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In the evening, a dinner was given in honor of M. Briand by Foreign Secretary Chamberlain. Ambassador Houghton was again a guest.
Next day the conversations were ended. Official communiques were issued. Once more the French and British were d'accord, whatever that was supposed to mean. The language of these official notices was couched in vague terms. It gave the impression that the two countries had decided in advance their answer to the proposed security pact and that so far as they were concerned no cloud could shadow their extreme serenity. Actually, this impression was misleading. What had been decided was:
1) The wording of a reply to Germany's last note.
2) To hold more conversations, probably at Geneva, in which Germany would be fully represented.
Precisely what was the substance of the reply to Germany was not ascertainable. As for the proposed conversations, they were at best a point de depart. Tardy correspondence was to give way to official exchanges of opinion, but these bound neither side and might not, as many expected, even accelerate the negotiation of the Rhine security pact. M. Briand evidently had no objection to meeting German Foreign Minister Gustav Stresemann on the banks of Lake Leman; this in itself was a hopeful sign. Mr. Chamberlain also welcomed the opportunity of conducting direct discussions among all of the parties interested, including Belgium. To give the conversations a chance, the legal advisers of the British, French and German Foreign Offices were scheduled to hold a preliminary meeting. The Foreign Ministers would meet at Geneva around Sept. 2, the opening date of the League of Nations Council. It was hoped, probably too optimistically, that an agreement would be reached so that Germany might apply for admittance to the League and that her application might be passed by the Assembly which meets for its annual monthly session on Sept. 7.
Newspapermen tried to drag something more specific from M. Briand when he arrived back at the Hyde Park Hotel. What, for example, did he think of Mr. Houghton's presence at dinner the previous night? The foxy Foreign Minister smilingly replied: "The United States Ambassador wore a very pretty boutonniere."
On the conversations he was equally evasive. He held that conversations, not conference, were the real cure for Europe's ills. Said he, beaming the while: "Conversations are better than conferences for exchanges of views between statesmen. Conferences and notes are too formal. Conferences are not always successful; for instance, the conference at Cannes." The following day M. Briand laid a wreath on the Cenotaph in Whitehall, almost opposite Downing Street. It was inscribed: Au Soldat Inconnu. From Whitehall he went to Victoria, where a vast concourse of people had assembled to cheer and gape. On the platform was Foreign Minister Chamberlain and numerous silk-hatted gentlemen. Newspaper correspondents rushed at him; before they could ask a question, the little Frenchman was saying rapidly in French: "I will give you a new recipe for the improvement of Anglo-French relations. While I have been here I have smoked about 50 cigarets daily But do I smoke French cigarets? Mais non! I smoke half French and half English. I alternate, first French, then English, with mathematical precision."