Page:Dramatic Moments in American Diplomacy (1918).djvu/37

Rh submitted to King Louis a short while before by the inimitable librettist. Consonant with this policy, the secretary told Deane that he was charmed with the United Colonies, but was a stickler for his duties toward Great Britain. However, he suggested casually that it was none of his business to interfere with private affairs, and that Roderique Hortalez & Company, a large Spanish mercantile house in Paris, might be of some service.

So let us repair to Hortalez & Co. by all means. It was an imposing concern, from outward view. It occupied the Hotel de Hollande in the Faubourg du Temple, a sumptuous edifice built by the Dutch to house the Netherlands embassy.

Who was M. Hortalez? Oh, he was a very great financier indeed. He was a Spanish nobleman of Castile, nothing less. He was a gentleman in private life, who in spite of his far-reaching feudal ties and princely relations had the most unaccountable benevolent tendencies toward budding Democracies. He was,