“Perhaps we have acted too hastily,” he said, “and if all you say is true, it may have been unwise for us to send an army into Smyrna, but now that the army is there, it would be more unwise to withdraw it--to do so would admit military, and court political, defeat. The Monarchists are plotting constantly against me in Athens, and they are backed by the merchants and shipping men who are over-ambitious and want new territory for their operations.” Venizelos admitted that he favoured the annexation of Thrace and of Smyrna proper. His explanation satisfied me that it was pressure from Greek financiers that made him continue to enlarge his demands. My meeting with the subsequent premier of France came later. Stephen Lausanne, editor of that powerful journal, _Le Matin_, asked me to lunch with Bunau-Varilla, the _Matin’s_ owner, a power in French politics. I was surprised to find present quite a number of people, among whom were the Belgian financier, Count Aupin, and the heavily moustached, stoop-shouldered man that headed the French delegation to the Washington Disarmament Conference. We discussed the future attitude of the United States toward France, and, when the party was breaking up, Lausanne detained me. “Don’t go,” he said: “Briand wants to talk with you.” Aristide Briand, who had five times been Prime Minister of France, was then, as always, at the head of a strong political faction. Once the friend, he had now long been the rival of Clemenceau, could almost at any moment have overthrown the Clemenceau Cabinet, and was puzzling many people by his delay in executing such a manœuvre. What he wanted of me was information concerning a matter that directly affected this situation. France’s financial troubles were the stumbling block: The country’s tax-payers were already overburdened, yet a larger revenue must be raised. Briand and his friends felt that the man who, as Premier, attempted to set those troubles right, and who failed in the difficult endeavour, would not remain Premier for long. They considered leaving the ungrateful job to Clemenceau, unless they could put through the Chamber of Deputies their brilliant idea. They wanted to pay off the French war debt by means of a lottery loan. There would be daily prizes. They contemplated one as high as a million francs. And they expected to sell a large proportion of the tickets in America! What, they asked, did I think of the plan? “Gentlemen,” I said, “you are evidently unaware that there is a law against lotteries in the United States.” “But this lottery,” said Briand, “would be in France; we would merely sell tickets in America through the mails.” “It was precisely by forbidding the use of the mails for such purposes,” I explained, “that we stopped lotteries. It is a criminal offence to sell lottery-tickets in the United States or to use our mails for that purpose.”