12 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE-VIII 



thers of Alexander III, the greatest impression was made 

 upon me by Vladimir. He was apparently the strongest 

 of all the sons of Alexander II, being of the great Roman 

 off breed big, strong, muscular, like his brother the 

 Emperor. He chatted pleasantly; and I remember that 

 he referred to Mr. James Gordon Bennett whom he had 

 met on a yachting cruise as &quot;my friend.&quot; 



Another of these big Romanoff grand dukes was Alexis, 

 the grand admiral. He referred to his recollections of 

 the United States with apparent pleasure, in spite of the 

 wretched Catacazy imbroglio which hindered President 

 Grant from showing him any hospitality at the White 

 House, and which so vexed his father the Emperor Alex 

 ander II. 



The ladies of the imperial family were very agreeable. 

 A remark of one of them a beautiful and cultivated 

 woman, born a princess of one of the Saxon duchies 

 surprised me ; for, when I happened to mention Dresden, 

 she told me that her great desire had been to visit that 

 capital of her own country, but that she had never been 

 able to do so. She spoke of German literature, and as I 

 mentioned receiving a letter the day before from Professor 

 Georg Ebers, the historical novelist, she said: &quot;You are 

 happy indeed that you can meet such people ; how I should 

 like to know Ebers ! Such are the limitations of royalty. 



Meantime, I made visits to my colleagues of the diplo 

 matic corps, and found them interesting and agreeable 

 as it is the business of diplomatists to be. The dean was 

 the German ambassador, General von Schweinitz, a man 

 ideally fit for such a position of wide experience, high 

 character, and evidently strong and firm, though kindly. 

 When ambassador at Vienna he had married the daughter 

 of his colleague, the American minister, Mr. John Jay, an 

 old friend and colleague of mine in the American Histori 

 cal Association; and so came very pleasant relations be 

 tween us. His plain, strong sense was of use to me in 

 more than one difficult question. 



The British ambassador was Sir Robert Morier. He, 



