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them, because they put certain reciprocal conditions to their departure from Russia.
As a matter of fact, without frank or loyal declaration, we were in a state of war with the Bolshevik Government and, what is more, our representatives were engaged in a series of subversive operations that no diplomatic immunity whatever could protect, and to which no Government, of whatever kind, could possibly remain indifferent. The Bolshevik Government had an undoubted right to enforce strict measures against all our nationals as a whole, as well as of ordering their internment into concentration camps. It did not do so, but limited itself to precautionary measures destined to assure the security of its representatives and those of its citizens of Bolshevik opinion in the countries of the Entente. It accoorded, as everybody knows, all our agents, even those compromised in attempts at insurrection against the Soviet Authority, facilities of freely making their departure.
I have already drawn attention to my profound astonishment and indignation on hearing this revolting, cynical conversation, portions of which I have reported above. I could not believe that such actions were in harmony with the designs of the Governments of the Entente, particularly of the French Government, whose precise declarations, repeated on many occasions during this horrible war about the rights of the people so often trodden under the feet of an unprincipled enemy, I remembered only too well.
On the other hand, the activity of our agents in Russia appeared all the more criminal in view of the fact that all the material which I had collected, all that I had been able to learn
