Chapter XII: The Beginning of the End

A general excitement amongst the Arabs very naturally followed the commencement of hostilities between the Emperor of France and the King of Prussia. The Bey did his utmost to please both parties, and, as might be expected, succeeded in satisfying neither. The travellers Rohlfs and Wetstein were denounced by M. De Botmiliau as German emissaries of so dangerous a description that their daily walks were watched by a detachment of Tunisian soldiers, and a local _avoué_ caused a copious interchange of telegrams with Berlin by announcing his intention of forming a Foreign Legion in Tunis to take service under the Government of Tours. After an unsuccessful attempt to reach the interior, the German savants were compelled to leave the country in self-defence, and the Tunisian Contingent seems to have died a natural death about the same time. To counterbalance the effect of the news of the disasters of Sedan and Metz, M. De Botmiliau fell back upon the ancient scare of a meditated Turkish invasion from Tripoli; notwithstanding which, the Bey showed an increasing determination to obtain from the Porte the execution of the vizirial letter of 1864.

A year or two before, the Bey in a weak moment had granted two important concessions of arable ground to Italian and French subjects. An Italian agricultural company obtained an estate at Jedeida, while a French citizen, the Count de Sancy, was put in possession of the fruitful domain of Sidi Tabet, on the banks of the Medjerdah. Both these kindly acts on the part of the Bey were destined to entail important results; the former became the indirect cause of the Bey’s hastening his demand for the Imperial firman, and the latter has contributed not a little to the events of 1881. The Italian _concessionnaires_ were hardly installed at the Jedeida when they put forward claims to exercise such jurisdiction over the inhabitants as would constitute an _imperium in imperio_. Some local disputes with the Arabs living on the property induced them to precipitately retire, and present an elaborate claim for consequential damages on account of unreaped harvests, unborn herds, and even unhatched eggs. Signor Pinna pulled down his flag, and Italian newspapers talked quite as loudly of an expedition and occupation on behalf of the Societa Commerciale, Industriale ed Agricola, per la Tunisia in 1871, as the French press did in connection with the Société Marseillaise exactly ten years later. Mainly through the good offices of Mr. Wood an arbitration was agreed upon, in which, in spite of many disadvantages, Muhamed es Sadek came off victorious.

The Bey soon perceived that he was now likely to enter on a new phase of existence as a political bone of contention between France and Italy, and a milch-cow for adventurers from both countries in search of indemnities. No time was therefore to be lost; and in the following September General Kheir-ed-Din was sent once more to Stamboul to seek the firman, according to the terms of the agreement arrived at in 1864. M. De Botmiliau protested, but the Bey observed that the step he had taken was rendered absolutely necessary by the pressure lately brought to bear on him by the “friendly Powers.” Kheir-ed-Din returned with the Sultan’s rescript, which was read on the 18th November 1871 in the presence of one of the largest and most brilliant assemblies which ever filled the audience-hall of the Bardo palace.[34]

Meanwhile the Financial Commission was gradually taking shape under the care of M. Villet. Early in 1873 it became evident that a “palace intrigue” had been set on foot against the Prime Minister, and that General Kheir-ed-Din, supported by M. Villet, was endeavouring to supplant his father-in-law. The investigations of M. Villet as to past accounts were not supposed to be favourable to Sidi Mustapha, and the Bey lent a ready ear to the suggestion that his “faithful servant” of 1864 was the main cause of the financial crisis which had so perceptibly diminished his power and independence. The old man was imprudent enough to quarrel with the ruling favourite, Mustapha Ben Ismael, and his granting by a private letter a permission to open an English bank at last afforded the pretext which had been so long wanted. In order to gain his object, Kheir-ed-Din went over temporarily to the French party, and a new and energetic Chargé d’Affaires replaced M. De Botmiliau to put the plan into execution. On the 16th September M. De Vallat arrived in Tunis, and on the 3d November General Kheir-ed-Din became Prime Minister, to fall four years later by the influence of the same persons who had wrought the ruin of his predecessor.

According to Oriental usage, the fallen Minister was despoiled of his property, and he probably owed his life to the strong representations of the Italian Government. An attempt was made to arrest him; but his wife, the sister of Ahmed Bey, passionately clung to her husband, and threatened to follow him through the streets with uncovered face and dishevelled hair if the soldiers took him from her. Even Kheir-ed-Din shrank from such a scandal as this. No one ever saw Sidi Mustapha after his disgrace. His jewels and plate (including souvenirs from half the sovereigns of Europe) were sold by public auction six months later, but the sum realised was insufficient to pay the debt he was declared to owe to the Tunisian Treasury. Mustapha is now dead, and lies beside his royal brother-in-law in the mausoleum of the Beys of Tunis.

