Up to this point it does not happen to us to have noted instances of

offices of emolument in Scotland given to Frenchmen, and the fuss made

about one instance of the kind leads to the supposition that they must

have been rare. Dunbar the poet, who was in priest’s orders, was

exceedingly clamorous in prose and in verse—in the serious and in the

comic vein—for preferment. Perhaps he was the kind of person whom it is

as difficult to prefer in the Church as it was to make either Swift or

Sydney Smith a bishop. His indignation was greatly roused by the

appointment of a foreigner whom he deemed beset by his own special

failings, but in far greater intensity, to the abbacy of Tungland; and

he committed his griefs to a satirical poem, called ‘The fenyet Freir of

Tungland.’ The object of this poem has been set down by historians as an

Italian, but M. Michel indicates him as a countryman of his own, by the

name of Jean Damien. He is called a charlatan, quack, and mountebank,

and might, perhaps, with equal accuracy, be called a devotee of natural

science, who speculated ingeniously and experimented boldly. He was in

search of the philosopher’s stone, and believed himself to be so close

on its discovery that he ventured to embark the money of King James IV.,

and such other persons as participated in his own faith, in the

adventure to realise the discovery, and saturate all the partners in

riches indefinite. This was a speculation of a kind in which many men of

that age indulged; and they were men not differing from others except in

their scientific attainments, adventurous propensities, and sanguine

temperaments. The class still exists among us, though dealing rather in

iron than gold; as if we had in the history of speculation, from the

alchemists down to Capel Court, something that has been prophesied in

that beautiful mythological sequence liked so much at all schools,

beginning—

“Aurea prima sata est ætas, quæ vindice nullo

Sponte sua sine lege fidem rectumque colebat.”

It might be a fair question whether the stranger’s science is so

obsolete as the style of literature in which he is attacked, since

Dunbar’s satirical poem, among other minor indications of a character

unsuited to the higher offices in the Christian ministry, insinuates

that the adventurer committed several murders; and although, the charge

is made in a sort of rough jocularity, the force of it does not by any

means rest on its absurdity and incredibility. He was accused of a mad

project for extracting gold from the Wanlockhead Hills, in

Dumfriesshire, which cannot be utterly scorned in the present day, since

gold has actually been extracted from them, though, the process has not

returned twenty shillings to the pound. This curious creature completed

his absurdities by the construction of a pair of wings, with which he

was to take a delightful aerial excursion to his native country. He

proved his sincerity by starting in full feather from Stirling Castle.

In such affairs it is, as Madame du Deffaud said about that walk taken

by St Denis round Paris with his own head for a burden, _le premier pas

qui coute_. The poor adventurer tumbled at once, and was picked up with

a broken thigh-bone. Such is the only Frenchman who became conspicuous

before Albany’s time as holding rank and office in Scotland.

Albany had not long rubbed on with the Scots Estates when he found that

he really must go to Paris, and as there seems to have been no business

concerning Scotland that he could transact there, an uncontrollable

yearning to be once more in his own gay world is the only motive we can

find for his trip. The Estates of Scotland were in a surly humour, and

not much inclined to allow him his holidays. They appointed a council of

regency to act for him. He, however, as if he knew nothing about the

constitutional arrangements in Scotland, appointed a sort of

representative, who cannot have known more about the condition and

constitution of Scotland than his constituent, though he had been one of

the illustrious guests present at the marriage of James IV. He was

called by Pitscottie ‘Monsieur Tilliebattie,’ but his full name was

Antoine d’Arces de la Bastie, and he had been nicknamed or

distinguished, as the case might be, as the Chevalier Blanc, or White

Knight, like the celebrated Joannes Corvinus, the Knight of Wallachia,

whose son became king of Hungary. M. Michel calls him the “_chivalresque

et brillant La Bastie, chez qui le guerrier et l’homme d’état etaient

encore supérieurs au champion des tournois_.” He was a sort of fanatic

for the old principle of chivalry, then beginning to disappear before

the breath of free inquiry, and the active useful pursuits it was

inspiring. M. Michel quotes from a contemporary writer, who describes

him as perambulating Spain, Portugal, England, and France, and

proclaiming himself ready to meet all comers of sufficient rank, not

merely to break a lance in chivalrous courtesy, but _à combattre à

l’outrance_—an affair which even at that time was too important to be

entered on as a frolic, or to pass an idle hour, but really required

some serious justification. No one, it is said, accepted the challenge

but the cousin of James IV. of Scotland, who is said to have been

conquered, but not killed, as from the nature of the challenge he should

have been; but this story seems to be a mistake by the contemporary, and

M. Michel merely quotes it without committing himself.

Such was the person left by the regent as his representative, though

apparently with no specific office or powers acknowledged by the

constitution of Scotland. Research might perhaps afford new light to

clear up the affair, but at present the only acknowledgment of his

existence, bearing anything like an official character, are entries in

the Scots treasurer’s accounts referred to by M. Michel, one of them

authorising a payment of fifteen shillings to a messenger to the warden

of the middle march, “with my lord governor’s letters delivered by

Monsr. Labawte;” another payment to his servant for summoning certain

barons and gentlemen to repair to Edinburgh; and a payment of twenty

shillings, for a service of more import, is thus entered:—“Item,

deliverit be Monsieur Lawbawtez to Johne Langlandis, letters of our

sovereign lords to summon and warn all the thieves and broken men out of

Tweeddale and Eskdale in their own country—quhilk letters were

proclaimed at market-cross of Roxburgh, Selkirk, and Jedwood.”

This proclamation seems to have been the deadly insult which sealed his

fate. The borders had hardly yet lost their character of an independent

district, which might have merged into something like a German

margravate. There had been always some family holding a preponderating

and almost regal power there. At this time it was the Homes or Humes, a

rough set, with their hands deeply dipped in blood, who little dreamed

that their name would be known all over Europe by the fame of a fat

philosopher sitting writing in a peaceful library with a goosequill, and

totally innocent of the death of a fellow-being. It was one of Albany’s

rigorous measures to get the leaders of this clan “untopped,” to use one

of Queen Elizabeth’s amiable pleasantries. This was a thing to be

avenged; and since La Bastie was taking on himself the responsibilities

of Albany, it was thought as well that he should not evade this portion

of them. To lure him within their reach, a sort of mock fight was got up

by the borderers in the shape of the siege of one of their peel towers.

Away went La Bastie in all his bravery, dreaming, simple soul, as if he

were in Picardy or Tourain, that the mere name of royalty would at once

secure peace and submission. His eye, practised in scenes of danger, at

once saw murder in the gaze of those he had ventured among, and he set

spurs to his good horse, hoping to reach his headquarters in the strong

castle of Dunbar. The poor fellow, however, ignorant of the country, and

entirely unaided, was overtaken in a bog. It is said that he tried

cajoling, threats, and appeals to honour and chivalrous feeling. As well

speak to a herd of hungry wolves as to those grim ministers of

vengeance! The Laird of Wedderburn, a Home, enjoyed the distinction of

riding with the Frenchman’s head, tied by its perfumed tresses at his

saddle-bow, into the town of Dunse, where the trophy was nailed to the

market-cross. As old Pitscottie has it, “his enemies came upon him, and

slew and murdered him very unhonestly, and cutted off his head, and

carried it with them; and it was said that he had long hair platt over

his neck, whilk David Home of Wedderburn twust to his saddle-bow, and

keeped it.”

This affair brought Scotland into difficulties both with England and

France. Henry VIII. professed himself displeased that a French

adventurer should have been set up as ruler in his nephew’s kingdom, and

Francis I., who had just mounted the throne of France, demanded

vengeance on the murderers of his distinguished subject, with whose

chivalrous spirit he had a congenial sympathy. There is an exceedingly

curious and suggestive correspondence between France and Scotland at the

commencement of M. Teulet’s papers, which has been aptly compared to the

papers that have been returned to Parliament by our Indian Government on

the negotiations with some wily Affghan or Scinde chief, in which

reparation is demanded for outrages on a British subject. There is much

fussy desire to comply with the demands of the great power, but ever a

difficulty, real or pretended, in getting anything done; and probably it

often is in the East, as it then was in Scotland, that the difficulty in

punishing a set of powerful culprits has a better foundation in their

power of self-defence than the government is inclined to acknowledge.

Evil days, however, for a time clouded the rising sun of France. The

battle of Pavia seemed to set her prostrate for the time; and when

Scotland, having then many inducements the other way, was reminded of

the old alliance, she answered the appeal with her old zeal.

This article does not aspire to the dignity of history. It has dealt

chiefly with the under current, as it were, of the events connected with

the doings of the French in Scotland—the secondary incidents, which show

how the two nations got on together in their familiar intercourse. Their

intercourse, however, now developes itself in large historical features,

to which it is thought fitting to offer, in conclusion, a general

reference, merely hinting at their connection with the preceding

details. Ostensibly, and as matter of state policy, the old alliance was

so strong that it seemed as if Scotland were drifting under the lee of

France to be a mere colony or dependency of that grand empire—though

there were influences at work which, in reality, utterly defeated this

expected consummation. There was a brilliant wedding when James V. went

to bring home Madeleine of France; and was so honoured that, according

to the documents given by M. Teulet, the officers charged with the

traditions of state precedents grumbled about this prince of a northern

island, who knew no civilised language, receiving honours which had

heretofore been deemed sacred to the royal blood of France. The national

policy that held by this marriage would have had but a frail tenure, for

poor Madeleine soon drooped and died. She had said, as a girl, that she

wanted to be a queen, be the realm she ruled what it might; and so she

had a brief experience—this word seems preferable to enjoyment—of the

throne of cold uncomfortable Scotland. There was speedily another

wedding, bearing in the direction of the French alliance, for that was

still uppermost with the governing powers, whatever it might be with the

English and Protestant party daily acquiring strength among the district

leaders, nobles or lairds. It may have seemed to these, that when the

queen was no longer a daughter of France, but a young lady, the child of

one feudatory and the widow of another, with no better claim to share

the throne than her beautiful face, there was no further danger from

France. But the young queen was a Guise—one of that wonderful race who

seemed advancing onwards, not only to the supreme command of France, but

to something still greater, for they have been known in their boasting

to speak of their house being directly descended from Charlemagne. When

the daughter was Queen of France, and the mother ruled Scotland, the

time for the final annexation seemed close at hand; but, in reality, the

climax had been reached, and the French interest was near to its

downfall. While the queen-mother was taking possession of the feudal

strongholds, and placing all the high offices of state in the hands of

Frenchmen—D’Oysells, de Rubays, Villemores, and the like—in France the

proper method of governing Scotland was considered in council as a

matter of French policy; and the question was discussed whether Scotland

should have the honour of belonging to the crown of France, or should be

a provision for a younger son of the house of Valois.

