The association of the Montenegrin Royal Family and the Habsburgs, which was to culminate in the barefaced treachery of Lovčen, may be said to have begun in the year 1906, when the two heirs, Francis Ferdinand and Danilo, met at Dubrovnik. A statement was issued, after a few days, which declared that Russia was far away and that Montenegro required the support of a Power whose help would be effective. If it had not been for the disasters of the Russo-Japanese War, Nikita would have found it much more difficult to direct his country in this manner. The Black Mountain had always thought of Russia as all-powerful; her defeat, when they could bring themselves to realize it, was to them as if the foundations of the world were rocking; in their dazed condition they agreed that it was well to have recourse to Austria. (When the Russian Minister at Cetinje protested, some explanation was given.) The financial details of the Dubrovnik agreement are unknown, but from what one does know of Danilo it is fairly safe if we assume that the whole benefit did not accrue to the Montenegrin Government. Danilo may in other respects have been an incapable young man--the advice of his unmarried sister, Xenia, was always preferred to his; in fact, her father had such confidence in this masterful woman with the pallid face and large, black eyes--the "femme fatale," as her enemies have called her--that he never gave an audience but she was present, either openly or behind a screen. Danilo's incapacity, however, seems to have stopped short, as we shall see, at the procuring of cash.