One other circumstance must also be mentioned here. The then Russian consul, Vasily, was present at the sessions and exercises of the Conference at Budapest, and communicated to his government accurate and sympathetic reports. He was an unhesitating friend of peace. His report was, as I afterwards learned, cast in the form of an impassioned plea for cessation of war preparations. The suggestion did not receive the approval of his superiors, and remained for some time forgotten. A year later, however, when Lord Salisbury in his Guildhall address animadverted on the endless increase in armament among the nations, and declared that the only hope of escaping general ruin lay in the union of the powers in some kind of an international constitution, then M. Vasily presented anew his idea in behalf of an attempt to bring about an international understanding on this point. Vasily was attached to the ministry of foreign affairs; he naturally communicated his ideas to his chief, Count Lamsdorff, who, in turn, laid them before the Emperor.
When, in 1906, the Interparliamentary Conference met in London, a parliament was sitting in St. Petersburg which sent its representatives to England, not in the name of a group, but of the whole Duma. To be sure, on the very day when, at the opening session in Westminster Hall, the Russian delegate was to deliver his salutatory, the news arrived that the Duma was prorogued. The Russians were obliged, therefore, to quit London with their business unaccomplished, and Campbell-Bannerman, who opened the Interparliamentary Conference, was given the opportunity of perpetrating his mot, which afterwards became so famous: La douma est morte, vive la douma!
After this brief excursion into the future I return to the Budapest notes in my diary.
September 24. After the morning session, when the Russian debate was on, in which Apponyi distinguished himself and which Vasily and Novikof followed with great interest, we make a call on Maurus Jókai. An attack of indisposition prevented him from taking part in the Conference, but he is well enough to receive us. He lives in a villa of his own, not large but very beautiful, and surrounded by a garden. He shows us all his treasures,—his worktable, his books, and the gifts which he received at his Jubilee; among them the splendid offering from the Hungarian nation, the de luxe edition of his complete works, for the publication of which subscriptions of a hundred thousand gulden were paid in advance,—a gift of honor presented to the poet by his fellow-countrymen. Two very interesting hours. Jókai tells us much about his life. He gives me his photograph inscribed with his name.
In the evening a gala performance of the opera Bank-Ban, by Erkel[[14]]; Bianca Bianchi trills like a nightingale.
September 25. Final session. Closing banquet in the festival hall of the Exposition. Eight hundred participants. On both sides of the vestibule stand Haiduks in gala uniform. At the table of honor, with the leaders of the various foreign groups, are Beernaert, Passy, Stanhope, Descamps, and others; and the Hungarians, Szilagyi, Szell, Apponyi, Szapary, Berzeviczy, Franz Kossuth, and Mayor Ráth as host. My neighbors are the English General Havelock and Count Koloman Esterhazy. After the toast to the King, offered by the mayor, Koloman Szell toasts the members of the Conference, “the masters and banner bearers in the greatest question in the progress of civilization.”
The exercises were not at an end even on the last day of the Conference. The participants were invited to help celebrate the opening of the “Iron Gate,” which was to take place in the presence of the Emperor. On the twenty-sixth of September, in the evening, two special trains took us to Orsova, where comfortable quarters were assigned to each and every guest. On the morning of the twenty-seventh, radiant with unclouded sunshine, we all went aboard the special steamboat Zriny, which, occupying the fourth place in the column, accompanied the imperial ship down the Danube; the second boat carried the generals, the third the diplomats. After the flotilla reached the Kazan pass, the imperial ship cut through a cable of flowers stretched across the Danube canal—the “Iron Gate” was opened.
“This festal occasion,” said Emperor Franz Joseph, “which brings us together to celebrate a great work of public utility, fills me with happiness, and in the conviction that this work will give a powerful and healthy impulse to the peaceful and advantageous development of international relations, I drink to the happiness and prosperity of the nations.”
The four steamboats now moved slowly past and sailed back to Orsova.