Those busy politicians, called the Lords of the Congregation, knew these

things, and were stimulated to exertion accordingly. Hence came it to

pass that the Reformation was so sudden an event in Scotland. On the

morning of the 1st of August 1560 the people of Scotland awakened under

the spiritual dominion of the Pope—ere evening his hierarchy was

abolished, and to own it was criminal. The work of that day was not a

deliberative act of legislation, but the announcement of the triumph of

a party. After a long deadly contest the English party had gained a

complete and final victory. It almost enhanced the triumph over French

principles that the Acts of this Parliament never received the royal

assent. Legislation without the intervention of the crown, was flat

rebellion in the eyes of France, and not very reconcilable even with

English decorum. It was owing to this specialty that, when Queen Mary

engaged to support the religion established by law in Scotland, she was

suspected, and not without reason, of stowing away, among the secrets of

her heart, the consideration likely to be some day available, that

Protestantism, not having the sanction of the crown, was not the

religion established by law. If we were to enter with any fulness on

this great passage in history, and to view it through the rich new light

poured upon it by the documents collected by M. Teulet, we would require

more room than the quite sufficient space which this article occupies.

We have opportunity only for this brief reference to them, as the

winding-up and conclusion of that interesting episode in history—the old

alliance between France and Scotland.

Before parting, let us say a word on the personal character and other

merits of the volumes which have led us on this occasion to look into

the connection of our ancestors with the French, and have furnished us

with the greater portion of the material for our two articles. To see

two men of learning, research, and various special abilities, devoting

what must be no inconsiderable portion of a life’s labour to the

connection of our country with the great French empire, is interesting

and pleasant, to say the least of it. We are a nation disposed to court

the light; we are never afraid of the effect that revelations of our

antecedents may have; we are sure of coming well out in all inquiries

into our history and connections; and the present elucidation has not

stripped a leaf from the national laurels—indeed, we take it to have

only removed some of the dust that covered them, and revealed their real

freshness and brightness. To the labourers in such a task we should feel

that we owe a debt of kindly gratitude, and this should not the less

impress us that the work has been done by citizens of that great old

European central power which befriended the poor children of our soil in

the days of their poverty and danger. New interests and attachments,

more suitable to the position of Scotland on the map of Europe, and to

the origin of her people, afterwards arose. When centuries of cruel

wrong and alienation and wrath had passed away, she became reconciled to

that great relation which, let us suppose, in the usual misunderstanding

which creates the quarrels in the romances, had treated her as an alien

enemy. But while the reconciliation has been long consolidated, and has

proved as natural a national adjustment as the restoration of an exiled

child is a natural family adjustment, there is still a pleasing

sentiment in recalling the friends found in the wide world when kindred

were unkind; and the hospitable doors opened to our wandering

countrymen, among those who stood at the head of European civilisation

in the middle ages, must ever remain a memorable record of the

generosity of the patrons, and of the merits of those who so well

requited their generosity by faithful and powerful services. To the

volumes which contain the record of this attachment something more is

due than the mere recognition of their literary merits—they deserve at

the hands of our countrymen an affectionate recognition as national

memorials. The quantity of curious and interesting matter contained in

them, but for the special zeal of the two men who have thus come

forward, might have remained still buried under archæological

rubbish—might have remained so for ever, even until oblivion overtook

them. It is surely right to hope that the zeal and labour embarked by

the adventurers will not be thrown away; and that our countrymen will

take to the volumes, both of M. Michel and of M. Teulet, as works which

it is becoming for them to possess and read as patriotic Scotsmen. If

readers have found any interest in the casual glimpses of their contents

supplied by the present sketch, they may be assured of finding much more

matter of the same kind should they undertake an investigation of the

volumes themselves.

Setting before one on the library table the two volumes of M. Michel,

and the five of M. Teulet, is a good deal like receiving one guest in

full court costume, prepared to meet distinguished company, while

another comes to you in his lounging home vestment of serge, with

slippers and smoking-cap, as if he had just stepped across the way from

the scene of his laborious researches. In the collections in this

country of some men who have given themselves to works illustrated by

fine engravings, the Book of the Ceremonial of the Coronation of Louis

XV. is conspicuous, not only by its finely engraved plates, but by the

instruction they afford as representations of the costume and ways of

the great hierarchy of state officers which clustered round the throne

of the Bourbons before the great smash came. Among the most conspicuous

of these are the Scots Guards, then no longer our countrymen, though the

title was retained. The outfit must have appeared signally beautiful and

chivalrous amid the ponderous state habiliments which the eighteenth

century saw accumulate and fall to pieces. It is evidently a traditional

type of the court or company dress of the man-at-arms of the fifteenth

century—a sufficient amount of steel to betoken the warrior, richly

damasked or inlaid with precious metals—a superfluity of lace and

embroidered cloth of silk or velvet. Altogether, a more superbly and

chivalrously accoutred person than your Scottish Guard it is difficult

to idealise; and in the original engraving there is about him, both in

countenance and attitude, the air of one devoted in enthusiasm and

solemn sense of responsibility, to the duty wherewith he is intrusted.

With a good eye to the appropriate, M. Michel—it is his own suggestion,

we take it, not the binder’s—has transferred this striking figure to the

outside of this book, where it glitters in gold on the true-blue

background, which also relieves the lion, the thistle, and the

_fleur-de-lys_. A glimpse we have just had at a quarto and illustrated

copy of the book in the hands of a fortunate collector, wherein is a

full engraved copy of the plate of the Scots Guard, along with many

other appropriate artistical decorations; but in this shape the book is

not put, so far as we are aware, at the disposal of the public; and any

account of it is, in a manner, a digression into something like private

affairs. Reverting to the common published impression of M. Michel’s

book, let it suffice to say that it is well filled with blazons of the

armorial achievements of our countrymen, assuredly valuable to workers

in heraldry and genealogy, and interesting to those descendants of the

stay-at-home portions of the several families which established

themselves so comfortably and handsomely in the territory of our ancient

ally.

Looking apart from matters of national interest to the literary nature

of M. Michel’s volumes, we find in them specialties which we know will

be deemed signally meritorious; but of the merits to be found in them we

have some difficulty in speaking, since they are literary virtues of a

kind rather out of the way of our appreciation—beyond it, if the reader

prefers that way of expressing what is meant. There is throughout these

two volumes the testimony to an extent of dreary reading and searching

which would stimulate compassion, were it not that he who would be the

victim, were that the proper feeling in which he should be approached,

evidently exults and glories, and is really happy, in the conditions

which those who know no better would set down as his hardships. There

are some who, when they run the eye over arrêts and other formal

documents, over pedigrees, local chronicles telling trifles,

title-deeds, and such-like documents, carry with them a general

impression of the political or social lesson taught by them, and discard

from recollection all the details from which any such impression has

been derived. M. Michel is of another kind; he has that sort of fondness

for his work which induces him to show you it in all stages, from the

rude block to the finished piece of art, so far as it is finished. You

are entered in all the secrets of his workshop—you participate in all

his disappointments and difficulties as well as his successes. The

research which has had no available result is still reported, in order

that you may see how useless it has been. We repeat that we have not

much sympathy with this kind of literature, yet would not desire to

speak profanely of it, since we know that some consider it the only

perfect method of writing books on subjects connected with history or

archæology. The “citation of authorities,” in fact, is deemed, in this

department of intellectual labour, something equivalent to records of

experiments in natural science, and to demonstrations in geometrical

science. Our own sympathy being with the exhibition rather of results

than of the means of reaching them, we have not, unfortunately, that

high respect for footnotes filled with accurate transcripts of

book-titles, which is due to the high authorities by whom the practice

has been long sanctioned. We can afford it, however, the sort of distant

unsympathising admiration which people bestow on accomplishments for

which they have no turn or sympathy—as for those of the juggler, the

acrobat, and the accountant. M. Michel’s way of citing the books he

refers to is indeed, to all appearance, a miracle of perfection in this

kind of work. Sometimes he is at the trouble of denoting where the

passage stands in more than one, or even in every, edition of the work.

He gives chapter or section as well as page and volume. In old books

counted not by the page but the leaf, he will tell you which side he

desires you to look at, right or left; and where, as is the way in some

densely printed old folios, in addition to the arrangement of the pages

by numeration, divisions on each page are separated by the letters A B

C, he tells you which of these letters stands sentry on the paragraph he

refers to. There is, at all events, a very meritorious kind of literary

honesty in all this, and however disinclined to follow it, no one has a

right to object to it.

