ovi['c]; but 300-400 did refuse to proceed. They were installed
in a factory at Orange, where the Montenegrin Government fed them and
paid them. Now and then they were encouraged by being told that if
they had gone to the Front the Serbian officers would have flogged
them.... And so the little Court at Neuilly occupied the years with
many a congenial intrigue. Feelers were stretched out to this country,
where an English edition of Radovi['c]'s _Montenegrin Bulletin_, the
pro-Yugoslav organ, was being published by my friend Vassilje Buri['c]
to the furious indignation of the busybodies who supported the King
and of the Italian Embassy. From these two sources and from Neuilly
the Foreign Office was bombarded with protests, begging it in the name
of justice, etc., to put a stop to this dire scandal. One day a
charming Foreign Office clerk, an acquaintance of mine, had Buri['c]
to lunch at the Royal Automobile Club; in the course of the meal he
suggested that, as Buri['c] was not looking well, they two should have
a little holiday in France. Buri['c] said he would be very glad to go
with him, but he thought it would be nice to stay in England. The
charming official held out for the Continent, and with such obstinacy
that Buri['c] at last put his hand upon his arm and invited him to
promise that they would both of them come back to England. Thereupon
the host acknowledged that a perfect flood of letters had been pouring
on the Foreign Office with respect to the _Montenegrin Bulletin_, and
they were weary of receiving them.... Sometimes the Neuilly Court was
plunged in gloom, as when old Tomo Oraovac's little book appeared with
seventy-five awkward questions to Nikita. For three days the King shut
himself up in his room, trying to decide as to whether he should issue
an answer. He decided to do nothing. Now and then a French review or
newspaper referred to him. "The official courtesies extended by the
French Government to Nicholas I. and his family should not deceive the
public," said the eminent publicist Monsieur Gauvain in the _Revue de
Paris_ (March 1917). M. Gauvain showed that the Petrovi['c] dynasty
constituted the sole obstacle to a union of Montenegro with Serbia and
the rest of the Yugoslav lands. As Nikita drove past the office of the
_Revue de Paris_ he may have been thinking, rather wistfully, of that
brave afternoon at Nik[vs]i['c].[100] ... Sometimes the old man was
worried by his sons. Peter, for example, who ha