Probably Prince Andrew's thought interested him.

"Si vous envisagez la question sous ce point de vue,"* he began, pronouncing French with evident difficulty, and speaking even slower than in Russian but quite calmly.

*"If you regard the question from that point of view.

" Speranski went on to say that honor, l'honeur, cannot be upheld by privileges harmful to the service; that honor, l'honneur, is either a negative concept of not doing what is blameworthy or it is a source of emulation in pursuit of commendation and rewards, which recognize it.

His arguments were concise, simple, and clear.