"Come, come, my dear Bismarck, be calm. You know that I am very fond of you. I have known you since your childhood. But I do not like you when you are hysterical. Come, you are going to be hysterical. Pray be calm: come, come, my dear fellow." A short time after this interview Bismarck complained to Odo of "the preposterous folly and ignorance of the English and all other Cabinets, who had mistaken stories got up for speculations on the Bourse for the true policy of the German Government." "Then will you," asked Odo, "censure your four ambassadors who have misled us and the other Powers?" Bismarck made no reply[247]. [Footnote 246: _Bismarck: his Reflections_, etc., vol. ii. pp. 191-193, 249-153 (Eng. ed.); the _Bismarck Jahrbuch_, vol. iv. p. 35.] [Footnote 247: Sir M. Grant Duff, _Notes from a Diary, 1886-88_, vol. i. p. 129. See, too, other proofs of the probability of an attack by Germany on France in Professor Geffcken's _Frankreich, Russland, und der Dreibund_, pp. 90 _et seq._] It seems, then, that the German Chancellor had no ground for suspicion against the Crown Princess as having informed Queen Victoria of the suggested attack on France; but thenceforth he had an intense dislike of these august ladies, and lost no opportunity of maligning them in diplomatic circles and through the medium of the Press. Yet, while nursing resentful thoughts against Queen Victoria, her daughter, and the British Ministry, the German Chancellor reserved his wrath mainly for his personal rival at St. Petersburg. The publication of Gortchakoff's circular despatch of May 10, 1875, beginning with the words, "Maintenant la paix est assurée," was in his eyes the crowning offence.