had came to the fore and become the power that he is today in
France; the greatest King's Minister since Richelieu.

"And, after that, Louis's death followed as surely as night after
day," Bathurst was saying. "And because the French had no experience
in self-government, their republic was foredoomed. If Bonaparte
hadn't seized power, somebody else would have; when the French
murdered their king, they delivered themselves to dictatorship.
And a dictator, unsupported by the prestige of royalty, has no
choice but to lead his people into foreign war, to keep them from
turning upon him."

It was like that all the way to Berlin. All these things seem
foolish, by daylight, but as I sat in the darkness of that
swaying coach, I was almost convinced of the reality of what he
told me. I tell you, Uncle Eugen, it was frightening, as though
he were giving me a view of Hell. _Gott im Himmel_, the things
that man talked of! Armies swarming over Europe; sack and
massacre, and cities burning; blockades, and starvation; kings
deposed, and thrones tumbling like tenpins; battles in which the
soldiers of every nation fought, and in which tens of thousands
were mowed down like ripe grain; and, over all, the Satanic
figure of a little man in a gray coat, who dictated peace to the
Austrian Emperor in Schoenbrunn, and carried the Pope away a
prisoner to Savona.

Madman, eh? Unrealistic beliefs, says Hartenstein? Well, give
me madmen who drool spittle, and foam at the mouth, and shriek
obscene blasphemies. But not this pleasant-seeming gentleman who
sat beside me and talked of horrors in a quiet, cultured voice,
while he drank my cognac.

But not all my cognac! If your man at the Ministry--the one
with red hair and the bulldog face--tells you that I was drunk
when I brought in that Englishman, you had better believe him!

Rudi.

(From Count von Berchtenwald, to the British Minister.)

28 November, 1809

Honored Sir:

The accompanying dossier will acquaint you with the problem
confronting this Chancellery, without needless repetition on my
part. Please to understand that it is not, and never was, any
part of the intentions of the government of His Majesty Friedrich
Wilhelm III to offer any injury or indignity to the government of
His Britannic Majesty George III. We would never contemplate
holding in arrest the person, or tampering with the papers, of an
accredited envoy of your government. However, we have the gravest
doubt,