sent us with a _fait accompli_," Briand was reported to
have said to Karl, "and we will not oppose your return to power."
Evidently part of France favoured the adventure and was not a little
annoyed at its failure. As an allied power with Italy and England she
had to show a forbidding front to Karl, but as "Le Figaro" said, "_Ce
n'est pas sur le Danube que nous menacent des perils mortels, c'est sur
le Rhin._" The Allies, however, as they are called, had little power
to help or stop ex-Kaiser Karl. It was the little States that stopped
him--the Petite Entente of Czecho-Slovakia and Jugo-slavia and
Roumania, and of these powers chiefly the Czech.

As long ago as January Karl's attempt to return was anticipated by the
Czechs. They used it as the motive for making a ring round the hostile
State. Hungary was the potential enemy of the three States which had
taken over ex-Hungarian territory. Hungary, moreover, had had her
terrible moment of Bolshevism and had got over it, she had become
nationalistic again and had reorganized her army on national lines. To
any one of the new States surrounding her she would be a formidable
enemy. Hungary, however, would stand little chance against three
combined. So with great zest the new combination was formed.
Certainly the warmest national friendship in the Near East to-day is
that between Czecho-Slovakia and Jugo-Slavia, and it has been called
into being by the common danger of the Magyar.

Budapest is a handsome city with grand bridges spanning the bending
Danube. The fashionable part climbs upwards on crags to the higher
light, and the Danube flashes upward. The modern city is a first-class
aggregation of business houses, cafes, and places of pleasure. There
is pavement comfort. The people are well dressed, despite losses and
troubles. The smooth pates of business men abound, and the knobbly
skulls of the Balkans are fewer. The women are in fashion, and as in
the rest of Central and Western Europe, wear bunches of artificial
grapes hanging from one side of their hats. You see no grapes and
hanging ribbons in Belgrade and Sofia. They will come there next year
or in 1923. The Hungarian women are broad-faced and broad-bosomed, and
talk more than they smile. City madam in elegant attire with
languorous half-shut eyes and Hungarian drawl is a man's darling.
Flesh-coloured stockings greatly abound. One is, however, strongly
advised not to judge of Hungary by the people