to be full of Spring promise, one saw none but women. They were sowing grain, and plowing the fields behind the slow and ponderous oxen. We saw them sawing wood and cleaning out stables. Man's work! They replaced their husbands just as the oxen and dogs replaced the horses. Of them only the weakkneed and blind were left.

In some towns we went through the women were acting as conductors on the tramways.

We passed many camps for prisoners. They were a little way from the railroad, but one saw them very well. One regiment (I think it must have been a regiment) was in French uniforms. They were walking along the high road accompanied by some German soldiers. They seemed to step along briskly as if their lot was not an unhappy one."

When one thinks that Germany has to provide not only for its own people but for more than 800,000 prisoners, one can truly admire the organization and the resources of the country. I, who was craving an adventure, an emotion, or a thrill of some kind, was disappointed. No plainer sailing or anything more humdrum and emotionless and normal than our journey so far can be imagined!

The only difference I noticed was that women were selling beer and newspapers in the station, which, as a rule, except for the moving of soldiers, was very devoid of excitement. The trains started on the minute and arrived on the minute.

At Stuttgart we walked to the Hotel Marquand, as it is next to the station. This hotel, whose prices are equal to its pretensions, was full; however, we found very good rooms. I think that we were the only strangers, and we seemed to convey the impression that we were the nabobs the waiter in Berlin took us for. The expectant maid, who stayed in the vicinity of my room, certainly was one of those "made in Germany "—she never spoke to me without saying "Gnädige." The other guests, evidently as "heartless" as we, did not mind showing that they had money to spend. I was glad to find other "cruel" people willing to throw away a little of theirs in a country that needed it. The country seemed

very pleased to get the little we threw. The next morning we took the train en route for Switzerland, and found on it our Swiss friend Mrs. M. and a German diplomat on his way to Rome. They had traveled all night very comfortably in the sleeping cars from Berlin. The fourth person in their compartment was an elderly lady, who dozed peacefully and who only waked up occasionally to ask whether we had reached the frontier. On hearing that we had not, she moved closer to her corner, to make room for me, and dozed off again. Happily, they were amiable enough to allow us to be there, (we sat sqeezed three on a seat,) otherwise we should have been obliged to stay in the corridor and stand on a Landwehr's toes.

No one, apparently, had had any difficulty anywhere. They seemed very comfortable; they had neither frozen nor starved nor waited on side tracks.

The German diplomat must have received special orders from his Government to avoid conversation with the humbler sex, for none of us three ladies could worm a glance from him, even the elderly lady's questions about the frontière were snubbed.

But as soon as one of my gentlemen attacked him, he was all smiles and blinkings behind his spectacles, evidently proud of himself that he had repelled the advances and withstood the wiles of women! He had in his eyes a sort of "retro Satanical" look.

We had no delay at the Swiss-German Custom House. The Swiss officer opened his eyes when the avalanche of passports was unbosomed and thrust at him, every one of them in a different language and garnished with portraits. We had been told that our photographs must be taken in the identical clothes we would wear on the journey, but, womanlike, we had changed our minds as we had our dresses and hats. Therefore, it was very hard for the man to see where the difference was, and, as we had not the time for puzzling over the mystery, he handed the passports back, with a tired but polite sigh.

This was my last hope of an adventure. Nothing had happened, and certainly now

nothing would happen. I looked out of the window at the Schafhausen Cascade, (the place where the beautiful Rhine commences its career before it begins to make wine and grow hops,) and felt somehow as if I had been defrauded unduly of emotions. I had one, nevertheless.

The elderly lady who had shown such anxiety about the frontière whom we thought was Russian, caught sight of my flowers and remarked that they were beautiful, and added: "If you want to keep them you must cut their stems a little every day "; I said I would remember to do so.

The ice being broken, I said: "These carnations are already three days old. I can't expect to keep them forever."

"Do

"From what country did you say they came?" I had not mentioned any country! Nevertheless I told her. "I am from Sweden," she said. The ice by this time had become thin enough to walk on. She talked rapidly and in Swedish. you know Mrs. ?" and spoke my name. I nodded my head. "Have you read -?" and mentioned my book. I murmured something, trembling to hear a verdict. "Oh! how I should like to know her!" she said.

"You have not far to go, Madame," I said; "you are talking to her now," and pointed to the third button of my blouse.

"Nae," she cried, "Nae, I cannot believe it," and gasped for breath. I think, also, that it must have been hard for her to believe that the lady she wanted so much to know was the tired and travelstained lady before her.

"I have not your book with me. It is too precious, [perhaps it was too heavy.] I own two. I keep one in my salon and the other on my nightstand; I read a chapter every night."

Like the Bible, thought I, or could she mean that it was to invite slumber? In any case I was overwhelmed. . .