Meanwhile the French undertaking at Sidi Tabet had hardly made more progress than the Italian farm at Jedeida. In consideration of improving materially “the breed of horses, cows, and sheep” in the Regency of Tunis, the Bey had given a grant to the Count de Saucy of fourteen hundred hectares of the most fertile land in his dominions. M. de Sancy had, according to his own showing, no capital to lay out on the property, and although his concession was purely personal, he set out for Paris to find a partner for the Haras of Sidi Tabet. He finally succeeded in interesting in Tunisian agriculture an American lady, Mrs. Mary Frances Ronalds, who desired to forget amidst fresh scenery and pastoral pursuits the annoyances of a lawsuit _en séparation de corps et de biens_ which had been lately tried in the Parisian courts. Mrs. Ronalds came to Tunis with her partner, and for a time the firm of Sancy-Ronalds presided over the destinies of a dairy farm with considerable success. But Tunis had not long the privilege of deriving a portion of its supplies from Sidi Tabet. M. De Sancy ceded his rights to a member of the ex-imperial family of France, and Lieutenant Lucien Napoleon Theodore Bonaparte-Wyse became a partner in the fresh association known to the French tribunals as that of Ronalds-Wyse. From the day that M. Wyse became the guiding spirit of the farm at Sidi Tabet, everything went wrong. The Tunisians refused to purchase their butter, eggs, and poultry of any one but Mrs. Ronalds, and before three months had passed away the partners were almost at open warfare. Their somewhat unromantic daily correspondence formed a notable feature in the various _causes célébres_ which ensued. A single specimen is sufficient.

M. WYSE TO MRS. RONALDS.

SIDI TABET, _3d October_ 1872.

MADAM,—I send you a blind sheep which has grown thin, and which you had better sell, as well as some onions which remained over. John also sends you five cowhides to dispose of. Please send me a plough and some knives. Accept my respectful compliments.

L. N. B. WYSE.

M. Wyse becoming dissatisfied with the business, sold a portion of the stock, whereupon Mrs. Ronalds prosecuted him criminally. M. De Vallat was stony-hearted enough to throw every possible difficulty in the way of her demands for justice, and M. Wyse triumphed for a time, and sued M. De Sancy for selling rights, which he did not possess. His success was not, however, to be of long duration. Both M. De Sancy and Mrs. Ronalds had friends in high places, and M. De Vallat was recalled. The incidents of the agricultural adventures of Mrs. Ronalds and her partners for a moment seemed to obscure the graver matters at stake, and for a time even the _prépondérance naturelle_ was forgotten. The Baron de Billing was appointed to the vacant Consulate-Generalship, and came to Tunis irrevocably pledged to work out a Sancy-Ronalds policy with energy and zeal.

M. De Billing joined his post in May 1874. The various judgments pronounced in the _affaire_ Wyse were made the subject of an appeal to Aix, and Mrs. Ronalds went thither in person to interest in the woes of the partnership Sancy-Ronalds the President of the court and the Cardinal Archbishop. Complete success attended her efforts, and on the 20th August the whole of the decrees issued in favour of M. Wyse were reversed. The time had now arrived for decided action at Tunis, and the annihilation of M. Wyse was intrusted to M. Elève-Consul Cassas, who has since distinguished himself by very nearly involving the Republic in a war with the Queen of Madagascar. Bonaparte Wyse was arrested and conducted through the streets to the public prison, and the _raison sociale_ Sancy-Ronalds reigned supreme. The Baroness de Billing now took the Tunisian question in hand; Mustapha Ben Ismael was accused of trespassing on the premises of the Saint Louis Memorial Chapel, and publicly insulted at a ball given at the French Consulate; and General Kheir-ed-din received letters of so menacing a character that he was obliged to refer them to the Duc Decazes. During the short reign of M. De Billing, M. Musalli was a candidate for employment in the Tunisian Foreign Office, and his wife became a conspicuous member of the Sancy- Ronalds party, which waged a deadly warfare against the faction Bonaparte-Wyse. During the autumn of 1874 M. Oscar Gay arrived at Tunis with an aggressive scheme in his pocket. While the Baroness de Billing was giving her attention to the weightier details of Tunisian politics, her husband and M. Musalli supported the plan for rebuilding Carthage, and once more utilising the Cothon or harbour of Rome’s ancient rival. The Bey, however, turned a deaf ear to their proposals, and M. Gay was forced to postpone his projects for a more convenient season.

