The letter by his Apostolic Majesty, published by the French Premier in his communiqué of April 12, 1918, is falsified, (verfaelscht.) First of all, it may be declared that the personality of far higher rank than the Foreign Minister, who, as admitted in the official statement of April 7, undertook peace efforts in the Spring of 1917, must be understood to be not his Apostolic Majesty but Prince Sixte of Bourbon, who in the Spring of 1917 was occupied with bringing about a rapprochement between the belligerent States. As regards the text of the letter published by M. Clemenceau, the Foreign Minister declares by All Highest command that his Apostolic Majesty wrote a purely personal private letter in the Spring of 1917 to his brother-in-law, Prince Sixte of Bourbon, which contained no instructions to the Prince to initiate mediation with the President of the French Republic or any one else, to hand on communications which might be made to him, or to evoke and receive replies. This letter, moreover, made no mention of the Belgian question, and contained, relative to Alsace-Lorraine, the following-passage: "I would have used all my personal influence in favor of the French claims for the return of Alsace-Lorraine, if these claims were just. They are not, however." The second letter of the Emperor mentioned in the French Premier's communique of April 9, in which his Apostolic Majesty is said to have declared that he was "in accord with his Minister," is significantly not mentioned by the French communiqué. This statement drew forth from the French Government the following reply: There are rotten consciences. The Emperor Charles, finding it impossible to save his face, falls into the stammerings of a man confounded. He is now reduced to accusing his brother-in-law of forgery, by fabricating with his own hand a lying text. The original document, the text of which has been published by the French Government, was communicated in the presence of M. Jules Cambon, Secretary General of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and delegated for this purpose by the Minister for Foreign Affairs, to the President of the Republic, who, with the authorization of the Prince, handed a copy of it to the President of the Council. The Prince spoke of the matter to M. Ribot himself in terms which would have been devoid of sense if the text had not been that published by the French Government, is it not evidence that no conversation could have been opened, and that the President of the Republic would not even have received the Prince a second time, if the latter, at Austria's instance, had been the bearer of a document which contested our rights instead of affirming them?