And, after all, a man who has gone through so much hard forbidding

reading as M. Michel has, is surely entitled to let us know something

about the dreary wastes and rugged wildernesses through which he has

sojourned—all for the purpose of laying before his readers these two gay

attractive-looking volumes. Towards his foreign reading, we in the

general instance lift the hat of respect, acknowledging its high merits,

on the principle of the _omne ignotum pro magnifico_. Upon the diligent

manner in which he has, in our own less luxuriant field of inquiry among

Scots authorities, turned over every stone to see what is under it, we

can speak with more distinct assurance. Take one instance. The young

Earl of Haddington, the son of that crafty old statesman called Tam o’

the Cowgate, who scraped together a fortune in public office under James

VI., was studying in France, when he met and fell in love with the

beautiful Mademoiselle De Chatillon, grand-daughter of the Admiral

Coligny. When only nineteen years old he went back to France, married

her, and brought her home. He died within a year, however, and the

countess, a rich beautiful widow, returned to her friends. She was, of

course, beset by admirers, and in reference to these, M. Michel has

turned up a curious passage in ‘Les Histoirettes de Fallemant des

Réaux,’ which, if true, shows the persevering zeal with which our queen,

Henrietta Maria, seized every opportunity to promote the cause of her

religion. The countess, being Huguenot, and of a very Huguenot family,

the queen was eager that she should be married to a Roman Catholic, and

selected the son of her friend Lady Arundel. The dominion over her

affections was, however, held by “un jeune Ecossois nommé Esbron, neveu

du Colonel Esbron.” The name is French for the chevalier Hepburn, one of

the most renowned soldiers in the French service in the early part of

the seventeenth century. The mamma Chatillon was dead against either

connection. She got a fright by hearing that her daughter had been

carried off to the Fenêbres, or the services of Easter-week which

inaugurate Good-Friday; she consequently gave her a maternal box on the

ear, carried her off, and, to keep her out of harm’s way, forthwith

married her to the Count de la Suze, _tout borgne, tout ivrogne et tout

indetté qu’il étoit_. M. Michel’s purpose is not with this desirable

husband, nor with his wife after she ceases to be connected with

Scotland, but with the young Hepburn who comes casually across the

scene. Following in his track entirely, the next quarter where, after

appearing in the ‘Histoirettes,’ he turns up, is Durie’s ‘Decisions of

the Court of Session.’ This is by no means one of the books which every

well-informed man is presumed to know. So toughly is it stuffed with the

technicalities and involutions of old Scots law, and so confused and

involved is every sentence of it by the natural haziness of its author,

that probably no living English writer would dare to meddle with it. No

Scotsman would, unless he be lawyer—nor, indeed, would any lawyer,

unless of a very old school—welcome the appearance of the grim folio. In

citing from it the decision of Hepburn _contra_ Hepburn, 14th March

1639, even the courageous M. Michel subjoins: “Si j’ai bien compris le

text de cet arrêt conçu dans un langue particulière.” This peculiar

arrêt begins as follows:—“The brethren and sisters of umquhile Colonel

Sir John Hepburn having submitted all questions and rights which they

might pretend to the goods, gear, and means of the said umquhile Sir

John, to the laird Wauchton and some other friends, wherein the

submitters were bound and did refer to the said friends to determine

what proportion of the said goods should be given to George Hepburn, the

son of the eldest brother to the said Sir John, which George was then in

France at the time of the making of the said submission and bond, and

did not subscribe the same, nor none taking the burden for him; upon the

which submission, the said friends had given their decreet arbitral. The

living brethren and sisters of the said Sir John being confirmed

executors to him, pursues one Beaton, factor in Paris, for payment of

20,000 pounds addebted by him to the said umquhile Sir John, who,

suspending upon double poinding,” &c.

Perhaps we have said enough to exemplify the dauntless nature of M.

Michel’s researches. It is impossible to withhold admiration from such

achievements, and we know that, in some quarters, such are deemed the

highest to which the human intellect can aspire. But we confess that, to

our taste, the results of M. Teulet’s labours are more acceptable. True,

he does not profess to give the world an original book. He comes forward

as the transcriber and editor of certain documents; but in the gathering

of these documents from different quarters, through all the difficulties

of various languages and alphabets, in their arrangement so as to bring

out momentous historical truths in their due series, and in the helps he

has afforded to those who consult his volumes, he has shown a skill and

scholarship which deserve to be ranked with the higher attainments of

science. We had formerly an opportunity of paying our small tribute to

M. Teulet’s merits when we referred to his supplemental volume to

Labanoff’s Correspondence of Queen Mary.[9] Among not the least valued

of the contents of our book-shelves, are six octavo volumes containing

the correspondence of La Mothe Fénélon, and the other French ambassadors

to England and Scotland during the latter years of Queen Elizabeth’s

reign, for which the world is indebted to M. Teulet’s researches. The

immediate merit of the book, the title of which is referred to at the

beginning of this article, is, that it is now at the command of the

public. It is indeed a reprint, with some additions, of the papers—at

least all that are worth having—which were previously an exclusive

luxury of the Bannatyne Club, having been printed in three quarto

volumes, as a gift to their brethren, by certain liberal members of the

Club. These papers go into the special affairs of this country as

connected with France and Spain from the beginning of our disputes with

our old ally down to the accession of James VI. In the hands of the

first historian who has the fortune to make ample use of them, these

documents will disperse the secluded and parochial atmosphere that hangs

about the history of Scotland, and show how the fate of Europe in

general turned upon the pivot of the destinies of our country. It is

here that, along with many minor secrets, we have revealed to us the

narrow escape made by the cause of Protestantism, when the project on

the cards was the union of the widowed Queen Mary to the heir of Spain,

and the political combinations still centring round the interests and

the fate of the Queen of Scots, which led to the more signal and

renowned escape realised in the defeat of the Armada.

KINGLAKE’S INVASION OF THE CRIMEA.[10]

Seven years ago, when the war with Russia was about to end—was, in fact,

already virtually ended—and when the war-fever of the English had been

abated by copious blood-letting, and by the absence of further stimulant

to hostility since Sebastopol had ceased to resist, people were already

talking about the future history of the strife. It seemed to be agreed

that the public, which had so eagerly swallowed all the information it

could get, and snapped at all the opinions which floated so thickly on

the stream of current history, was for the present glutted with the

subject, and that to offer it any more Crimean information, however

cunningly dressed, would be like fishing with a May-fly for a July

trout. On the other hand, the subject seemed to be essentially one of

contemporary importance. It had not the elements which gave lasting

interest to the Peninsular war. It had developed no great reputations in

which the nation could for the future undoubtingly confide. It had left

us victorious over no great conqueror. Its memorials were not such as we

should choose to dwell on; for though the nation was very proud of the

early triumphs of the Alma and Inkermann, still the later course of the

struggle had been, though successful in its end, yet disastrous and

gloomy in its progress, and had left, partly through the more brilliant

share which our allies took in the final action, but principally through

the forebodings of our own press, a sense of comparative failure. Mr

Kinglake comes upon the stage at a fortunate time. The weariness of the

subject, once felt, has disappeared, while the strong contemporary

interest in the actors remains. That interest is national in the sense

of being fixed, not on a few great objects, but on a great number of

inferior objects connected with the war. It is not so much patriotic as

domestic. The graves of Cathcart’s Hill, the trenches filled with dead,

the burial-grounds of Scutari, have a strong though softened hold on

innumerable hearts. Everywhere in England—in remote parishes, in small

communities, in humble households—remembrance of the great features of

the struggle is kept alive by the presence of those who survived it. A

strong conviction that French manœuvring was not entirely directed

against the enemy, and that a fair scrutiny would leave us more reason

for self-satisfaction than at first appeared, has long been afloat. And

a succession of great conflicts in which we have been strongly

interested has schooled us in military doctrines, and has rendered us

better able to appreciate the operations of armies than we were either

at the beginning or the end of the Crimean war.

If the time for the history is happily chosen, so is the historian. Few

men who have written so little have so established their reputation as

Mr Kinglake. His ‘Eothen,’ immensely popular at first, has settled into

an English classic. It is full of interest, full of remarkably vivid

descriptions, full of original writing; and though the style does not

reject effects which a very pure taste would condemn, yet it possesses

the eminent merits of vigour, condensation, and richness. In the fulness

of the fame thus earned, Mr Kinglake accompanied the army to the Crimea.

The scenes of the war consequently possessed for him a reality which no

reading, no imagination, no second-hand description can impart. He had

seen the Euxine covered with the vast flotilla of the Allies. He had set

foot on the hostile coast at the same time as the combined armies. He

had accompanied them in their compact advance, when their columns seemed

but spots and patches in the vast circle of sea and plain. His own eyes

had beheld the battle of the Alma, and the signs of death and suffering

that remained next day to mark the phases of the struggle. And when

afterwards he came to record the incidents of the war, though no

individual observation could embrace all the details, there was always

present with him the invaluable power which personal knowledge confers,

to define, to affirm, or to reject. And as it was soon understood that

he intended to write the history of the war, he, in his double capacity

of approved author and actual spectator, became almost, as a matter of

course, the depositary of a vast amount of information connected with

the subject, oral and documentary, private and official. He had a large

acquaintance with the political as well as the military actors in the

drama. Few men, then, could have had so free access as he to the

materials of which the history must be wrought.

