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274
ON THE EVE OF WAR [chap. xvi.
enterprises in Sweden and in Norway (iron mines, water
power, nitrates, etc.); that this group was the only one
which was in close touch not only with the financial
market of Berlin, but also and especially with that of
Paris ; that M. Wallenberg had been the real initiator
and founder of the " Banque des Pays du Nord." But
there ended my knowledge of the person whom I was
to have as a partner in the most difficult and delicate
circumstances.
Before my time, much hospitality had been displayed
at the Russian Legation in Stockholm; at the receptions
members of the aristocracy, personages who were well
known in society and at Court, and the princes and
princesses of Sweden were collected together. But
there was not time to get to know and to see the great
financiers, the great manufacturers, the people famed in
the political world. Moreover, a legation cannot manage
that job alone; it must be assisted—as German
diplomatic representation always has been—by its colony, its
distinguished travellers, its scientific experts, etc. Now,
when I arrived in Stockholm, I asked to be made
acquainted with the leading members of the Russian
colony in Sweden; I was told in reply that there was
one very amiable old Greek who was the centre of the
sponge trade, but that in the course of the last winter,
in order to facilitate his trade, the worthy man had
become a naturalised Swede, and that in his person the
whole Russian colony had disappeared !
Soon after our first interview, M. Wallenberg told
me that he was going abroad, chiefly to Paris and Berlin.
The object of this trip, which was only to take a few
days, was strictly personal and had to do with the
financial business of the Enskilda Bank, business which
M. Wallenberg desired to wind up before handing over
the management of the Bank to his brother.
Nevertheless, he would profit by his stay in Paris also to see
the Minister for Foreign Affairs and a few political
personages with whom he was well acquainted.
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