prime of life. He was already on friendly terms with him; he even claimed to have saved his life — at all events, it was a coincidence that the two had together refused to travel by the train an accident to which caused the death (on 14 May 1858) of the prince Ahmed, who would otherwise have succeeded Said. Ismail, himself a more capable man than his immediate predecessors, at once recognized the ability of Nubar, and charged him with a mission to Constantinople, not only to notify his accession, but to smooth the way for the many ambitious projects he already entertained, notably the completion of the Suez Canal, the change in title to that of khedive and the change in the order of succession. In the first of these he was completely successful; the sultan, believing as little as every one else that the canal was anything more than a dream, gave his consent at a price the moderation of which he must afterwards have regretted. The gratified Ismail created Nubar a pasha, and the sultan himself, persuaded to visit Cairo, confirmed the title so rarely accorded to a Christian. Half the work was, however, yet to be done, and Nubar was sent to Paris to complete the arrangements, and to settle the differences between Egypt and the Canal Company. In what he used to call an expensive moment of enthusiasm, he left these differences to the arbitration of the emperor Napoleon III and cost Egypt four million pounds sterling. Cabinet Minister: 1864-1878 On his return he was made Egypt's first minister of public works, and was distinguished for the energy which he threw into the creation of a new department; but in 1866 he was made minister of foreign affairs, and at once went on a special mission to Constantinople, where he succeeded in the other two projects that had been left in abeyance since his last visit. In June 1867 Ismail was declared khedive of Egypt, with succession in favor of his eldest son. Nubar now had a harder task to undertake than ever before. The antiquated system of capitulations which had existed in the Ottoman Empire since the 15th century had grown in Egypt to be a practical creation of seventeen imperia in imperio: seventeen consulates of seventeen different powers administered seventeen different codes in courts before which alone their subjects were amenable. A plaintiff