While the great Ronalds-Wyse controversy had apparently absorbed the attention of France, and while the peculiar features of the Billing _régime_ were diverting even the Tunisians, Mr. Wood had not been idle. An English company had laid down a small railway joining Goletta to Tunis and the Bardo; an English bank had begun its operations, notwithstanding the anathema of M. De Vallat and the rest of the _corps consulaire_, and English capitalists were preparing to light the town of Tunis with gas. In the meantime the friends of M. Bonaparte-Wyse relaxed no effort to procure the removal of M. De Billing, and the rescue of Mrs. Ronalds’ offending partner from his uncomfortable quarters in the Bey’s common prison. The controversy between the Baroness and the Tunisian Premier hastened the inevitable end, and the Baron de Billing was somewhat abruptly recalled.

Early in 1875 M. Théodore Roustan became Consul-General and Chargé d’Affaires of the French Republic at Tunis. M. Wyse was released to carry on his appeals in France, and study the projects for the Panama canal; Mrs. Ronalds left Tunis for ever, and the “improvements in the Tunisian breed of horses and cattle” at Sidi Tabet were for the moment forgotten.

For a short time nothing in M. Roustan’s line of action betokened the coming storm, but already in 1875 his extraordinary intimacy with the Musalli family was violently attacked in the “Gazette du Midi,” and he was obliged to retain M. Pelletier, a local legal practitioner, to answer the exposures contained in that paper by a series of articles in the “Peuple.” Elias Musalli came to Tunis nearly five and thirty years ago as a soldier of fortune. He was a Copt by birth, had received a fair education in one of the Egyptian seminaries, and brought a recommendation from a high official at Constantinople. He became the protégé of the Prime Minister Mustapha, and rose to the position of Sub- Director in the Tunisian Foreign Office. Thirty years ago he married the Signora Louisa Traverso, an Italian lady, whose universal popularity materially assisted his progress. During the long administration of M. Roche and the short interregnum of M. Moulin, General Elias Musalli played a prominent part in the trials and difficulties of the Tunisian Government, and he rendered more or less valuable assistance to all the parties interested in the financial operations of 1863 and 1865. As a matter of course General Musalli became rich, and after the fashion of Tunisian grandees built himself a palace. At last, however, there came a French Chargé d’Affaires “who knew not Joseph,” and General Elias Musalli fell through the influence of General Kheir-ed-Din, and the hostility of MM. Villet and Botmiliau. His final dismissal was caused by an unfortunate mistake. M. Musalli had forgotten the exact amount of the Bey’s donation to a ball given for the benefit of the European hospitals, and advantage was taken of a discrepancy between the offering which was actually put into the collection plate and the sum which the General had received, to abruptly inform him that his services were no longer required. MM. Villet and Leblant were unromantic enough to give a more uncharitable and matter-of-fact version of this untoward accident during the Roustan-Rochefort trial, but all historians must agree that its immediate result was to deprive the Bey of the benefit of M. Musalli’s exertions.

Within a year of M. Roustan’s arrival, M. Musalli again began to climb the ladder of Tunisian statesmanship, and a new palace soon quickly rose by the side of the one which had been sold under the pressure of the calamities of 1870-71.

In May 1866 the Bey transferred a concession he had granted, for a railway along the Medjerdah valley to a French company styling itself the Société des Batignolles. For a while the undertaking seemed to hang fire, but it was suddenly announced that by a law promulgated on the 25th March 1877, the French Government had agreed to guarantee a profit of six per cent. on the total outlay. So unusual a proceeding naturally awakened the suspicions of the Bey, and General Rustem was sent to Constantinople to confer with the Sultan on the political outlook. Then came strained relations between Russia and Turkey, and the beginning of the movement now called Panislamism. One of the Senoussia brotherhood was sent by Abdul Hamid to invite the co-operation of the Sultan of Morocco, in a general union for the defence of Islam, and a scheme was propounded for strengthening the position of Tunis by adding Tripoli to the Regency, and raising the Bey to the position of Khedive.

