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i9i4] THE AUSTRIAN ULTIMATUM 287
colleague several times, and he was very attentive to
me, although he was much occupied with a big
deputation of German officers who had come to greet the King
of Sweden, and who paraded ostentatiously everywhere
in their most splendid uniforms and fraternised at
perpetual banquets with their Swedish comrades from
the garrisons of central Sweden.
I also noticed—it was most obvious—in the waters
of the straits which divide Malmo from Copenhagen the
presence of a great number of German destroyers.
When I was going to Copenhagen, after the King’s
departure from Malmo, I came across several. One
seemed to come out of every creek! To my questions
on the subject, the answer given was that it was a
squadron of destroyers commanded by Prince
Eitel-Frederick who, having taken a cruise in the straits, was
going to pay a visit to the Swedish Royal couple at
the Castle of Tullgarn ; a visit which actually took
place ten days later.
Meantime, the President of the French Republic was
on his way to St. Petersburg by sea; from there he was
due in Stockholm on the 25th July to pay his official
visit; great preparations were being made to receive
him with the customary ceremonial.
I remember that on the 22nd, I and my family and a
few members of the Legation made a delightful excursion
in the "skargaard" of Stockholm. Beautiful weather,
pretty scenery, a merry lunch, a charming day spent
entirely in the open air ! Returning in a motor-boat, on
one of those soft, clear evenings which in summer
constitute the special charm of those regions, I gave
myself up entirely to the mere joy of existing. " Well!
well!" I soliloquised out loud; " I am not sorry after
all to have had to exchange Sofia for Stockholm ! Sofia
certainly was a more interesting post, and above all a
more important one ; but here in exchange, one has
some repose; one can enjoy life without being
perpetually obsessed by political preoccupations . . . ." A bad
fairy heard me.
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