“Do you know that gentleman, Serge?” asked Wilfrid, indicating the magnate in question. “His face seems familiar to me.”
“Count Arcadius Baranoff, one of the Czar’s ministers. You must have seen him in London, for he was formerly ambassador at the Court of St. James’s. As rich as Crœsus. One of the men,” the Prince went on in tones of contempt, “who in the last reign climbed to power through the bedroom of the Empress Catharine. He is a proof of the power of the personal equation in international politics.”
“How so?”
“He is a rank barbarian, whose polish is but skin deep. When he was in London his brusquerie offended the men, his coarseness the women, and he left England burning with a desire to do her hurt, and now the time has come, he thinks.”
“Thinks!”
“You are aware that, after fighting each other for a year or more, the Czar Paul and Consul Bonaparte are now fast friends. This is mainly due to the diplomacy of Count Baranoff, who was sent to Paris as the Czar’s envoy: it was his hand that signed the Franco-Russian treaty. While in the French capital he tickled the Parisian fancy with a pamphlet, ‘Is it possible for an Englishman to possess sense?’”
“Oh, indeed!” muttered Wilfrid, with a glance at the distant pamphleteer.
“And now, on his way back to St. Petersburg, he tarries at Berlin in the hope of persuading the Prussian King to join the league against England.”
“Humph! Is he likely to succeed?”