Before anything could be definitely settled, the Turco-Russian war actually broke out. By an extraordinary infatuation Italy joined France in an attempt to persuade the Bey to cast to the winds the firman of 1871. Even while contradicting a report that Italian troops were being assembled at Naples with a view to a possible descent on Tunis, the Italian Consul-General did not conceal from the Bey that unless he was very prudent, Italy might be compelled to “assert her rights over the Regency.”

The Grand Vizier at once wrote to demand from the Bey the assistance guaranteed in the firman of 1871. A Council of State was immediately convoked in which the Sheikh-el-Islam called on the members to support Muhamed es Sadek in performing his duty towards the Sultan. A lengthy debate ensued, and the possibility of a descent on Tunis by the Russian fleet was pointedly alluded to. It was at last decided to confine the action of Tunis for the present to a voluntary money contribution. The circular of the Sultan explaining the motives for the Holy War was read in all the mosques throughout the Regency on the 2d June, and owing to the enthusiasm excited by it, nearly two millions of piastres were collected and sent to Stamboul. M. Roustan now in vain pressed on the Bey the necessity of proclaiming his neutrality, but his endeavours were rendered fruitless by the reasoning of Mr. Wood, whose valuable services in Tunis were rewarded with the Knight Commandership of the Order of St. Michael and St. George.

Napoleon III. is said in a weak moment to have once offered Tunis to Italy, and one or two of the Bey’s advisers would have preferred an Italian Protectorate to the Turkish suzerainty of 1871, but ever since the fall of the Empire it is clear that no French diplomatist ever seriously entertained the idea of an Italian partnership in Tunisian affairs. Some indefinite _pourparlers_ as to an ultimate division of the spoils, seem to have been quite sufficient to prevent Italy from giving her cordial support to that consolidation of the relations between Tunis and Turkey which was so eminently calculated to ward off the final catastrophe. In the Italian Green Book of 1877 Mazzini thus puts forward the pretensions of Italy as regards Tunis with praiseworthy frankness:—“One of our principal paths to progress will be a mission of civilisation, to be carried out at the first possible opportunity on the shores of Tunis. Just as Morocco belongs to Spain and Algeria to France, _so does Tunis, the key of the centre of the Mediterranean_, belong to Italy. The Roman flag floated on Mount Atlas after the fall of Carthage, and up to the fifth century we were masters of the country. The French have now cast their eyes upon it, and they will have it too in a short time, if we are not up and doing.” Italy was wrong in not joining England in 1870 to link the fate of Tunis indissolubly with that of Turkey, and she was doubly wrong when she adopted a policy of militant provocation towards France, unless indeed she was prepared to resist by force the invasion of the country. If the words of Mazzini represent in any way the opinion of Italian statesmen in 1877, concerning Tunis the action of Italy in the Regency seems almost inexplicable. At all events there can be little doubt that from about this time the ancient rivalry of England and France in Tunis gave place to the more animated and acrimonious competition between France and Italy. The history of the latest phase of this rivalry is that of the French invasion.

The Sultan was hardly satisfied with the Bey’s pecuniary assistance, and urgent demands arrived for men and horses. Just at this critical moment General Kheir-ed-Din was requested “to go to his house to repose himself, and return when the Bey had further need of his services.” The real causes of his downfall were the unbending and imperious manner he had adopted to his colleagues, his habit of telling in plain language wholesome truths to the Bey, and the silly ambition of the minion Mustapha Ben Ismael. The Turkish party in the Cabinet accused him of being too French, and the French themselves denounced him as fanatically Turkish. The former faction relied on an article in the _Jowaib_ which described him as preventing the despatch of a contingent to Stamboul, while M. Roustan never forgot his adventure of 1864 or forgave his bringing about the firman of 1871. In addition to this the views of M. Roustan and the Musallis would be best furthered by the vizirial mantle descending on the shoulders of a fool and a puppet. Kheir-ed-Din was neither one nor the other; Mustapha Ben Ismael was a combination of both. It was, however, impossible to promote Mustapha to the post, quite unfledged as he was in Oriental diplomacy, and General Muhamed Khaznadar, the Colonel Muhamed of the days of Ahmed Bey, was accordingly nominated as a stop-gap. Mustapha meanwhile received the appointments of Minister of Justice and Lord Privy Seal (Sahab Ettaba), and was also appointed to the Presidency of the Financial Commission.

