It was during the time that
Bismarck meditated a second attack upon my country, and I am happy to
say that I was then instrumental in supplying the Secret Bureau with
documents which mollified that iron man's purpose, a fact which I
think entitled me to my country's gratitude, not that I ever even
hinted such a claim when a succeeding ministry forgot my services. The
memory of a republic, as has been said by a greater man than I, is
short. However, all that has nothing to do with the incident I am
about to relate. I merely mention the crisis to excuse a momentary
forgetfulness on my part which in any other country might have been
followed by serious results to myself. But in France--ah, we
understand those things, and nothing happened.
I am the last person in the world to give myself away, as they say in
the great West. I am usually the calm, collected Eugene Valmont whom
nothing can perturb, but this was a time of great tension, and I had
become absorbed. I was alone with the minister in his private house,
and one of the papers he desired was in his bureau at the Ministry for
Foreign Affairs; at least, he thought so, and said,--
'Ah, it is in my desk at the bureau. How annoying! I must send for
it!'
'No, Excellency,' I cried, springing up in a self-oblivion the most
complete, 'it is here.
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