FRANCE: Poldavia's Lamidaeff

When 28 French Republican deputies sat down to their breakfast coffee and croissants* early last week, each found a large crinkly letter from Geneva in his morning's mail. Innocent and refreshed after a sound night's sleep, not one Republican deputy saw anything untoward in the fact that the large crinkly letters were embossed on the stationery of "Foreign Minister Lamidaeff, of the Kingdom of Poldavia." They saw nothing strange in the fact that Poldavians were in financial difficulties, and they found Minister Lamidaeff most thoughtful in not asking for money, but merely...

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