Glaser’s letter appeared in a small pamphlet, entitled, An Austrian Minister and his Father, published in Berlin, 1872, by Kerskes and Hohmann. It contained the following passage: “Another year, and the Chosen People shall have attained the object of the Holy Alliance,[1] which they concluded in Paris. We have no more ardent desire than to see the day arrive when we can bid him (Prince Adolph Auersberg) good-bye, and see his place taken by one from our midst” (the Jewish Liberals); and “then” (when the aristocratic party is suspected by the dynasty, and has fallen out of favour) “a really new and regenerated nobility, drawn from our people” (the Jews) “shall enter into power, and fulfil the mission to which God has called them.” I had this letter reproduced in the Grenzboten, with a few introductory remarks.
On the morning of the 11th of July I called upon Bucher, from whom I ascertained that he had collected the material for his pamphlet on the Cobden Club in the British Museum, about a fortnight previously. He had gone to London, under instructions from the Chief, giving a false name, and holding no intercourse with anybody.
On the 21st I called on Bucher at the Foreign Office, to remind him about the pamphlet and the proposed Grenzboten article. He had been unable to write the latter, as he could not obtain a book which he required for the purpose. (This was the Principles of Currency, a work by the Oxford Professor, Bonamy Price, which appeared in 1869.) He gave me his pamphlet, and a quantity of material for the article upon it, to which he made some additions during the following days. He also sent me a number of English and French publications, to be used for the same purpose. In the meantime, Glaser’s letter was emphatically declared to be a forgery by Glaser himself. Bucher, however, still held it to be “genuine in the main.”
I now wrote a series of five articles, entitled “Characteristics of the Manchester School,” based on Bucher’s pamphlet, and the notes and books with which he supplied me. These appeared in Nos. 33 to 37 of the Grenzboten.
On the 27th of July Bucher related to me “an anecdote illustrating the way in which the Secretary of State von Bülow carried on business.” Lasker called upon him one day to introduce a Frenchman, one Comte de Jolivar, who was going to Constantinople, and wished to have a letter of introduction to our Embassy there. Bülow had this letter prepared, and added in his own hand a few words of warm recommendation to Werther, who was our representative at the Porte at that time. The Comte proceeded on his journey with this document in his pocket, and one of the first things he did on his arrival at the Golden Horn was to swindle a German artisan out of a respectable sum of money. This was soon followed by similar operations, which speedily came to Werther’s ears, who probably had already felt surprised at the Frenchman having asked for and received recommendations from the Foreign Office in Berlin, instead of from that in Paris, or from the French Minister in Berlin. He reported these cases of swindling to the Wilhelmstrasse, and from there inquiries were addressed to the Foreign Office in Paris. The information received was to the following effect. Comte de Jolivar is not a Comte, but only a Chevalier, that is to say, chevalier d’industrie, who—as the police records show—has been condemned on several occasions for embezzlement and swindling, and was once prosecuted for forgery, but just managed to save his skin. “Tableau” in the office of our Secretary of State!
Bucher praised Hatzfeldt, who has entered upon the duties of his office in succession to Bülow, as a pleasant and easy chief. Speaking of Bunsen, Bucher said that he had written for the Secessionist Tribune. Bucher also referred to the controversy which he had recently fought out with Bunsen, in the columns of the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung.
On the 29th of July I received the following note from Bucher:—
“1. Can you get the enclosed inserted in the Daily Telegraph, or some other English newspaper, and send the Chief a copy?
“2. Herewith the draft of an article on the commercial treaty, of which you must alter the introduction. The second edition of Bonamy Price which I have received from Baden (whence he also obtained the Sophisms of Free Trade, which he sent me for the ‘Characteristics of the Manchester School’) does not contain the letter from Chevalier. I have instructed Ascher to get the first edition at my expense, and to forward it to you.
“Yours, Br.”