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To him, therefore, fell the task of dissolving the deadlock which had arisen between Algiers, Washington and London. He was fortunate in finding in Mr. Eden a man who shared his conviction and who gave him unstinted confidence. A less skilful, a more impatient, Ambassador might have sought to mobilise and exploit the uneasiness widely felt in this country regarding the persistent misunderstanding between ourselves, the Americans, and the French. "Pierre Vienot had the wisdom to see that he owed a dual loyalty, both to his own Government and to the Government with whom he was negotiating. He saw also that the differences which had arise were less formidable in practise than they were in principle. He was thus able, with Mr. Eden's assistance, to transfer the controversy to a lower level and to secure that a committee of legal and other experts should endeavour to draft on paper some scheme of agreement which, while leaving unsolved or undefined problems of mat principle, should provide for a practical modus vivendi. It was the discovered, as he had foreseen, that an agreement acceptable to al three parties could without difficulty be reached regarding the prac• tical relations between the French Provisional Government and the Supreme 'Command. As the knot came to be untangled it was found, as so often happens in such cases, that the deadlock was looser than had at first seemed. And before Vienot died he had satisfaction of knowing that the old unhappy controttersy had to af intents and purposes melted into thin air.
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