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io 88
INTRIGUES AT SOFIA [chap.viii.
to conciliate Russians in general, and his Russian
colleague in particular. From Cetigne he was appointed
Minister to Rome. At the beginning of the winter of
1912 he came from Rome to Sofia; we saw each other
several times and had some interesting interviews,
during which, as was only natural, Rizov tried very
hard to captivate me. He was undoubtedly an intelligent
and shrewd man, who had acquired a certain amount of
cultivation, and who knew how to adapt himself to the
diplomatic environment which seemed so inappropriate
to the poor Macedonian schoolmaster of former days.
But, violent, addicted to intrigue and devoid of all
principles, Rizov remained a conspirator all his life,
and at the crucial moment when Serbo-Bulgarian
relations were becoming strained, he played a bold but
fatal part. Later on I shall have occasion to mention
this remarkable but suspicious personage again.
Of course, if from the very beginning our Foreign
Office had met the step taken by King Ferdinand with
marked coldness, as they had done when he attacked M.
Sementovsky,1 the intrigue would have fallen through
this time also, and the King would at once have realised
that it was better in his own interest to remain on good
terms with me. But as it was, I received the impression
that the attacks directed against me from Sofia found a
very ready echo amongst a certain set in our Foreign
Office, amongst just those men who kept up close
relations with my colleague of Belgrade and who had
been connected in some way or other with rny lamented
predecessor.
At about this same period a certain M. Shelking
arrived in Sofia. He was a brother of Madame
Semen-tovsky’s, the widow of my predecessor. Shelking was
formerly in the diplomatic service. Very intelligent,
good-looking, with agreeable manners and very
insinuating, he had a fairly rapid career, and at one moment was
assigned to Berlin, specially supported by his respectable
chief, Count Osten-Sacken. But two failings have always
1 See Chapter I.
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