ne has but to point to monsieur's fellow
country-women to prove it.

"Well, Monsieur Otto, our Ambassador, was kept terribly busy over that
treaty, and all of his staff were worked to death. We had not Pitt to
deal with, which was, perhaps, as well for us. He was a terrible man
that Pitt, and wherever half a dozen enemies of France were plotting
together, there was his sharp-pointed nose right in the middle of them.
The nation, however, had been thoughtful enough to put him out of
office, and we had to do with Monsieur Addington. But Milord Hawkesbury
was the Foreign Minister, and it was with him that we were obliged to do
our bargaining.

"You can understand that it was no child's play. After ten years of war
each nation had got hold of a great deal which had belonged to the
other, or to the other's allies. What was to be given back, and what
was to be kept? Is this island worth that peninsula? If we do this at
Venice, will you do that at Sierra Leone? If we give up Egypt to the
Sultan, will you restore the Cape of Good Hope, which you have taken
from our allies the Dutch? So we wrangled and wrestled, and I have seen
Monsieur Otto come back to the Embassy so exhausted that his secretary
and I had to help him from his carriage to his sofa. But at last things
adjusted themselves, and the night came round when the treaty was to be
finally signed. Now, you must know that the one great card which we
held, and which we played, played, played at every point of the game,
was that we had Egypt. The English were very nervous about our being
there. It gave us a foot at each end of the Mediterranean, you see.
And they were not sure that that wonderful little Napoleon of ours might
not make it the base of an advance against India. So whenever Lord
Hawkesbury proposed to retain anything, we had only to reply, 'In _that_
case, of course, we cannot consent to evacuate Egypt,' and in this way
we quickly brought him to reason. It was by the help of Egypt that we
gained terms which were remarkably favourable, and especially that we
caused the English to consent to give up the Cape of Good Hope. We did
not wish your people, monsieur, to have any foothold in South Africa,
for history has taught us that the British foothold of one half-century
is the British Empire of the next. It is not your army or your navy
against which we have to guard, but it is your terrible younger son and
your man in search of a career. When we F