It would be impolitic to overlook and insincere to belittle the effects of this incoherency upon the relations between France and Italy.  Public opinion in the Peninsula characterized the attitude of Prance as deliberately hostile.  The Italians at the Conference eagerly scrutinized every act and word of their French colleagues, with a view to discovering grounds for dispelling this view.  But the search is reported to have been worse than vain.  It revealed data which, although susceptible of satisfactory explanations, would, if disclosed at that moment, have aggravated the feeling of bitterness against France, which was fast gathering.  Signor Orlando had recourse to the censor to prevent indiscretions, but the intuition of the masses triumphed over repression, and the existing tenseness merged into resentment.  The way in which Italians accounted for M. Clemenceau’s attitude was this.  Although Italy has ceased to be the important political factor she once was when the Triple Alliance was in being, she is still a strong continental Power, capable of placing a more numerous army in the field than her republican sister, and her population continues to increase at a high rate.  In a few years she will have outstripped her rival.  France, too, has perhaps lost those elements of her power and prestige which she derived from her alliance with Russia.  Again, the Slav ex-ally, Russia, may become the enemy of to-morrow.  In view of these contingencies France must create a substitute for the Rumanian and Italian allies.  And as these have been found in the new Slav states, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Jugoslavia, she can afford to dispense with making painful sacrifices to keep Italy in countenance.

A trivial incident which affords a glimpse of the spirit prevailing between the two kindred peoples occurred at St.-Germain-en-Laye, where the Austrian delegates were staying.  They had been made much of in Vienna by the Envoy of the French Republic there, M. Allize, whose mission it was to hinder Austria from uniting with the Reich.  Italy’s policy was, on the contrary, to apply Mr. Wilson’s principle of self-determination and allow the Austrians to do as they pleased in that respect.  A fervent advocate of the French orthodox doctrine—­a publicist—­repaired to the Austrian headquarters at St.-Germain for the purpose, it is supposed, of discussing the subject.  Now intercourse of any kind between private individuals and the enemy delegates was strictly forbidden, and when M. X. presented himself, the Italian officer on duty refused him admission.  He insisted.  The officer was inexorable.  Then he produced a written permit signed by the Secretary of the Conference, M. Dutasta.  How and why this exception was made in his favor when the rule was supposed to admit of no exceptions was not disclosed.  But the Italian officer, equal to the occasion, took the ground that a military prohibition cannot be canceled by a civilian, and excluded the would-be visitor.