latively little to gain or lose.

* * * * *

_Monday, December 21st._ I had a walk and talk with Ambassador
Penfield this morning; took luncheon with Mr. Grant-Smith and went
afterward to the Embassy. Later in the afternoon I went with Count
Colloredo von Mansfeld to the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office and then
called on the Countess Potatka to whom I had brought letters of
introduction.

* * * * *

_Tuesday, December 22d._ After luncheon today Mr. Grant-Smith
presented me to Wilhelm Prince zu Stollberg Wering Rode, Conseiller of
the German Embassy in Vienna, who made an appointment with me for
Thursday.

I am meeting many officials, American, German, and Austrian, but at
present I cannot, without indiscretion, state just what they discuss.

I went today to the Wiener Bank Verein with Mr. Grant-Smith who wished
to arrange some safe deposit boxes for the Embassy. The building is
said to be the most beautiful bank building in the world, and I can
easily believe it. Knowing my professional interest in architecture,
Mr. Grant-Smith asked the Director to show me the building, which he
most kindly did, taking me from top to bottom--a privilege I am told
seldom granted to anyone, and for which I was very grateful.

Austria-Hungary is an extraordinary country. I doubt if anything like
it exists in this our day and generation. The Emperor-King is
everything. He could well say without exaggeration "L'Etat c'est Moi!"
The common people really look upon the king as divine. Socialism and
democracy do not exist,--the words seem to have no real meaning for
his subjects; and Parliaments are but his dutiful servants.
Lese-majesty is almost unheard of because the idea of questioning the
Emperor-King or anything he does would no more occur to his subjects
than to doubt the Immaculate Conception would occur to a devout
Catholic.

And what an extraordinary old man--what a relic of past ages this
Emperor-King Franz Josef is! He ascended the throne at the epoch of
our war with Mexico, he had reigned nearly two decades at the
termination of our Civil War. He refutes and blights the theories of
Dr. Osler. Two successive heirs to the throne have died or been killed
off, but he "goes on forever." He is personally a very devout
Catholic, but apparently has seldom or never allowed himself to be
politically dictated to by the Vatican. When he learned of the recent
ignominious d