'vVell,' he said, turning to me, 'are you satisfied?'
'Perfectly,' I answered.
The letter was excellent, curt and emphatic as it should be when one power is addressing another. He wrote to Gasser telling him to request an immediate audience with Nesselrode and the Minister of Finance; he was to tell them that Rothschild was not interested to know to whom the bonds had belonged ; that he has bought them and demands payment, or a clear legal declara-4 This was not P. D. Kiselev, who was in Paris la ter, the well known l\finister of Crown Property, a very decent man; but another one: N. D.
Kise!e,·, afterwards transferred to Rome.
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tion why payment had been stopped ; that in case of refusal he would submit the affair to the judgment of the legal authorities; and he advised careful reflection on the consequences of a refusal, which was particularly strange at a time when the Russian government was negotiating through him for the conclusion of a new loan. Rothschild wound up by saying that in case of further delays he would have to give the matter publicity through the press, in order to warn other capitalists. He recommended Gasser to show the letter to Nesselrode.
'I'm very glad . . . but . . .' he said, holding a pen in his hand and looking me straight in the face with a somewhat ingenuous air . . . 'but, my dear Baron, do you really think that I
�hall sign this letter which, au bout du comptr, might put me on bad terms with Russia-and that for a commission of one half of one per cent?'
I was silent.
'In the first place,' he continued, 'Gasser will have disbursements-nothing is done for nothing in your country-and of course they must be at your expense; and in addition to thathow much do you propose?'
'I think,' I said, 'it is for you to propose and for me to agree.'
'Well, five: what do you say? That's not much.'
'Let me think about it . . . .'
I simply wanted to calculate.
'As long as you like. Besides,' he added with an expression of Mephistophelean irony, 'you can manage this business for nothing. Your mother's rights are incontestable. She is a subject of Wiirttemberg: apply to Stuttgart-the Minister for Foreign Affairs is bound to support her and exert himself to procure payment. For my part, to tell you the truth, I shall be very glad to get this unpleasant affair off my shoulders.'
We were interrupted. I left the office impressed by all the oldfashioned simplicity in his look and his question. If he had asked for ten or fifteen pt>r cPnt, I should have agr!'ed thf'n and there.
His help was essential to me, and he knew this so well that he even put himself out for a Russified subject of Wiirttemberg; but, allowing myself to be guided as of old by the Russian rules of political economy, which ordain that, for whatever distance an izvo::.chik asks for twenty kopecks, one should still try to get him to take fifteen, I told Schomburg, on no sufficient basis, that I proposed that a commission of one per cent might be added.
Schomburg promised to tell him and asked me to come back in half an hour.
When half an hour later I was mounting the staircase of the
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vVinter Palace of Finance in the Rue Laffitte, the rival of Nicholas was coming down it.
'Schomburg has told me,' said His Majesty, smiling graciously, and majestically holding out his own august hand, 'that the letter has been signed and sent off. You will see how they will come round. I'll teach them to trifle with me.'
'Only not for half of one per cent,' I thought, and I felt inclined to drop on my knees and to offer an oath of allegiance together with my gratitude, but I confined myself to saying: 'lf you feel perfectly certain of it, allow me to open an account, if only for half of the whole sum.'
"\Vith pleasure,' answered His Majesty the Emperor, and went his way into the Rue Laffitte.
I made my obeisance to His Majesty and, since it was so close, went into the Maison d'Or.
Within a month or six weeks Nicholas Romanov, that Petersburg merchant of the first guild, who had been so stingy about paying up, now terrified of competition and of publication in the newspapers, did at the Imperial command of Rothschild pay over the illegally detained money, together with the interest and the interest on the interest, justifying himself by his ignorance of the la\vs, which in his social position he certainly could not be expected to know.
From that time forth I was on the best of terms with Rothschild. He liked in me the field of battle on which he had beaten Nicholas; I was for him something like Marengo or Austerlitz, and he several times recited the details of the action in my presence, smiling faintly, but magnanimously sparing his vanquished opponent.
\Vhile this action of mine was going on-and it occupied about six months-! was staying at the Hotel Mirabeau, in the Rue de Ia Paix. One morning in April I was told that a gentleman was waiting for me in the hall and wished to see me without fail. I went in there. A cringing figure that looked like an old government clerk was standing in tht hall.
'The Commissaire of Police of the Tuileries arrondissement: So-and-so.'
'Pleased to see you.'
'Allow me to read you a decree of the Ministry of Home Affairs, communicated to me by the Prefect of PoliCf•, and relating to you.'
'Pray do so ; here is a chair.'
'\Ve, the Prefect of Police-In accordance with paragraph
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seven of the law of the 1 3th and 2 1 st of November and 3rd of December of 1 849, giving the Ministry of Home Affairs the power to expel (e.Tpulser) from France any foreigner whose presence in France may be subversive of order and dangerous to public tranquillity, and in view of the ministerial circular of the 3rd of January, 1 850,
'Do command as follows:
'The here-mentioned' (le N-e, that is, nomme, but this does not mean 'aforesaid' because nothing has been said about me before; it is merely an illiterate attempt to designate a man as rudely as possible) 'Berzen, Alexandre, aged 40' ( they added two years), 'a Russian subject, living in such a place, is to leave Paris at once after this intimation, and to quit the boundaries of France "·ithin the shortest possible time.
'It is forbiddPn for him to return in future on pain of the penalties laid dovm by the eighth paragraph of the same law (imprisonment from one to six months and a money fine ) .
'All necessary measures will b e taken t o secure the execution of these orders.
'Done (Fait) in Paris, April 16th, 1 850.