478 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE-II 



ister, Nesselrode s son-in-law, who was a leading person 

 age at the conference of the great powers then in 

 session; and saw various interesting men, among them 

 sundry young officers of the United States army, who 

 were on their way to the Crimea in order to observe the 

 warlike operations going on there, and one of them, 

 McClellan, also on his way to the head of our own army 

 in the Civil War which began a few years later. 



It was the time of the first great French Exposition 

 that of 1855. The Emperor Napoleon III had opened it 

 with much pomp ; and, though the whole affair was petty 

 compared with what we have known since, it attracted 

 visitors from the whole world, and among them came 

 Horace Greeley. 



As he shuffled along the boulevards and streets of Paris, 

 in his mooning way, he attracted much wondering at 

 tention, but was himself very unhappy because his igno 

 rance of the French language prevented his talking with 

 the people about him. 



He had just gone through a singular experience, having, 

 the day before my arrival, been released from Clichy 

 prison, where he had been confined for debt. Nothing 

 could be more comical than the whole business from first 

 to last. A year or two previously there had taken place 

 in New York, on what has been since known as Eeservoir 

 Square, an international exposition which, for its day, 

 was very creditable; but, this exposition having ended 

 in bankruptcy, a new board of commissioners had been 

 chosen, who, it was hoped, would secure public confidence, 

 and among these was Mr. Greeley. 



Yet even under this new board the exposition had not 

 been a success ; and it had been finally wound up in a very 

 unsatisfactory way, many people complaining that their 

 exhibits had not been returned to them among these a 

 French sculptor of more ambition than repute, who had 

 sent a plaster cast of some sort of allegorical figure to 

 which he attributed an enormous value. Having sought 

 in vain for redress in America, he returned to Europe and 



