in which he was located without the use of considerable influence at the passport bureaus. The status of the émigrés became suddenly undetermined. For once the U.S.S.R. becomes generally recognised, the position of the Russians who are sans état becomes extremely enigmatical. The agents of Moscow, moreover, evidently hope to profit by the situation. The Russians in Paris were greatly perturbed by the appearance in their midst of spies from the camp of their mortal enemies, Chekhists on their doorsteps, so to speak. Their first alarm was the statement that they would be forced to give up their League of Nations passports and become Bolshevik subjects. Their second alarm was that their church on the Rue Daru would be confiscated. No shrewder blow could be struck against them than by taking away from them their spiritual stronghold.

On the first St. Nicholas Day after the recognition of Soviet power by France, the Russian church in Paris presented a marvellous spectacle, crowded from the gilded screens and frescoed walls to the very gates with an emotionalised Russian congregation singing Eternal Memory for the murdered Tsar. The Imperial family slaughtered at Ekaterinburg have entered the shadow-land of old ikon faces; they have become

mythical and legendary, and therefore, for the Slav, more real.

Strange developments are possible in Paris. There are signs that the new Bolsheviks there will be forced by circumstances to devote more attention to fighting the "White" Russians than to gaining French political and financial support. They encourage the Young Communists of France, the Komsomoltsi, they aid and abet all French extremists and revolutionaries, but their main efforts are to be directed to defeat the Russian exiles. It will, however, be strange if France remains content to allow Paris to be the battlefield of conflicting factions of Russians. Not for that at least was recognition granted. France, moreover, has her own grave political problem inherent in her financial difficulty and the inability of successive governments to raise the taxes necessary to meet her national liabilities. There is even a danger of revolution resulting from this deadlock-a local and national revolution. It is nowise to her advantage to have in her midst world-firebrands capable of using the opportunity to aggravate a disaster to the Republic and make it a disaster to France.

III

THE POSITION OF THE RUSSIAN

CHURCH IN PARIS

As the church in Paris is a common rallyingground for Russians of various political persuasions, it will be understood how valuable it is to the émigrés from a national as well as from a spiritual point of view; they would feel desperate if they lost it. The difficulty of the situation lies in the fact that the church has generally been understood as an Embassy church, and M. Maklakof, when he handed the old Embassy over to the representatives of the Soviet, handed the right to the church also.

I had an interview with M. Maklakof, who had remained Ambassador of the old regime until M. Herriot by recognising the Soviet power gave him his congé. He is an urbane, polished Russian, brother of the Minister of the same name, a diplomat by temperament, but I should not say

a man of driving power capable of original action. He relinquished his rights with characteristic Slav passivity, and he has been much criticised in that when surrendering the Embassy on the Rue de Grenelle he tacitly surrendered the church with it.

Possessed of some treasure still, he was able to remove his shadow Embassy to commodious premises on the Rue Boissiere, but the church and its congregation were left to look after themselves as best they might. The Bolsheviks at once claimed the church as their property, and a fight ensued.

How Moscow would dispose of the church, if it had it, is difficult to foresee. Some think it would be closed for a while and then reopened as a Communist establishment; others believe that one of the bishops of the so-called "Living Church" would be sent from Moscow to take it over and confound the faithful. But as a Russian Communist in Paris is always altogether a nonbeliever, it is difficult to see how even the " Living Church" could carry on there. The most likely dénouement is that it would remain a long while closed.

There was consternation for a time. It was believed that the Bolsheviks might make a raid

on the church and seize it. There were watchers set to give alarm in case that might happen. But happily the French courts granted an injunction against the Bolsheviks, pending litigation. The legality of the present ownership will be contested by the representatives of the U.S.S.R. The issue seems to be considerably complicated and may take a year or so to settle.

Alexander II. gave 200,000 francs for the building of this church; the Holy Synod gave a further 200,000 francs, and a sum of 600,000 francs was collected popularly. This was in 1857-59. M. Boris Tatistchef, whom I interviewed, claimed that none of the million francs thus subscribed was "State money". In January 1921 the Embassy was forced, through lack of funds, to cease payments for upkeep. Since then the church has been entirely self-supporting. In 1922 it was legalised as the domicile of a cult, according to French law. What has to be established in the French courts is not so much the right of possession as the right of use.

Meanwhile the émigrés have successfully begun a counter-attack. Proper facilities for the education of priests are denied in Russia, and the faculty of Divinity has in general been shut up. There is a danger that the Russian church may