A general excitement amongst the Arabs very naturally followed the commencement of hostilities between the Emperor of France and the King of Prussia. The Bey did his utmost to please both parties, and, as might be expected, succeeded in satisfying neither. The travellers Rohlfs and Wetstein were denounced by M. De Botmiliau as German emissaries of so dangerous a description that their daily walks were watched by a detachment of Tunisian soldiers, and a local _avoué_ caused a copious interchange of telegrams with Berlin by announcing his intention of forming a Foreign Legion in Tunis to take service under the Government of Tours. After an unsuccessful attempt to reach the interior, the German savants were compelled to leave the country in self-defence, and the Tunisian Contingent seems to have died a natural death about the same time. To counterbalance the effect of the news of the disasters of Sedan and Metz, M. De Botmiliau fell back upon the ancient scare of a meditated Turkish invasion from Tripoli; notwithstanding which, the Bey showed an increasing determination to obtain from the Porte the execution of the vizirial letter of 1864. A year or two before, the Bey in a weak moment had granted two important concessions of arable ground to Italian and French subjects. An Italian agricultural company obtained an estate at Jedeida, while a French citizen, the Count de Sancy, was put in possession of the fruitful domain of Sidi Tabet, on the banks of the Medjerdah. Both these kindly acts on the part of the Bey were destined to entail important results; the former became the indirect cause of the Bey’s hastening his demand for the Imperial firman, and the latter has contributed not a little to the events of 1881. The Italian _concessionnaires_ were hardly installed at the Jedeida when they put forward claims to exercise such jurisdiction over the inhabitants as would constitute an _imperium in imperio_. Some local disputes with the Arabs living on the property induced them to precipitately retire, and present an elaborate claim for consequential damages on account of unreaped harvests, unborn herds, and even unhatched eggs. Signor Pinna pulled down his flag, and Italian newspapers talked quite as loudly of an expedition and occupation on behalf of the Societa Commerciale, Industriale ed Agricola, per la Tunisia in 1871, as the French press did in connection with the Société Marseillaise exactly ten years later. Mainly through the good offices of Mr. Wood an arbitration was agreed upon, in which, in spite of many disadvantages, Muhamed es Sadek came off victorious.