1855.1

Invasion of Rome.

117

almost wanton faithlessness; renouncing all extension of territory in Africa and then conquering a country larger than France-a country occupied by tribes who never were the subjects of the Sultan or of the Bey, and who could be robbed of their independence only by wholesale and systematic massacre; we find him joining England, Spain, and Portugal in the Quadruple Alliance, and deserting them as soon as the time of action had arrived; joining Russia, Prussia, Austria and England, in the arrangement of the Eastern question, on the avowed basis that the integrity of the Ottoman empire should be preserved, and then attempting to rob it of Egypt. We find him running the risk of a war with America, because she demanded, too unceremoniously, the payment of a just debt, and with England because she complained of the ill-treatment of a missionary. We find him trying to ruin the commerce of Switzerland because the Diet arrested a French spy, and deposing Queen Pomare because she interfered with the sale of French brandies; and, as his last act, eluding an express promise by a miserable verbal equivocation, and sowing the seeds of a future war of succession in order to get for one of his sons an advantageous establishment in Spain.

'The greatest blot in the foreign policy of Louis Napoleon is the invasion of Rome, and for that he is scarcely responsible. It was originally planned by Louis Philippe and Rossi. The expedition which sailed from Toulon in 1849 was prepared in 1847. It was despatched in the first six months of his presidency, in obedience to a vote of the Assembly, when the Assembly

was still the ruler of France; and Louis Napoleon's celebrated letter to Ney was an attempt, not, perhaps constitutional or prudent, but well-intentioned, to obtain for the Roman people liberal and secular institutions instead of ecclesiastical tyranny.

'His other mistake was the attempt to enforce on Turkey the capitulations of 1740, and to revive pretentions of the Latins in Jerusalem which had slept for more than a century. This, again, was a legacy from Louis Philippe. It was Louis Philippe who claimed a right to restore the dome, or the portico, we forget which, of the Holy Sepulchre, and to insult the Greeks by rebuilding it in the Latin instead of the Byzantine form. Louis Napoleon has the merit, rare in private life, and almost unknown among princes, of having frankly and unreservedly withdrawn his demands, though supported by treaty, as soon as he found that they could not be conceded without danger to the conceding party.

'With these exceptions, his management of the foreign relations of France has been faultless. To England he has been honest and confiding, to Russia conciliatory but firm, to Austria kind and forbearing, and he has treated Prussia with, perhaps, more consideration than that semiRussian Court and childishly false and cunning king deserved. He has been assailed by every form of temptation, through his hopes and through his fears, and has remained faithful and disinterested. Such conduct deserves the admiration with which England has.repaid it.

'We cannot praise him as an administrator.

He is

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Crimean War.

119

indolent and procrastinating. He hates details, and therefore does not understand them. When he has given an order he does not see to its execution; indeed, he cannot, for he does not know how it ought to be executed. He directed a fleet to be prepared to cooperate with us in the Baltic in the spring. Ducos, his Minister of Marine, assured him that it was ready. The time came, and not a ship was rigged or manned. He asked us to suspend the expedition for a couple of months. We refused, and sailed without the French squadron. If the Russians had ventured out, and we either had beaten them single-handed, or been repulsed for want of the promised assistance, the effect on France would have been frightful. We have reason to believe that it was only in the middle of February that he made up his mind to send an army to Bulgaria. They arrived by driblets, without any plan of operations, and it was not until August that their battering train left Toulon. It ought to have reached Sebastopol in May. In time, however, he must see the necessity of either becoming an active man of business himself, or of ministering, like other sovereigns, through his Ministers. Up to the present time many causes have concurred to occasion him to endeavour to be his own Minister, and to treat those to whom he gives that name as mere clerks. He is jealous and suspicious, fond of power, and impatient of contradiction. With the exception of Drouyn de l'Huys, the eminent men of France, her statesmen and her generals, stand aloof from him. Those who are not in exile have retired from public life, and offer neither

assistance nor advice. Advice, indeed, he refuses, and, what is still more useful than advice, censure, he punishes. 'But the war, though it must last longer, and cost more in men and in money than it would have done if it were managed with more intelligence and activity, must end favourably. Ill managed as it has been by France, it has been worse managed by Russia. It is impossible that that semi-barbarous empire, with its scarcely sane autocrat, its corrupt administration, its disordered finances, and its heterogeneous populations, should ultimately triumph over the two most powerful nations of Europe, flanked by Austria, and disposing of the fanatical valour of Turkey. If Louis Napoleon pleases the vanity of France by military glory, and rewards her exertions by a triumphant peace; if he employs his absolute power in promoting her prosperity by further relaxing the fetters which encumber her industry; if he takes advantage of the popularity which a successful war, an honourable peace, and internal prosperity must confer on him, to give to her a little real liberty and a little real self-government; if he gradually subsides from a Τύραννος to a Βασιλεύς ; if he allows some liberty of the press, some liberty of election, some liberty of discussion, and some liberty of decision ; he may pass the remainder of his agitated life in the tranquil exercise of limited, but great and secure power, the ally of England, and the benefactor of France.

'If this expectation should be realised-and we repeat, that among many contingencies it appears to us to be the least improbable--it affords to Europe the best hope

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English Alliance.

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of undisturbed peace and progressive civilisation and prosperity. An alliance with England was one of the favourite dreams of the first Napoleon. He believed, and with reason, that England and France united could dictate to all Europe. But in this respect, as indeed in all others, his purposes were selfish. Being master of France, he wished France to be mistress of the world. All that he gave to France was power, all that he required from Europe was submission. The objects for which he desired our co-operation were precisely those which we wished to defeat. The friendship from which we recoiled in disgust, almost in terror, was turned into unrelenting hatred; and in the long struggle which followed, each party felt that its safety depended on the total ruin of the other.

'The alliance which the uncle desired as a means of oppressing Europe, the nephew seeks for the purpose of setting her free. The heavy continued weight of Russia has, ever since the death of Alexander, kept down all energy and independence of action, and even of thought, on the Continent. She has been the patron of every tyrant, the protector of every abuse, the enemy of every improvement. It was at her instigation that the Congress of Verona decreed the enslavement of Spain, and that in the conferences of Leybach it was determined to stifle liberty in Italy. Every court on the Continent is cursed with a Russian party; and woe be to the Sovereign and to the Minister who is not at its head: all the resources of Russian influence and of Russian corruption are lavished to render his people rebellious and his adminis