sub-Elias (loud laughter.) This man is the friend of Elias in precisely the same manner as Elias is the friend of M. Roustan. He is a Jew from Leghorn, and commenced life as a broker. He became so celebrated for bringing about the failure of his employers, that he acquired the pseudonym of the _courtier de l’agonie_. But he did something else; he introduced false money into Tunis. The coin was made in Switzerland, and brought to its destination by way of Genoa and La Calle. The bags containing it were consigned to Volterra by an employé of the Compagnie Valéry. The affair was hushed up at the time, but one fine day the French flag floated over the Tunisian citadel. The first result obtained was the appointment of Elias Musalli as the Director of the Tunisian Foreign Office, and the second the nomination of Volterra as Master of the Mint. (M. Roustan here energetically denies this statement.[10]) The mint at Tunis is administered by somebody. It is Mustapha who has taken the contract in his name, and made Volterra his agent. The fact is so notorious that the International Financial Commission has made it the subject of a formal protest. I shall now proceed to show how business is done by the Levantine alliance, and shall speak first of Taib Bey. Taib has brought up his children in French fashion, and seems to be a friend of France. As early as in 1879 M. Roustan established relations with Taib. At first Taib declined to accept the overtures made to him, but at last he seemed disposed to acquiesce in M. Roustan’s proposals. Taib tells me that four days before the Treaty of Kasr-es-Said, the brother of Madame Elias said, ‘_We_ are going to put Taib upon the throne, but he must first sign in favour of Madame Elias a bond for 1,500,000 francs.’ Taib was intelligent enough to understand, that although he might easily pay the sum if he succeeded his brother, it would be his death-warrant if he did not, and therefore declined to act on the suggestion. Since then evil days have fallen on Taib, and he has been even obliged to borrow money to defray his household expenses. Everything at Tunis turns on _pots de vin_: at every turn one hears that ‘So-and-so, having got into a scrape, has got out of it by timely application to Madame Elias.’ The three great _pots de vin_ seem to be the Enfida, the Crédit Foncier, and the Tunisian Bonds. I saw M. Roustan at Tunis, and told him that I was surprised he had given the monopoly of the railways in the Regency to one company; he answered that it was to the French generally that the exclusive privileges had been given. In the _livre jaune_, however, it clearly appears that the Compagnie Bone- Guelma has the monopoly. He also denied that in M. Léon Renault’s concession there was any permission to advance money to the Bedouins, or that it had ever been contemplated to supplant Muhamed es Sadek by Taib. These two assertions were not borne out by the evidence I obtained.”