I accepted the post of ambassador I was bound to consider myself as a part of the great state machinery, and loyally support the policy emanating from the Ballplatz.  I still maintain that my standpoint is perfectly justifiable.  A unified policy would be utterly impossible if every subordinate official were to publish his own views, whether right or wrong, and I for my part would never, as Minister, have tolerated an ambassador who attempted to pursue an independent policy of his own.  Tisza begged me to give my word of honour that I would make no attempt to introduce a policy opposed to that of Vienna and Budapest, to which I readily agreed, provided that the Archduke was agreeable to such decision.  I then had a conversation with the latter, and found that he quite agreed with my action, his argument being that as long as he was the heir to the throne he would never attempt to introduce a policy opposed to that of the Emperor; consequently he would not expect it from me either.  But should he come to the throne he would certainly make an effort to carry out his own views, in which case I should no longer be at Bucharest, but probably in some post where I would be in a position to support his efforts.  The Archduke begged me for the sake of my friendship for him to accept the post, which I finally decided to do after I obtained a promise from Berchtold that, at the end of two years as the longest term, he would put no obstacle in the way of my retirement.

The Archduke Franz drew his pro-Roumanian proclivities from a very unreliable source.  He hardly knew Roumania at all.  So far as I know, he had only once been in the country, and paid a short visit to King Carol at Sinaia; but the friendly welcome accorded to himself and his wife by the old King and Queen entirely took his warm heart by storm, and he mistook King Carol for Roumania.  This is again a proof how greatly the individual relations of great personalities can influence the policy of nations.  The royal couple met the Archduke at the station; the Queen embraced and kissed the duchess and, placing her at her right side, drove with her to the castle.  In short, it was the first time that the Duchess of Hohenberg had been treated as enjoying equal privileges with her husband.  During his short stay in Roumania the Archduke had the pleasure of seeing his wife treated as his equal and not as a person of slight importance, always relegated to the background.  At the court balls in Vienna the duchess was always obliged to walk behind all the archduchesses, and never had any gentleman allotted to her whose arm she could take.  In Roumania she was his wife, and etiquette was not concerned with her birth.  The Archduke valued this proof of friendly tactfulness on the part of the King very highly, and always afterwards Roumania, in his eyes, was endowed with a special charm.  Besides which he very correctly estimated that a change in certain political relations would effect a closer alliance between Roumania and ourselves.  He felt, rather than knew, that the Transylvanian question lay like a huge obstacle between Vienna and Bucharest, and that this obstacle once removed would alter the entire situation.