Three days after this compromise was arrived at, Germany, on the 3rd of June, issued invitations to the Powers to meet in Congress at Berlin on the 14th.[132] Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury then proceeded to represent England at the conclave in the Radziwill Palace. Few will forget the almost breathless excitement with which the people of England watched what they believed would be a terrible diplomatic duel for the honour of their Queen and country between Lord Beaconsfield and Prince Gortschakoff, for all this time the country had accepted as true Lord Salisbury’s denial of his secret compact with Count Schouvaloff.[133] But the tension of public feeling suddenly relaxed in the reaction of a ludicrous anti-climax. On the day after the Congress met (14th June) the _Globe_ published the full text of the Secret Agreement. In vain did Sir Stafford Northcote and the Duke of Richmond repeat Lord Salisbury’s equivocal denials of its authenticity. Lord Grey indignantly condemned the Government for their misleading disclaimers. Lord Houghton, a Liberal supporter of Lord Beaconsfield’s foreign policy, said “the effect of the document on the whole of Europe had been portentous,” and had lowered the dignity of the Government.[134] The theory of the Ministerial Press, that the document came from the Russian Embassy was refuted in a few days by the Ministry. They raised criminal proceedings against Mr. Charles Marvin, a writer in the Foreign Office, for surreptitiously copying the paper and sending it to the _Globe_.[135] The prevarication of Ministers and the revelations attendant on the disclosure of the Secret Agreement shocked the confidence of the nation in the Cabinet. Lord Salisbury and his colleagues earned for themselves at this time an evil reputation for mendacity, which did much to bring about the defeat of Lord Beaconsfield’s Administration at the General Election of 1880. And yet it was difficult for them to be quite candid with Parliament in the circumstances. On the day after they had signed the Secret Agreement with Russia (which, it must be kept in view, bound her to encroach no further on Turkey in Asia) they began to negotiate a Convention with the Porte by which England promised to defend the Asiatic frontier of Turkey, on condition that the Sultan would reform the Government of Asia Minor, and permit the British Government to hold Cyprus as long as Russia kept Kars. It would have been inconvenient to divulge this scheme before Congress had decided the fate of Bulgaria. Hence Lord Salisbury was really within the mark in saying that the Secret Agreement with Russia did not “wholly” represent the Government policy. On the 8th of July it was announced that the Anglo-Turkish Convention had been signed on the 4th of June--most reluctantly, as it seemed, by Turkey. Her hesitancy, indeed, was not overcome till Lord Salisbury in the Congress abandoned, and Lord Beaconsfield actively opposed, the cause of the Greeks, whom they had