This was publicly evident when, on 7 December, just before the embassy’s arrival, an emotional attack was made on Japanese religious intolerance by a deputy in the French National Assem bly. The deputy, the Comte de Richemont, began by noting Japan’s recent progress: ‘Shaking off its age-old lethargy, emerging from the absolute seclusion which specially characterized its policy, this empire has been seized with a taste, I will almost say passion, for occidental civilization’.