What pleased this enthusiastic lady the most was that she had praised the book before she knew who I was. I took some flowers from my bouquet and gave them to her; I could not do less, could I? She pressed them to her lips, and begged me for my autograph. I never was so flattered in all my life.

We stayed that night in Zurich. It was very cold, and we decided to push on to Locarno. Before we left the hotel the next morning I received a twenty-fiveword-long telegram from the Swedish lady repeating in a condensed form her effusions of the day before.

It was a dark and cold day, but when we came out of the long tunnel of St. Gothard the sun burst forth in a blaze of glory.

ROM the outset of the war Russian "barbarism"

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and savagery have been much harped upon by the Germans. In this way they wished to influence the neutrals, even the Allies themselves. The "Cossacks" became the incarnation of the cruelties and inhumanity of earlier wars; they represented pillage, robbery, violation, incendiarism, destruction of property, murder of non-combatants.

Intellectuals in various countries allowed themselves to be caught in this clumsy trap set by German diplomacy with the aid of German savants, newspapers, agents, and spies.

Reality soon tore the mask from these lies. Compared with the semi-civilized Germans, the Cossacks have proved to be angels of sweetness and mercy. The illusion of Russian savagery has been swept away. The Germans themselves, for the purposes of their cause, now find more interest in turning about and denouncing the criminal egoism of the English.

But it is not without interest to take up again the psychology of the Russian people as it is understood in the Old and New Worlds. The Europe of tomorrow must become better acquainted with the elements that must work together in creating it.

First, one must draw a distinction between the Russian people and its rulers. The formation of the Russian Nation makes it impossible to identify these with each other. The Romanoff dynasty has tried for many years to become identified with the needs and aspirations of the people; now, at last, everything leads to the belief that it has succeeded.

The nobility of the three Baltic provinces, entirely Germans, in whom are rooted the worst instincts of the Prussian Junkers, had until the war a dominant influence on the evolution of Russian destinies. Military leaders, statesmen, the

highest office holders, were recruited principally from the Junkers of Courland, Livonia, and Esthonia. Always intriguing with Prussia, toward whom they were attracted by similarity of tastes and aspirations, they can be considered only superficially Russians. Were it not for the immense extent of the empire and the resistance of the real Russians, this little selected body, working without restraint, would have drowned the Russian soul in the German ocean.

The Franco-Russian alliance was confronted for years with insurmountable obstacles. The iron will of an Alexander II., of a Nicholas II., was needed to make headway against the petty intrigues of the Baltic nobility, backed by the Hohenzollerns. But what contributed most efficaciously to awakening the Russian Court and to exasperating the national sentiment was the unskillful conduct of the Kaiser and of his diplomats, who looked upon Russia as a conquered province.

Pan-Slavism, and the orthodox religion, so radically opposed to Germanic tendencies, also helped to save the empire of the Czars. The present war will be, for Russia, a war of permanent deliverance. The mountain of crimes erected between the two nations will make the resurrection of the past impossible.

Nevertheless, German influence has not had its last word. While Russia is fighting her "holy war,” numerous German emissaries paralyze her life and seriously compromise her repute. The far-reaching words of the Czar offer peace and kindly tolerance to his subjects, but at the same time agents from Berlin are doing their best to foment trouble which threatens to discredit the decrees and promises of Nicholas II.

Scattered through the Russian Empire, the Germans have always sought to make trouble among its constituent elements. High German officials are almost always responsible for Russian blunders; they

keep up their policy of fomenting dissension in order to weaken the empire. Disguised as true Russians, nay, as ultra-Russians, they support the newspapers of the "Black Band," in which France and England are slandered and Germany praised. Even while the heroic Russian Army is shedding its blood in the cause of the future of humanity, newspapers in the pay of Germany are plunged in grief because the land of Czars is arrayed against the Kaiser, who is represented as the good genius of the dynasty, of reaction and of orthodoxy.

Foreigners ignorant of this complexity in Russian life tend to confuse the two sides of the medal. It is necessary to turn away from the hideous and criminal “Black Band," which continually imperils the noble Slavic soul, and look only upon the real Russian Nation, its writers, savants, and philosophers, who alone reflect its worth.

It is in the words of Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Turgenieff, Gorky, Tchekoff, Korolenko, and so many other poets or novelists; in Solovieff, the great psychologist of Russian religious feeling; in Borodine, Pavloff, Mendeleyeff, Metchnikoff, in the brilliant galaxy of sociologists, publicists, and historians, that one finds the ability and worth of the Muscovite nation. Its intellectual forces, compared with those of present-day Germany, would bear away the palm both as to number and intrinsic value. In studying the Russian people as depicted by a Tolstoy one perceives their profound morality. I have had occasion to bear witness to this in a series of studies of modern saints and inspired writers. All that impresses us in the superhuman morality of a Tolstoy, whose nobility of soul is sometimes inconceivable to other European countries, is in reality nothing more than the reflection of the life of the ordinary Russian mujik. Among people divided against each other in hundreds of sects we find the greatest of evangelical truths formulated with touching simplicity. Centuries of misery and sadness have purified and ennobled the popular conscience to a remarkable degree.

