There was no more edifying and compelling personality amongst the party who were in the habit of taking the floor in 10 Downing Street in 1915 than Lord Curzon. He, Mr. Churchill, and Mr. Lloyd George might almost have been called rivals for the role of _prima ballerina assoluta_. The remarks that fell from his lips, signalized as they ever were by a faultless phraseology and delivered with a prunes, prisms and potatoes diction, seldom failed to lift the discussion on to a higher plane, to waft his hearers on to the serene hill-tops of thought, to awaken sublime sensations in all present such as the spectacle of some noble mountain panorama will summon up in the meditations of the most phlegmatic. Mr. Churchill, ever lucid, ever cogent, ever earnest, ever forceful, was wont to be so convincing that he would almost cause listeners to forget for the moment that, were the particular project which just then happened to be uppermost in his mind to be carried into execution, any small hopes which remained of our ever winning the war would inevitably be blotted out for good and all. As for Mr. Lloyd George in drab days before he became First Minister of the Crown in spite of his superhuman efforts to avoid that undesired consummation, he always loved to make his voice heard, and he always succeeded--just as a canary will in a roomful of chattering women. CHAPTER XII SOME INTER-ALLIES CONFERENCES The Conference with the Italians in Paris in April-May 1915 -- Its constitution -- Italians anxious that Allies should deliver big offensive simultaneously with advance of Italian army -- Impossibility of giving a guarantee -- Difficulties over the naval proposals -- Banquet given by M. Millerand at the War Office -- A visit to the front -- Impressions -- Mr. Churchill turns up unexpectedly -- A conference with General Joffre at Chantilly over Salonika -- Its unsatisfactory character -- Admiral Gamble races "Grandpere," and suffers discomfiture -- A distinguished party proceed to Paris -- A formal conference with the French Government -- Messrs. Asquith, Grey and Lloyd George as linguists -- The French attitude over Salonika -- Sir W. Robertson gives his views -- The decision -- Dinner at the Elysee -- Return to London -- Mr. Lloyd George and the soldiers on the Boulogne jetty -- Points of the destroyer as a yacht -- Mr. Balfour and Sir W. Robertson afloat -- A chatty dinner on our side of the Channel -- Difficulty over Russian munitions owing to a Chantilly conference -- A conference at the War Office -- Mr. Lloyd George as chairman -- M. Mantoux.