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affairs of that country. To this he consented, with the assent of the French Government, and was indefatigable in protecting German subjects and interests. Through the German siege of Paris he remained in the city, and during the Commune several bombs fell near his house, one of them just in front as the General and his wife were leaving the door. Three bombs that so fell preserved their integrity sufficiently to be made into mantel ornaments, one of them being a handsome clock.

The French Government was well satisfied with the tact displayed by the American in the delicate duty of looking after German Consular affairs, with which the General had combined active services in relieving the distress of the population of Paris during the siege. For this he received the thanks of M. Gambetta, who, to the end of his life, remained his warm personal friend.

When the war ended it was still not deemed feasible for a German to be Consul-General in France, and, by agreement of both Governments, General Meredith Read continued for some time to render such services. The labours were serious, involving correspondence with more than thirty agents in various parts of France, in addition to Consuls of his own country, and were warmly appreciated by the German Government. During all of this time his popularity in France increased, and he was consulted in several important matters by General de Cissey and other Ministers.

In 1873 the General was appointed United States Minister to Greece, a post which he filled six years. In that position he rendered one particularly important service to his country by a despatch written to his Government during the financial crisis in America of 1876-7, pointing out the effects of the RussoTurkish war and other causes on the bread markets of the world, many of which he suggested might be captured by a grain fleet sailing from New York. This information was circulated among producers and shippers, and in one year American grain exports rose to seventy-three millions of dollars.

While thus vigilant of the interests of his own country, the Minister attended to various affairs of general concern. His religious sentiments were strong, and it was largely due to his exertions and influence that the order was revoked which prohibited the sale and circulation of the Bible in Greece. He was on excellent terms with Ministers from other countries, and was able to render various services to eminent Englishmen, which were not forgotten by them. He was much interested in the Historical Society at Athens, and his memorial letter to them on the death of his friend Lord Stanhope was published (1876) by that Society in Greek and English.

Personally the Minister was keenly interested in the Greek Question then urgent, and on his release from ministerial obligations became very active in behalf of the cause of Greece. When this cause had been crowned with success, the King of Greece called on him personally at his residence in Paris, and in 1881 created him Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Redeemer.

From his youth our author had been a zealous student of history, as his father also was. As the family was historically connected with Delaware, the foundation of a Historical Society in this State in 1864 was attended by Chief Justice Read in behalf of the venerable Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and his son Meredith in the following year delivered its first anniversary address. He had already contributed several valuable papers to various Societies, but this anniversary discourse on a little-explored subject brought him general recognition among historians. It was published at Albany under the title: A Historical Inquiry concerning Henry Hudson, his Friends, Relatives, and Early Life, his connection with the Muscovy Company, and discovery of Delaware Bay.' Of this substantial pamphlet an abridged edition was published in Edinburgh (1882) by the Clarendon Society.

General Meredith Read was a member of the principal

learned Societies of Europe and America. In every country that he visited he made important collections of original historical documents and relics, and several rooms in his house were occupied by these treasures, which represent large outlays. His American collection includes the large letter-books, sixteen in number, of Robert Morris, Financier of the Revolution, which contain important facts as yet unknown to history. Among his English treasures is the large family Bible which belonged to the historian Gibbon, and was loaned to the Gibbon Centenary Exhibition in London. His French collection included a very large number of important letters of Voltaire which have never seen the light, and of which but few could find room in the present volumes. Greece was also well represented in his scriptorium, and the reader of these volumes need hardly be told that his collection of documents and relics in Switzerland was vast. These collections were always open to the inspection of his friends, and in the long list of those to whom the chivalrous author wished to acknowledge indebtedness, appended to his 'Word to the Reader,' not a few will feel that the indebtedness was equally on their side. The reader of these volumes will no doubt remark the author's eager interest in family history and genealogy-an interest sometimes regarded and perhaps rightly as especially American, but without full appreciation of the fact that the romance of every old family in America has its prologue in Europe. In a country where the family tree has nothing to do with titles or estates, but is judged by its moral and intellectual fruits, genealogy rises to the dignity of History; which, as the American Emerson remarks, is the history of a few good heads.

In 1879, when returning from his mission in Greece, General Meredith Read tarried on the lake of Geneva for the purpose of conferring on some important matters with M. Gambetta, who was to arrive in that neighbourhood. But while waiting there rose before him the figure of his beloved Gibbon, whose

homes and haunts were around him, and, the conference with M. Gambetta ended, the General went on a visit to Lausanne. He had the antiquary's enthusiasm, and could enjoy a pilgrimage from the nineteenth century with its burning issues into the eighteenth with its serene shades. In visiting Lausanne he probably contemplated no more than a reverent inspection of the homes and haunts of Gibbon, and perhaps a paper on the historian's life at Lausanne. But the pilgrimage, as will be seen, turned into a far journey. He found in Lausanne the descendants of Gibbon's circle, the same cultured and gracious gentlemen and ladies, surrounded by the portraits of those who had been the historian's teachers, friends, and correspondents, and able to tell him many pretty legends.

But more important discoveries awaited our antiquary. After some sojourn in Lausanne he found that he was in a region of archives largely unexplored. In Gibbon's old mansion, La Grotte, the vast garrets were crowded with chests of mouldy manuscripts, all of which were cheerfully, and perhaps gratefully, opened to his search and use. For this work he took up his abode in the ancient city. The historical discoveries made in that ancient mansion remind one of the enchanted 'La Grotte' of old Romance, wherein prince, knights, and courtly dames slumbered for centuries awaiting the curious adventurer who might awaken them. Many interesting sleepers stirred under the touch of the American. Similar accumulations he found in neighbouring cities, which, while including records of remote antiquity, contained unknown letters from great men and women of the last century-Rousseau, Madame de Warens, Voltaire, Gibbon, Frederick the Great, Euler, Allamand, Malesherbes, Madame Necker, Madame de Staël, and many others.

To the collection of the original manuscript materials which appear in this work, though only in part, about three years were pretty continuously given. At the same time photographers and draughtsmen were employed in taking pictures

of all the historical places and chateaux visited-the General never considering money in making his collections-the illustrations in these volumes being a few chosen from his extensive albums. Experts were set to translate or decipher mediæval documents. And when all these were copied and indexed, the author devoted himself to the extended studies necessary to gain from ancient or contemporary historians knowledge of the epochs to which his inedited documents related, and the facts that might give each its right and explanatory setting. These works are credited where quoted in the following pages, but it was his intention also to amplify the list of printed authorities given at the end of his Introduction.

The statements in this Memoir concerning the labours and incidents connected with the writing of this work are derived from the present writer's personal knowledge and his intercourse with the author, whose intimate friendship he enjoyed; and they are here for the first time given to the public. The General was the frankest of men; in conversation with a friend he related with the utmost freedom his adventures and experiences. Through all his military and diplomatic career he had preserved a youthful simplicity and freshness. He was unselfish and generous, and his beautiful home in Paris was the centre of a cordial hospitality. Many are bereaved by his death, which has occurred at a time when life seemed most smiling, and when his literary labour of many years was on the eve of completion.

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