Moreover, he had shown in his former work that he possessed another

qualification for his task. History cannot be written at a heat. Patient

inquiry, long meditation, the fortitude necessary for the abandonment of

convenient conclusions too hastily come to, are all indispensable to

success. But with this pursuit of the necessary details, unity of

effect, as numberless failures have shown, is almost incompatible. Now,

Mr Kinglake had given remarkable proof that he could bestow a

microscopic attention on particulars without sacrifice of breadth. It is

generally believed that he spent nine years in bringing the single

volume of ‘Eothen’ up to the standard of his own fastidious taste. The

sarcastic advice of Pope to an aspiring author—“Keep your piece nine

years”—had been literally accepted, but with a result very different

from that which the adviser anticipated. Instead of becoming

dissatisfied with a work looked at after a long interval and with

changed feelings, Mr Kinglake proved that he could not only “strike the

second heat”—the process which Ben Jonson says is so necessary for the

forging of ideas into happy forms of expression—but that he could bring

his thoughts again and again to the intellectual smithy to be recast and

shaped without finding the fire extinct. Here, then, was evidence of a

quality most valuable to one who must long and patiently grope amid

masses of evidence and details, sometimes conflicting, often worthless,

and yet retain freshly the power of throwing the selected results into a

form clear, harmonious, and striking.

We have thus broadly stated some of Mr Kinglake’s eminent qualifications

for his task, and a detailed notice of his work will necessarily include

others. And it is easy to believe that he might have selected a variety

of subjects, his execution of which would have insured unqualified

praise. But for the present task, as might have been seen before he

commenced it, his fitness was marred by one circumstance. His political

course had proved that his animosity towards the French Emperor amounted

to a passion, or, as those who did not care to pick their words might

say, a mania. It might be guessed beforehand, therefore, that the

Emperor would scarcely meet with fair play at his hands. And considering

the share taken by that personage in the events which Mr Kinglake had

undertaken to record, to misrepresent his policy or his doings would be

to distort the history. Any one who entertained such a misgiving must

have found it strengthened when, on glancing over the table of contents,

he perceived that nearly a quarter of the first volume, amidst what

purports to be a record of the “transactions that brought on the war,”

is occupied with an account of the _coup d’état_ which substituted an

empire for a republic in France. On reading the volume his suspicions

would inevitably be converted into certainty. More than that, indeed,

for he would find that his anticipations were far exceeded by a satire

so studied, so polished, so remorseless, and withal so diabolically

entertaining, that we know not where in modern literature to seek such

another philippic. Had Mr Kinglake contrived in this chapter to have

completely relieved his feelings and have been contented with flaying

the Emperor and thus have done with him, leaving him to get through the

rest of the book as naturally and comfortably as he could be expected to

do without his skin, we might consider it as an episode which we should

have been at liberty to set apart from the main purpose of the work. But

like King Charles I., whom David Copperfield’s friend, Mr Dick, never

could keep out of his memorial, this diabolical caricature of despotism

haunts the narrative at every turn. The canvass is spread, the palette

is laid, the artist is at his easel full of his subject—all the great

personages of the time are to figure there, and great incidents are to

form the background. The spectator is at first charmed with the progress

of the design; but presently, amidst the nobly-drawn portraits, there is

a sketch of a monarch with cloven feet appearing beneath his robes, and

a tail curling under his throne; and whereas the rest of the picture is

in true perspective, all that relates to this figure has a separate

horizon and point of sight. The result is as if Gilray in his bitterest

mood had got into Sir Joshua’s studio and persuaded him to let their

fancies mingle in one incongruous work.

We have thus stated our one point of difference with the author of these

fascinating volumes. With this exception we have little to do but to

praise—and indeed, as a piece of writing, we have nothing to do but to

praise the work from beginning to end. How materials in many respects so

unpromising could be made so interesting, is marvellous. Many a reader

who remembers what a tangled skein of politics it was that led to the

war—many a soldier who has a confused recollection of a jumble of Holy

Places, and the Four Powers, and Vienna Conferences, and who would be

glad to know what it was he was fighting about, now that it is all

over—will take up these volumes as a duty, and will be surprised to find

that the narrative approached in so resolute a frame of mind, is more

easy to read and more difficult to lay down than the most popular of the

popular novels.

The dispute about the Holy Places, though not in itself in any

appreciable degree the cause of the war, was the introduction to the

events that led to hostilities. There is something almost ludicrous,

something more befitting the times of Philip Augustus and of Cœur de

Lion than those of Louis Napoleon and Lord Palmerston, in the idea of

great European potentates appearing as the backers of two denominations

of monks, who were quarrelling about the key of a church-door in

Palestine. Nevertheless, the Czar, as the chief of a people whose

passions were strongly aroused by the dispute, had a real and legitimate

interest in the matter. To suppose that the President of the French

Republic, or any section of the people over whom he presided, really

cared whether the Greek or the Latin Church had the custody of this

important key, would be absurd. But the President it was who opened the

question by advocating the claims of the Latins. His object in doing so

is by no means clear. Mr Kinglake accounts for it by saying, “The French

President, in cold blood, and under no new motive for action, took up

the forgotten cause of the Latin Church of Jerusalem, and began to apply

it as a wedge for sundering the peace of the world.” Now, that Louis

Napoleon was desirous of disturbing the peace of the world, is Mr

Kinglake’s argument throughout. It is to his book what the wrath of

Achilles is to the ‘Iliad;’ and he tells us that the reason for this

truculent desire was to prop up the French Empire. But that reason,

though it may plausibly explain the acts of the French Emperor, does not

account in the least for the acts of the French President. We presume Mr

Kinglake hardly wishes us to infer that Louis Napoleon sowed the seeds

of war during his Presidency, as provision for the possible necessities

of a possible Empire. Yet the historian’s theory would seem to demand

the inference.

The poor Sultan, meanwhile, who might well exclaim ‘A plague o’ both

your Churches!’ was the unwilling arbiter of this dispute between his

Christian subjects, and was urged by the great champion on each side to

decide in favour of his protégé. Who might have the key, or whether

there was any key at all, or any sanctuary at all, or any Greek or Latin

Church, was to this hapless potentate a matter of profound indifference.

The French envoy put on the strongest pressure, and the Sultan inclined

to the side of the Latins; the Russian minister thereupon squeezed from

him a concession to their adversaries; and between the two he managed,

as might be expected, to disgust both sects, and to anger the Czar

without satisfying the Emperor. The displeasure of Nicholas was extreme,

and he prepared to support his further arguments by marching a large

army towards the Turkish frontier. And the first use of this force was

to give momentum to the mission of Prince Mentschikoff, who was sent to

Constantinople as the organ of his Imperial master’s displeasure. The

selection of the envoy showed that the Czar wished to take the most

direct and violent course to the fulfilment of his aim; for the Prince’s

diplomacy was of that simple kind—the only kind he seemed capable of

employing—which regards threats as the best means of persuasion.

These strong measures were the first indications that war was possibly

impending. And as they appeared to spring from the religious fervour of

the Czar, which had been roused to this pitch by the gratuitous

intermeddling of Napoleon in the question of the Holy Places, it would

at first seem as if it were indeed the French ruler who had first blown

the coal which presently caused such a conflagration. But in the

interval between the decision of the Sultan about the churches, and the

appearance of Mentschikoff at Constantinople, Nicholas had held with Sir

Hamilton Seymour the remarkable conversations which explain the real

designs cloaked by the religious question. In these interviews he

uttered his famous parable of “the sick man,” representing that the

Turkish Empire was dying, and might fall to pieces any day, and

proposing that the event should be provided for by an immediate

arrangement for dividing the fragments. Provided he had the concurrence

of England, the Czar would not, he said, care what any other Powers

might do or say in the matter.

Here then was a foregone conclusion plainly revealed. The religious ire

of the Czar, the movement of his troops, the mission of Mentschikoff,

were all to be instruments for hastening the dissolution of the sick

man, and appropriating his domains. It was no new idea; for Nicholas was

but following the traditionary policy of his house. And if it could be

believed that his expectations of the speedy collapse of the Turkish

Empire were real, it would be unjust to blame him for wishing to profit

by the event. We are too apt to judge of the policy of other Governments

by the interests of England, and to condemn as unprincipled what is

opposed to our advantage. Nevertheless, to a ruler of Russia, no object

can appear more legitimate than the possession of that free outlet to

the world, which alone is wanting to remove the spell that paralyses her

gigantic energies. Looking from the shores of the Euxine, she is but

mocked by the vision of naval glories and of commercial prosperity; but

let her extend her limits to the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, and no

dreams of greatness can be too splendid for her to realise. But there is

no proof that the Czar’s anticipations respecting Turkey were grounded

on anything more solid than his strong desire to render them true. In

fact, the forecast of the Czar is much the same as that of Mohammed

Damoor, as described in ‘Eothen:’ who, having prophesied that the Jews

of Damascus would be despoiled on a particular day, took steps to verify

his prediction by first exciting and then heading the mob of plunderers.

The reply of England to his overtures satisfied him that he could not

hope for her complicity in his design upon Turkey. Had it been

otherwise, the sick man would, no doubt, have been so cared for that,

sick or well, there would soon have been an end of him. But the Czar

perceived he must for the present forego his desire for the vineyard of

Naboth. Yet there were several reasons why he should still draw what

profit he could from the present opportunity. He had a pretext—an

indifferent one it is true, but still it was more convenient to use it

than to look for another. He had been at the trouble of military

preparations, and was naturally desirous that they should not be barren

of result. And, in the matter of Montenegro, Turkey had just succumbed

to him so readily on a threat of war, that it seemed very unlikely he

should ever find her in a better frame of mind for his purpose.

Therefore, though the sick man was reprieved, yet he was not to go

scot-free; and Mentschikoff was charged, while ostensibly urging the

Sultan to reconsider the question of the Holy Places, to keep in reserve

a demand of much deeper significance.

Scornful in demeanour and imperious in language, Mentschikoff entered

Constantinople more like the bearer of a gage of defiance than a

messenger of peace. His deportment startled the Divan out of its

habitual calm; and the British Chargé d’Affaires, at the instance of the

Turkish Ministers, requested our Admiral at Malta to move his squadron

into the Levant. This demand was not complied with; but the French fleet

was ordered to Salamis. And this movement is condemned by Mr Kinglake as

most impolitic; for it happened, he says, at a time when “the anger of

the Emperor Nicholas had grown cool,” and it “gave deep umbrage to

Russia.” From which he means us to infer that Louis Napoleon, following

his deep design of fanning the flame of discord when it should seem to

languish, was so timing the advance of his fleet as to neutralise the

pacific influences which had begun to have their sway.

