reactionary monarchy of Europe. At the same time Bismarck's denials of having acted with terrorizing intent cannot be accepted. He was more sincere when he criticized the ostentation with which the Russian Chancellor, Prince Gortchakoff, had claimed for his master the character of the defender of France and the obstacle to German ambitions. It was in memory of this that, in 1878 at the congress of Berlin, Bismarck did his best to impair the advantages which Russia had obtained under the treaty of San Stefano. Congress of Berlin. The events which led to that congress put into abeyance the prospect of a serious understanding between France and Russia. The insurrection in Herzegovina in July 1875 reopened the Eastern question, and in the Orient the interests of France and Russia had been for many years conflicting, as witness the controversy concerning the Holy Places, which was one of the causes of the Crimean War. France had from the reign of Louis XIV. claimed the exclusive right of protecting Roman Catholic interests in the East. This claim was supported not only by the monarchists, for the most part friendly to Russia in other respects, who directed the foreign policy of the Third Republic until the Russo-Turkish War of 1877, but by the Republicans, who were coming into perpetual power at the time of the congress of Berlin--the ablest of the anti-clericals, Gambetta, declaring in this connexion that "anti-clericalism was not an article of exportation." The defeat of the monarchists at the elections of 1877, after the "Seize Mai," and the departure from office of the duc Decazes, whose policy had tended to prepare the way for an alliance with the tsar, changed the attitude of French diplomacy towards Russia. M. Waddington, the first Republican minister for foreign affairs, was not a Russophil, while Gambetta was ardently anti-Russian, and he, though not a minister, was exercising that preponderant influence in French politics which he retained until 1882, the last year of his life. Many Republicans considered that the monarchists, whom they had turned out, favoured the support of Russia not only as a defence against Germany, which was not likely to be effective so long as a friendly uncle and nephew were reigning at Berlin and at St Petersburg respectively, but also as a possible means of facilitating a monarchical restoration in France. Consequently at the congress of Berlin M. Waddington and the other French delegates maintained a very independent attitude towards Russia. They supported the resolutions which aimed at diminishing the advantages obtained by Russia in the war, they affirmed the rights of France over the Holy Places, and they opposed the anti-Semitic views of the Russian representatives. The result of the congress of Berlin seemed therefore to draw France and Russia farther apart, especially as Gambetta and the Republicans now in power were more disposed towards an understanding with England. The contrary, however, happened.