The Paris Decisions, however, coming as they did after the discussions of Boulogne and Brussels, were not meant seriously, and were simply another move in the game, to give M. Briand a breathing space. I wonder if there has ever been anything quite like it—best diagnosed perhaps as a consequence of the portentous development of “propaganda.” The monster had escaped from the control of its authors, and the extraordinary situation was produced in which the most powerful statesmen in the world were compelled by forces, which they could not evade, to meet together day after day to discuss detailed variations of what they knew to be impossible. Mr. Lloyd George successfully took care, however, that the bark should have no immediate bite behind it. The consideration of effective penalties was postponed, and the Germans were invited to attend in London in a month’s time to convey their answer by word of mouth. M. Briand duly secured his triumph in the Chamber. “Rarely,” _The Times_ reported, “can M. Briand in all his long career as a speaker and Parliamentarian have been in better form. The flaying of M. Tardieu was intensely dramatic, even if at times almost a little painful for the spectators as well as for the victim.” M. Tardieu had overstated his case, and “roundly asserting that the policy of France during the last year had been based on the conclusion that the financial clauses of the Treaty of Versailles could not be executed, had gained considerable applause by declaring that this was just the thesis of the pacifist, Mr. Keynes, and of the German delegate, Count Brockdorff–Rantzau,”—which was certainly rather unfair to the Paris Decisions. But by that date, even in France, to praise the perfections of the Treaty was to make oneself ridiculous. “I am an ingenuous man,” said M. Briand as he mounted the tribune, “and when I received from M. Tardieu news that he was going to interpellate me, I permitted myself to feel a little pleased. I told myself that M. Tardieu was one of the principal architects of the Treaty of Versailles, and that as such, though he knew its good qualities, he would also know its blemishes, and that he would, therefore, be indulgent to a man who had done his best in fulfilling his duty of applying it—_mais voilà_ (with a gesture)—I did not stop to remember that M. Tardieu had already expended all his stock of indulgence upon his own handiwork.” The monstrous offspring of propaganda was slowly dying. V. _The First Conference of London_ (_March_ 1–7, 1921)