ROME SUEZ PANAMA. 133 



any one whom I might send in my place would not 

 run any risk. He swore it upon the Gospel, but I 

 told him that as I knew he did not set any store 

 by that 1 must have a different sort of oath. He then 

 swore it upon the head of his sister, and I was satis- 

 fied. As M. de la Tour d'Auvergne, whom I had 

 sent in my stead, was some time coming back, I 

 began to get uneasy, when Prince Wolkonsky, the 

 llussian Charge* d' Affaires arrived, and said to me, 

 " When you assembled your compatriots yesterday (I 

 hope you will forgive me for what I am going to say, 

 but we are obliged to keep our Governments informed 

 of all that is important), I took advantage of my 

 familiarity with the Embassy during the time that 

 your predecessor, the Due d'Harcourt, was there, tc 

 make my way to a small staircase, the landing of 

 which is contiguous to the saloon in which you had 

 assembled your fellow-countrymen. I put my ear tc 

 the partition and heard all that you said, and reported 

 it to my Government. I was about to do the same 

 thing to-day, when I heard three men speaking in 

 French. One of them said, ( Ah ! the scoundrel has 

 not come to-day. If he had come, a few inches of 

 cold steel would have settled the job. Why did not 

 M. de Lesseps come? ' 



One of my friends, Count Eampon, subsequently a 

 Yice-President of the Eepublican Senate in France, 

 and an old schoolfellow of mine, who was in the room 

 at the time, seized one of the men, and was going to 



