of greater clearness, to the material interests of only three countries. In reality, every land in Europe has a stake in Europe's recovery. We must organize a vast trust under a central direction to insure the wisest and most efficient utilization of Europe's productive resources. It looks like a gigantic scheme, but when we examine it closer, we shall discover that it is not so very different from the final form toward which European industrial development has been tending for more than a hundred years. During the war, the Entente nations organized at Washington a War Trade Board to control the commerce of the whole world. This War Trade Board contained in itself the germ of an economic world league. The time is not ripe for that yet. But the formation of a European trust lies within the realms of the possible, and it is urgently necessary if Europe is to maintain itself in competition with the other continents. Time will soon come when both England and France will see that they can escape from their difficulties only through some such measure, and that some non-partisan authority must be

set up to work out the programme. England would naturally occupy the leading place in such a concern, and France would be guaranteed the payments of its just claims for reparation. Germany would be forced to bear a heavy burden as a consequence of its defeat; but it would be given an opportunity to recover itself through some fair profit-sharing scheme. Such a trust would afford the best guaranty against the new danger of war which is constantly hovering over Europe. It would draw a common frontier around a great productive area. Of course, it takes time to create such a trust. We must work toward it step by step.

Is there reason to hope that we can agree upon the preliminaries of such an enterprise? So long as Europe is engulfed in the poison gases which enshrouded the London Conferences there is no such hope. That is what makes the present situation so critical. We must start out with a calm, clear-headed examination of the fundamental conditions, if we are to find a road to escape. All other European problems sink into insignificance compared with this one.

A GERMAN traveler who visited Smyrna in 1826 does not give the 'Pearl of the Levant' of that date a very good character. The 'Franks,' or natives of European descent, seemed to him hopelessly frivolous and lamentably immoral. 'A part of the population,' he wrote, 'is Christian, of various confessions, many of whom are sharpers, bankrupts, thieves, and vagabonds.' A horde of pro-Greek adventurers had taken refuge in the city after the recent setback to the Greek revolution, either despairing of making their fortunes in Greece proper, or if they were sincere champions of liberty, waiting for the triumph of the cause to which, in a moment of enthusiasm, they had devoted themselves.

Pierre David, the consul of France, was greatly embarrassed by this undesirable clientele. He had found places for the best of them, mostly half-pay officers of the Grand Army, as instructors in the Ottoman forces. A few others he sent back home. But the consulate funds were totally insufficient for the relief to the great majority.

The consul, an excellent Greek scholar, and a poet in his hours of leisure, sympathized with Greece. He had intervened courageously at a time of certain massacres in a neighboring island, and their grateful inhabitants had sent him secretly a gold-hilted sword. This had got him into difficulties with our ambassador at Constantinople; for our government was pro-Turk, while the English were strongly pro-Greek. It

was not until later that Russia, England, and France united to take the latter country under their protection. Our consulate, in the meantime, became a sort of warehouse for the treasures of the Greek churches. An inventory of the things stored there late in 1826 suggests that it had become a veritable museum of bric-à-brac. The man in charge was a feeble old gentleman, Charles-Auguste Parvy, whose two sons were also employed as clerks in the consulate.

Parvy and his five children had drifted into Smyrna late in 1815 in search of a precarious livelihood. Little was kown of his past, as he was a modest and retiring man. He had served in the Grand Army, had later studied law, and had qualified as a notary. After various vicissitudes due to political changes in France, which had deprived him of his position, he found himself one day, with his young children, set down practically penniless on the wharves of Smyrna. Our consul, finding him competent in his profession, had employed him in his office, where he had labored faithfully for ten years among its dusty archives. No one would have suspected that this modest employee was to be the hero of an episode which would set diplomatic notes going from Smyrna to Constantinople, and from London to Paris.