Now what are the circumstances of the case? The French Emperor knew

nothing of the conversation with Sir Hamilton Seymour, which did not

transpire till long afterwards. Neither he nor the British Government

were aware of the Czar’s real demands. Ostensibly the matter of

controversy was still the original question between him and the Czar

concerning the Holy Places. And while one of the disputants, France, had

urged her views in the ordinary way by the mouth of her ambassador, her

opponent was preparing to coerce the arbiter by a menacing mission

backed by an army and a fleet. The army already touched the frontier,

the fleet was prepared to sail for the Bosphorus. Will anybody except Mr

Kinglake blame the French Emperor for sending his fleet to Salamis? or

say that he was bound, before taking such a step, to consider whether it

might not give deep umbrage to Russia?

Mentschikoff then proceeded to urge his demands. These were, that, in

addition to the concessions required respecting the Holy Places, the

Sultan should, by treaty with the Czar, engage to confirm the Christian

subjects of the Porte in certain privileges and immunities. Though the

Sultan was very willing to confirm them in these privileges, he was by

no means willing to bind himself by treaty with the Czar to do so; for

by so doing he would give the Czar a right, as a party to the treaty, to

see that it was fulfilled; and hence those who were to benefit by the

privileges would naturally regard most, not him who granted them, but

him who could compel their observance. In fact, it was virtually

conferring on the Czar the protectorate of the Sultan’s Christian

subjects.

It was while the Turkish Ministers were in the deepest embarrassment

between the consequences of listening to such a proposition on the one

hand, and the fear of offending the Czar by refusing to entertain it on

the other, that Lord Stratford appeared on the scene. The coming of the

British Ambassador, and the diplomatic duel that ensued between him and

Mentschikoff, where predominant influence in the Sultan’s counsels was

to be the prize of the victor, forms one of the most brilliant passages

in this brilliant book. The mere presence of the Ambassador of England

restores the Sultan and his Ministers to complete self-possession. When

Mentschikoff blusters, they refresh themselves by a view of Lord

Stratford’s commanding aspect; when the Russian menaces war, they are

comforted by a hint from the Englishman respecting the English squadron.

Of such dramatic excellence is this portion of the story, that the

enthralled reader forgets to inquire how it was that in a dispute

between France and Russia respecting the subjects of Turkey, the

Ambassador of England should be the foremost champion. But we see him

throughout as the power that moves the Mussulman puppets, and from whose

calm opposition the menaces of Mentschikoff recoil harmless; and we see

in distant St Petersburg the great Czar himself lashed to fury at

feeling himself foiled by one whom he has long, we are told, considered

as a personal foe. We cannot but feel proud in these circumstances of

the position of our representative, though it would be difficult to say,

perhaps, what advantage besides this feeling of pride we, as a nation,

derived from it. But it is clear that, while the Czar was dreaming, as

of something possible to be realised by a great display of power, of a

protectorate over the Christian subjects of the Porte, here was a

British protectorate of the most absolute character already established

over the Porte and its subjects, Christian and Mussulman; and we might

almost infer that nothing further was requisite on Lord Stratford’s part

but to humour Mohammedan prejudices by submitting to a few insignificant

religious rites, in order to qualify him for at once taking his place as

Chief of the Ottoman Empire, and the true Commander of the Faithful.

In the diplomatic encounter, Mentschikoff had no more chance than the

fiend in a moral tale of _diablerie_, who urges weak man to sign his

soul away after the good angel has come to the rescue. Baffled at all

points, he departs with all the diplomatic train, muttering vengeance.

And here ends the first act of the drama, when the pretexts of the Czar

have vanished, and he shows his true design. The next begins with the

crossing of the Pruth by the Russian forces, in order to secure the

material guarantee of the Danubian provinces. But the menacing position

of Russia was not the only change in the situation. England, who in the

earlier dispute had no more interest than the other Western Powers in

opposing Russia, had in the progress of the controversy made herself so

prominent that she was, in the judgment of Lord Clarendon, bound to

defend the provinces of the Sultan against an unprovoked attack by

Russia. That she had laid herself under this obligation was entirely

owing to the lofty part which Lord Stratford had played in the drama. On

the other hand, had Lord Stratford not been so ready and conspicuous in

his championship, the Divan, feeling itself unsupported, might have

yielded to the demands of Russia.

For a great part of the narrative, then, the principal positions have

been occupied by England, Russia, and Turkey; and the interest imparted

to scenes which, from an ordinary hand, would have been eminently

tedious, is wonderful. But at this juncture, King Charles I., who has

long been impending, can no longer be kept out of the memorial. The

iniquitous machinations of the French Emperor are brought into the

foreground. The occasion for enlarging on them is that which we shall

presently state. But first we must say that it is from no wish to dilate

on what we think the blemish of the book that we expatiate on this

theme. It is because it is mixed up with all the main parts of a work

which we are bound to treat as an authentic history. But it happens

that, for a reason to be noted hereafter, we can, without injury to the

texture, separate this portion from the rest; and we therefore propose

to follow this thread of the narrative to its end, and so, having done

with it, to be at liberty, for the rest of these volumes, to approve no

less warmly than we admire.

Austria naturally felt considerable interest in the movements of a

formidable neighbour, whose troops were now winding round her frontier,

who, by overrunning Turkey, would enclose some of her provinces, and

who, at the next step in advance, would control the Lower Danube. She

therefore, in conjunction with Prussia, made common cause with the

Western Powers, so far as to offer a strong remonstrance against the

occupation of the Danubian provinces, and to join in their efforts to

preserve peace. Mr Kinglake contends that this kind of pacific pressure

would have secured its object, and that if it had not, Austria would

have joined France and England in having recourse to sterner measures.

But he says that, without waiting for the result of this joint coercion,

England was persuaded to join France in a separate course of action,

which, without necessity, involved us in a war desired only by the

French Emperor. “In order to see how it came to be possible,” says the

historian, “that the vast interests of Europe should be set aside in

favour of mere personal objects, it will presently be necessary to

contract the field of vision, and, going back to the winter of 1851, to

glance at the operations of a small knot of middle-aged men who were

pushing their fortunes in Paris.”

And here is interpolated—for as an interpolation we regard it—that

curious episode which has for its subject the _coup d’état_ and the

establishment of the second French Empire. Standing apart from the

purpose of the book, its isolation gives it peculiar distinctness. But

its inherent character is such that it needs no art or accident to bring

it into strongest relief. It is a singularly clever and singularly

acrimonious attack upon the foremost statesman and most powerful

potentate of these times. And it makes demands on our credulity which

are too heavy for anything short of absolute proof to maintain. For we

are asked to believe that a set of men with no more character or

consideration than Falstaff and his associates, were able to call on the

French nation to stand and deliver, and that the nation thereupon

submitted to be knocked down, to have its throat cut, and to be

plundered by these minions of the moon. Now, does anybody think that

diadems, such as that of France, are to be stolen from a shelf by any

cutpurse who wants to put them in his pocket? Or does anybody think that

a mere cutpurse, having succeeded in the theft, could so have worn his

stolen diadem as to enhance its splendour and renown? That which made

the Empire possible, and that which maintains it now, was the conviction

that the choice of the nation lay between it and Red Republicanism. And

to establish, in any degree, his case, Mr Kinglake should have proved

that no such conviction existed. But if it be true that France found in

the Empire a refuge from anarchy, then reasonable men will not be ready

to scrutinise, in too severe a spirit, the means taken to consolidate

the throne. Granted that the army, the instrument employed by the

President, disgraced itself by an indiscriminate and unprovoked

slaughter—that the opposition of political adversaries was silenced in a

very arbitrary fashion—that a foreign war would probably be necessary

for the security of the new dynasty,—yet will it be said that a result

which has tranquillised France, which has developed her resources and

exalted her reputation, leaves in the establishment of the Empire

nothing except what the world must regret and condemn? And looking at

the portrait which Mr Kinglake has drawn, with so bold and incisive a

touch, of this potentate of wooden face, base soul, and feeble resolve,

who turns green in moments of danger—who, with the aid of swindlers and

bravoes, has yoked France to his chariot, and drives it in a career of

blood with the great Powers of Europe bound to its wheels—we ask, not

only is it brilliant as a work of art, but is it like the original? We

do not profess to believe that the Empire is the perfection of

government. We do not maintain that Louis Napoleon is a model of virtue

and disinterested policy. But if his place in Europe were suddenly

vacant, will Mr Kinglake tell us how it would be better filled, or what

precious things might not be thrown into the gulf before it could be

closed? And if no answer can be given to the question, we may well doubt

the expediency of contributing to bring so important a personage and so

powerful an ally into contempt.

“After the 2d December in the year 1851,” says Mr Kinglake, in

concluding the portion of his work relating to the _coup d’état_, “the

foreign policy of France was used for a prop to prop the throne which

Morny and his friends had built up.... Therefore, although I have dwelt

awhile upon a singular passage in the domestic history of France, I have

not digressed.” Now, even if he could prove the necessities of the

French Empire to have been the main motive of the part England took in

the war, we should still dispute this. No doubt it is the business of

the historian of an important series of events to trace them to their

sources, and the more clearly he can show the connection hidden from

ordinary minds, the more sagacious and ingenious he will appear. But if

there were no limit to this, the history of any event might spread to an

extent altogether boundless; and therefore, to justify digression, it is

necessary for the historian to show that the incidents which led to the

result had a necessary and not an accidental influence in procuring it.

