion very characteristic of him. I was not staying in the house, but I had been dining with him when he remarked casually: 'Really, my austerities are becoming alarming. I have given up soup for dinner and jam for breakfast.' This struck me as a novel proceeding, as I knew his fondness for jam and that the ordinary routine of dinner beginning with a clear soup was a fixed ceremonial with him. That night I questioned my aunt, who told me that he had been for some weeks preparing to join the Church. It was at this time that he said to one of the family: 'I am now ready to be received as soon as the Bishop likes.' He also characteristically consulted his nephew, the Duke of Norfolk, as to whether he ought to inform Lord Salisbury of his intention of becoming a Catholic. He did not, during these weeks, know that he was in any danger. The last time I saw my great uncle was at my wedding. He had a stroke about ten days afterwards, and to all appearance became unconscious. Dr. Butt, knowing what his intentions had been, had no hesitation in giving him conditional Baptism and Extreme Unction. I was at the funeral at Arundel, and saw the coffin lowered into the vault in the Fitzalan Chapel, where his sister Minna had been placed two and a half years earlier.

* * * * *

I feel most strongly as I conclude these very imperfect notes, how entirely Lord Lyons belonged to a generation of Englishmen now long passed away. The force of will, the power of self-devotion, the dignity, the reticence, the minute regularity, the sense of order, the degree of submission to authority and the undoubting assertion of his own authority towards others--all were elements in a strong personality. There are, no doubt, strong men now, but their strength is of a different kind. Englishmen to-day are obliged to be more expansive and unreserved. No fixed routine can be followed now as then; no man can so guard his own life and his own personality from the public eye. Lord Lyons was not of the type that makes the successful servant of the democracy. Fidelity, reticence, self-effacement, are not the characteristics that are prominent in the popular idea of the strong man to-day. But no one who knew Lord Lyons can doubt that those qualities were in him a great part of his strength. He was and must always be to those who knew him very much of an enigma, and it certainly would not have been his own wish that any great effort should be made to interpret his inner life to the world at large.

INDEX

Aali Pasha, i. 146, 150, 151, 155, 161, 166, 167, 172; and the Paris Conference, i. 153.

Abdul Aziz, Sultan of Turkey, i. 151, ii. 175; effort for Navy, i. 152; dismisses Fuad Pasha, i. 155; unpopularity of, i. 161, 163; visit to France, i. 169, 170; to England, i. 171, 173.

Abdul Hamid, ii. 108, 208; policy of, ii. 137; reported conspiracy against, ii. 167; suzerainty in Tunis, ii. 246; overthrow of, i. 168.

Aberdeen, Lord, ii. 11.

Abolition proclamation, i. 93.

Abou Klea, battle of, ii. 343.

Adams, Mr., U.S. Minister in London, i. 38, 43, 59, 63, 71, 72, 98, 99.

Adams, Sir Francis, chargé d'affaires at Paris, ii. 72; telegram on Anglo-French sympathies, ii. 136; Minister at Berne, ii. 220.

Adrianople, railway to Constantinople, i. 176.

Aehrenthal, Count, i. 342.

Afghanistan, Lytton's policy in, ii. 209; attacked by Russia, ii. 348, 352.

Africa, west coast, ii. 409.

_Alabama_ incident, i. 97, 98, 99, 105, 300; question revived, i. 162, 189.

Alaska, bought by America, i. 168.

Albanian league, ii. 228.

Alderson, Capt., sent to report on army of the Potomac, i. 128, 129.

Alexander, Emperor of Russia, i. 187, 255, 273, 333, 354, ii. 52, 54, 404; visit to Berlin, ii. 76; friendliness to England, ii. 80; attempt on life of, ii. 207.

Alexandretta, ii. 150, 151.

Alexandria, ii. 172, 188, 273; Anglo-French Naval Demonstration at, ii. 283; massacre at, ii. 285; bombardment of, ii. 288.

Algeria, position of French in, i. 199, 268, 271, 382, ii. 159, 249.