Late in 1826, Hudson Lowe had left London for India, whither the government had sent into honorable exile, the jailer of Saint Helena. He passed

through Bucharest, on February 3, carrying letters of recommendation from Metternich, and after a sojourn of a monthat Constantinople, reached Smyrna late in March.

The British frigate Cambrian was in the harbor. Commodore Hamilton, commander of the British fleet in the Eastern Mediterranean, was on board. Both Hamilton and the aged British consul, Francis Werry, an ancient servant of the Foreign Office, received Lowe with great respect. At that time Smyrna had little accommodation for strangers. The German traveler, whom I have quoted above, says that the only choice lay between an Italian lodging-house and the French boarding-house, 'which is much more expensive.' Since Lowe could not very well take lodgings with a Frenchman, he secured a room at the Italian place, which was kept by a certain Giacomo Neuman de Rizzi, an Austrian subject. This man had a restaurant, which was a gathering-place for all the people of Smyrna who loved gossip, chess, and pastries. Parvy had lived there before finding a house for himself, and most of the boarders were his friends. It was his habit every afternoon after the office closed to stop at Rizzi's restaurant to smoke his pipe and drink a cup of coffee.

On Saturday, the first of April, 1826, the old gentleman dropped in toward six o'clock, as was his habit. Several witnesses who were living at the place noticed that he seemed unusually excited. Hudson Lowe's name chanced to be mentioned. One of those present said that the English gentleman was not at home, but dining on board the Cambbrian. Then something surprising happened. The gentle, peaceable old 'Father Parvy' asked: 'Where is his room?' When it was pointed out he left his friends, went toward the room, and solemnly opening the door, commenced to address the empty chair where the

occupant usually sat. He delivered the most terrible invective one could imagine. He became fairly lyrical in his wrath, and his utterances were punctuated with violent curses. A report of the incident says: 'It was a furious declamation in which the listeners detected a flood of invectives from tragedies applied to that personage.' All the memories of the Napoleonic epoch poured forth from his lips: "The Little Corporal,' 'the Man in the Gray Overcoat,' 'the Bridge of Arcola,' 'the Sun of Austerlitz,' 'the forty centuries of Egypt,' and 'the glory of Wagram.' He cursed the English, who had chained and tortured the eagle. The poor consulate clerk brandished his Turkish pipe, which had gone out, as though it were a horse pistol. He had forgotten Charles X, the Bourbons, and his official position. He was only a Frenchman, who had heard the Emperor shout on the eve of battle, 'Soldiers, I am proud of you!' and whose heart had remained loyal in its despair.

This prodigious monologue attracted a crowd, among them Parvy's own son, Victor, who had been drinking a glass of the local houzo in the café, with a party of friends. He succeeded in dragging his father away, and shut him up for a time in Rizzi's own room, where he continued his furious declamation. At last they got him home. It was then eight o'clock at night. The incident would have passed without further remark except for an unhappy conjuncture of accidents.

About ten o'clock that evening two strangers, supposed to be Austrians, were noticed in front of the other tavern. Hudson Lowe's presence in Smyrna was a notable event. One of these gentlemen remarked that it would be a miracle if no harm came to him, in view of the existing bitterness against the 'jailer of Saint Helena.' A waiter at the Inn, who was serving refreshments to

the guests in front, overheard this conversation. He did not quite understand it, for he was a Greek with an imperfect knowledge of Italian, which the two Austrians spoke. Believing that he had discovered a conspiracy against Hudson Lowe, he hastened to inform one of the men stopping at the tavern, a Doctor Garriri, who just at the moment chanced to be drinking coffee with an English nobleman who was lodging at the same house. That gentleman, considering the information serious, at once wrote a note to Commodore Hamilton, which he sent by a special harbor boat to the Cambrian. He then went personally to Rizzi's establishment.

