A telephone call from Rubinin. Belgian soldiers have surrounded our embassy in Brussels and are not allowing anybody in or out, including Rubinin himself. The excuse: German paratroopers allegedly landed in the embassy’s garden (it has a beautiful, big garden). Rubinin invited an officer and two soldiers to walk round the garden and see for themselves that this was pure invention. They walked around the garden and found nobody, yet the siege continues. Rubinin called the nuncio

Cardinal Clemente Micara, permanent diplomatic representative of the ‘Holy See’ in Belgium, 1923–40.

(the doyen), the foreign minister Spaak,

Paul Henri Charles Spaak, intermittent Belgian foreign minister, 1936–57; prime minister of Belgium, 1938–39 and 1947–50.

and the premier Pierlot.

Count Hubert Marie Pierlot, prime minister of Belgium, 1939–45.

all expressed their indignation and promised their cooperation, but nothing has changed. In despair, Rubinin called and asked me to lean on the Belgian government, albeit only through the Belgian ambassador in London. I called Cartier and remarked in passing, in the hope of shaking him up: ‘One rather has the impression that the Belgian government has lost its head.’