I happened to call at the Palace next day, and went up as usual into the private room of Izzet Pasha, where, quite unexpectedly, I met my old friend Ahmed Midhat Effendi. It was one of the very few times I had ever known him to pay a visit to the Palace. Fehim Pasha’s crimes and the energetic measures of the German Ambassador formed the subject of conversation in the room. Izzet Pasha warmly expressed his indignation at an Ambassador presuming to interfere in what he considered to be a purely internal incident. “Qu’est ce qu’il s’imagine, ce Monsieur de Marschall?” Knowing what I did of the affair on such good authority, I was taken by surprise, the more so as Ahmed Midhat Effendi joined in upholding the innocence of the incriminated pasha. I could scarcely credit the culpable ignorance thus revealed to me by those to whom it should have been a first care not to lead their master astray on an issue of such vital importance. I said it was hopeless for the well-wishers of Turkey to attempt to say a good word for their Government as long as such things were possible; that the German Ambassador had had the training of a State Prosecutor, and certainly was not one to be misled by unreliable evidence, or to be moved from his point once he had decided upon it; and that English newspapers, which were not usually over-favourably disposed to German interests, had strongly supported the Ambassador in this particular matter. But it was all to no purpose. I failed to shake their belief in Fehim Pasha’s innocence. They even asserted that he was quite a good fellow. The most they would admit was that he had been somewhat hasty and headstrong owing to his youth, “un peu étourdi.” It is only fair to state, however, that those present did not show any ill-feeling at my being so plain-spoken; but this was only in accordance with what I have so often experienced in the Turkish character. Still I left the Palace with a pessimistic feeling. Sirry Bey, who had been the chief of our expedition in Armenia, called on me at the Pera Palace Hotel one evening and said: “I come to you on behalf of His Majesty. He feels his dignity trespassed upon by the interference of the German Ambassador in this Fehim Pasha business, which he holds to be one of an internal nature not concerning a foreign Ambassador, and he would like to see you.” I mentioned to Sirry Bey what I had heard from the Ambassador, and told him that it seemed to me to be a black business, and he would do well to convey this opinion to the Sultan. In due course I received a message to come up to the Palace immediately as the Sultan wanted to see me.