On the ground floor of the minister's hotel, to which he was hastening back on account of the many pressing affairs awaiting him, in a plain office-like room, before a table piled with papers, sat Herr von Keudell, the Minister of Legation. He was engaged in animated conversation with a man of about six or seven and thirty, with fair hair and moustache, whose open features of the North German type possessed great mobility of expression, and whose clear grey eyes shone with good nature, humour, and talent. This man, who was dressed with the peculiar elegance only met with in large cities, sat leaning back in a great arm-chair, which was placed near Herr von Keudell's writing table. His manner was a mixture of the bourgeois and the dandy, and he balanced his glossy hat on his knee, whilst with his hand he prevented it from falling.
"You believe then, dear Beckmann," said Herr von Keudell, "it will be possible to keep the Paris press in our favour during the war, and eventually to prevent the voice of public opinion in France from declaring for Austria?"
"Nothing easier," replied Herr Albert Beckmann, the clever and witty editor of the newspaper the "Temps," who for the last twenty years had lived in the journalist circles of Paris, and had acquired a perfect knowledge of all the tastes and manners of the inhabitants of the great capital of the world, without ever losing the peculiarities of his German origin. "Nothing easier. Neffzer is devoted to you; he will write you up from true conviction, otherwise we could not get him to do it. The 'Siècle' is for you,--all liberal papers look on Prussia as progress, on Austria as reaction, and they will greet any Prussian success with joy,--they would all condemn an alliance of France with Austria as the height of folly. To obtain the voices of these papers in your favour is quite unnecessary; it will only be needful to give them the right direction, by sending them all news, diplomatic and military, quickly, and well arranged. With regard to that--je m'en charge!"
And he stroked his hand over the nap of his hat, twirled his small light moustache, and leant back in his chair with a satisfied air.
"But the clerical papers, 'Le Monde,' 'L'Univers?'" asked Keudell.
"Ah! c'est plus difficile!" replied Herr Beckmann, "these gentlemen are very Austrian, and hard to manage. In the 'Monde' the German correspondent is a cousin of mine, Doctor Onno Klopp."
"Onno Klopp is your cousin?" asked Herr von Keudell.
"Il a cet avantage," said Beckmann; "and he writes under the name of Hermann Schultze, but I must say he is very wearisome, and as he cannot write in French all his articles have to be translated, which makes them still more unpalatable to the public. Fortunately, it is enough for these papers to take one side, to make all Paris take the other."
"But have they not great influence at court?"
"Pas du tout, not the smallest," replied Herr Beckmann, confidently; "the emperor only attends to the independent papers, and never cares what the ultramontane journals say. I can assure you one article in the 'Temps' or the 'Siècle' would have more influence on him than a whole campaign in the 'Monde' or 'L'Univers.'"