Pressure was brought to bear on Roumania by a Note maintaining the rights of the German bondholders, addressed by Prince Bismarck to the Sublime Porte as Suzerain of the Principalities. The Strousberg affair thus threatened to become more a _question de force_ than a _question de droit_. It appeared, moreover, that a lawsuit against Strousberg was out of the question, as the bondholders, and not the Roumanian Government, were the injured parties. Needless to say, this opinion of the Prussian law-officers evoked great indignation in Roumania. Eventually, on January 2, 1872, the Chamber decided to offer the bondholders two alternatives: (_a_) To take over the rights and obligations of the first concession, to complete the railways in three years with an annual grant of nine millions towards the coupons; the payment of the last year's interest, and the restitution of the deposit to be obtained from Strousberg. (_b_) To transfer all their rights to the Roumanian State, which pledged itself to pay off the bonds (to be exchanged for State papers) in forty-nine years' time by an annual payment of eleven millions. Three weeks later the Prince had the satisfaction of informing his father that the vexed question appeared to be solved at last. "You can hardly imagine what I have lived through during the last weeks of the old year! Excitements, anxieties, and hopes changed with every day. Day after day passed without any result, or any hope of solving the unfortunate railway question: such a strain on the nerves might have caused the strongest man to give way. At first weeks passed before the matter reached the order of the day, then the preliminary debates lasted fully four days; the result was by no means certain the first two days, as the Opposition brought all its batteries into action. I breathed again on the evening of the fourth day, and the city also calmed down at once from its former feverish excitement. The agitators are afraid that the settlement of the railway question, which they had made a dynastic one, has robbed them of their last dangerous weapon.... "The Opposition used Von Radowitz's declaration in Constantinople--that the Emperor was directly interested in an arrangement--with much skill and perfidy, drawing the deduction that the House of Hohenzollern was mixed up in this dirty business. It is much too hackneyed and ridiculous to be even annoyed about!"