Looking back upon the troubles which ended in the outbreak of war, one
sees the nations at first swaying backward and forward like a throng
so vast as to be helpless, but afterward falling slowly into warlike
array. And when one begins to search for the man or the men whose
volition was governing the crowd, the eye falls upon the towering form
of the Emperor Nicholas. He was not single-minded, and therefore his
will was unstable, but it had a huge force; and, since he was armed
with the whole authority of his empire, it seemed plain that it was
this man--and only he--who was bringing danger from the north. And at
first, too, it seemed that within his range of action there was none
who could be his equal: but in a little while the looks of men were
turned to the Bosporus, for thither his ancient adversary was slowly
bending his way.
[Footnote 16: From "The Invasion of the Crimea," one of the
masterpieces of modern historical literature, but often criticized for
its excessive bias against France as represented by Napoleon III.]
To fit him for the encounter, the Englishman was clothed with little
authority except what he could draw from the resources of his own mind
and from the strength of his own wilful nature. Yet it was presently
seen that those who were near him fell under his dominion, and did as
he bid them, and that the circle of deference to his will was always
increasing around him; and soon it appeared that, tho he moved gently,
he began to have mastery over a foe who was consuming his strength in
mere anger. When he had conquered, he stood, as it were, with folded
arms, and seemed willing to desist from strife. But also in the west
there had been seen a knot of men possest for the time of the mighty
engine of the French State, and striving so to use it as to be able to
keep their hold, and to shelter themselves from a cruel fate. The
volitions of these men were active enough, because they were toiling
for their lives. Their efforts seemed to interest and to please the
lustiest man of those days, for he watched them from over the Channel
with approving smile, and began to declare, in his good-humored,
boisterous way, that so long as they should be suffered to have the
handling of France, _so long as they would execute for him his
policy_, so long as they would take care not to deceive him, they
ought to be encouraged, they ought to be made use of, they ought to
have the shelter they wanted; and, the Frenchmen agreeing to his
conditions, he was willing to level the barrier--he called it perhaps
false pride--which divided the government of the Queen from the
venturers of the 2d of December. In this thought, at the moment, he
stood almost alone; but he abided his time. At length he saw the
spring of 1853, bringing with it grave peril to the Ottoman State.
Then, throwing aside with a laugh some papers which belonged to the
Home Office, he gave his strong shoulder to the leveling work. Under
the weight of his touch the barrier fell. Thenceforth the hindrances
that met him were but slight. As he from the first had willed it, so
moved the two great nations of the West.