It is nothing to their discredit. To the very last most of us clung to the idea that the Kaiser was really an Englishman, though he did little to foster that idea, and his upbringing, his speeches and his behaviour were shining testimony to the contrary. Ferdinand, on the other hand, had an upbringing that was essentially characteristic of the old France; not that new France which fills the whole civilized world with delight and admiration. He has constantly posed as French in culture, in sympathy and in aim. France early took him to its generous arms, and there is every excuse for the French trusting in his blandishments; the generous spirit of France is incapable of crediting that any man of French extraction could stoop to such perfidy as Ferdinand has displayed. If France was open to the accusation of degeneracy half a century ago, the fact was largely due to the method of educating its boys. The supreme irony of fate has exacted this compensation for the horrors inflicted by Germany upon stricken France in 1870, that the full measure of punishment now impending over the Hunnish race is the result of these infamies. The new France is the outcome of that disaster, and the new Frenchman of to-day, steeled to patient endurance, yet fighting with all the dash of his ancestors, is the result of wiser methods of education. But Ferdinand was brought up as one of the degenerate Frenchmen of the past age. At fifteen he knew more of the dark side of life than any hardened man of the world ought to know. At twenty he was a loathsome young beast, whose only admirer was his doting mother. She was a daughter of France, and everywhere surrounded herself and her son with the historic objects she had inherited from her great French ancestors. When Ferdinand crossed his Rubicon and ventured on that hazardous journey in disguise to Sofia, against the wish of all the European Powers, his companions on the voyage were gallant and adventurous young Frenchmen. The elegant Court he formed in Bulgaria was redeemed from absurdity by the grace, wit and refinement of these companions and their successors. The first champions of Ferdinand, and his apologists through good and evil, have been the French. I have referred many times in this chronicle to the French biographer of Ferdinand, the enthusiastic M. Hepp. He has written so charmingly and with such obvious and honest sincerity of this Hun in French clothing that it is impossible to overlook his work. It represents current French opinion of the Bulgarian Czar, who, up to the very last moment, contrived to deceive even such keen-eyed publicists as M. Reinach. The amazing confidences Ferdinand has made to M. Hepp are set out in this surprisingly intimate biography, in which one long chapter is devoted to proving Ferdinand’s possession by the French sentiment.