English Translation

- 33 - B e f e h 1 that His k.u.k. Apostolic Majesty wrote to his brother-in-law, Prince Sixtus of Bourbon, in the spring of 1917 a purely personal private letter, which contained no commission to the prince to initiate a mediation with the President of the French Republic or any other way and to pass on the communications made to him, as well as to induce and accept counter-arguments. This letter does not mention the Belgian question at all and contained the following passage concerning Alsace-Lorraine: "I would have used all my personal influence in favour of the French appeals for the recovery of Eleass-Lourraine if these claims were fair; however, they are not ea. Aprál mentioned the 2nd letter of the emperor, in which His apoatolic majesty is said to have declared that "He" is in agreement with his kinist, does not mention the French communiqué." Thus the matter, as far as it concerned the public discussion, was settled. However, the emperor called me to the telephone and asked me to publish a new explanation, in which I find that he himself had made a mistake, so that the copy published was authentic, and the full responsibility for rejecting the incident. I rejected this imperial desire. There was still a disarray on the question of "mini-sterial responsibility", since the emperor did not take the position that "a minister should cover the imperial acts". I took this position and stressed that the ministerial responsibility was that the Ninister represented and covered the actions of the ruler he knew and educated, but not those behind his back and against his will. If the emperor's view were correct, a minister would be obliged to represent all the autocratic actions of the emperor. The ministerial responsibility is intended to prevent the Souveraina's selfish landings - but not to be exhausted by vengeful legeli- sieving. The Minister had the authority to cover only what had been done by his consent - a constitutional monarch was allowed to do so by his 217