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1912] FERDINAND’S JUBILEE 59
and the ratification of the Serbo-Bulgarian agreement
ended the first winter-season of my stay in Sofia; during
this winter my wife and I had given a series of dinners
and receptions to Bulgarian society, to the Court, and to
the Diplomatic Corps. Having successfully terminated
an important negotiation and fulfilled all my social
duties, I could think of undertaking my journey ad
limina, i.e. of going to St. Petersburg, to explain the
ulterior aims of our Balkan policy, and to discuss
certain questions of the hour with M. Sazonoff. Among
these questions, one in particular would have to be
discussed verbally and very secretly.
At the beginning of the winter which was just over,
the Minister of Finance, M. Todorov, with whom I was
on excellent personal terms, and in whom I had much
confidence, had come to see me one day to tell me of a
very confidential and quite unexpected request made to
me by King Ferdinand. It was this : His Majesty was
in great financial difficulties, he was especially worried
by a debt of a million and a half francs (or Austrian
crowns, which amounted to about the same) which he
owed to the Laender Bank (Banque des Pays Autrichiens)
of Vienna, and the Bank for some time had been making
difficulties; it demanded securities or mortgages which
the Bulgarian Court would not or could not give; it
refused further credit; and meantime money was scarce
in the Palace, and Ferdinand was often reduced to
selling, not without difficulty, short-dated Court bonds
to the Sofia banks for trifling sums. In order to put an
end to this humiliating state of things, the King begged
me to arrange with one of our large financial houses in
St. Petersburg for a loan of two million francs, as a
mortgage on his property of Vrana, situated a few
kilometres from Sofia, a property small in area, where
the King was laying out a beautiful garden and building
a villa. His Majesty, according to M. Todorov,
understood perfectly well that no Russian bank would accept
such a mortgage without receiving supplementary
security on the part of the Russian Government; the
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