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NOTABLE REFUGEES
3i5
the drawing-room, the inquirers at the office, and the
crowd gathered in front of the Consulate, were all
seized with panic. "The Germans! The Germans!
The Germans are coming to bombard us!" It was
almost impossible to make these insanely frightened
people listen to reason.
As I have said, a good half of the society world of
St. Petersburg and Moscow whom we knew came to the
Legation. Every day we were from sixteen to twenty
people at lunch and dinner. On day it was Colonel
Skoropadsky, of the Horse Guards, who was hastening
to rejoin his regiment; who would have guessed in this
smart and correct soldier whom we had so often met in
the salons of St. Petersburg, the future " Hetman of
the Ukraine," going to ask for his investiture of the
Emperor William? At the same time we also saw
seated at our table Prince Nicolas Radziwill, one of
the very best, whom I had seen the year before
returning from the disastrous but magnificent retreat
of the Bulgarian troops beaten at Belachitza, and
many other officers of the Guard; a few months later
we heard of the glorious death of most of these young
men.
The Minister for Education, M. Casso, arrived one
evening in a piteous state; he had nearly been lynched
by the crowd at a station in East Prussia, and only
owed his escape to a concurrence of providential
circumstances. We made him sit down at once, and gave
him a plate of good soup. " The first soup I have eaten
for ten days!" We poured him out some good claret.
" The first glass of claret I have drunk for ten days ! "
And then, comforted and consoled, he proceeded to
relate his tragic experiences with irrepressible humour.
" There was an old hump-backed woman that I shall
never forget; the whole time she was worrying the
crowd who were dragging me away from the police and
hitting me with their fists. ’Hang him, hang him,’
cried the old witch; ’he’s a Russian spy!’ And then
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