e of his telegram can only be conjectured. The substance of his
conversation with the Russian Consul-General is not known; and until the
words of that official are fully explained he must be held open to the
suspicion of having played on the Prince a diplomatic version of the
confidence trick. Another version, that of M. Elie de Cyon, is that he
acted on instructions from the Russian Chancellor, de Giers, who
believed that the Czar would relent. On the contrary, he broke loose,
and sent the answer given above[216].

[Footnote 216: _Histoire de l'Entente franco-russe_, by Elie de Cyon, p.
158.]

It is not surprising that, after receiving the Czar's retort, the Prince
seemed gloomy and depressed where all around him were full of joy. At
Tirnova and Philippopolis he had the same reception; but an attempt to
derail his train on the journey to Sofia showed that the malice of his
foes was still unsated. The absence of the Russian and German Consuls
from the State reception accorded to the Prince at the capital on
September 3 showed that he had to reckon with the hostility or
disapprobation of those Governments; and there was the ominous fact that
the Russian agent at Sofia had recently intervened to prevent the
punishment of the mutineers and Bishop Clement. Few, however, were
prepared for what followed. On entering his palace, the Prince called
his officers about him and announced that, despairing of overcoming the
antipathy of the Czar to him, he must abdicate. Many of them burst into
tears, and one of them cried, "Without your Highness there is no
Bulgaria."

This action, when the Prince seemed at the height of popularity, caused
intense astonishment. The following are the reasons that probably
dictated it. Firstly, he may have felt impelled to redeem the pledges
which he too trustfully made to the Czar in his Rustchuk telegram, and
of which that potentate took so unchivalrous an advantage. Secondly, the
intervention of Russia to protect the mutineers from their just
punishment betokened her intention to foment further plots. In this
intervention, strange to say, she had the support of the German
Government, Bismarck using his influence at Berlin persistently against
the Prince, in order to avert the danger of war, which once or twice
seemed to be imminent between Russia and Germany.

Further, we may note that Austria and the other States had no desire to
court an attack from the Eastern Power, on account of a personal