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Appointment by President Harrison. My stay in London Lord Rothschild; his view of Russian treatment of the Jews. Sir Julian Goldschmidt; impression made by him. Paris; the Vicomte de Vogue; funeral of Renan; the Duke de la Rochefoucauld. Our Minister, William Walter Phelps, and others at Berlin; talk with Count Shuvaloff. Arrival in St. Petersburg.
At Berlin I met several of my old friends at the table of our minister, my friend of Yale days, William Walter Phelps among these Virchow, Professor von Leyden, Paul Meyerheim, Carl Becker, and Theodor Barth; and at the Russian Embassy had an interesting talk with Count Shuvaloff, more especially on the Behring Sea question.
The only wonder was that, this fact being so clear, the Russian Foreign Office constantly held back from showing any active sympathy with the United States in our efforts to right this wrong done to both nations. At my first presentation to the Emperor I found him, as already stated, of the same opinion as the Washington cabinet and Count Shuvaloff.
Saturday I had a bad headache, but recovered in the evening; and Monday we dined at Madame Potemkin's, where we met her aunt, a Princess Galitzin, a thin, tall, odd, very clever woman, daughter to that Prince Shuvaloff, to whom Voltaire wrote eternally, and she is imbued with anecdotes of that period, very well bred, and quick in conversation.
Hamburg should remain as it was at the conclusion of negotiations, and the duration of the armistice must be longer than the term proposed six weeks at the least. On these two points he took his stand. The fatal armistice of Poischwitz was signed at that village on June fourth by three commissioners, Shuvaloff for Russia, Kleist for Prussia, and Caulaincourt for France.
Petersburg, at the allied headquarters which accounted for the arrogant firmness of Shuvaloff and Kleist, and determined the character of the armistice. On June fourteenth and fifteenth those envoys further concluded treaties with Prussia and Russia respectively which explain the performances of Bubna at Dresden, and of the congress which later met at Prague.
Thus, while Count Shuvaloff was still Russian ambassador at Berlin, the emperor was in the habit of dropping in unannounced about luncheon time, and of sitting down with the count and countess, the latter being as often as not in the négligée of a mere tea-gown, and more than once when he had sat with them longer than he intended, and found that there was no time left to return to the palace before proceeding to the railroad station to take his departure for Potsdam or some other place, he would ask leave of the count to use his telephone, ring up the empress, and not only bid her adieu, but also dispatch her a kiss over the wires, in the most charmingly domestic fashion.
Before leaving Washington for St. Petersburg, I had consulted with the Secretary of State and the leading persons in charge of our case, and on my way had talked with Count Shuvaloff, the Russian ambassador at Berlin; and all agreed that the interests of the United States and Russia in the matter of protecting the seals were identical.
An Englishman, Sinclair, and some other free-lances were concerned in the affair. The new Foreign Minister speedily availed himself of this offer; and the cause of peace was greatly furthered by secret negotiations which he carried on with Count Shuvaloff.
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