Alsace and Lorraine, question of cession, i. 321, 332, 334, 358, 361, 369; French hopes of recovery of, ii. 103, 135, 195, 197, 247, 346; trade of, ii. 14.

America, army, i. 45, 47, 48, 79, 109; methods of recruiting, i. 110, 116; finance, i. 57; slave trade, i. 20; affairs in central, i. 13; relations between North and South, i. 20, 29, 31; relations with England, i. 12, 15, 16, 45, 46, 79, 129, 189.

American Civil War, i. 34, 343; Blockade question, i. 33, 36, 37; privateering, i. 42; Confederate Government, i. 53; Southern Confederacy, i. 31, 33, 34, 36; position of Consuls, i. 83, 121; Southern activity, i. 82, 83; Revolutionary Party, i. 80; proposed foreign intervention, i. 90, 91, 92, 96; rising prices, i. 94; vessel building in England, i. 101, 102; position of foreigners during, i. 106-109; seizure of British vessels, i. 100, 104, 105; Irish in, i. 109, 114, 115; Germans in, i. 115; British officers sent to follow operations, i. 128; M. Mercier on, i. 85.

Anarchical plots, i. 187.

Ancona district, Austrian troops in, i. 3.

Anderson, at Fort Sumter, i. 35.

Anderson, Mr., attaché at Washington, i. 87.

Andrassy, Count, ii. 85; and the Eastern Question, ii. 127, 134, 138; and the Austro-German Alliance, ii. 194.

Andrassy Note, ii. 95.

Anglo-Russian Agreement, ii. 143, 160.

Anglo-Turkish Convention, ii. 140-142; disclosed to Waddington, ii. 148; made public, ii. 151; irritation in France, ii. 152, 159, 163.

Annam, French in, ii. 103, 307, 327.

Anti-Slavery party in England, i. 118.

Antonelli, Cardinal, i. 3, 4, 184.

Anzin, ii. 323.

Arabi Bey, rebellion of, ii. 258, 273, 278; Minister of War, ii. 279, 283; campaign against, ii. 295, 296.

Arago, Emmanuel, succeeds Gambetta as Minister of War, i. 361.

Archibald, Consul, on the kidnapping of recruits, i. 112.

Arcolay pamphlet, i. 220.

Argyll, Duke and Duchess of, i. 41.

Armenia, ii. 131, 137; patriarch question, ii. 55.

Army Purchase Bill, ii. 9, 12.

Arnim, Count, Minister at Rome, i. 347; Ambassador at Paris, ii. 14, 16, 27, 30, 60, 68, 140; and Thiers, ii. 31; on French policy, ii. 45; Bismarck's dislike of, ii. 46.

Arundel, Lyons at, i. 139, ii. 222, 418, 422, 428.

Ashman, Mr., i. 50.

Asia Minor, Russian policy in, i. 268, ii. 133, 137.

Athens, i. 149; Lyons attaché at, i. 1.

Atlantic, coast defence, i. 40.

Augusta, Empress, Bismarck's dislike of, ii. 80, 354.

Aumale Duc d', ii. 2, 7, 16, 44, 48, 51, 56, 64, 311, 368.

d'Aunay, M., ii. 300, 376.

Austria, relations with Prussia, i. 186, 193, 202; relations with France, ii. 35; military power of, i. 268; and the Eastern Question, ii. 85, 127; in the Moldo-Wallachian Principalities, i. 153; in the Ancona district, i. 3.

Austro-German Alliance, ii. 194, 199, 205, 398.

Austro-Prussian War, failure of French policy in, i. 177.

Azoph, Sea of, ii. 417.

Bac-ninh, ii. 324.

Baden, Grand Duchy of, and Confederation, i. 208, 266, 276, 285, 293; French policy in, i. 190, ii. 36; proposed neutrality, i. 302.

Bagdad railway, ii. 151.

Bahamas, the, i. 130.

