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—