At 7 o'clock, an hour after Herr von Langwerth had left, Herr von Lancken, formerly Councilor of the Embassy at Paris, came from the Minister for Foreign Affairs to tell me to request the staff of my Embassy to cease taking meals in the restaurants. This order was so strict that on the next day, Tuesday, I had to have recourse to the authority of the Wilhelmstrasse to get the Hôtel Bristol to send our meals to the Embassy.
At 11 o'clock on the same evening, Monday, Herr von Langwerth came back to tell me that his Government would not allow our return by way of Switzerland under the pretext that it would take three days and three nights to take me to Constance. He announced that I should be sent by way of Vienna. I only agreed to this alteration under reserve, and during the night I wrote the following letter to Herr von Langwerth:
"I have been thinking over the route for my return to my country about which you came to speak to me this evening. You propose that I shall travel by Vienna. I run the risk of finding myself detained in that town, if not by the action of the Austrian Government, at least owing to the mobilization which creates great difficulties similar to those existing in Germany as to the movements of trains.
"Under these circumstances I must ask the German Government for a promise made on their honor that the Austrian Government will send me to Switzerland, and that the Swiss Government will not close its frontier either to me or to the persons by whom I am accompanied, as I am told that that frontier has been firmly closed to foreigners.
"I cannot then accept the proposal that you have made to me unless I have the security which I ask for, and unless I am assured that I shall not be detained for some months outside my country.
In answer to this letter on the next morning, Tuesday the 4th August, Herr von Langwerth gave me in writing an assurance that the Austrian and Swiss authorities had received communications to this effect.
At the same time M. Miladowski, attached to the Consulate at Berlin, as well as other Frenchmen, was arrested in his own house while in bed. M. Miladowski, for whom a diplomatic passport had been requested, was released after four hours.