he foreign prince who alone had a chance of putting a stop
to intrigues from within and from without. And the Rumanians had been
extremely fortunate in their hasty and not quite independent choice. A
prince of Latin origin would probably have been more warmly welcomed to
the hearts of the Rumanian people; but after so many years of political
disorder, corrupt administration, and arbitrary rule, a prince possessed
of the German spirit of discipline and order was best fitted to command
respect and impose obedience and sobriety of principle upon the Rumanian
politicians.

Prince Carol's task was no easy one. The journal compiled by the
provisional government, which held the reins for the period elapsing
between the abdication of Cuza and the accession of Prince Carol, depicts
in the darkest colours the economic situation to which the faults, the
waste, the negligence, and short-sightedness of the previous regime had
reduced the country, 'the government being in the humiliating position of
having brought disastrous and intolerable hardship alike upon its
creditors, its servants, its pensioners, and its soldiers'.[1] Reforms
were badly needed, and the treasury had nothing in hand but debts. To
increase the income of the state was difficult, for the country was poor
and not economically independent. Under the Paris Convention of 1858,
Rumania remained bound, to her detriment, by the commercial treaties of
her suzerain, Turkey, the powers not being willing to lose the privileges
they enjoyed under the Turkish capitulations. Moreover, she was specially
excluded from the arrangement of 1860, which allowed Turkey to increase
her import taxes. The inheritance of ultra-liberal measures from the
previous regime made it difficult to cope with the unruly spirit of the
nation. Any attempt at change in this direction would have savoured of
despotism to the people, who, having at last won the right to speak aloud,
believed that to clamour against anything that meant 'rule' was the only
real and full assertion of liberty. And the dissatisfied were always
certain of finding a sympathetic ear and an open purse in the
Chancellories of Vienna and St. Petersburg.

[Footnote 1: D.A. Sturdza, _Treizeci de ani de Domnie ai Regelui Carol,_
1900, i.82.]

Prince Carol, not being sufficiently well acquainted with the conditions
of the country nor possessing as yet much influence with the governing
class, had not been in a position to influence at t