of the Channel for the conclusion of such a Treaty for (say) a period of five years, and much authoritative opinion is clearly in its favour;

"This. records its approval of the proposal to adopt some arrangement between this country and France which would diminish the danger of the friction necessarily arising from time to time from their intercourse."

Nothing in this resolution, it is seen, justified the subsequent perversion by mischievous persons of the objects of those who supported the agitation.

Never was there an idea among them of a joining of forces against another Power. The rapprochement had the exclusive and deliberate object of counteracting hostile tendencies between Great Britain and France. Its sole object was to bury the hatchet between them without arrière-pensée. Nor did anybody in England imagine that it might ever be used as leverage against a third Power. Even in France, the only suggestion of a "pointe" against Germany was an observation by M. de Pressensé that the entente would save England from joining the Triple Alliance.

Nor, as will be seen, did Germany till long after the entente had become a fait accompli regard it as having any character of hostility to herself.

By the time the King's visit to Paris was announced in the spring of 1903, the support given to the movement was overwhelming.1 Apart from the resolution of the Nottingham meeting of the Association of Chambers of Commerce in 1901, twenty-seven British chambers had discussed and passed special resolutions on the subject. In France the number of chambers which had discussed and passed special resolutions reached the enormous number of forty-one, practically

1 See pp. 346 et seq.

the whole of commercial and industrial France. The number of trade unions of Great Britain and Ireland which had passed emphatic special resolutions was thirty-five, representing 2,000,000 of British workers. On the French side eighteen municipal councils had adopted resolutions as emphatic as those of the British trade unions. That peace societies should pass resolutions in favour of the proposal almost went without saying. Anyhow they reached the substantial figure of nineteen. The Society of Friends, the representatives of the Jewish community in England, the Methodists had all passed resolutions supporting it. Special agitation committees had been formed in nine cities and others were in course of formation. The movement had the support of all the leading statesmen out of office of the two countries, of all the greatest British judges and lawyers and historians, of the leading men in the universities, etc., etc.1

In short, the movement had the support of every representative institution, body, and person who could be regarded as expressing the national opinion of Great Britain and France, and Lord Lansdowne could truly say, as he did in his despatch to Sir Edmund Monson of April 8, 1904, forwarding the agreements between Great Britain and France, that "such a settlement was notoriously desired on both sides of the Channel."

The upper classes, however, were still unconvinced. One day in London, while I was in the thick of daily meetings, I met a past member of the British Embassy, and in our few minutes' conversation referred to its curious indifference to the movement. He told me 1 See Appendix VII.

I was putting the blame on the wrong back, adding "it is here they are against you." We were talking in the midst of that unique quarter of the British Empire where mind, money, and well-made clothes read the evening papers together at tea-time, " Clubland." My friend seemed to think this fatal, and when, in a fine vein of sarcasm, I said I should have abandoned hope had it been otherwise, he dubbed me an incorrigible optimist.

"Don't dream," he added, speaking of the Foreign Office, "that public opinion daunts officials; they can do no wrong."

"What does then?"

"It is difficult to say. Questions in the House of Commons they hate. Letters to The Times worry them. But not even an earthquake that laid Downing Street in ruins would make them tremble."

"Are you against me too ? "

No, I am with you; but what of that? Clubland is the class of the Executive."

"Clubland is a brake, and the man in charge can turn it off and on as he chooses."

"Do you think you have convinced him?"
"I don't think he requires to be convinced."

CHAPTER XIX

THE ENTENTE IN SIGHT

In my speech at the spring meeting of the Associated Chambers of Commerce in 1900 giving the invitation to meet in Paris in the autumn, I laid particular stress on the popularity of the Prince of Wales, who was president of the British section at the forthcoming Exhibition.

On the same occasion I called, at the suggestion of very important French friends, on Lord Knollys with a view to sounding the Prince as to how an invitation to visit the Exhibition would be viewed. I was authorised on behalf of my friends to give His Royal Highness an emphatic assurance that he would receive a most hearty and respectful welcome, and that, owing to his popularity in Paris, his visit would certainly give an impetus to the restoration of Anglo-French friendship. That my friends and I were right was shown afterwards by the extraordinary keenness of the welcome given to the Chambers of Commerce.

When I called back, Lord Knollys informed me that His Royal Highness thought he must follow the counsel of the Crown's accredited advisers, and that these advisers took quite a different view from mine and that of my French friends as to the state of feeling in France. I might take it that an invitation would have to be declined.

When, therefore, early in the spring of 1903 the

rumour appeared in the French papers that the King intended shortly to pay a visit to Paris, I concluded that the Crown's accredited advisers had changed their minds or that the King had taken the decision into his own hands, which I understand, as a fact, was the case.

The same morning I telephoned M. Combarieu, the President's private secretary, to ascertain whether the statement in the Press entre-filet was correct. He replied that it was, and added that I should come round and see the President about it.

I must confess that I had misgivings about the expediency of a visit to Paris. To visit the Exhibition as Prince of Wales, president of the British Section, was a very different proposition from visiting Paris as King of England. Paris, unlike the provinces, was still in the throes of a violent antagonism between the reactionary and the progressive forces of that lively city. Under the Republic, in fact, it has ceased to lead public opinion as it used to do, and its supremacy in this respect has not only been challenged, but displaced by the great provincial centres like Lille, Lyons, Havre, Rouen, Dijon, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Nancy, etc., which have successfully vindicated their political and intellectual independence. The entente had been ardently and successfully championed throughout provincial France. In Paris, on the other hand, the fierce political antiSemitic passions, which had developed into an oversensitive patriotism, had not yet calmed down. Even the Chamber of Commerce of the capital had not yet dared to submit a resolution in favour of the movement, though it had welcomed the British Chambers of Commerce in 1900 and M. Fumouze,