urparlers_, however uncompromising the outlook; frame plausible
proposals; conciliate his opponents by showing how thoroughly he
understands and appreciates their point of view, and by these means he
has often worked out seemingly hopeless negotiations to a satisfactory
issue. M. Clemenceau wrote of him, "C'est un grand Europeen."[54]

M. Bratiano's bid for the services of his eminent opponent was coupled
with the offer of certain portfolios in the Cabinet to M. Jonescu and to
a number of his parliamentary supporters. While negotiations were slowly
proceeding by telegraph, M. Jonescu, who had already taken up his abode
in Paris, was assiduously weaving his plans. He began by assuming what
everybody knew, that the Powers would refuse to honor the secret treaty
with France, Britain, and Russia, which assigned to Rumania all the
territories to which she had laid claim, and he proposed first striking
up a compromise with the other interested states, then compacting
Rumania, Jugoslavia, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Greece into a solid
block, and asking the Powers to approve and ratify the new league. Truly
it was a genial conception worthy of a broad-minded statesman. It aimed
at a durable peace based on what he considered a fair settlement of
claims satisfactory to all, and it would have lightened the burden of
the Big Four. But whether it could have been realized by peoples moved
by turbid passions and represented by trustees, some of whom were
avowedly afraid to relinquish claims which they knew to be exorbitant,
may well be doubted.

But the issue was never put to the test. The two statesmen failed to
agree on the Cabinet question; M. Jonescu kept aloof from office, and
the post of second delegate fell to Rumania's greatest diplomatist and
philologist, M. Mishu, who had for years admirably represented his
country as Minister in the British capital. From the outset M.
Bratiano's position was unenviable, because he based his country's case
on the claims of the secret treaty, and to Mr. Wilson every secret
treaty which he could effectually veto was anathema. Between the two
men, in lieu of a bond of union, there was only a strong force of mutual
repulsion, which kept them permanently apart. They moved on different
planes, spoke different languages, and Rumania, in the person of her
delegates, was treated like Cinderella by her stepmother. The Council of
Three kept them systematically in the dark about matters which it
conce