When they reached the hedge forming the boundary of the property, a French _cavass_ or guard sprang out from behind it and shouted in a loud voice, “This land belongs to France.” The Tunisian _posse comitatus_ hastily retired, and assuaged their wounded feelings by an eloquent protest. The telegraph was then set to work, and the Bey’s wanton trespass on the private domicile of a French citizen was in a few hours announced throughout the length and breadth of France. On the 7th January 1879, M. Sumaripa, M. Roustan’s interpreter, appeared at the Bardo and placed an ultimatum in the hands of the Prime Minister. It ran thus:—“Unless the following conditions are accepted, the Chargé d’Affaires of France is determined to break off diplomatic relations with the Bey of Tunis: 1st, An inquiry to be ordered forthwith into the claims of M. De Sancy; 2d, The Prime Minister _in uniform_ to appear at the French Consulate-General, and publicly apologise for the insult offered to France; 3d, The functionaries who carried out the Bey’s instructions to be immediately dismissed from his service.” For a time the Bey hesitated as to what course he should take. His telegrams to Paris miscarried or were delayed, a French squadron as usual appeared opportunely at Goletta, and the “friendly powers” would or could do nothing but give advice. The Bey surrendered at discretion; Mustapha next morning asked pardon in the presence of a gaping crowd at the French Consulate-General, and M. Roustan announced that M. Waddington would be satisfied with the dismissal of the only English subject in the Bey’s service, Mr. Santillana. A committee of three Frenchmen and two Tunisians was appointed to fully investigate the effects of the Turkish war on M. De Sancy’s philanthropic attempts “to improve the breed of Tunisian horses and cattle.” What they reported never transpired, but in the result M. De Sancy’s grant was fully confirmed. Next year he transferred all his rights to the well-known French company called the _Société Marseillaise_, which has now kindly undertaken “to improve the Tunisian breed of horses and cattle,” and pays or should pay M. De Sancy a very satisfactory annuity. When the Italians tried to treat the Jedeida as Italian soil in 1870, the French were loud in their professions of horror at such an uncalled-for aggression, but when Sidi Tabet, by a fiction of M. Roustan’s, became a French property in 1878, it was regarded as the legitimate development of a perfectly justifiable preponderating influence!