the King of Prussia and to Napoleon III
could not be treated like one of the native boyards. The situation called
for the more delicacy of treatment by the powers in view of the
possibility of his being able to better those internal conditions which
made Rumania 'uninteresting' as a factor in international politics. In
fact, the prince's personality assured for Rumania a status which she
could otherwise have attained only with time, by a political, economic,
and military consolidation of her home affairs; and the prince does not
fail to remark in his notes that the attentions lavished upon him by other
sovereigns were meant rather for the Hohenzollern prince than for the
Prince of Rumania. Many years later even, after the war of 1878, while the
Russians were still south of the Danube with their lines of communication
running through Rumania, Bratianu begged of the prince to give up a
projected journey on account of the difficulties which might at any moment
arise, and said: 'Only the presence of your Royal Highness keeps them [the
Russians] at a respectful distance.' It was but natural under these
circumstances that the conduct of foreign affairs should have devolved
almost exclusively on the prince. The ascendancy which his high personal
character, his political and diplomatic skill, his military capacity
procured for him over the Rumanian statesmen made this situation a lasting
one; indeed it became almost a tradition. Rumania's foreign policy since
1866 may be said, therefore, to have been King Carol's policy. Whether one
agrees with it or not, no one can deny with any sincerity that it was
inspired by the interests of the country, as the monarch saw them.
Rebuking Bismarck's unfair attitude towards Rumania in a question
concerning German investors, Prince Carol writes to his father in 1875: 'I
have to put Rumania's interests above those of Germany. My path is plainly
mapped out, and I must follow It unflinchingly, whatever the weather.'

Prince Carol was a thorough German, and as such naturally favoured the
expansion of German influence among his new subjects. But if he desired
Rumania to follow in the wake of German foreign policy, it was because of
his unshaken faith in the future of his native country, because he
considered that Rumania had nothing to fear from Germany, whilst it was
all in the interest of that country to see Rumania strong and firmly
established. At the same time, acting on the advice of Bismarck,