Have I already told you, Baroness, that I presented “Marmaduke” (in English text) to a French officer, with the dedication Un souvenir [de] nos idées qui se rencontraient,—and that, too, after a speech on the Alliance franco-allemande, which was made in the presence of French army and navy officers, officials, and merchants, at four o’clock in the morning, if you please, in our wardroom, on the Seeadler, and not long before Fashoda, when the Russian friendship was still very warm. The affair is noteworthy, for the reason that the Frenchman is usually, in a large company, quite extraordinarily careful and reserved. Moreover, the speech was made by a French physician who was on the expedition with Marchand when lack of support from his reserve stations compelled him to return. It was known quite accurately in Madagascar at that time, April, 1898, that a French expedition must have arrived at the Nile or would soon arrive there, and every day the news of it was expected.
Remember me kindly to your husband, and I kiss your hand as
Your very devoted
Moritz von Egidy
LVII
BEFORE THE HAGUE
Emperor Nicholas regarding the reception of his rescript · Discouragement in St. Petersburg · Stead’s project for a peace crusade · Count Muravieff’s second circular · The wedge driven into the peace question · The general conception and our conception · Journey to Berlin · Osten-Sacken · Formation of an information committee · Letter from Bebel · Service in honor of Egidy · Trip to Nice · Meeting with Madame Adam · Monsieur Catusse · A noteworthy Dreyfus reminiscence · My lecture · Madame Bashkirtseff · Trip to Cannes for a lecture · Lucien Murat’s visit · Return to Harmannsdorf · Correspondence with Bloch, Scipione Borghese, and D’Estournelles de Constant · Letters from Hodgson Pratt and Élie Ducommun · A plan of action suggested by Henri Dunant
Stead told me that the Emperor Nicholas, in speaking to him of his circular, had said:
“Have I had a single letter, or has a single person ever represented to me that I exaggerate the danger? Not one! they all agree that I have spoken the truth. ‘But,’ they ask me, ‘what do you propose as a preventive?’ As if it were my affair and mine alone to prescribe a remedy for a disease from which all the nations are suffering!”
Even on the peoples’ side there was not that enthusiasm which the author of the rescript might have expected. “How diminish the burdens that rest so heavily on the shoulders of the people?” he cries to his fellow-rulers, and he begs them to seek some means to avoid the evil that threatens the whole world. And what is the answer to it? The masses to whom the Emperor specially appealed remained indifferent. Although the threat of war between France and England seemed to be dispelled, the preparations were continued unabated on both sides. The German Emperor, on his return from his journey to Jerusalem, immediately insisted on increasing his army by twenty-six thousand men.
In St. Petersburg a feeling of deep discouragement prevailed. By the beginning of December the disappointment was so great that the authorities almost decided to give up the project and call instead a conference of ambassadors in that capital.