Foreign Office in his favor. Mr. Sharp is unquestionably a patriotic,
clear-headed, capable, and highly intelligent representative of our
countrymen, and moreover, he is now obtaining diplomatic experience.

Spain has also had some tribulation with its ambassadors to France. When
President Poincare and the French Cabinet decided to transfer the seat
of government to Bordeaux, the Spanish Ambassador, Marquis de Villa
Urrutia, was about to quit Paris with President Poincare, but the King
of Spain wished his representative to remain in Paris. The marquis,
however, to use an American expression, got "cold feet" and expressed a
wish to go to Bordeaux. When this news reached King Alfonso, it so
happened that Lieutenant-general de los Monteros, Marquis de Valtierra,
Captain-general of Northern Spain at Burgos and San Sebastian, was in
conference with the king. King Alfonso asked the Marquis de Valtierra
where in his opinion would be the proper place in France for the Spanish
Ambassador. "Why," was the quick reply, "Paris, of course." "Well," said
the king, "that is not the opinion of the Marquis de Villa Urrutia, but
it is also my own opinion, and I have now decided to send you to Paris
as my ambassador!" Consequently, the Marquis de Villa Urrutia was
forthwith replaced by the Marquis de Valtierra, who is already duly
installed in the Spanish Embassy in the Boulevard de Courcelles. The new
Spanish Ambassador speaks English perfectly, as well as French, and he
is a personal friend of Ambassador Herrick.

The condition at the outbreak of the war of some of the French
fortresses in the north near the Belgian frontier, as well as around
Rheims and Vitry-le-Francois, for which the French Chamber of Deputies
refused in 1899 to vote appropriations, is being paid for a thousandfold
to-day. In 1885, when experiments made at Malmaison with the
newly-invented torpedo shells, then about to be adopted by the German