[131] A. Sorel, Diplomatic History, vol. i. p. 402.
[132] Report of Sir A. Buchanan of the 17th October.
[133] It was only the simple recommendation of an armistice, with no other design of influencing what might be the conditions of peace, that Prince Gortchakof declined to make common cause. M. d'Oubril, his minister at Berlin, found himself at the last moment without instructions on this subject. "It is singular enough," wrote Lord Loftus, on the 26th October, "that Russia, after having in many circumstances, proved its desire for peace, thus stands aside and prefers isolated to common action."
[134] Dispatch of Prince Gortchakof to Baron Brunnow at London, November 20, 1870.
[135] Dispatch of Mr. Joy Morris of the 2d September, quoted above.
[136] See the Revue des deux Mondes of the 1st February, 1868 ("The Diplomacy and the Principles of the French Revolution," by M. le Prince Albert de Broglie).
[137] Note to Prince Gagarine at Turin, 10th October, 1860.
[138] Speech on the 1st August, in the House of Commons.
[139] Provincial Correspondence of the 1st May, 1873.
[140] Telegram from the czar to King William I. of the 9th December, 1869. Quite recently, at the last banquet of St. George, the Emperor Alexander II. said: "I am happy to be able to state that the close alliance between our three empires and our three armies, founded by our august predecessors for the defense of the same cause, exists intact at the present moment." Official journal of the Russian empire of the 12th December, 1875.