Indeed Constantinople has gained a hold of his fertile imagination that may account for the supreme and audacious treachery of his conduct during the past few years. He dreams, this Prince of a pot-house, of erecting his throne in the city which he last visited wearing the red fez of vassalage. The dream is no new one. When the great assembly had gathered at Tirnovo to witness the apostasy of the infant Boris, Ferdinand’s uncle, the witty old Duc d’Aumale, ventured on some satirical congratulations. “I congratulate you, Ferdinand,” he said, “your son is now orthodox, it will be your turn next.” But Ferdinand, wrapped in his megalomania, failed to detect the jocularity. “I have been thinking about this for some time,” he answered earnestly; “I have fixed my baptism in a church, and in circumstances, which will certainly reconcile you to my act.” “And where, and under what circumstances will it happen?” “It will take place at St. Sophia, under the thunder of Bulgarian guns.” This conversation, it must be remembered, took place soon after the fall of Stambuloff and the murder of that strong man, which removed from the path of Ferdinand the only obstacle in Bulgaria to the unchecked attainment of his wishes in that country. It is to be borne in mind as the predominating motive in all his acts from that time forward. It shaped his foreign policy, and affords the sole key to his method of dealing with the internal affairs of Bulgaria. As I shall make clear later, it was the motive which caused him to form with his neighbours the Balkan League, ostensibly to free the Christians in Macedonia and Thrace from Turkish oppression. The real motive became apparent after the battle of Lule Burgas, when the Turks fled before the victorious Bulgarians. When the Turks finally came to bay at the lines of Chatalja, a peace whereby the Allies would have gained all they ostensibly sought was offered by Kiamil Pasha. Ferdinand, without consulting his Allies, rejected it; and against the wish of his Army Council began the attack of Chatalja, which proved so disastrous to the Bulgarian arms. Speaking in the Sobranje in 1914, the Bulgarian delegate Kosturoff said, “As was shown later on, the only purpose was to enter Constantinople. The ambition, the boundless ambition, was to place the Cross on the Mosque of St. Sophia, in order that history should some day write, ‘Simeon came once beneath the walls of Constantinople, but the Greek women broke his head there. It was Czar Ferdinand who entered Constantinople as victor.’”