For instance, in the case of a popular uprising against a despotism or a

superstition, it would be expected that the historian should trace all

the successive steps by which the national feelings were roused from

suffering to resistance, because those steps led inevitably and

naturally to that particular result, and not to any other. In such a

case history is performing her proper function of explaining, for the

guidance of posterity, the obscure process by which certain conditions

produce certain effects. But where a war has been caused by the caprice

and unreasoning anger of a potentate, it is beside the purpose to trace

up to his very cradle the effect of early mismanagement or neglect in

rendering him passionate or capricious, for no political lesson can be

taught where results cannot be calculated. In such a case it will be

sufficient to state the fact, that the war originated in the irascible

temper and unaccountable impulse of one who had the power to give his

anger such tremendous vent. It would be absurd to pause in the history,

and to introduce his biography, merely to prove that it is a bad thing

when great power is lodged in the hands of a person who is the slave of

violent caprice. And in the present instance, if it had been stated in

two sentences that the conditions under which the French Empire had

started into existence were such as to render a foreign war, or a

commanding position in Europe, necessary to its stability, the statement

would have fully satisfied the requirements of history, and would have

received general assent.

However, having considered it necessary to prove this proposition by a

separate history of the transition which France underwent from a

republic to an empire, Mr Kinglake undertakes to show how we were

dragged into war by this necessitous Emperor. He asserts many times that

the operations of the French and English fleets caused the war.

“The English Government,” he says, “consented to engage in naval

movements which affected—nay governed—the war.” And again, “The French

Emperor had no sooner engaged the English Government in a separate

understanding, than he began to insist upon the necessity of using the

naval power of France and England in the way which he proposed—a way

bitterly offensive to Russia. Having at length succeeded in forcing

this measure upon England, he after a while pressed upon her another

movement of the fleets still more hostile than the first, and again he

succeeded in bringing the English Government to yield to him. Again,

and still once again, he did the like, always in the end bringing

England to adopt his hostile measures; and he never desisted from this

course of action, until at last it had effected a virtual rupture

between the Czar and the Western Powers.”

And in this way throughout these transactions the Emperor plays a part

much the same as that which Satan took in the scenes in Paradise; and at

every turn we see him moving deviously, quite serpentine in craft and

baseness, or squatting toad-like at the ear of the slumbering British

Government, till now, at the Ithuriel touch of history, he starts up in

his true form of malignant demon.

The various items of the present charge against him are collected by Mr

Kinglake in a compendious form:—

“Not yet as part of this narrative, but by way of anticipation, and in

order to gather into one page the grounds of the statement just made,

the following instances are given of the way in which the English

Government was, from time to time, driven to join with the French

Emperor in making a quarrelsome use of the two fleets:—On the 13th of

July 1853, the French Emperor, through his Minister of Foreign

Affairs, declared to the English Government that if the occupation of

the Principalities continued, the French fleet could not longer remain

at Besica Bay. On the 19th of August he declared it to be absolutely

necessary that the combined fleets should enter the Dardanelles, and

he pressed the English Government to adopt a resolution to this

effect. On the 21st of September he insisted that the English

Government, at the same moment as the French, should immediately order

up the combined squadrons to Constantinople. On the 15th of December

he pressed the English Government to agree that the Allied fleets

should enter the Euxine, take possession of it, and interdict the

passage of every Russian vessel. It will be seen that, with more or

less reluctance and after more or less delay, these demands were

always acceded to by England: and the course thus taken by the

maritime Powers was fatal to the pending negotiations; for, besides

that in the way already shown the Czar’s wholesome fears were

converted into bursts of rage, the Turks at the same time were

deriving a dangerous encouragement from the sight of the French and

English war-flags; and the result was, that the negotiators, with all

their skill and all their patience, were never able to frame a Note in

the exact words which would allay the anger of Nicholas, without

encountering a steadfast resistance on the part of the Sultan.”

We have only, then, to take in their turn the items thus enumerated to

ascertain the justice of the charge. The first of the naval movements

was the advance of the fleets to Besica Bay. This made the Czar very

angry. But it was in itself a perfectly lawful operation, and quite

consistent with friendliness and desire for peace. It by no means

balanced the aggressive advance of the Czar into the Principalities and

the orders to the Sebastopol fleet. Moreover, however irritating to

Nicholas, he condoned it, for we find him long afterwards accepting the

Vienna Note framed by the four Powers, the acceptance of which by Turkey

would have settled the dispute. That it was not accepted by Turkey was

due entirely to Lord Stratford and the Turkish Ministers. “The French

Emperor,” says Mr Kinglake, “did nothing whatever to thwart the

restoration of tranquillity.” It is evident, then, that the movements of

the fleets thus far had produced no effect which was not completely

neutralised, and that the Emperor’s desire for war did not prevent him

from contributing to the general effort for peace.

The next movement of the fleets was into the Dardanelles. The Sultan was

engaged by treaty to forbid the entrance of the fleets of any Power so

long as he should be at peace. What, then, were the reasons for entering

the Straits? Were they purely provocative? Now, we find that the demand

for war on the part of the Turkish people had at this time become so

urgent, that the Ambassadors to the Porte regarded it as almost

irresistible. The French Ambassador viewed it, Mr Kinglake says, “with

_sincere_ alarm.” He wrote a despatch to his Government, imparting to it

what we must admit to have been also “sincere alarm,” for there is no

evidence or insinuation of the contrary; and that alarm being shared by

our Government, the fleets were ordered to enter the Dardanelles that

they might be ready, if wanted, to support the Turkish Government

against the belligerent wishes of its own subjects.

But another important circumstance had occurred before the entry of the

fleets. In invading the Principalities, the Czar had announced that this

was not meant as an act of war. And the Sultan’s hold on these provinces

was of such an anomalous kind that his advisers held him to be at

liberty to construe the invasion as an act of war, or not, at his own

pleasure. He had now given notice to the Czar that unless the Russian

troops should quit the Principalities in fifteen days he would declare

war. Fourteen of the fifteen days had elapsed when the fleets entered.

Except for observing the strict letter of the treaty, it was not of the

least importance whether they entered a day sooner or later. Yet Mr

Kinglake tells us the Czar was very indignant at the violation of the

treaty, and he laments that another day was not suffered to elapse

before the movement. Now, considering all the circumstances—that the

fleets had already been for a long time at the disposal of the

Ambassadors, who might summon them to Constantinople whenever they

judged necessary, and that the Czar knew it—that war steamers had

already been called up to the Bosphorus by both the Ambassadors, French

and English, and the treaty thus broken as completely as by the passage

of a hundred fleets—that the Czar had himself, by the invasion of the

Principalities, deprived himself of the right to complain of the

violation of the treaty—that fifteen days’ notice of a declaration of

war had been given, and that the full term must have expired before the

fleets could arrive at Constantinople—considering all this, the

provocation is reduced to such an infinitesimal quantity, that it is

barely worth a passing mention. There is no evidence whatever that the

prospects of peace were in any way affected by the advance of the

fleets. Yet a hasty reader of Mr Kinglake’s narrative might easily

imagine that it produced the direst consequences. “When the tidings of

this hostile measure,” he says, “reached St Petersburg, they put an end

for the time to all prospect of peace.” And again—

“The Czar received tidings of the hostile decision of the maritime

Powers in a spirit which, this time at least, was almost justified by

the provocation given. In retaliation for what he would naturally look

upon as a bitter affront, and even as a breach of treaty, he

determined, it would seem, to have vengeance at sea whilst vengeance

at sea was still possible; and it was under the spur of the anger thus

kindled that orders for active operations were given to the fleet at

Sebastopol. The vengeance he meditated he could only wreak upon the

body of the Turks, for the great offenders of the West were beyond the

bounds of his power.”

Would not the reader imagine from this that the attack of Sinope had

been proved by full evidence to be the immediate result of the

exasperation of the Czar at the advance of the combined fleets? But Mr

Kinglake acquaints us in a note with the real grounds on which he makes

this confident assertion:—

“This conclusion is drawn from dates. The hostile resolution of the

Western Powers was known to the Czar a little before the 14th of

October, and about the middle of the following month the Black Sea

fleet was at sea. If allowance be made for distance and preparation,

it will be seen that the sequence of one event upon the other is close

enough to warrant the statement contained in the text. In the absence,

however, of any knowledge to the contrary, it is fair to suppose that

the Czar remembered his promise, and did not sanction any actual

attack upon the enemy unless his commanders should be previously

apprised that the Turks had commenced active warfare.”

We read this note with surprise. It proves that Mr Kinglake can, when in

hot pursuit of the foe, step to a conclusion over grounds where few can

follow. The fleets entered the Dardanelles on the 22d October. The

attack of Sinope took place on the 30th November. The Turks and Russians

had been at war for six weeks; and though the Russian Minister had

announced in a circular some time before, that the Czar, in hopes still

of a peaceful solution, would remain on the defensive as long as his

dignity and interests would allow, yet, as Mr Kinglake himself says,

“After the issue of the circular, the Government of St Petersburg had

received intelligence not only that active warfare was going on in the

valley of the Lower Danube, but that the Turks had seized the Russian

fort of St Nicholas on the eastern coast of the Euxine, and were

attacking Russia upon her Armenian frontier;” and he fully absolves the

Czar from any breach of faith in this matter. Yet he would gravely have

us believe that the attack of the ships of one Power upon those of

another with which it is at open war requires explanation, and that the

most natural explanation possible is to be found in attributing it to a

slow retaliation for an imaginary injury inflicted by two other Powers.

It is as if we should be told that, in the early rounds of a celebrated

pugilistic encounter, Mr Sayers had hit Mr Heenan very hard in the eye,

not because they were fighting, but because one of the bystanders had

previously trodden on the champion’s coat.