Mustapha is destined to play so important a _rôle_ in the annals of the French invasion that his history must be no longer neglected. Twenty years ago, a little boy in a tattered shirt and battered red cap, was often cuffed for somewhat too obtrusively picking up cigar ends in the European cafés of Tunis. A benevolent Maltese tavern-keeper gave him a suit of clothes, and for a few months he got more kicks than _bakhshish_ from his master’s customers. When tired of serving infidel wine-bibbers he became the apprentice of a barber, and then the servant of one of the officers of the Turkish Guard. This same little boy is Mustapha Ben Ismael, ex-Prime Minister of Tunis, Knight Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, Grand Cordon of the Crown of Italy, and Grand Cordon of the Civil Division of the Military Order of Spain. Muhamed es Sadek was the first to perceive his natural abilities, and transferred him from the service of the Turkish colonel to his own. Little more need be said of his career till we find him in 1877 Tunisian Lord Privy Seal, and by some peculiar fiction sometimes described as the Bey’s “son-in-law” and at others as his “adopted son.”

A fortnight after Kheir-ed-Din’s downfall a thousand mules and horses left Goletta on three Turkish transports for the seat of war. I am not inclined to believe in the charge freely brought against Kheir-ed-Din of trimming in favour of France when the Turkish cause became almost desperate, and I think his past history is a sufficient guarantee for his loyalty to the Bey and the Sultan up to the time of his downfall, but his going to Paris in October to confer with M. Roustan seemed to be an ample justification for the Bey’s suspicions. Kheir-ed-Din was now ready, as subsequent events showed, to do anything to revenge the wrongs he had received from Muhamed es Sadek and Mustapha Ben Ismael. Meanwhile fresh requisitions arrived from Constantinople, and 4000 men were prepared in obedience to the Sultan’s command. The Russian Consul now became the centre of attraction in Tunis and the object of M. Roustan’s blandishments. The very existence of M. Nyssen, blind, crippled, and bed-ridden, was almost forgotten, till one morning in December 1877 he received instructions to break off diplomatic relations with the Bey. M. Roustan tried to make the declaration of war as theatrical as possible, in order to see if at the eleventh hour he could induce Muhamed es Sadek to break off his connection with the Porte. Another very efficient instrument of torture was now brought to bear on the already terrified Bey,—the Havas Agency announced the imminent bombardment of Goletta by the Russian squadron.

M. Roustan went once more to the Bardo to see the effect of M. Nyssen’s communication and the Havas menace. He was doomed to disappointment, Muhamed Sadek would not forsake his suzerain and Caliph. “You say I am independent,” said he to M. Roustan, “where are your proofs for this statement? My position has been defined by the firman, but apart from this I am also bound to take into consideration the sentiments of my people as followers of the faith of Islam.”

The year 1878 opened with a misfortune. Early in February the French steamer “Auvergne” was wrecked in the neighbourhood of Tabarca, and subsequently pillaged by the mountain tribes. Although the Tunisian Government paid an indemnity of 300,000 francs, M. Saint-Hilaire has since endeavoured to make the case of the “Auvergne” one of the charges contained in his indictment against Tunis. No sooner were the French claims settled than an Italian question arose over the hull of the ill- fated ship. The Bey was injudicious enough to sell the wreck as she lay by public auction. Some speculative Italians bought her for a trifle, and went to Tabarca to effect a salvage. At the sight of some Arabs they retreated to Tunis, and preferred a consequential claim for damages against the unfortunate Bey. This second “international complication” cost the Government another 50,000 francs.

It now became necessary for Mustapha to win his spurs as an ambassador. He was sent to Rome to congratulate King Humbert on his accession, and came back with an Italian grand cordon, almost inclined for an Italian alliance forthwith. In the face of this move on the part of Italy, M. Roustan redoubled his activity; he first placed before the Bey the draft of a partly political, partly commercial convention for his consideration. The matter was kept a profound secret, but I am able to state its conditions. They were as follows:—

1st. The Bey to declare the Sultan’s firman void.

2d. To transfer the Tunisian public debt to a syndicate of French capitalists, who would undertake to pay the coupon.

3d. To grant a concession to a French company for the making of a railway to Bizerta, including the construction of a port and the cession of a large area of ground.

4th. To define the frontiers of Tunis and Algeria afresh.

5th. To concede the irrigation works at Tebourba to the Société des Batignolles.

