CHAPTER VII.
_Evening._ I am very much afraid that it will be some time before my letters reach you, if indeed they ever do.

I had entrusted one to Lord Lyons' butler, a very intelligent man, who was to accompany Mr.Hore, our naval attache, to Tours; but, alas, they did not get further than the Prussian lines at Epinay, and they are back again at the Embassy.

Mr.Hore had with him a letter from the Nuncio to the Crown Prince, but the officer in command of the outpost declined to take charge of it.

The Columbian Minister, too, who was charged with the protest of the Corps Diplomatique to Bismarck on account of his refusal to allow their despatches to go out, has also returned, to re-peruse Grotius and Puffendorf, in order to find more precedents with which to overwhelm Bismarck.

The Greek Minister has managed to run the blockade.