Note 7 — Chapter XVIII
Reading edition
It has been affirmed that the Russian ambassador in Paris, Nelidoff, too, was sounded on this subject and had banished any hope that the Tsar or the Kaiser might have cherished. This was wholly superfluous. Rouvier, who was perhaps the most venturesome minister of the republic at that time and had joined hands with Delcassé's Teuton adversaries, had, as we saw, declared that he had rather keep out of a triple alliance of Germany, France, and Russia.