received a terrible blow in a most sensitive part.
France's vice as we have said is avarice. She does not expect to lose
money. France is not like America where one loses a fortune to-day and
makes one to-morrow. In France when you make a fortune you keep it.
The Russia which confiscated foreign holdings and ceased to pay
dividends is a thief of portentous guilt to France. France, therefore,
steadfastly opposes that Russia, and she has as steadfastly supported
the other Russia which says she will recognize these old debts and pay
them back plus dividends. France disapproved of the original
revolution, but is said to have been persuaded to it by England.
France thought the March '17 conspiracy very risky. And she soon
realized that she had been right. Revolution meant repudiation of
debt. And Russia will never pay back her debts now unless in the form
of "rights of exploitation."

France backed Koltchak and Yudenitch and Denikin and Wrangel and the
Polish War--all for the sake of her money. Not because she was sorry
for the Russians or for the rights of humanity, or because she was
scandalized by Communism. Her plan generally has been to persuade
England to supply the outfit and pay for the expense, but she has also
paid somewhat and has thrown good money after bad--the thief gone with
so much and so much to find the thief! Russia is a sore point, an
aggravated loss. And now that the counter-revolutionaries have failed,
France is almost as much out of sympathy with the Russian refugees as
she is with the Bolsheviks themselves.

Paris, however, remains the capital of Russia in exile. There are more
distinguished Russians there than in any other capital of Europe, and
Russian world-policy is organized from there. It is General Wrangel's
civil headquarters. During the last days I was in Paris the Russian
National Congress constituted itself a "National Union of Russia,"
dedicated to the task of liberating Russia from the Third International
and at the same time excluding partisans of a Tsaristic restoration.
It rejoiced in glowing terms in a Russian army which though now
vanishing was still the hope of Russia. It pronounced against the
trade treaties made by Great Britain and other powers with Soviet
Russia, and it passed a resolution recognizing Russia's old debts and
commercial obligations as contracted under the Tsardom.

A national committee of seventy-four members was elected, from Paris,
Constantino