As the reader will probably decline to follow Mr Kinglake over his

slender bridge of inference, we must look beyond Sinope for the naval

movement instigated by the French Emperor and turning the scale in

favour of war; and, as only one remains to be accounted for, we have not

far to look. The next orders sent to the fleets were intended to obviate

another disaster and disgrace such as that of Sinope. They provided that

Russian ships met with in the Euxine should be requested, and, if

necessary, constrained, to return to Sebastopol. This, Mr Kinglake terms

“a harsh and insulting course of action.” He says the English Cabinet

during their deliberations “were made acquainted with the will of the

French Emperor; ... the pressure of the French Emperor was the cogent

motive which governed the result; ... the result was that now, for the

second time, France dictated to England the use that she should make of

her fleet, and by this time, perhaps, submission had become more easy

than it was at first.” But Lord Clarendon has been quoted by Mr Kinglake

as saying, months before, that it had become the duty of England to

defend Turkey. According to Mr Kinglake, when independent Powers are

acting together, to propose is to dictate, and to acquiesce is to

submit. To make a suggestion is imperious, and to adopt it is

ignominious. But what kind of an alliance would this be? or how would

concert be possible under such circumstances? The proposal of the French

Emperor was so offered as to show that he was thoroughly convinced of

its expediency. If he was so convinced, he was right so to offer it. And

why did the English Ministry adopt it? Because the English people more

than kept pace with the wishes of the Emperor. “A huge obstacle,” says

the historian, “to the maintenance of peace in Europe was raised up by

the temper of the English people; ... the English desired war.” It is

strange doctrine then, that an English Ministry which, by assenting to

the proposition of an ally, expresses the temper of the English people,

thereby submits to foreign dictation.

But the strangest part of the French part of the story is behind. We

have seen how Mr Kinglake traces from the first the devious wiles of the

French Emperor—how it was his craft that first made the question of the

Holy Places important—how his “subtle and dangerous counsels” hurried

England into war, and all because war was necessary to the stability of

his throne. The complicated texture of his intrigue is followed and

traced with immense patience and ingenuity; and yet, when the work is

complete, and his imperial victim stands fully detected and exposed as

the incendiary of Europe, the detective suddenly destroys his own

finely-spun web at a blow. England was the tool of the French Emperor,

but the French Emperor was the tool of a still more astute and potent

personage. “When the Czar began to encroach upon the Sultan, there was

nothing that could so completely meet Lord Palmerston’s every wish as an

alliance between the two Western Powers, which should toss France

headlong into the English policy of upholding the Ottoman Empire.... As

he (Lord Palmerston) from the first had willed it, so moved the two

great nations of the West.” The elaborated structure of French intrigue

falls, and our gay perennial Premier is discovered smiling amid the

ruins. Thus Punch murders his wife and infant, hangs the executioner,

and shines as the dexterous and successful villain, till, at the close

of the piece, Mr Codlin, the real wire-puller, draws aside the curtain

and appears at the bottom of the show, while the great criminal and his

victims revert to their proper condition of sawdust and tinsel.

The terms of the alliance between France and England are surely not

difficult to understand. The policy of upholding the Ottoman Empire was,

as Mr Kinglake says, “an English policy.” The object for which the

Governments of France and England were actively united was an English

object. Naturally we inquire what inducement the Emperor had then to

form the alliance? Mr Kinglake furnishes us with the correct response.

It seemed, he says, to the Emperor “that, by offering to thrust France

into an English policy, he might purchase for himself an alliance with

the Queen, and win for his new throne a sanction of more lasting worth

than Morny’s well-warranted return of his eight millions of approving

Frenchmen. Above all, if he could be united with England, he might be

able to enter upon that conspicuous action in Europe which was needful

for his safety at home, and might do this without bringing upon himself

any war of a dangerous kind.” The advantages of the alliance were to be

reciprocal. The Emperor was to gain in position and reputation, in

return for aiding with his fleets and armies the attainment of an

English object. Mutual interest and mutual compromise were the basis of

this, as of most alliances. We had not to accuse the Emperor of any

breach of faith in executing his part of the compact. Being already, as

Lord Clarendon said, committed to the defence of Turkey, it made a vast

difference to us whether we should enter on a war with Russia alone, or

should be aided by the immense power of France. And it was only fair

that the Emperor should be allowed to occupy, in the transactions which

ensued, that position, the attainment of which was his grand object in

seeking the alliance. Yet Mr Kinglake blames this necessitous potentate

because he did not sacrifice his position and himself to our

interests—because he did not chivalrously place his army and navy at our

service for the promotion of English policy, and remain quietly in the

background, with his generous feelings for his reward; and he blames our

own Government for making those compromises which alone could render the

alliance possible.

And here, we rejoice to say, our serious differences with Mr Kinglake

end. After so much entertainment and instruction as we have derived from

his book, it seems almost ungrateful to make to it so many exceptions.

But if we have occupied much of our space thus, he must remember that it

takes longer to argue than to acquiesce. Moreover, it is partly owing to

his own excellences that we have been able to find matter for dispute.

Many a writer would have so muddled his facts and his prejudices that we

should have found it hard to do more than suspect the presence of error

in the cloudy medium. But his style is so clear, so precise, that the

reasoning everywhere shines through, and a fallacy or an inconsistency

has no more chance of escaping detection than a gold fish in a crystal

aquarium. And besides, Mr Kinglake himself most honestly and liberally

furnishes us with the facts, and even the inferences, necessary to

rectify his theory. Thus the effect, in his history, of his hostility to

the Emperor is not that of a false proportion in a rule of three, which

extends and vitiates the whole process. It is only like a series of

erroneous items introduced in a sum in addition, which may be separated

and deducted, leaving the total right.

The course of the transactions that led to the war may then be traced as

clearly as diplomacy, dealing with many great interests and many unseen

motives, generally permits. The squabble about the Holy Places was not

the origin but only the pretext of the dispute with Turkey. The

conversations with Sir Hamilton Seymour and the mission of Mentschikoff

prove that the Czar was already seeking to dislocate the fabric of the

Turkish Empire, and only took that lever because it lay readiest to his

hand. “A crowd of monks,” says Mr Kinglake, in his picturesque way,

“with bare foreheads, stood quarrelling for a key at the sunny gates of

a church in Palestine, but beyond and above, towering high in the misty

North, men saw the ambition of the Czars.” But the real design could not

long be hidden by the pretext. And the execution of that design would be

subversive of that balance which it was the duty and interest of the

other Powers to maintain. It was for the Czar, then, to choose a time

for his project when he might find each of the other Powers restrained

by some counteracting motive from opposing his ambition. Looking over

Europe, he thought that he perceived the favourable moment. Austria, the

Power most interested from her contiguity, and from the importance to

her of free use of the great waterway of Southern Germany, if she had

much reason to resist, had also much reason to acquiesce. She still felt

too keenly, financially and politically, the effects of the heavy blows

dealt her in 1848–9 to be ready or willing for war. She was under a huge

debt of gratitude to Nicholas, who, in the hour of her direst necessity,

had advanced to save her, without condition and without reward. He

possessed, too, a great personal ascendancy over the young Emperor of

Austria. And, lastly, at this time Austria had a hostile altercation

with Turkey, which would render it more than ever difficult for her to

take part with the Sultan.

It might be calculated that Prussia would follow the lead of Austria.

Her interests were the same in kind, but far less in degree. Once

satisfied that full guarantees for the freedom of the Danube would be

given, she would no longer have special interest in the subject.

As to France, there seemed to be no special reason why she should

interfere. And if she should interfere, the Czar’s sentiments towards

the new Empire were such as would rather lead him to disdainful defiance

than conciliation.

At first he anticipated no difficulty in persuading the English

Government to join in his designs. Finding, however, by the rejection of

his overtures, that he could not hope for the support of England, he

probably postponed the extreme measures of aggression. But, for the

reasons we have stated in a former paragraph, he was unwilling to let

the opportunity pass totally unimproved; and hence the demands of

Mentschikoff for granting the protectorate of the Greek Church in Turkey

to the Czar.

It was Lord Stratford’s share in the diplomatic contest that ensued,

which first gave England prominence in the dispute. And whether the part

he took was in accordance with instructions from his Government, or was

due to the influence of his personal character, the result was to assure

England that the predominance of her Ambassador in the councils of the

Porte, whatever advantage it might confer, carried with it grave

responsibility. When Mentschikoff withdrew in anger from the scene,

England was, in the opinion of her own Ministers, committed to the

defence of Turkey.

We have seen that the Czar’s original design was made dependent on the

concurrence of England. When he found that this was unattainable, the

design was modified. He now found that even in this modified form

England would not only not concur, but would oppose it. Why then did he

persist? It was because he did not believe that the opposition of

England would go the length of war.

Lord Aberdeen, the English Premier, besides being the personal friend of

Nicholas, and therefore disposed to view Russian policy with comparative

indulgence, was the open and professed friend of peace at any price. He

had that horror of war which in a statesman is an unpardonable and fatal

weakness. And in this particular he was believed only to represent the

feeling of the English people. The Czar, in common with most of the

world, was convinced that they were entirely absorbed in the pursuit of

commerce. He took the Exhibition of 1851 for the national confession of

faith. He believed that England had no god but gold, and that Mr Cobden

was her prophet.

This fallacy Mr Kinglake exposes in his happiest style:—

“All England had been brought to the opinion that it was a wickedness

to incur war without necessity or justice; but when the leading

spirits of the Peace Party had the happiness of beholding this

wholesome result, they were far from stopping short. They went on to

make light of the very principles by which peace is best maintained,

and although they were conscientious men, meaning to say and do what

was right, yet, being unacquainted with the causes which bring about

the fall of empires, they deliberately inculcated that habit of

setting comfort against honour which historians call ‘corruption.’