It was now about eleven o'clock at night. Everybody was asleep. The English nobleman, dramatic and selfimportant, awakened Sir Hudson Lowe to tell him that his life was in danger, and then, pistol in hand, interrogated the proprietor. The latter said at once that he knew nothing of any conspiracy. When the English lord, with a tragic frown, cross-examined him regarding every one of his guests, Rizzi replied that they were all peaceable gentlemen whom he personally knew. As the Englishman kept insisting, Rizzi suddenly fancied that he had discovered a key to the riddle, and gave him a complete history of the innocent scandal for which old Mr. Parvy had been responsible a few hours before. Just then a detachment of sailors from the Cambrian, sent by Commodore Hamilton, arrived. Hudson Lowe retired again somewhat disturbed.

The next day, Sunday, April 2, the British consul and Commodore Hamilton presented themselves solemnly at the French consulate, demanding that David should stop the scandalous conduct of his employees, and guarantee the safety of their distinguished British guest. In view of the very delicate relations then existing between England

and France, David felt it his duty to order Parvy arrested, and began an investigation.

Next day there was another development. A little French merchant vessel, the Louis-Antoine, anchored in the harbor of Smyrna, not far from the Cambrian. Having luckily escaped from the Corsairs who infested the archipelago, the captain of the vessel ordered the loaded arms, which he carried in case of a possible attack, to be discharged. The sailors carelessly aimed some of their guns in the direction of the British ship, which was struck eight times. A spent bullet swept the battery and cut the ropes. It happened by an unfortunate mischance that Hudson Lowe was aboard when this occurred. This aroused strong suspicions of a conspiracy. The consul succeeded, however, in convincing the angry English that the Louis-Antoine had not entered the harbor until three o'clock that morning, and therefore could not be implicated with the incident of two days before.

Hudson Lowe was the first to realize that a mistake had been made, and on Wednesday he sent a consular employee to David, orally requesting that Parvy be pardoned. David stated that he greatly appreciated the act, but asked that it be confirmed in writing, which was not done. He furthermore said that, in any case, his clerk would be kept in confinement, as long as Lowe remained in Smyrna. The Jailer of Napoleon left on the next Friday. On Saturday Parvy was released, after seven days' detention. But he lost his position. So the incident seemed closed. However, a month later, David, who was now at his summer residence at Bournaba, received a vigorous letter from our chargé d'affaires at Constantinople, written in the absence of his chief, saying that the English ambassador had protested against the mild punishment inflicted by the French consul at Smyr

na upon Parvy, who had been guilty of grave insults to a high British functionary. The ambassador based his complaint upon a report he had received from the British Consul at Smyrna. He considered it a matter of such inportance that he felt called upon to notify the British Foreign Office. Since the Foreign Office would not fail to take the matter up with the French State Department, the consulate at Smyrna was asked to forward at once an explanation and justification.

David's first move was to have a vigorous settlement with his British colleague, who, after serving as the agent of Hudson Lowe's clemency, had sent such false reports to his ambassador at Constantinople. Werry excused himself by letter, in which he said that the ambassador certainly misunderstood him. A copy of this letter was at once dispatched to Paris, in order that the government might be in a position to reply at once to any demand made upon it by the British ambassador there.

While all this was going on, the un

happy Parvy was in desperate straits. He had lost his position, and he had five children to support. As a last resort he attempted to rehabilitate himself by a pitiful abjuration of the Bonaparte sympathies which he cherished in the bottom of his heart, and which had overflowed so violently that spring evening. He swore that he 'had never exhibited any attachment to the memory of the prisoner of Saint Helena,' and dwelt upon the fact that 'on the contrary every year he had written couplets for the celebration of the King's birthday.' David transmitted this appeal and the annexed testimony to Paris, but the following month he himself was suspended from his post and had other things to think about. His successor knew nothing of the incident, and died of fever a few months later. The eldest son, Victor Parvy, was promoted to second clerk of the consulate the following December. From that date onward the family sank back into the obscurity from which it so briefly emerged, and the consular archives are silent upon its later history.

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