The reading of this document, after it had been translated, led to the poor envoy being bombarded with questions, relevant and irrelevant. The Bizen affair, the return of foreigners to Ōsaka and various other matters were discussed, in the midst of which poor M. Roches lost his temper and had rather a rough time of it with some of the colleagues. It was almost his last outburst, for he was soon to leave for Europe when Baron Brin, a charming man, would take his place as _chargé d’affaires_. Though he was none too civil to me personally, as an Englishman and quite opposed to his policy, I always entertained a kind of sneaking regard for M. Roches. He was in private life a picturesque and rather fascinating personality. But when, for his undoing, stripped of his white burnous and his Spahi’s uniform, he was pitchforked into diplomacy he became a round peg in a square hole. None of his schemes and stratagems outlived the fœtus stage, and his fireworks were but damp squibs. His discomfiture was pathetic; the utter failure of his policy, accentuated by the Imperial manifesto brought by Higashi Kuzé, had destroyed the last particle of prestige that he had once had with the colleagues, who now had no better course left to them than to follow the lead of Sir Harry Parkes. CHAPTER XXII JAPAN. MUKASHI Ito was now appointed Governor of Hiōgo and Kōbé. It is curious that so comparatively small an office should have been spoken of as an excessive rise for a man who was destined to become a Prince and great ruler, and whose name was to become famous throughout the civilized world. He was a young man of about my own age, a yōnin or man of business of the Chōshiu clan, which some years before he had left to become a rōnin, when, with his friend Inouyé, afterwards one of the “Elder Statesmen,” he undertook a voyage to Europe, the two working their way before the mast. This journey did much to open his eyes and free his views; but, apart from that, his energies and talents were bound to push him to the front. Great as were the services of the other clans—Satsuma especially—it was Chōshiu that produced the two greatest men of the revolution—Kido and Ito.