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1863] receive the visit of Sir Andrew Buchanan, the English Ambassador, and Talleyrand, the representative of France, who made hell hot for me over the inexcusable leanings of Prussian policy towards Russia, and held threatening language towards us, and then at midday I had the pleasure of hearing in the Prussian Parliament pretty much the same arguments and attacks which in the morning the foreign Ambassadors had made against me."

Of course the language used in the House weakened his influence abroad, and the foreign Governments shewed more insistence when they found out that the Prussian Parliament supported their demands. It was noticed with satisfaction in the English Parliament that the nation had dissociated itself from the mean and disgraceful policy of the Government.

At last personal friction reached such a point that the session had to be closed. In order to understand the cause of this we must remember that in Prussia the Ministers are not necessarily members of either House; they enjoy, however, by the Constitution, the right of attending the debates and may at any time demand to be heard; they do not sit in the House among the other members, but on a raised bench to the right of the President, facing the members. They have not, therefore, any feeling of esprit de corps as members of the assembly; Bismarck and his colleagues when they addressed the House spoke not as members, not as the representatives of even a small minority, but as strangers, as the representatives of a rival and hostile authority;