M. Leblant, the French Financial Member of the International Commission, opposed the commercial portion of the scheme, and was recalled to France. Notwithstanding this measure the Bey was inexorable. M. Roustan now resolved to take the management of Mustapha very seriously in hand. The Bey was asked to send a mission to Paris to felicitate the Marshal President. As King Humbert had been already congratulated by Mustapha, there was no reasonable grounds for refusal. A decoration of the Abd-el- Aman in diamonds was prepared for Marshal MacMahon, and two ordinary Nichan grand cordons for M. Waddington and General Chanzy. General Musalli was attached to Mustapha’s suite, and took with him a recommendation for the cross of officer of the Legion of Honour on his own account. During his stay in Paris several very important matters were discussed. The extension of the Compagnie des Batignolles line to the frontier was agreed upon, and it is believed that Mustapha received either French naturalisation, or an order entitling him to protection. He returned to Tunis wearing the grand cross of the Legion of Honour. The proud distinction of conferring upon him the grand cordon was reserved for M. Saint-Hilaire.

Then came the Berlin Congress, and the conversations of Lord Salisbury about Tunis.

The despatches interchanged between M. Waddington and Lord Salisbury are too well known even to need being quoted from. M. De Blovitz, the Paris correspondent of the “Times,” who was in Berlin at the time, gives the following account of the circumstances under which the now historical fiat of “Take Carthage” went forth from the lips of Prince Bismarck. “It is hard to say,” writes M. De Blovitz, “how France came to be convinced that at the Berlin Congress, Prince Bismarck invited M. Waddington to take Tunis. Probably it was the result of words which were passed from mouth to mouth, and got exaggerated at every repetition. What the Prince said was merely one of the sallies he sometimes indulges in, and to which he himself attaches no importance. He himself told me, ‘On first seeing Lord Beaconsfield, I said to him, You ought to have an understanding with Russia instead of thwarting her. You might leave her free at Constantinople, and yourselves take Egypt, which would compensate you for your complaisance. France would not be so vexed as may be imagined, and, in any case, Tunis or Syria might be given her as an equivalent!’ I took this at the time and still take it for a jest, but the Prince had previously spoken in the same strain to Lord Salisbury and M. Waddington. The former made no answer, because Prince Bismarck was then in the dark as to the Cyprus convention, while M. Waddington answered, what he afterwards publicly repeated, that France had no design on Tunis, but could not allow any other European Power to instal itself there, and thus imperil her Algerian possessions. Thereupon came the news of the Cyprus convention, on which the French press began attacking M. Waddington, asserting that the English occupation of Cyprus was a rebuff for French diplomacy. The Italian papers were still more excited, and blamed Count Corti for not returning from the congress with some island in his pocket. This was the starting- point of the Tunis question in Italy, and of conversations, not only between Lord Salisbury and M. Waddington, but between M. Waddington and Count Corti. M. Waddington declared throughout that France had no design of annexing Tunis, but would not tolerate any European neighbour there.”

Just before the congress met, M. Roustan received information that there was a probability of Germany making an effort to secure Bizerta. He immediately suggested to both his English and Italian colleagues the necessity of urgently requesting their respective Governments to adopt a joint action against Teuton aggression. During the sittings at Berlin, however, he received a letter detailing or purporting to detail the “Take Carthage” conversations. Within an hour he was at the Bardo detailing the last performance of “_la perfide Albion_” to the affrighted Bey. Mr. Wood was hurriedly sent for, and at once communicated the current report to the English Foreign Office. In a short time a reply was received denying categorically that any offer of Tunis to France had been made by England at Berlin. The contents of the despatch, together with a pro-Turkish speech of Lord Beaconsfield, were published in the Tunisian Government Gazette, and this prudent step alone prevented the Bey accepting one or more of M. Roustan’s proposals. That Lord Salisbury meant to include the total absorption of this country when he spoke of the legitimate extension of French interests, can hardly be asserted even by his enemies, but that any deviation at all was ever made from the prudent policy so ably carried out by Sir Thomas Reade and Sir R. Wood must always be a subject of regret.

On the 28th July 1878, Mustapha Ben Ismael became Prime Minister. In the following month Signor Mussi arrived at Tunis on a political mission of considerable importance. His former visits to the Regency were paid in the capacity of agent to a certain Count Vandoni, who had preferred an enormous and preposterous claim against the Tunisian Government for services rendered as the Bey’s consul at Geneva. This consideration alone should have prevented the choice of Signor Mussi to treat on matters of a diplomatic character. Without even feeling his way, Signor Mussi at once communicated to Mustapha his ideas both about French aggression and the best method of checking it, and the whole of his conversation was, as a matter of course, transmitted by telegraph to the Quai d’Orsay the same evening. He then asked for the cession to Italy of Bizerta, which was at once refused. Next day he submitted a plan for constituting Bizerta a free port under the joint guarantee of the three Powers. He also enjoined both the Bey and his Minister to make no kind of concession in France relating to M. De Sancy’s demands, which were again becoming troublesome. Having almost thrown down the gauntlet to France, Signor Mussi returned to Italy. A month later the ex-Prime Minister Kheir-ed-Din was summoned to Stamboul.

