‘Your police have not shown their usual astuteness, I am afraid,’ I observed, smiling. The Tsar now interposed in a tone of more authority than I had ventured to hope from his not very strong face. ‘Do you suggest, M. V----, that the whole Staff of the French Army are engaged in a conspiracy to forge documents?’ ‘Something of the kind, I am afraid, sire.’ ‘But this notorious case, which has excited the attention of the whole of Europe--the _Affaire Dreyfus_?’ ‘I am in a position to assure your Majesty that Captain Dreyfus had no more to do with Germany than M. Pobiedonostzeff here.’ [Illustration: “The Tsar now interposed in a tone of more authority than I had ventured to hope for. ‘Do you suggest, M. V----, that the whole staff of the French army are engaged in a conspiracy to forge documents?’”] The Procurator of the Holy Synod raised his head. ‘You are very confident, it seems to me, M. V----,’ he sneered. ‘May I ask if you have been retained by the party which is seeking to reopen the case of Dreyfus?’ ‘No, M. le Procureur, my knowledge has been acquired from an opposite quarter.’ ‘From General Garnier himself, perhaps?’ ‘No, _not this time_,’ I retorted, with biting significance. ‘My information was derived from his Imperial Majesty, Wilhelm II.’ Never shall I forget the changes which passed rapidly across the faces of three of my listeners as I made this statement. Prince Victor Napoleon alone received unmoved an announcement for which he was already prepared. ‘It is not a month,’ I added calmly, ‘since the German Emperor charged me with a commission to find out two things: the reason for the theatrical publicity given to the trial of an obscure captain in the French Army, and the object of the persistent attempt to represent him as a spy of Germany.’ I paused for a moment and turned to Nicholas II. before concluding. ‘That commission I have now accomplished. I am now in a position to inform the German Emperor that the purpose of this shameful comedy is to impose on the French people the belief that they are in danger of an invasion, from which they can only be delivered by a Bonaparte restoration under the patronage of your Majesty.’ The face of the young Tsar went red and white by turn. ‘I swear by Saint Nicholas that they shall eat their forgeries!’ he said. And I have reason to know that it was the pressing and peremptory request of the Russian Emperor that at last secured the second trial, and the final pardon and release of the unhappy sufferer. IV WHAT WAS BEHIND THE TSAR’S PEACE RESCRIPT Perhaps the most sensational event in recent history was the publication by the young and newly crowned Tsar of All the Russias of a rescript calling upon the great military Powers of the world to disband their armies and dismantle their fleets, and inaugurate an era of universal peace.