594 IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE-VII 



only explanation of the fact that this particular acting 

 minister of foreign affairs never gave me an immediate 

 answer. 



The matter became more and more serious. The letter 

 of the law was indeed on Bismarck's side; but the young 

 man was an American citizen, and the idea of an American 

 citizen being held in prison was anything but pleasant to 

 me, and I knew that it would be anything but pleasant 

 to my fellow-citizens across the water. I thought on the 

 proud words, "civis Romanus sum," and of the analogy 

 involved in this case. My position was especially difficult, 

 because I dared not communicate the case fully to the 

 American State Department of that period. Various pri- 

 vate despatches had got out into the world and made 

 trouble for their authors, and even so eminent a diplo- 

 matist as Mr. George P. Marsh at Eome came very near 

 being upset by one. My predecessor, Bayard Taylor, was 

 very nearly wrecked by another; and it was the escape 

 and publication of a private despatch which plunged my 

 immediate successor into his quarrel with Bismarck, and 

 made his further stay in Germany useless. I therefore 

 stopped short with my first notification to the State De- 

 partmentto the effect that a naturalized American had 

 been imprisoned for desertion in Alsace-Lorraine, and 

 that the legation was doing its best to secure his release. 

 To say more than this involved danger that the affair 

 might fall into the hands of sensation-mongers, and result 

 in howls and threats against the German Government and 

 Bismarck ; and I knew well that, if such howls and threats 

 were made, Bismarck would never let this young Israelite 

 out of prison as long as he lived. 



It seemed hardly the proper thing, serious as the case 

 was, to ask for my passports. It was certain that, if this 

 were done, there would come a chorus of blame from both 

 sides of the Atlantic. Deciding, therefore, to imitate the 

 example of the old man in the school-book, who, before 

 throwing stones at the boy in his fruit-tree, threw turf 

 and grass, I secured from Washington by cable a leave 