Meditating upon the sorrows of this world, a poor Russian peasant often ex

presses thoughts worthy of a Seneca or a Spinoza. But alcoholism, that formidable enemy, and the far too great misery caused by exploitation at the hands of the State through centuries have at last robbed true Russian genius of its character.

The prohibition of the sale of alcohol just promulgated by the Czar will save and radically transform the lower classes, who exceed 150,000,000 in number. Under the régime of enforced temperance Russia will present an unexpected spectacle to the human race of tomorrow. Within twenty years people will understand of what prodigies a nation will be capable which has not succumbed under the ravages to which from time immemorial its moral and material life was exposed.

II. GERMAN DIPLOMACY AND THE RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR.

Above all, one must visualize the developments of tomorrow. My sincerity. as to moral and political Russia, as to its Government and people, has become strengthened on a number of occasions. For a long time I stood almost alone in protesting against various aberrations of those at the helm in Russia, which were followed by acts harmful to the nation.

We know now that the unfortunate Japanese war turned Russian evolution from its natural course. The historian of the future will discover among the principal reasons for this the hidden influence of Germany. In order to weaken Russia in Europe, Germany drove her to dangerous ventures in the Far East. This seemed to me so clear that I have continually called attention to it in these very pages.

The Russo-Japanese war nearly ruined the Russian Empire and nearly prevented it from fulfilling its obligations toward France. It was evident that if war could be stopped, an alliance of the two belligerents, which had become necessary, would quickly make good the damage done.

In this opinion I stood almost alone; by some, in fact, it was declared paradoxical and harmful. And when high finance, anxious first of all for its profits,

In that article I tried to demonstrate that, if the war continued, Russia would find it impossible to pay the interest on her loans, and that a catastrophe of this nature would bring about the ruin of French investors and the final fall of the third republic.

M. Rouvier, Minister of Finance at that time, asked me to stop my campaign, which he considered unpatriotic. Nevertheless, being a man of high intelligence, he became convinced, after a long conversation to which he summoned me, that the real interests of France required, before all else, the immediate termination of the war.

Besides, Japan rightly thought that this impending loan was an act of hostile intervention harmful to her interests. Baron Motono, the eminent Japanese Ambassador, said to me: "As France is such a tried friend of our country and of Russia, and as she is not alle to send her armies to the Far East, she should not send her money there. After the war, Indo-China might sooner or later pay the cost of this intervention, even contrary to the wishes of the friends of France."

Furthermore, the Franco - Japanese rapprochement, foreshadowed in La Revue during the war (in 1905) by my eminent friend, Viscount Suyematsu, sonin-law of Marquis Ito, came true as soon as the war was over, and it is the reason why France, Russia, and Japan stand together today on the same side of the barricade.

Thus our perspicacity was justified. It sufficed to look at reality without prejudices to see that the Russo-Japanese

war was one of the most illogical in history. The perfect good faith with which both nations have since accepted peace proves the sincerity of their humanitarian aspirations.

One thing must never be lost sight ofleft to itself, the Russian people is essentially peaceful. The idea of conquest is foreign to it; schemes of territorial aggrandizement have always been inculcated into it by those in high position or by foreign influences. The only wars that are popular in Russia are those whose object is the deliverance of Slavic peoples. In 1879, when it was a case of freeing the Balkan peoples, the enthusiasm of the Russians knew no bounds. But in 1905 they were opposed to a campaign which they considered monstrous and inconceivable. And now they are filled again with enthusiasm for the great crusade of civilized peoples whose goal is to free Russia from German influence and to preserve not only the Slavic principle but the political rights and moral acquisitions of Europe.

So this nation, looked upon as barbarous and savage, has waged several wars for an ideal! It will suffice to compare it to the German Nation, which has never helped any people and never fought for a lofty principle, in order to understand on which side moral supremacy lies.

III. THE PARADOX OF A MONGOL PEOPLE.

Russia is taxed with being a Mongol or Tartar nation. A victim of the barbarians, she has needed centuries to emancipate herself from their influence and become Christian and moral. Germany, in her past, has had no such tragic event to deplore. Therefore she is today committing a crime that is all the more monstrous because she is separating herself from the civilized and falling voluntarily into sheer savagery.

It will suffice to study the main currents of Russian thought during the last half century to realize how much her "idealists" remain superior to the German "intellectuals." Ever since the Russians of 1840, whom Herzen describes with so much talent in his "Byloie i