Wollmann told me this morning that the widow of the painter Bouterweck, a Prussian lady, has written from Paris to the Foreign Office, stating that several pictures owned by her late husband, which she had had in her house at Bougival, and which did not even belong to her, had been taken away by the Prussian troops. They were paintings by old masters, among them a Hobbema. She had ascertained that a Captain K., of the 47th (doubtless the 46th) Regiment, had packed them up and sent them away, and she now requested that they should be returned to her. They are certainly not in the possession of Captain K., but it may be that First Lieutenant ---- has them, as the story goes that he has been sent packing on account of a consignment of flotsam and jetsam in the way of furniture, which he forwarded to his mistress.... _August 23rd._--The following suggestions for the semi-official press were sent by the Chief to Thile, who handed them over to me: “The domestic complications in the cis-Leithan half of Austria-Hungary give rise to frequent misconceptions abroad, too much importance being given to the national aspect. The issue turns upon governmental and constitutional questions, and the relations of the various parties, rather than upon the struggle between the Germans and the Slavs. It is mainly a fight between the Conservative and Liberal elements. The German landed proprietors support the Slavs because they themselves are conservative or reactionary; and among the leaders of the Slav party and those who are promoting the compromise there are a great number of prominent aristocrats who do not understand a word of Bohemian or any other Slav language. Men like Thun and Hohenwart are in the first place conservative, and are only Bohemian in so far as they regard the Slavs as useful tools for advancing the views of the aristocracy and of the Church. That they further the Slav national movement at the same time, and even apparently adopt its principles, is due to the fact that the Slav peoples prove themselves to be more capable and willing instruments of aristocratic, absolutist and clerical tendencies than the German element. The latter, owing to its entire education and to the circumstance that it includes the real bourgeoisie and prosperous middle classes of Austria, gravitates unmistakably towards Liberalism. It is in this way that the struggle assumes a national character. This condition of affairs will be more readily understood by comparing it with similar occurrences in Germany and elsewhere, where the reactionary as well as the democratic and revolutionary groups, irrespective of nationality, have thrown in their lot with kindred parties in other countries (Poles and Frenchmen) for the purpose of forwarding their party schemes against their opponents at home.”