They made it plain, as they imagined, that no war which was not

engaged in for the actual defence of the country could ever be right;

but even there they took no rest, for they went on and on, and still

on, until their foremost thinker reached the conclusion that, in the

event of an attack upon our shores, the invaders ought to be received

with such an effusion of hospitality and brotherly love as could not

fail to disarm them of their enmity, and convert the once dangerous

Zouave into the valued friend of the family. Then, with great

merriment, the whole English people turned round, and although they

might still be willing to go to the brink of other precipices, they

refused to go further towards that one. The doctrine had struck no

root. It was ill suited to the race to whom it was addressed. The male

cheered it, and forgot it until there came a time for testing it, and

then discarded it; and the woman, from the very first, with her true

and simple instinct, was quick to understand its value. She would

subscribe, if her husband required it, to have the doctrine taught to

charity children, but she would not suffer it to be taught to her own

boy. So it proved barren.”

Caustic as this is, it is only too indulgent to the Peace Party. Not

that it is of special importance now to crush what is already so

depressed and abased as to have lost its power of mischief. The course

of the leaders of the party has been such that they could not continue

to enjoy any large measure of popularity, except upon the anomalous

condition that a great number of Englishmen should join in hating

England. For years past no petulant despotism, no drunken republic,

could shake its coarse fist in the face of this country, without finding

its warmest supporters in those men of the olive branch, who were never

weary of urging us to offer both cheeks to the smiter. Their mode of

interference in a quarrel is like that of the affectionate friends, who,

if a man were attacked, would cling round him and hamper him, reviling

him for his pugnacity, while his adversary ran him through the body.

Long fallen from their position as oracles, they lie at the base of

their tall pedestals, and “none so poor as do them reverence.” But, in

granting them honesty of purpose, Mr Kinglake falls, we think, into the

now common error of pushing candour to excess. A man’s mistakes are

honest when he is led into them by motives irrespective of his

interests. The fanatic who sacrifices his own advantage along with that

of other people cannot be accused of baseness. But these men had a

direct interest in preaching the doctrine of the necessity of national

poltroonery. The substitution of a purely commercial policy for that

which the nation had hitherto followed, was intimately blended with

their own personal advantage. The motive, therefore, that inspired the

error renders it inexcusable.

Blind, then, to consequences, the Czar continued his course of

aggression. He marched his troops into the Principalities. Thereupon, no

longer opposed only by England, he finds himself met by the concerted

action of the four great Powers. And the question of interest at this

particular stage is, Whether the primary object of defending Turkey was

to be best attained by the action of the four Powers, or by the

increased decision in action of England and France. Now it is to be

observed, that the Czar knew long before he occupied the Principalities

that Austria would resist the step. Yet the united remonstrance of the

four Powers had failed to induce him to abandon it. And it also failed

afterwards to induce him to retract it. Through remonstrance,

opposition, and the earlier stages of the war, he continued to hold the

provinces. It becomes then a question, when we are considering the

statement that the peaceful pressure of the four Powers would have

attained our object in the most desirable way, whether a course of

action so slow was consistent with our engagement to defend Turkey. It

is a matter at least open to doubt.

But granting that either the slow action of Austria, or the more

decisive policy of France, would have equally availed, if adopted by

common consent, was that unanimity possible? Austria had many reasons

for limiting her interference to diplomatic pressure. Moreover, her

ground of complaint against Russia was the occupation of the

Principalities, not the threatening of Turkey. Should Russia adopt some

other method of coercing Turkey, such as sending her fleet into the

Bosphorus, and withdrawing her troops from the provinces, the interest

of Austria in the dispute would almost vanish, while that of the Western

Powers would increase. And how would it suit France to adopt the course

of Austria, and to aim at a settlement by united action? The French

Emperor’s great inducement in joining in the dispute at all was the

prospect of increased reputation. And when the figure representing the

credit to be gained by joint diplomatic coercion came to be divided by

four, would the quotient satisfy his expectations? It is not too much to

say that England was compelled to choose between France and Austria,

since it was unlikely they would long continue in a common course. And

as the action of England in a war with Russia must be principally

through her fleet, it became of immense importance that the French navy

should act with us rather than be neutral or hostile. In such

circumstances, then, it is by no means clear that we did wrong in

holding with France.

From this period, then, it becomes apparent that, if Russia should

persist in aggression, war was inevitable. And Russia did persist in

aggression. And if it be considered as established that the Czar was led

so to persist by a conviction that England would not resort to war—which

is the general and probably correct opinion—we do not see how it can be

denied that a course of action which must undeceive him would be the

most likely to cause him to desist; and that the naval movements that

ensued were only such as would convince him of our intention without

driving him to extremity. It is plain that the two theories—one of which

is that the pacific disposition of our Government allowed us to drift

into war, and the other that our menacing action irritated the Czar

beyond control, and therefore caused the war—are incompatible.

The fleets then moved to the entrance of the Dardanelles; and, while the

Czar was recovering from the anger produced by that step, the

representatives of the four Powers in conference at Vienna produced

their Note, a mediatory document which would, it was hoped, settle all

difficulties. It was readily accepted by Russia, the reason for which

became apparent when it was offered to Turkey; for the Turkish

Government at once rejected it, on the ground that it might be so

interpreted as to secure to the Czar the protectorate he aimed at. They

proposed alterations, with the concurrence of the mediatory Powers,

which the Czar in his turn rejected; and the Sultan thereupon declared

that, if the provinces were not evacuated in fifteen days, Turkey would

be at war with Russia. The fleets moved through the Dardanelles. The

next step was the attack on the Turkish squadron at Sinope by the

Russian admiral. The English people were now thoroughly roused. They

were indignant, not so much at the breach of faith imputed to the Czar

in making the attack, as at the ruthless destruction and slaughter of

the Turkish force by its far more powerful enemy. The attack, too, had

taken place almost under the guns of the combined fleets, and it was

evident that, if their presence at Constantinople meant anything, and if

we really were engaged to defend Turkey, the repetition of such a

disaster to our ally must be prevented. A measure to this effect, but by

no means strong enough to express the feeling of England, was adopted;

the combined fleets were ordered by their respective governments to keep

the peace by force, if necessary, in the Euxine. But as there had been

as yet no actual collision between their forces and those of the Czar, a

door to peace was still left open. Of this he did not choose to avail

himself, but declared war against France and England on the 11th April

1854.

Such is an outline of the successive events preceding the war which,

unpromising as such a record of futile diplomacy may seem, Mr Kinglake

has wrought into one of the most brilliant of historical pictures.

‘Eothen’ itself is not more entertaining, more rich in colour, more

happy in quaint and humorous turns of expression; while, from the false

effects that are sometimes seen in the earlier work, the present

narrative is entirely free. The style is indeed a model of ease,

strength, clearness, and simplicity. Nor has labour been spared; and the

reader who has so often been expected by historians to be already

familiar with political and diplomatic lore, and has been left to repair

his deficiencies as he may, will be grateful to Mr Kinglake for some of

the elementary instruction which he has conveyed in such a delightful

form, as, for instance, the chapter on “the usage which forms the

safeguard of Europe.” And remembering what animation and vigour personal

feeling, even when so strongly biased, cannot fail to infuse, and seeing

that, in the present case, it has not prevented the writer from fully

stating the facts and deductions which most contradict his favourite

theories, we cease to lament the absence of that judicial calmness which

would have deprived his history of half its charm.

The first glowing scenes now shift to one still more splendid. Diplomacy

has played out its part; its subtlest essays seem but mere babble to the

ear that is listening for the impending clang of arms. Statesmen and

ambassadors gather up their futile documents, and retire to the side

scenes, to make way for the sterner disputants who throng the stage.

If Mr Kinglake was unsparing in his denunciations of French intrigue, he

is no less bold and outspoken in criticising the military merits of our

allies. But we no longer find the same reasons for dissenting from his

conclusions. Many, no doubt, will say that it would have been politic to

suppress some of those revelations which will jar most on the sensitive

ears of our neighbours. But, if history is to be written at all, it must

be written with all the truth attainable. History, which conceals and

glosses, is but historical romance. Moreover, a plain English statement

was wanting to redress the balance between us and the French. It must

not be forgotten that the example of writing a narrative apportioning to

both parties in the alliance the sum of glory gained was set in France,

and that a share, ridiculously small, was awarded to the English. We

remonstrated at the time, in these pages, against the unfairness and

impolicy of allowing such a book as De Bazancourt’s to go forth to the

world with the seeming sanction of the Emperor, at a time when the war

was yet unfinished. A man of no reputation or ability to justify the

selection had been accredited to the French generals in the Crimea.

Furnished thus with information, which might be presumed to be reliable,

he produced a narrative in which the entire credit for the planning and

execution of the successful operations of the war was assigned to the

French with impudent mendacity. As might naturally be expected from a

nation that believes in Thiers, his account was accepted by the French

as veritable history. In England it was but little read. Contemptible as

a composition, its representations of facts were not such as to give it

a claim to which nothing else entitled it. But, so far as it was read

here, it gave just offence. That the Emperor did not disapprove is shown

by the fact that the same valuable chronicler was taken to Italy as

historiographer of the war in 1859, when another compound of bombastic

glorification and misrepresentation was given to the world under

imperial auspices. No Englishman or candid Frenchman who reads the

account of the Crimean Campaign by the Baron De Bazancourt will deny

that it was incumbent on us to tell our own tale; and we rejoice that it

is told by one who, with such remarkable faculty for charming an

audience and imparting to it his own impressions, trusts, nevertheless,

to facts and proofs derived from the documents intrusted to him, for

supporting his claim for justice.