M. Ferdinand de Lesseps came to Tunis early in November 1878, charged with the especial mission of converting Muhamed Sadek to the dogma of an Inland Sea. Failure with M. de Lesseps is almost impossible, but he found both the Bey and Mustapha unexpectedly intractable. All his eloquent descriptions of a regenerated Central Africa and an increased rainfall consequent on evaporation, were wholly lost on his incredulous hearers. “Your Inland Sea,” said the Bey, “may make your Algeria more secure, but it will cut off my richest province, the date-yielding Djerid. Dates never thrive in the neighbourhood of salt water, and your sea would ruin every palm grove in my country. I can never give my consent to so dangerous an experiment.” M. Lesseps told M. Roustan that his careful education of Mustapha had been thrown away, and went back to France greatly disappointed.

About a month later Signor Licurgo Maccio arrived in the Regency to join his post as Italian Agent and Consul-General. He came, as M. Roustan fairly enough describes it, “with the sound of trumpets and the pomp of war.” Immediately after the gunboat which brought him had anchored off Goletta, a number of mysterious-looking cases were landed and transmitted to Tunis. Next day came Signor Maccio and with him forty marines. As soon as they reached the Italian consulate the boxes were opened, and each man took out his carbine. A double file of soldiers was then improvised, a band played, and Signor Maccio entered his future residence with military honours. The consequences of this almost incredible act of folly can easily be imagined. The militant M. Roustan recognised in this display a militant Signor Maccio, and went as fast as his carriage could carry him to induce the Bey to enter a formal protest against Italian aggression. An immediate estrangement between the two _consuls de combat_ was only avoided by the happy mediation of Sir Richard Wood, by whose advice the Bey contented himself with sending a friendly message to Signor Maccio requesting him “not to do it again.”

About this time a change seemed to come over the Prime Minister Mustapha, and he showed unmistakable indications of restiveness in the matter of French pretensions. I have never been able to entirely fathom the motives for his new line of conduct, but I believe it was to be attributed partly to the strong personal feeling of the Bey, which he dared not offend, partly to the influence of the partisans of the Panislamite movement at the court, and partly to an affront which he received from M. Roustan.

The year 1878 was not destined to pass away without its _casus belli_ and _ultimatum_. The hero of the next episode in Tunisian history was the Count de Sancy, of the now almost-forgotten firm of Sancy-Ronalds. To console the count for the troubles which attended his first effort “to improve the breed of Tunisian horses and cattle,” M. Roustan in July 1877 induced the Bey to grant him another concession of land, on which he agreed to keep a certain quantity of stock. The rights he acquired were declared to be purely personal, and he was exempted from the payment of all the usual taxes and duties. To avoid all future disputes the Tunisian Government inserted the following clauses in its decree, viz.:—1st, “That the grant was to be forfeited _ipso facto_, if, on the 1st July 1878, the number of animals agreed on were not forthcoming; 2d, That the estates so conceded were to be considered as Tunisian property, subject to Tunisian law, and to be treated as still forming part of the Beylical domains.”

