An application to support a concession to Mr. Brassey for the construction of a railway from Constantinople to Adrianople met with no favour at all. He explained that he was constantly applied to in order to support all sorts of concessions for railways and similar undertakings, and that his practice was to reply that it was not his business to meddle in such matters unless instructed to do so by the Foreign Office, and that concessionaires should therefore in the first place address themselves to the Home Government. 'The fact is that there is often much dirty work connected with the management of such matters at the Porte, and I wish to be clear of them.' Over and over again there appears in his letters the emphatic statement that he 'refuses to take part in the dirty work by which European speculators are apt to get concessions out of the Turks.'
It would not be difficult to find arguments against this attitude, which in these days of increased international competition it would be impossible rigidly to maintain, but the views which prevailed fifty years ago with regard to the abstention of British diplomacy from every species of concession mongering probably did more than anything else to inspire Orientals with a belief in our integrity as a nation.
CHAPTER VI
THE SECOND EMPIRE
(1867-1869)
Lord Lyons, accompanied by Malet and Sheffield, whom he had again been permitted to retain on his staff, entered upon his duties at Paris in October, 1867, and there he remained until within a few months of his death, some twenty years later. He arrived at a time when, although the outward splendour of the Empire still dazzled the popular imagination, the prestige, influence, and popularity of the Imperial Government, and more especially of the Emperor himself, had suffered a series of disastrous shocks. If Napoleon III.'s career had ended in 1862 he would presumably have left a great name in history and a record of brilliant successes; after that period, however, everything seemed to go wrong for him. Poland, the Danish War, and the Austro-Prussian War had shown that his pretension to control the policy of Europe had practically vanished; the incomprehensible Mexican enterprise had ended in disaster and disgrace, and to add to these glaring failures in foreign policy there was deep-seated discontent at home. In the autumn of 1867 a fresh embarrassment to France was created by the action of Garibaldi, who succeeded in embroiling two Governments which had latterly been on most friendly terms. The alliance between Italy and Prussia in 1866 had been a temporary expedient only; the sympathies of Victor Emmanuel had always been on the side of France, and when at the close of that year, the Emperor decided upon the withdrawal of his troops from Rome, it seemed not improbable that a permanent alliance between Italy and France might be effected. This combination was defeated by the action of Garibaldi in invading the Papal States, and the Emperor, dominated by the clerical party, found himself compelled not only to use threatening language towards the Italian Government, but to send a French expedition to re-occupy Rome and defend the Pope against his enemies. Mentana was the result, and it soon became plain that the policy of the French Government was to prevent Italy from obtaining possession of Rome, M. Rouher, the French Prime Minister, at a subsequent period going so far as to declare that France would never tolerate such an outrage on its honour. In spite of all this, signs were not wanting that there was no desire on the part of either France or Italy to go to war. Mentana had cleared the air, and the chief danger seemed to consist in the renewed French occupation of Rome. As Lord Stanley pointed out, it was comparatively easy for the Emperor to go to Rome, but the difficulty lay in getting out again, for who was to keep order after the evacuation? Napoleon III. had, in fact, released himself from momentary embarrassments at the cost of heavy trouble in the future. In accordance with his favourite practice, he now made the proposal that the so-called Roman Question should be submitted to a Conference of the Powers at Paris—a proposal which did not commend itself to England, and was opposed by Prussia at the instigation of Bismarck, whose object it was to accentuate the differences between France and Italy. To what extent the Empress Eugénie participated in the direction of French foreign policy has often been the subject of discussion, but there can be no doubt that she held decided views with regard to the Roman Question and the proposed Conference.