XVI. His complaints to Europe. CHAP. what was ascertainably false-of what was a cause, and what was an effect-of what happened first, and what happened last,―nay, almost, it would seem, his notions of what was the Bosphorus and what was the Hellespont,*-became as a heap of ruins. He was in the condition imagined by the Psalmist, when he prayed the Lord that his enemy might be 'confounded.' Count Nesselrode was forced to gather up his master's shivered thoughts, and, putting them as well as he could into the language of diplomacy, to address to all the Courts of Europe a wild remonstrance against the measures of the Western Powers. The approach of their fleets to an anchorage in the Ægean outside the Straits of the Dardanelles was treated in this despatch as though it were little less than a seizure of Constantinople; and it was represented that this was an act of violence which had entitled and compelled the Czar, in his own defence, to occupy the Principalities.+ Lord Clarendon seized this weak pretence and easily laid it bare; for he showed that Nicholas, in his anger, was transposing events, and that the Czar's resolve to cross the Pruth was anterior to the occurrence which he now declared to have been the motive of his action. language worthy of England, our Foreign Secretary went on to vindicate her right to send her fleets whither she chose, so long as they were on the high seas, or on the coasts of a Sovereign legiti Their refutation. Then, in See the sentence of the above text beginning 'The ap'proach.' 6 + Eastern Papers,' part i. p. 342. XVI. mately assenting to their presence. Nearly at the CHAP. same time the writer of the French Foreign Office despatches pursued the Czar through Europe with his bright, cutting, pitiless logic.* Conference. Of course, the vivacity of France and England tended to place Austria at her ease, and to make her more backward than she would otherwise have been in sending troops into the Banat; and, moreover, the separate action of the Western Powers was well calculated, as will be seen by-and-by, to undo the good which might be effected by the Conference of the four Powers at Vienna. The The Vienna Conference, however, did not remit its labour. The mediating character which belonged to it in its original constitution was gradually changed, until at length it represented what was nothing less than a confederacy of the four Powers against Russia. It is true that it was a confederacy which sought to exhaust persuasion, and to use to the utmost the moral pressure of assembled Europe before it resorted to arms; and it is true also that it was willing to make the Czar's retreat from his false moves as easy and as free from shame as the nature of his late errors would allow but these were views held by the English Cabinet as well as by the Conference; and it is certain that, if our Government had seen clear, and had been free from separate engagements, it would have stood fast upon the ground occupied by the four Powers, * These despatches bear the signature of M. Drouyn de Lhuys, but it was commonly believed at the time that they were written by a man on the permanent staff of the French Foreign Office. CHAP. and would have refused to be drawn into measures XVI. which were destined to be continually undoing the pacific work of the diplomatists assembled at Vienna. The danger of being entangled But partnership with the midnight associates of the 2d of December was a heavy yoke. With all understand his heart and soul Lord Aberdeen desired the ing with France. in a separate The French ways of tranquillity of Europe; but he had suffered his Cabinet to enter into close friendly engagements with one to whom the tranquillity of Europe portended jail, and ill-usage, and death. The French Emperor had consented to engage France in an English policy; and he thought he had a right to insist that England should pay the price, and help to give him the means of such signal action in Europe as might drive away men's thoughts from the hour when the Parliament of France had been thrown into the felons' van. The object at which the French Emperor was ambiguous aiming stands clear enough to the sight; but at action. this time the scheme of action by which he sought to attain his ends was ambiguous. In general, men are prone to find out consistency in the acts of rulers, and to imagine that numberless acts, appearing to have different aspects, are the result of one steady design; but those who love truth better than symmetry will be able to believe that much of the conduct of the French Emperor was rather the effect of clashing purposes than of duplicity. There are philosophers who imagine that the human mind (corresponding in that respect with the brain) has a dual action, and that XVI. the singleness of purpose observed in a decided CHAP. man is the result of a close accord between the two engines of thought, and not of actual unity. Certainly it would appear that the Emperor Louis Napoleon, more than most other men, was accustomed to linger in doubt between two conflicting plans, and to delay his final adoption of the one, and his final rejection of the other, for as long a time as possible, in order to find out what might be best to be ultimately done by carrying on experiments for many months together with two rival schemes of action. But whether this double method of action was the result of idiosyncrasy or of a profound policy, it was but too well fittted for the object of drawing England into a war. The aim of the French Emperor was to keep his understanding with England in full force, and yet to give the alliance a warlike direction. If he were to adopt a policy frankly warlike, he would repel Lord Aberdeen and endanger the alliance. If he were to be frankly pacific, there would be a danger of his restoring to Europe that tranquillity which could not fail to bring him and his December friends into jeopardy. In this strait he did not exactly take a middle course. By splitting his means of action he managed to take two courses at the same time. There are people who can write at the same time with both hands. Politically, Louis Napoleon had this accomplishment. his left hand he seemed to strive after peace; pacific: with his right he tried to stir up a war. The lan With His diplo macy seems XVI. yet he engages Eng movements tending to provoke war. CHAP. guage of his diplomacy was pacific, and yet at the very same time he contrived that the naval forces of France and England should be used as land in naval the means of provoking a war. The part which he took in the negotiations going on at Vienna, and in the other capitals of the great Powers, was temperate, just, and moderate; and it is probable that the Despatches which indicated this spirit long continued to mislead Lord Aberdeen, and to keep him under the impression that an Anglo-French alliance was really an engine of peace; but it will be seen that, as soon as the French Emperor had drawn England into an understanding with him, he was enabled to engage her in a series of dangerous naval movements, which he contrived to keep going on simultaneously with the efforts of the negotiators, so as always to be defeating their labours. The Bosphorus and the Dardanelles. In order to appreciate the exceeding force of the lever which was used for this purpose, a man ought to have in his mind the political geography of south-eastern Europe, and the configuration of the seas which flow with a ceaseless current into the waters of the Ægean. The Euxine is connected with the Mediterranean by the Straits of the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmora, and the Straits of the Dardanelles. The Bosphorus is a current of the sea, seventeen miles in length, and in some places hardly more than half a mile broad, but so deep, even home to the shores on either side, that a ship of war can almost, as it were, find shade under the gardens |