In February M. De Sancy wrote a letter to the Prime Minister, in which he stated that he had been unable to fulfil his engagements, “on account of the interrupted communication with Europe consequent on the Russo- Turkish war,” and because the Bey had not put him in possession of the whole land stipulated for. The first excuse was absurd, the second untrue, and both contradictory. M. De Sancy received a civil answer declining to accept his pleas, and in July a commission went to Sidi Tabet to ascertain the real state of things in accordance with the terms of the concession. Even M. De Sancy himself signed the _procès-verbal_ attesting his own failure to carry out the conditions he had agreed upon. The Bey then published a decree, in which he declared the grant at an end. A long correspondence next ensued, during which M. Roustan made several appeals _ad misericordiam_, and finally the Government determined to expropriate M. De Sancy, according to the local law he had agreed to abide by. A notice to quit, sent to the French Consulate- General, was treated with contemptuous silence, and the agents of the _concessionnaire_ were found to have leased out portions of the estate in defiance of the conditions of the original donation. The Bey wrote to M. Roustan saying he intended to take possession, and he received an answer asserting that the land was French property, and that if any one ventured upon it “he would find a French janissary on the border.” A reply was sent couched in the most conciliatory terms, declaring that if any opposition was offered the persons sent to take possession would at once withdraw, and confine their action to a platonic protestation. Accordingly on the 9th December, a deputation, composed of the Austrian Consul, General Bacouch, M. Quéillé, the French Member of the Financial Commission, General Arbi Zaruck, and Mr. Santillana, the Bey’s interpreter, started on the bootless errand of asserting the Bey’s rights. When they reached the hedge forming the boundary of the property, a French _cavass_ or guard sprang out from behind it and shouted in a loud voice, “This land belongs to France.” The Tunisian _posse comitatus_ hastily retired, and assuaged their wounded feelings by an eloquent protest. The telegraph was then set to work, and the Bey’s wanton trespass on the private domicile of a French citizen was in a few hours announced throughout the length and breadth of France. On the 7th January 1879, M. Sumaripa, M. Roustan’s interpreter, appeared at the Bardo and placed an ultimatum in the hands of the Prime Minister. It ran thus:—“Unless the following conditions are accepted, the Chargé d’Affaires of France is determined to break off diplomatic relations with the Bey of Tunis: 1st, An inquiry to be ordered forthwith into the claims of M. De Sancy; 2d, The Prime Minister _in uniform_ to appear at the French Consulate-General, and publicly apologise for the insult offered to France; 3d, The functionaries who carried out the Bey’s instructions to be immediately dismissed from his service.” For a time the Bey hesitated as to what course he should take. His telegrams to Paris miscarried or were delayed, a French squadron as usual appeared opportunely at Goletta, and the “friendly powers” would or could do nothing but give advice. The Bey surrendered at discretion; Mustapha next morning asked pardon in the presence of a gaping crowd at the French Consulate-General, and M. Roustan announced that M. Waddington would be satisfied with the dismissal of the only English subject in the Bey’s service, Mr. Santillana. A committee of three Frenchmen and two Tunisians was appointed to fully investigate the effects of the Turkish war on M. De Sancy’s philanthropic attempts “to improve the breed of Tunisian horses and cattle.” What they reported never transpired, but in the result M. De Sancy’s grant was fully confirmed. Next year he transferred all his rights to the well-known French company called the _Société Marseillaise_, which has now kindly undertaken “to improve the Tunisian breed of horses and cattle,” and pays or should pay M. De Sancy a very satisfactory annuity. When the Italians tried to treat the Jedeida as Italian soil in 1870, the French were loud in their professions of horror at such an uncalled-for aggression, but when Sidi Tabet, by a fiction of M. Roustan’s, became a French property in 1878, it was regarded as the legitimate development of a perfectly justifiable preponderating influence!

The year 1879, which opened with the Sancy incident, saw in April the inauguration of the French railway into the interior. M. Oscar Gay de Tunis returned to the Regency in May to prosecute, under M. Roustan’s auspices, his project for a new Carthage. Since he first unfolded his idea to M. De Billing in 1874, he had rendered it more attractive by making a cathedral, in memory of the African martyrs, one of its salient features. The Musallis did their best to help M. Gay, but the Bey had had quite enough of the St. Louis Chapel on the Byrsa to induce him to set his face against the plan. M. Roustan, however, had no difficulty in procuring him substantial consolation for his disappointment. The Bey invested M. Gay with the grand cordon of the Nichan, and gave him a present of 25,000 francs besides. With praiseworthy frankness M. Gay has himself published the history of a portion at least of this princely gift. As a mark of his gratitude, M. Gay left a certain sum with General Musalli for his wife. The General again forgot to deliver it, and Madame Musalli was foolish enough to complain in writing to M. Gay. This letter formed one of the exhibits in the Roustan-Rochefort case.

In April Sir Richard Wood quitted Tunis. He was at least spared the pain of seeing the untoward end of all his labours. The memory of his work in the Regency yet lives, and his diplomatic successes will not easily be forgotten. It is the fashion now to speak of such men as Sir Richard Wood as belonging to the old school, and as being behind the age. It may be true, but it is also an undeniable fact, that during the fifty years Sir Thomas Reade and Sir Richard Wood represented Great Britain in Tunis, the name of England was honoured and esteemed from one end of the country to the other.