Baker Pasha, defeat of, ii. 323.

Balkan Peninsula, ii. 223.

Bapaume, i. 355.

Bardo, Treaty of the, ii. 243.

Baring, Major (Earl of Cromer) in Egypt, ii. 189, 322, 352; letter to Lyons, ii. 203; and "Modern Egypt," ii. 295.

_Barracouta_, H.M.S., i. 100.

Barrère, M., ii. 322.

Barrington, Mr. (Sir William), ii. 128, 426.

Bateman, Sir Alfred, ii. 253.

Batoum, ii. 137, 138, 143.

Baucel, M., i. 228.

Bavaria, i. 193; and Confederation, i. 266; proposed neutrality, i. 302.

Bayazid, ii. 142.

Baynes, Admiral, i. 23.

Bazaine, General, i. 317, 320; capitulation, i. 329.

Beaconsfield, Lord, ii. 144.

Beatrice, Princess, ii. 162.

Beauregard, General, i. 35.

Beaury, plot against Napoleon III., i. 285.

Bedford, Duchess of, ii. 425.

Belfort, i. 370, 374.

Belgium, Prince Napoleon on, i. 193; French in, i. 211; trade relations with France, ii. 25; neutrality of, i. 298, 302; foreign policy towards, i. 303, 355, ii. 113, 124, 206; secret Treaty, i. 320, 340; in Constantinople Conference, ii. 109; Bismarck's policy in, i. 254, ii. 74, 83, 345.

Belgium, King of, i. 212, 216.

Belgrade, Fortress of, i. 161; evacuated by the Turks, i. 163.

Belligerent Rights, Exposition of French Jurists on, i. 44, 46, 50.

Benedetti, French Ambassador at Berlin, i. 293; on Franco-Prussian situation, i. 299; affront to, i. 300, ii. 206; despatch from, i. 304; meeting with King of Prussia at Ems, i. 305.

Benjamin, Mr., i. 122.

Berlin, Congress at, ii. 147.

_Berlin Post_, "Is War in Sight" article, ii. 72.

Berlin, Treaty of, i. 342, ii. 227; Layard on, ii. 160.

Bermuda, i. 130.

Berne, ii. 256.

Bernstorff, Count, Prussian Ambassador in London, i. 196, 256, 259, 260, 268, 293, 304, 309, 317, 323, 337; on Belgian affairs, i. 218; letter from Bismarck, i. 261.

Bert, M. Paul, ii. 323.

Berthaut, General, Minister of War, ii. 115.

Bessarabia, ii. 142, 367.

Bessborough, Lord, ii. 11.

Beust, Count, Austrian Minister, i. 162, 272, 314, 320; ii. 202, 231; and the Belgian question, i. 229; letter to Metternich, ii. 35.

Beyens, Baron, Belgian Minister, i. 213.

Biarritz, i. 197.

Biggar, Mr., ii. 234.

Billing, Baron de, plan to relieve Gordon, ii. 326.

Billot, General, ii. 311.

Bisaccia, Duc de, French Ambassador in London, ii. 57.

Bismarck, Prince, i. 162, 192, 387; and Luxemburg railway affair, i. 168, 213; and German Confederation, i. 247, 251, 276; at Ems, i. 293; and the Vatican, ii. 30, 68; relations with Emperor, ii. 62, 120; and disarmament negotiations, i. 254, 260-5, 270-3, 275, 278, 301; foreign policy of, i. 179, 211, 214, 218, 314, 355, ii. 14, 29, 49, 54, 70, 72, 74, 77, 82, 124, 205, 345, 358; with regard to Austria, ii. 42; and the Austro-German Alliance, ii. 194; and Belgium, i. 303; and the Eastern Question, ii. 90, 97, 231; and Egypt, ii. 150, 297, 325, 338, 339, 352; and France, ii. 16, 60, 136, 283, 286, 384; during war, i. 314; peace negotiations, i. 345, 348, 357, 361, 365, 370, 374, 380,