On the other hand, the phrase “honor and vital interests” is omitted. Roumania and Servia desire to wait for further instructions by wire. July 20. The articles regarding mediation and good offices are accepted without objection. When the article on the Commission of Inquiry is reached, Beldimann declares that he has not yet received any reply from his government. A few delegates are indignant at the further procrastination, and it is finally decided to take up the article again in two days. Now, without further objections, the reading of the report is continued. When Article 27 is reached,—the one proposed by D’Estournelles, which lays an obligation upon the powers to remind parties in dispute that there is a Tribunal,—the interest of the session reaches its culminating point. The representatives of Roumania and Servia set themselves in violent opposition to it. But Professor Zorn warmly advocates its acceptance. Dr. Holls declares that Article 27 is the crown of the whole work, and he decidedly protests against any change in its wording. Count Nigra, kindled by the electricity of the atmosphere, springs up and apostrophizes the representatives of the Danube states: “We are here neither as great nor as small states; we are all alike sovereign—we act here as free and equal.” The sensation of the session was still to come. Never before had a more excited and more elevated feeling ruled in the “House in the Wood.” Never before had the transactions aroused so much moral enthusiasm. So the moment was favorable when Léon Bourgeois took the floor, and in fiery words, in the name of France, supplemented the speech made by Professor Zorn. In one point he was obliged, he said, to oppose Count Nigra,—there are great and smaller powers. But the measure of greatness is not to be found in the area of their territory, nor in the effectiveness of their troops, nor in the number of their inhabitants. The greatness of a power is to be measured by the greatness of its ideas and by the faithfulness with which it adheres to the principles on which the progress of mankind is based. The orator spoke further in the same tenor, and all listened as if under a spell. When he ended, the storm of applause would not cease, and one delegate after another warmly pressed around the speaker to congratulate him. And Article 27 was accepted.